The Law Enforcement Officer Thread

Investigation on the attack mentions that the armored van was decommissioned from a police force in Georgia. USA Today suggests that the gunman may have got it via ebay.

This was over a child custody case?

Wow, I am glad that guy did not get custody of a child.

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Surveillance footage from raided marijuana dispensary appears to show police chowing down on confiscated pot brownies.

Admittedly, the video is edited, but the dispensary owners have offered to share the unedited version with the police department for their investigation. Either way, this doesn't exactly look great.

Thank bitter, misanthropic flood god that wasn't my state.

I saw the words dispensary, police, and "chowing down on confiscated pot brownies," and I immediately assumed that Colorado was embarrassing me again.

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Isn't Colorado's Ganjatrepeneurial economy a godsend?

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Not so much as you'd think.

Every pothead in all the other states has flooded into our state, which is devastating to our infrastructure and especially our housing market. Three years ago, you could get a three-bedroom apartment for $1,000; now it's $1,800 bare minimum. There are far more vehicles on our roads than they were designed to deal with, which is a problem amplified by the constant road construction in a futile effort to get our important streets back in working condition while the rest are riddled with potholes and ignored.

We're also running into trouble with surrounding states because so many tourists are coming here to buy weed and then traffic it back home, which means the states that directly neighbor us are dealing with a surge in possession infractions.

Which leaves us trying to appease them with pointless reminders to people not to take the weed home which runs in direct conflict with the general sentiment of locals to take your weed and go the f*ck back home - it's hard to drive on a highway without seeing a few of the super-popular bumper sticker, "You got high, now go home!" - because we're sick of all of y'all's stoners clogging up our roads.

And that's before you get into the legal dispute, because it's legal on a state level but illegal on a federal level which means whether or not it's actually legal depends entirely on what type of cop pulls you over. All in all, legalized cannabis has made a thorough mess of Colorado's economy and law enforcement, while our "legal" dispensaries and production places are gold mines for bored feds.

All in all, the state has steadily been turning into a great place for stoners to vacation and a terrible place to live. I'm actually homeless right now because I can't afford the rising rent prices alongside the debts I accumulated trying to manage the rent prices from last year.

edited 16th Jun '15 12:29:32 PM by TobiasDrake

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((((；゜Д゜)))

Weed caused gentrification?

edited 16th Jun '15 12:36:57 PM by TheHandle

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Gentrification isn't quite the same thing as rising house prices.

Schild und Schwert der Partei

Quite. An area can suffer rising house prices without anything happening to it.

Keep Rolling On

In this case, stuff is happening to it. Touristification?

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Touristification sounds right. The housing market has received a surge in demand that has resulted in rising prices, especially for temporary accommodations such as hotels and apartments.

This is especially true in neighborhoods that had previously prided themselves on being upscale. The city is becoming more firmly divided on elitist lines as wealthier neighborhoods have banned dispensaries because they want the weed too, but they also want to keep low-income and minority folks from having the excuse to enter their neighborhood, so secretly visiting the ghetto to get their Minority Drug and then fleeing back to the comfort of their shiny Rich People Neighborhood suits them fine.

edited 16th Jun '15 1:10:00 PM by TobiasDrake

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Is there really a word? It's a supply crisis.

edited 16th Jun '15 1:08:52 PM by Achaemenid

Schild und Schwert der Partei

And that's why I hate rich residential neighborhoods in general. Property is terribly expensive despite there not being anything to do. Anything you need, you have to go all the way to the mall to get. I prefer a middle-class downtown neigborhood, where if I need a pot of paint, a lightbulb, a loaf of bread, a book, a workout, or my shoes repaired, I can get it all within walking distance. Rich neighbourhoods are pretty little green deserts, fake and empty.

edited 16th Jun '15 2:12:57 PM by TheHandle

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Rich people can pay other people to come to them.

I generally agree, though the lucky thing about Edinburgh and Glasgow is that they are fairly small and mixed, so you can usually get most of what you need a short walk away, no matter where you are.

To be honest, my main criteria in selecting places to live is: must be within walking distance of a large body of water I can sit beside.

Schild und Schwert der Partei

I forget how rich and white our rich, white neighborhoods are sometimes.

...I was about to launch into an anecdote about that but this isn't the thread for it. I'm taking my anecdote to the racism thread.

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Part of the problem of Colorado right now is it is a island of permissiveness in a sea of prohibition. If more states start to join in and make recreational and medicinal pot accessible it will take some of the pressure off Colorado specifically. As it is it is one of three states to legalize it. Last I checked Oregon this July is about to join that roster. Washington, Oregon, Alaska, and Colorado are the only states that have legalized recreational pot. Three of those four are in the N/W part of the US. Colorado is near the middle of the country. They might as well set up a neon sign saying most accessible pot until the west coast.

Colorado though decided to lead the charge in not just all out legalization but also in commercial adaption. You lead the charge you have to expect to take the hits that comes with it.

edited 16th Jun '15 8:26:35 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Who watches the watchmen?

I haven't been keeping up with thread, so hopefully I'm not reposting, but I saw earlier an "open letter to Americans" from a cop in Louisville that seems chock full of Unfortunate Implications. To wit:

Now, 1) citizen-shot video of events in several places contradicts this, as well as contradicts major news outlets as well; 2) this is clearly ignoring several proven cases of police brutality (along with the ones still under investigation or cleared under suspicious circumstances as far as the public is concerned); 3) isn't speaking out like this likely to get a police officer, if not fired, at least in serious hot water with his bosses?

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw

I just learned that American police officers are not required to read the Miranda warning while arresting. They need to read it when the suspect is already put under arrest or/and is being questioned.

I gotta say, though, I do like seeing the police officers in fiction read that. It has that professional coolness.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

It's a sort of dialogue version of the Dragnet theme sometimes.

Hah, well put.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

It really does add a certain flavor of coolness to the arrest.

But it's true, Miranda Rights don't have to be read at time of arrest or even at all. The Miranda Rights are like the little voice-message when calling businesses that tell you, "This call may be recorded." Reading the suspect their Miranda Rights is a legal requirement if you want to use their testimony in court.

Until the Miranda Rights are read, anything the suspect says is off the record, but once the officer has recited them, anything you say can be used against you in court. In cases where the suspect's testimony is entirely unneeded due to the overwhelming weight of evidence against them, the officers might not bother with the Miranda Rights, period.

Like many things about law, people mistake the Miranda Rights as being about you. That they help you in some way, and if they aren't read, the officer is denying you some right or process. In fact, what they do is help the prosecution; they're your cue to shut the f*ck up because you are now on-record for every incriminating thing you say. The moment you hear your Miranda Rights, the only words out of your mouth should be, "I want my lawyer."

edited 22nd Jun '15 10:10:34 AM by TobiasDrake

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Ooh, never knew that implication of the Miranda Rights. Fascinating.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

A former Baltimore cop starts whistleblowing in grand style on Twitter.

What's precedent ever done for us?

Good on him. Some of these things are truly abhorrent.

Shitting on people's clothes....

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Trying to mask the responsibility of officers who use their guns