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  • More on Jonathan Ayers

    As time goes on, I’m liking this shooting less and less.

    I love how some conspiracy anti-police folks were saying there was never a woman in his car and the police made all that up.

    There was.

    Stephens County court records now indicate the woman riding with Ayers the day he was shot was Kala Jones Barrett, whose home is listed as a Relax Inn in Toccoa. Warrants say she was wanted for coke peddling. Her father, Joseph Jones, has also confirmed his daughter was in the car that day. But she says Ayers was only giving her a ride and providing ministerial advice.

    That’s from the Village Voice and their True Crime Report.

    The Atlanta Journal Constitutionreports:

    Ayers was able to drive away from the Shell station but crashed into a utility pole a short distance away. It was there that Ayers, according to Carpenter, asked paramedics “Who shot me?”

    …

    The store owner, Joe Joseph, said he didn’t know the agents were law enforcement officers and it looked like they were firing at each other.

    …

    The agents were assigned to a task force that investigates drug cases in Stephens, Habersham and Rabun Counties. Ayers caught their attention because he was with a woman who twice sold drugs to the officers, said Bankhead.

    “What they saw was indicative of drug transaction,” Bankhead said. “They didn’t know the guy. They followed him to the convenience store and tried to arrest him.”

    The woman’s name has not been released because she is still being questioned about the shooting. She is being held in the Stephens County Jail on drug charges.

    Carpenter [Ayer’s brother in law] said people often called the Shoal Creek Baptist Church for help.

    “She was asking for cash and he brought her some cash to help her out,” Carpenter said. “Jonathan sought to do exactly what God wanted him to do.”

    Gulp. What if that’s the truth?

    Steve Huff on a CBS-news blog says: “According to investigators who spoke to the TV station, no drugs were found on Ayers’ person or in his vehicle.”

    The cop in me is always suspicious. I first assumed Ayers had bought drugs or was getting a little something on side. That doesn’t necessarily defend the shooting, but still, it matters.

    But one thing I tried to do as a cop was always keep open the slight possibility that somebody was actually, God forbid, telling the complete truth. Granted I can’t remember a single case where that actually happened. But I always liked to keep that possibility open. Maybe that meant I bought into a lie for an extra five minutes. I like to think it made me a better cop.

    Now I’m starting to think Ayers was 100% innocent. He let the woman out of his car. If he had bought drugs, we would have had some on him. Maybe this really was an honest man of God trying to help somebody.

    Why’s it so hard to imagine that guys jumping out a car with guns drawn scared the bejesus out of him? Why’s it so hard to imagine that plainclothes cops don’t look like cops?

    Why isn’t this bigger news?

    I guess there’s no Al Sharpton for white people.

  • Drug Tests

    I wrote about my drug test a few days ago.

    Tonight I asked my students if they had ever been drug tested. Approximately 2/3 of my masters students (n ~ 55) and all of my undergraduate students (n ~ 30) have been through a drug test. Every single one. That shocked me.

    It also bothers me. It also bothers some (but by no means all) of my students.

  • Police Suicide

    Buried in a story about an LAPD narcotics officer killing herself is this information: “Between 1998 and 2007, 19 LAPD officers committed suicide.” That’s a lot. More, in fact, that the 11 LAPD officers who have died in action.

  • This Modern World

    Tom Tomorrow’s “This Modern World” is my favorite political comic. He’s liberal. And it’s better for me to read his comic and laugh smugly than bash my head into a wall over conservative hypocrisy. Here’s his latest winner over at Salon.com.

    Not that you asked, but my other favorite comics are Doonesbury, Pearls Before Swine, Monte, and Get Fuzzy. Hard to imagine starting the day without them. Well, them and a frappé.

  • Officer Down

    Officer Down

    Sometimes you get criticized for shooting too fast. Sometimes you don’t shoot fast enough.

    Here’s to North St. Paul police officer Richard Crittenden. While protecting someone else, Officer Crittenden was killed with his own service weapon.

    Rest in Peace.

    Crittenden reportedly pushed the woman out of harm’s way but in the process left himself vulnerable for the man to ambush him, grab his handgun and shoot him, the source said.

    A Maplewood police officer was slightly wounded but shot the suspect dead during an exchange of gunfire moments later inside the North St. Paul apartment.
    …
    Court records reveal Dockery had a history of crime — and two of his biggest targets were his estranged wife and the mother of two of his children.

    Terry, who had known Dockery for 11 years, had filed four orders for protection against him between 2000 and May.

    Here’s the story in the Pioneer Press.

  • Undercover Cops Kill Jonathan Ayers

    In an off-topic comment to another post, “Badge Licker” (is that like Holster Sniffer?) wrote:

    “Undercover narcotics agents take out the trash this week.”

    I clicked on the link and realized this was talking about Jonathan Ayers. That got me thinking.

    Here’s a later report [dead link removed] from the same Fox News station.

    [dead link removed]

    I replied to Badge Licker:

    I assume by “trash” you mean “Christian” and by “taking out the the trash” you mean “undercover officers killing a man who thought he was getting car-jacked because the cops weren’t in uniform?”

    I’m actually shocked that Pastor Ayers is white.

    Maybe Ayers was involved in a little something something. But maybe not. We don’t know. But we do know he wasn’t the target of the raid. And the woman who was, was charged with (gasp) cocaine possession.

    Badge Licker said:

    The undercover narcotics officers announced, so that automatically means Reverend Ayers heard and understood and believed they were police and knew that it was not a car jacking as you implausibly suggest, PCM. Because Reverend Ayers knew they were police and tried to run them over anyway that means that Reverend Ayers was involved in some type of crime. Ergo, trash was taken out by them. The video shows how undercover narcotics officers help keep Georgia safe.

    A guy with gun yelling police isn’t necessary convincing. What is convincing is a guy in a police uniform yelling police.

    PCM said:

    It is certainly not unreasonable to consider the possibility that that Ayers thought he was being carjacked.

    We don’t know how clearly the officer announced they were police. And we certainly don’t know if Ayers understood. The owner of the gas station said he had no idea they were police. So they didn’t announce themselves *that* clearly. This is a problem that happens again and again with undercover. Sean Bell comes to mind (and Bell was less innocent that Ayers). So does the killing of Agent Michael Cowdery.

    And what justifies shooting at the car as it’s driving away (this is after the officer pulls the very cool roll-off-the-car-and-land-on-your-feet move)? Ayers was no longer a threat and, at least according the police department, he was not a suspect in their investigation.

    Perhaps others also have thoughts on this shooting?

    Above link is dead. But this onestill works.

    And without the news-broadcast audio:

  • Deep Undercover

    Kristina Goetz of the Memphis Commercial Appealhas this story about an officer doing “deep undercover.”

    She also had to restrain her police instincts to break up a fight at a convenience store or call social services if she saw a dealer hit his child because being caught would compromise the larger goal.

    And what larger goal was more important than preventing physical child abuse? I would sue the police department if I were an assault victim and a police officer present did nothing.

    But such is the nature of the war on drugs. Locking up a drug dealer (not preventing drug use) is more important than preventing injury or the beating of a child.

    All the evils she saw? Those weren’t caused by drugs. They were caused by bad people in bad conditions. And people who commit bad crimes should get locked up.

    So let me get this right. All the crimes you saw, the poverty, the desperation, the tricks, the violence, the child abuse? You saw people in f*cked up situations doing bad sh*t. And you were a police officer and you let it happen? You let all that slide because you were fighting some bigger fight? You rationalized that you needed to let some crimes slide so that you could go “up the ladder” and maybe even lock up some “kingpins” and win the war on drugs?

    Did you?

    In a year’s time, this officer’s work “resulted in more that 280 arrests — from low-level drug peddlers to big-name dealers.” And is Memphis safer? Have murders gone down? Has drug use gone down? By being “deep undercover,” you ignored your oath as a police officer to defend the laws and the Constitution of our land.

    Look, it’s not like this officer didn’t give her all. So did LEAP founder Jack Cole. They just gave it for the wrong reasons. Like Jack Cole, perhaps she too will speak out against the war on drugs. Maybe she’ll wonder if some of the people she locked up weren’t really that bad. Maybe she’ll feel bad that some people are in prison because they were in bad situations and they trusted her. They thought she was their friend. And for all I know, she might have been their friend. And then she ratted them out.

    That would be a heavy weight on my shoulders.

  • Alaskan Privacy

    I’ve been a little fuzzy on the topic. But thanks to a reader, I’ve learned a bit.

    Remember when marijuana used to be legal in Alaska? What ever happened to that?

    Well here’s the story, best I understand it.

    In May, 1975, in Ravin v. State, the Alaska State Supreme Court ruled that possession of weed by an adult, at home (in small quantities) is protected under the a privacy clause of the state constitution.

    It appears that the use of marijuana, as it is presently used in the United States today, does not constitute a public health problem of any significant dimension… It appears that effects of marijuana on the individual are not serious enough to justify widespread concern, at least as compared with the far more dangerous effects of alcohol, barbituates, and amphetamines.

    The Alaska state troopers said the ruling was “horrendous” and vowed to keep enforcing drug laws under federal statutes.

    Of course the sky didn’t fall.

    But in politically conservative Alaska, where alcoholism, “creeping” and incest are more major problems, the legislature re-outlawed marijuana in 2006. Of course you can’t “outlaw” a supreme-court-decided right any more than you can legislate for slavery or against the First Amendment. Here’s to the right of privacy! I wish it were in the Bill of Rights.

    So more recently the 2006 Alaska law was appealed… but without a victim (has nobody in Alaska been arrested for such a crime?). It’s a rare legal strategy, but one that makes sense to me. Why should you have to arrested before the court decides a law is unconstitutional? But no matter. The Alaska Supreme Court punted the decision on the grounds that it isn’t “ripe.” But regardless, the Ravin case decriminalizing marijuana still stands.

    Scott Christiansen of the Anchorage Press writes:

    The Alaska Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld the Ravin decision, even to the point of limiting a law passed by a vote of the people, instead of the state legislature. In a 2004 case, Noy v State, the court explained that even though ballot initiatives can make law, those laws are on par with laws made by the legislative branch and still subject to constitutional tests in court. (And a collective, “Well, duh” was heard throughout the north.)

  • Piss On This!

    I hate drug tests. I think they’re dumb and ineffective as policy. But mostly I object on moral grounds. I don’t think it’s your boss’s business what you do at home. I don’t think it’s the government’s business what you do at home.

    And I think it’s a shame that the least harmful illegal drug is the easiest to pick up. Somebody drinks a bottle of whiskey and takes LSD and smokes a little weed on the side. And all we detect and care about is the joint?

    I don’t think police should be buying illegal drugs and I don’t think surgeons and airplane captains should be high at work. But I don’t think drug testing prevents any of that. Tests can be beaten. But it’s in nobody’s interest–certainly not those who profit from drug tests–to advertise that fact.

    I also object because there’s something unfair about requiring drug tests for low-level jobs. It’s not right. Good forbid a stocker at Home Depot smoked weed and watched TV on his day off! I’m sure Home Depot’s corporate board isn’t drug tested. Corporate boards are never drug tested.

    When I ask my students if they’ve had to pee in a cup, the majority–the vast majority–answer yes. Drug tests are now a normal part of most people’s lives. Is that the country we want to live in?

    I was drug tested many times in the police academy. I didn’t like it. But fine. It does seem somewhat more reasonable to test police officers. When I quit the police department, I assumed I’d never be drug tested again.

    Last week I started volunteering at a certain museum here in New York that takes out old boats. I like historic boats and I like being on the water.

    They’re making me take a drug test!

    I was thinking of taking and passing the test and then quitting on principle (because if you just refuse to take the test, everybody assumes you’re just on drugs). But I got a little less huffy when I learned it’s not the museum’s stand. It’s a Coast Guard requirement. If a boat has paying customers, all boat crew (paid or not) has to be drug tested. I still think it’s dumb, but I don’t see my moral righteousness affecting Coast Guard policy.

    Tomorrow, for the first time in nine years, I get to pee in a cup and hand my urine to some stranger. And for this I have to pay $45. Only then will I be allowed the privilege of volunteering my (drug-free) labor.

    If I get stage fright, perhaps I can relax myself by thinking about what it means to live in the land of the free.

    Update:September 9

    I was on time for my 5pm appointment. Of course I drunk a lot of water before, both so I could piss and also to lessen the chance of a false positive. So my bladder was bursting when I got there. And then I waited. And waited. So I decided I needed to relieve some pressure. A “demi-pee,” as my friend called it. That’s always fun. I had to do this twice by the time I was seen at 6:15pm.

    The toilet bowl was filled some magical blue substance that prevents dilution with water from the toilet bowl. I’m also told not to run water from the tap.

    I could have easily brought in a fake sample. I could have easily turned the water tap just a little bit. It’s not like the nurse really cares.

    But I don’t cheat. I fill the open cup above the 60mm line (you don’t actually need much urine) and leave the bathroom and hand the sample to the nurse. She poors my piss into two vials, seals them, and makes me sign the form I get a receipt and I’m good to go.

    It’s all very degrading and time consuming. I guess that’s why those that can only make those under them take the test.

  • Trouble for the Greek

    John Paterakis Sr., the baker and well-connected developer who bankrolled Harbor East, pleaded guilty Friday afternoon to two misdemeanor campaign finance violations and will pay $26,000 in fines and be barred from donating to Baltimore politicians until his probation ends in January 2012.

    The storyby Annie Linskey in the Sun.