Don't Rush to Condemn Kane

It's amazing what people will believe.

Buffalo police say Patrick Kane beat a cab driver over not being able to get 20 cents in change. 20 cents, people. That is incredible and warrants some skepticism.

What's happened since then?

Jan Radecki, the cab driver has hired an attorney, Andrew Lotempio. But, instead of seeing dollar signs and signing up a personal injury attorney to go after Kane, the cab driver hired a criminal defense attorney. That suggests, of course, that the cab driver is worried about going to jail over this. So there is definitely a possibility that the cab driver was the one in the wrong.

Said attorney then goes public, saying the incident is "overblown" and definitely "not a robbery" as had been accused. Again, consistent with the theory that the cabbie was in the wrong--because if LoTempio can get the prosecutor to drop the charges against Kane, Kane can be persuaded not to go after the cabbie. If LoTempio wanted cash in a civil suit, it would not be in his interest to diminish the criminal case. The civil case would be much stronger after a conviction, obviously.

Now, ABC is reporting that a witness stated that the Kanes were the victims, and Radecki's neighbors are accusing him of "having a short temper and being involved in disputes with customers in the past." And that he locked the pair in the cab while "waiting for payment." But even according to the police, the fare was paid, with change due.

My theory: Mr. Radecki wasn't pleased with his tip, and locked the pair in his cab to try to extort more from them. The Kanes then resisted with force. It fits the facts, makes more sense than the $.20 motive, and explains why Radecki hired a defense attorney who has been playing this incident down.

Iran "Crackdown"

Depending on the source, the Ayatollah's crackdown has netted anywhere from a handful to 200+ fatalities. It's hard to tell for sure as most information is coming out through Twitter instead of news organizations, and there isn't much to corroborate claims.

Except this one. Her name was Neda. Apparently her only "crime" was observing a protest with her father.

Questions About Controlling the Scene of a Hostage Situation at Sea

This post raises questions about the tactics employed in a counter-piracy hostage situation, such as the one ongoing right now. Before I get into the substance, I feel it necessary to express some reservations about going here. I think that uninvolved commenters like myself need to show deference to the people who are involved, both because we don't know the facts and because we don't know what it takes to run a command. That being said, I think the situation as it has unfolded over the last 24 hours warrants some pointed questions being raised.

My understanding is that in a hostage situation, the first order of business of the police is to isolate the hostage takers, and take tactical control of the environment surrounding the area controlled by the hostage takers. For example, police will evacuate all civilians to a safe distance, prevent any non-LEO personnel from entering the area, prevent the hostage-takers from leaving the area, occupy the area, observe with all means any activity within the area under control by the hostage-takers, and be prepared to react.

I don't know what steps the USN did to maintain tactical control over the area surrounding the Maersk lifeboat, but I think when this is over the Navy owes us all an explanation. What we do know is that Captain Phillips was able to temporarily escape his captors, get off the boat, and get into the water. Captain Phillips was taken back into pirate custody after a pirate swam after him, and after shots were fired by the pirates. This outcome suggests, to me, that the Navy did not have tactical control of the surrounding area.

Imagine, for a moment, the situation is on land. A hostage is being held inside a school, surrounded by a SWAT team. The hostage runs outside. But, no SWAT member is there to take the hostage into custody. Worse yet, as the hostage is running towards the police in the distance, one of the hostage-takers appears behind the escaping hostage and begins firing his weapon. And the police do nothing.

Unless there is something about this situation that I don't understand--and I recognize that there may well be--I find this outcome to be appalling. And our government owes us an explanation.

Specifically, I want to know:
(1) What was done to contain the pirates to the lifeboat?
(2) What methods of observation were used to observe the situation on the lifeboat? Was the boat constantly illuminated at night? Were personnel stationed close enough to the boat to observe the situation well?
(3) What plan did the Navy have in case the hostage escaped the boat? What would have been there response time?
(4) What plan did the Navy have in case they observed a weapon being discharged? What would have been their response time?
(5) What prevented the immediate elimination of all pirates on the lifeboat once the hostage was no longer on it?

and also, although it is not implicated yet, but soon may be:
(6) What was done to prevent non-Coalition platforms/personnel from entering the area isolating the lifeboat?

Because I am an uninvolved civilian, I will pose these as questions and will not speculate about the answers nor second-guess the commanders.... at least not until all the facts are known. But I think when this is all over, we are owed these answers.

Update 11 Apr 09:
We have a new fact and a rationale courtesy of the AP:

Sailors on the USS Bainbridge, which has rescue helicopters and lifeboats, were able to see Phillips but at several hundred yards away were too far to help him. The U.S. destroyer is keeping its distance, in part to stay out of the pirates' range of fire.

I am not comfortable with this. If the question is, "why wasn't the Bainbridge close enough to rescue Phillips and suppress/deter/eliminate his pursuers?" then the answer "we didn't want the Bainbridge to get shot at" is impotent. They are 4 guys with rifles; they do not get to push a US Warship (nor its helicopters [if it had any], nor its armed boarding parties) around.

This does raise some interesting questions about littoral warfare, though. Assume for a moment that returning fire is not an option; that the apparent "rule set" here is that the pirates are allowed to take pot shots at USN platforms and personnel but the USN cannot respond for fear of triggering the execution of Capt. Phillips. In the analogous SWAT situation, the police would not retreat to a distance greater than the effective range of a Kalashnikov, they would get behind cover. At sea, the only cover is the ship itself. Thus, this incident may be teaching us that a true littoral combatant needs to have armored gun positions and/or guns fired without exposed crew, and should probably also not have large, expensive, sensitive sensors or other things on deck that "don't react well to bullets." Just like insurgency at land, we are seeing the irregular warfare at sea requires armor, not speed.

Possible Escalation of the Pirate Situation

Some disturbing news:

The pirate, speaking to Reuters from Haradheere port, also said other pirates were taking a hijacked German ship, with foreign crew on board, toward the scene in the Indian Ocean where the lifeboat is floating, watched by U.S. warships.

"Knowing that the Americans will not destroy this German ship and its foreign crew, they (the approaching pirates) hope they can meet their friends on the lifeboat," said the pirate, who has given reliable information in the past but asked for his name not to be used.

{snip}

The 20,000-tonne German container vessel, Hansa Stavanger, was hijacked a week ago, about 400 miles off south Somalia, between Kenya and the Seychelles. It is thought to have 24 crew, of whom five are German.

This is a rather clever approach. Pirates know they have the advantage when they have people on a captured ship. They didn't have the luxury of that situation here, and it looked like the USN had a very strong hand to play, with the lifeboat out of fuel (or running out of fuel, depending on the report). The pirates, hundreds of miles out to sea, are in every bit as much need of rescue now as Captain Phillips. A fishing boat or skiff would never make it past the Bainbridge and USN air assets, but how do you stop a 20,000 ton ship, short of sinking it?

The Tom Clancy in me wants a SEAL team to come up underneath the ship and sabotage the shafts, stopping it dead in the water, but I have no knowledge whether we have the capability to sabotage a ship while it is underway.

Physically blocking a ship that size is not an option. Could naval gunfire disable the engines? Probably, but flooding or even fire would likely result as well. Can the crew perform damage control? Would the pirates execute a hostage if the ship was fired upon?

And that's what bothers me the most here--the implication that this may be an escalation by the pirates. Previously, hostages were simply detained for ransom. There was never any demand other than money, and there was no threat of execution if that demand for money wasn't met. The hostages would simply continue to be detained. If it is the case that the pirates have a new demand--to be allowed to rescue their comrades adrift at sea--and if this demand is not met, hostages will be executed, then the pirates will have crossed a very, very important line that so far they've stayed away from. They will have crossed from organized crime into terrorism.

I hope they understand the implications of crossing that line and fear its consequences.

Then again, with the current administration no longer describing our situation vis-a-vis terrorists as a "war," I'm not really sure what those consequences are anymore.

U.S. Weapons Being Smuggled to Mexican Cartels?

There's been some back-and-forth going on over the last few weeks over whether the majority of weapons used by Mexican drug cartels came from American dealers or came from South America or the Mexican army itself. Neither side had any meaningful numbers to back up their claims. Until now:

You've heard this shocking "fact" before -- on TV and radio, in newspapers, on the Internet and from the highest politicians in the land: 90 percent of the weapons used to commit crimes in Mexico come from the United States.

{snip}

There's just one problem with the 90 percent "statistic" and it's a big one:

It's just not true.

In fact, it's not even close. The fact is, only 17 percent of guns found at Mexican crime scenes have been traced to the U.S.

What's true, an ATF spokeswoman told FOXNews.com, in a clarification of the statistic used by her own agency's assistant director, "is that over 90 percent of the traced firearms originate from the U.S."

But a large percentage of the guns recovered in Mexico do not get sent back to the U.S. for tracing, because it is obvious from their markings that they do not come from the U.S.

"Not every weapon seized in Mexico has a serial number on it that would make it traceable, and the U.S. effort to trace weapons really only extends to weapons that have been in the U.S. market," Matt Allen, special agent of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), told FOX News.

Video:Click here to watch more.

A Look at the Numbers

In 2007-2008, according to ATF Special Agent William Newell, Mexico submitted 11,000 guns to the ATF for tracing. Close to 6,000 were successfully traced -- and of those, 90 percent -- 5,114 to be exact, according to testimony in Congress by William Hoover -- were found to have come from the U.S.

But in those same two years, according to the Mexican government, 29,000 guns were recovered at crime scenes.

In other words, 68 percent of the guns that were recovered were never submitted for tracing. And when you weed out the roughly 6,000 guns that could not be traced from the remaining 32 percent, it means 83 percent of the guns found at crime scenes in Mexico could not be traced to the U.S.

Full article here.

New Star part II

China Summons Russian Ambassador

BEIJING - China summoned Russia's ambassador Friday to express shock over the sinking of a Chinese cargo ship by a Russian warship and urge a thorough investigation, the foreign ministry said.

Eight of the 16 crew members on board were killed when shots from a Russian naval vessel sank the Chinese-owned cargo ship the New Star off Russia's east coast on Sunday.

Russia has blamed the cargo ship's captain for the incident.

"The Chinese side expresses shock and deep concern over this incident," china's Vice Foreign Minister Li Hui told Russia's Ambassador to China, according to a foreign ministry statement.

"The Chinese side... strongly urges the Russian side to... quickly and thoroughly investigate this incident.

"We call on the Russian side to begin with a humanitarian spirit... and continue to make all efforts to find the missing personnel."

Russian diplomatic spokesman Andrey Nesterenko expressed regret over the incident, but said the Chinese ship had failed to heed warning shots.

"We regret the tragic consequences of this incident," he told the Ria-Novosti news agency.

"But at the same time, we put all the responsibility on the captain of the New Star, who acted in a totally irresponsible manner.

"We took exhaustive measures to stop the boat: the border guards fired warning shots, but the New Star continued on its way without reacting to the orders," he added.

Russian prosecutors said 10 Chinese and six Indonesian sailors were on board the vessel, Interfax reported.

Russian news reports said eight people had been killed in the incident, although these figures have yet to be confirmed by authorities.

The Sierra Leone-flagged, Chinese-owned vessel New Star had earlier fled the Russian port of Nakhodka where it had been impounded for alleged smuggling, media reports said.

In a video posted online that purportedly captured the incident, a man, apparently a Russian naval officer, is heard repeatedly urging the New Star to halt.

The Russian navy fired over 500 rounds to try to force the cargo ship back to port, China's state-controlled Global Times newspaper said.

Russian news agencies said the eight surviving crew members were rescued and taken to hospital.

Chinese Cargo Ship New Star Sinks off Vladivostok

Early reports are often wrong, so take the following with a grain of salt. But to paraphrase this article, the Russians detained a vessel suspected of smuggling, it left port without permission, and was prosecuted by a cruiser. Tried to limp back to port, but didn't make it. And neither did all the crew.

Curtailing Extreme Searches at the Jail

I'm sure many will disagree, but I see this as a positive development:

NEWARK, N.J. (WPIX) -- A federal judge has ruled thousands of strip searches carried out at jails in Burlington and Essex counties in New Jersey were illegal. U.S. District Court Judge Joseph H. Rodriguez says the searches violate the Fourth Amendment and are unconstitutional.

The suspects who were searched were arrested for minor offenses, such as traffic tickets. The searches have been taking place at the Burlington County Jail and Essex County Correctional Facility since 2003.

Susan Chana Lask, who represents the plaintiffs, says approximately 10,000 people were strip searched. She says she plans to file a motion for a jury trial to determine damages. Lask says a jury could award as much as $10,000 to anyone who has been strip-searched while in custody for a minor offense. The plaintiffs may be entitled to millions of dollars.

At least eight similar suits are pending against jails in Union, Middlesex and Bergen counties.

Can there be people being "checked in" who may be hiding weapons? Sure. But strip and cavity searches for routine arrests are a bit excessive (I know cavity isn't mentioned in this article, but I know it happens in IL). You can find a weapon with a pat-down. The real purpose of these searches isn't safety, but degradation. They want to make the process of being arrested as difficult as possible, which allows them to harass innocent people. Take the case of Roderick Pritchett, for example:

The evening of Roderick Pritchett's descent into hell on earth started with an ordinary shopping trip to Safeway for his mom last November 21st. The 25 year-old African/Jamaican-American frequently ran errands for her; he was the sole car owner in his family.

On the way out of his south side Chicago apartment, he went back inside and grabbed his Taurus 9 mm pistol -- which was unloaded and in its case as Chicago law requires -- and tossed it in the passenger seat. Roderick liked to stop by the shooting range to practice his marksmanship once a week to stay sharp and keep his groupings tight.

In his wallet behind his driver's license was his FOID (Firearms Owner Identification Card) which he obtained before purchasing the gun in 2000. In accordance with the strict gun control laws enacted by Mayor Daley and the city legislature, Roderick kept the gun in his apartment and never carried it on his person. This seemed strange to him; the law essentially said that defending his property was more important than defending his life from the numerous predatory south side hoods. Pritchett however always followed the law, even the ones that defy common sense.

As he drove down South Ada St. toward the range, he noticed a police car tailing him. It was early evening and Roderick was a young black man with dreadlocks driving alone. In Chicago, that's lights-and-siren time. Sure enough, Police Officer Edward Kos and Officer Rodolfo Camarillo pulled him over at 87th and Ada for a burned out taillight.

The officers approached and asked if he would mind if they searched his car. Pritchett didn't object. He knew beyond a doubt that his 9 mm was 100 percent legal. He even had a copy of the Illinois gun laws in his case. When he handed over his driver's license, he also gave them his FOID and volunteered that he had a legal firearm in the vehicle. He knew he had nothing to fear.

Unfortunately, his confidence was short-lived. The police ordered him to take a seat in the back of their black-and-white. "The officers began questioning me from the front seat of their squad car before they even let me know I was under arrest," says Pritchett. "They giggled a couple of times before sarcastically asking me why I didn't run. I was shocked speechless at their rude treatment of me."

Pritchett couldn't understand why they were hassling him. With all the crime in the city, why should they bother someone with a legal gun? He pleaded that he was only going to the range and that his gun was legal, but to no avail. Pritchett was arrested for violating 720 ILCS 5/24-1.6 Aggravated Unlawful Use of Weapons.

One of the officers left the squad car and got behind the wheel of Pritchett's station wagon to drive it to the station. Apparently, Officers Kos and Camarillo were either ignorant of the laws regarding the legal transportation of firearms, or chose to ignore them. In any case, Roderick Pritchett was on his way to 72 hours of misery that he would never forget.

Pritchett had his legal gun confiscated and was transported to the Cook County lockup and charged with a Class 4 Felony. Next, he endured the standard treatment of any run-of-the-mill accused felon within Chicago city limits -- a quite thorough strip search that left no body orifice sacred, incarceration, long days and sleepless nights in a cramped, urine-stinking cell chockablock with accused rapists and thieves, and meals of stale bread and cold soup in the company of accused child molesters and slightly more palatable muggers.

When his mother finally scraped together the $500 bond to secure his release three days later, Pritchett had one more treat awaiting him, courtesy of the Chicago PD -- a $700 fee to spring his station wagon from the impound lot. He begged the police before they impounded his car to let his girlfriend pick it up. The cops refused.

Maybe I'm a little jaded from growing up in Cook County, IL. I've been fortunate that in all my dealings with (suburban) police, they've always been professional and courteous. But I'm also white and middle class, and I haven't done anything to get myself on, say, Dick Devine's shit list (at least I don't think so). So for the most part, I do trust the police, but strip/cavity searches at arrest pushes that trust beyond its limit. I see what you're doing there, and it's not OK.

Linked: Obama Campaign Website Set Up To Accept Fictitious Names!

Check this out. Looks like the Obama Campaign deliberately omitted standard safeguards to prevent donations under false names.

This simply should not, and could not, happen in any business or any campaign that is honestly trying to confirm the legitimacy of its donors. Furthermore, I don’t see how this could possibly happen without some kind of help from a credit card company. Card companies as a rule simply do not alow any business to process credit card transactions where the name on the card doesn’t match the purchaser’s name.

In short, under the current Obama contribution system setup, any eager friend from any country can contribute unlimited amounts of money by simply making up fake names and addresses.

And Obama’s system is set up to facilitate this fraud. This is truly scandalous.

Image: The author's credit card statement after donating under the names John Galt, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, and Bill Ayers. As you can see, all of the transactions were processed.


From Uppity Woman (who herself is relaying from No Quarter).

Armed Civilian Saves "over 100 lives"

CNS News reported this today:

CNSNews.com) - Many people are expressing relief that a volunteer security guard used her own gun to stop a man on a shooting spree Sunday. "She probably saved over 100 lives," the Brady Boyd, the pastor of the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, said on Monday. The female guard, a church member dressed in plain clothes, killed the gunman after he opened fire at the mega-church. Boyd said she "rushed toward the attacker and took him down in the hallway" as he entered the building. The shooting erupted around 1 p.m., at the end of a service, when 7,000 people were either inside the New Life Church or just leaving. "He was just walking and shooting," the Denver Post quoted one witness as saying. The gunman, still unidentified, shot at least eight people, killing two teenage sisters, the pastor said. The girls were 16 and 18 years old. Their father, also shot, is listed in father condition. The gunman is believed to be the same young man who shot and killed two people earlier the same day at a missionary training center in suburban Denver. In that case, the gunman opened fire, reportedly after he was refused permission to spend the night at the missionary center. The gunman was described as skinny, in his 20s, about 6 feet tall and dressed in black, police said. KUSA-TV reported that the gunman was wearing a "tactical helmet and body armor." The church's pastor said the New Life Church "prepared in advance" for a possible attack, after hearing about the shooting at the missionary training center.

First of all, I'd really like to know this woman's name, as her conduct puts her right up there with Liviu Librescu and Joel Myrick. She deserves some major recognition.

Second of all, I'd just like to take this opportunity to point out the absurdness of the argument we often hear from the "antis" about how having armed good guys (or girls, as the case may be) around will make things worse. All this talk about the danger of crossfires leading to more deaths is pure BS. The simple fact of the matter is that a bullet aimed at you is far more likely to kill you than a bullet aimed at someone else. Thus, if the perp is allowed to carry on with impunity, you're going to have more people get shot, and they will get shot in worse places. If you shoot back at the perp, sure, there are more bullets flying around in that moment, but they don't have "your" name on it they way the perp's bullets will, and there is also a very good chance that the whole incident doesn't last as long as the perp was counting on. Those "extra" bullets tend to incapacitate the perp (as in this case), or at the very "worst," pin the perp down, preventing him from effectively engaging other innocents.


Alternate Link (The CNS feed will probably be gone in a few hours.)

If we can't have them....

I'd love to find out what, if any, excuse these two ass clowns can give us that means they shouldn't be tried for treason. I'd also like to know what those parts were worth on the black market, since that sum is apparently all a soul or two is worth these days.

Yes, It Is Child Porn

I'm really beginning to hate the media. Wait, who am I kidding, I'm way past beginning.

This latest rant is brought on by the Elton John fiasco involving a photograph entitled "Klara And Edda Belly-Dancing" that was seized by police because it was kiddie porn. John defends himself by stating that it's been exhibited in many countries, the implication being that it is art. Well, I don't know what the child porn laws are in Britain, but here in the US that is no defense, nor should it be. When it comes to laws suppressing expression, it shouldn't matter one whit what anyone thinks about the content. What does matter is almost unique to child porn--that a person who is unable to understand what he/she is getting into, and who therefore cannot consent, is being exploited to create it. And that's exactly what happened here.

But if you read the news reports, you'd think the police were just overreacting to something innocent. this article describes the photograph as "depicting two naked girls." Another article provided a bit more detail, mentioning that one of the children's "legs were apart." That's not really enough to make a judgment about whether the photo is exploitative, and the absence of any reference to anything worse suggests innocence. Obviously, since the press is aware that the photo is probably illegal, I don't expect them to post the photo in the story, but in lieu of that, they should at least provide enough of a description for the reader to be able to make an informed judgment. "We report, you decide," right?

Well, it's on the net for anyone who wants to find it (hopefully not for much longer), but I will not link it. But I'll fill in the details the press is leaving out. One of the girls isn't actually naked. She is, however, down to her underwear, and is standing over the other girl, directly over her face, legs apart. The other girl is completely naked, on her knees, spread eagle--completely and overtly exposed to the camera--leaning all the way back (essentially lying on her back, but with her shins tucked under her rather than being completely supine). Those are the facts.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out what's going on here. The kids obviously had no idea what was going on. The photographer, on the other hand, knew exactly what she was doing. John's defenders are going blue in the face yelling about how it's not sexual, not erotic, it's just innocent children playing. Well guess what, that's exactly what child porn is, because children don't any any sexuality, it isn't erotic to the (normal) viewer, and the children don't understand what's happening! The only question that matters is whether the children could have consented to having this photo taken. It's not a question of taste or artistic value. The answer is obvious.

I just hope US authorities go after the photographer, who is of course the real criminal. John's defense that it is widely regarded as art isn't relevant to whether it is child porn, but I think it has implications with respect to notice that are mitigating at least. It's not fair that he should be the one paying for this, or at least, he should not be paying the highest price.

Heroes

One of the most aggravating things about colossal crimes is that the person least deserving of recognition is just about the only person who gets any. The Joel Myricks of the world deserve more credit than the Dylan Klebolds. Let's reverse the trend.

Liviu Librescu, a Holocaust survivor, was a professor of engineering at VT. When the shooting started outside his classroom, Professor Librescu barricaded the door, preventing the shooter from entering the classroom as his students escaped out the windows. The perp fired through the door, fatally wounding Librescu. Let him be remembered.