Lasting change

I truly believe we all want to make lasting change in reducing violence.  Trust me, as a cop on the street you will not find someone more motivated than me to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and mentally ill persons.  As a street cop and negotiator on the SWAT team, its a good chance I will be dealing with them at the worst of times.  However I think there are many layers to the issue but the easy path is to ban weapons used in tragedies.  Will that have an impact?  I assume it will have about as much impact as it did the last time they were banned. Yes, assault weapons and high capacity magazines were not able to be produced or sold to the public in the US from 1994-2004 and murder rate average for this 10 years was 7.3 per 100,000 people with a high of 9 and a low of 5.5 per 100,000.  From 2005-2011 with no ban and people being able to buy any assault weapon and high capacity magazine they wanted the murder rate averaged 5.5 per 100,000 people with a high 5.7 and a low of 4.7. As you might imagine when you look at just firearm related deaths it mirrors murder in general stats according to the CDC stats. So what is the impact of banning assault weapons and high capacity magazines?  It is my opinion that it has little or no effect on crime.

Does this mean more guns, assault weapons, and high cap mags means less crime?  Not necessarily.  In my opinion, the reason crime rate, especially violent crime is down is due to mandatory stiffer sentences and three strikes laws and such.  If you notice, as prison populations have increased, crime certainly violent crime has gone down.  Why, because as we all know there is a certain segment in the population that we in law enforcement refer to as the "10%" which are the 10% that commit the crimes while 90% of the population are good law abiding people.  Of that 10% 1% of those are the true criminals where nearly all they do is commit crime.  They steal or rob nearly every day if not more than once a day.  They are predators and they prey on the rest of the population.  Keeping the 10% and more importantly the 1% locked up is the key to reducing gun violence among the criminal element.

 Let’s look at bans success in general.  Alcohol, how successful was prohibition?  There are currently many counties in the southern states and Alaska that ban alcohol, where does the term moonshiner come from?  How should success be judged?  How about drugs, as most of you know illegal drugs like methamphetamine and heroin are banned here in the US, but for some reason I still keep finding them on people when I arrest them.  I think it’s safe to say bans have had a lack luster success in the US.

Think of it like this.  If I were looking to reduce speed related traffic fatalities should we ban cars?  No of course not that is ridiculous.  Should we impose speed governors that restrict the speed that vehicles can go?  No, that too would be ridiculous.  But what about steeper fines for speeders and more traffic enforcement?  Do you think that when a person gets a big fat ticket they may slow them down, at least for a while? 

The vast majority of murders of victims by an unknown suspect are committed by persons on parole or probation.  That means they have been convicted of a crime and are subject to court supervision in lieu of incarceration.  Parole being for a prison sentence (felony crimes) and probation being for a jail sentence (Misdemeanor crimes).  As much as we would like to believe otherwise there is a certain section of society that is just bad and are going to do bad things to people.  For example, of the last five law enforcement officers murdered in the state of Arizona, 4 were by subjects with a violent past and were on parole or probation at the time of the murder.  All four should have been incarcerated at the time of the murder but were out on a plea deal or overcrowding issues.  One was just plain crazy.  He talked to aliens and feared the world was ending and went on a murderous rampage.  Now this is reflective of society when it comes to murders by unknown subjects.  The vast majority have been and should be incarcerated at the time of the violent act.  Some are just seriously mentally ill.  Now obviously not all mentally ill persons are violent, we all know that. 

So how can we make lasting change?  First of all we need to stop treating mental illness like an STD.  We NEED to treat mental illness like medical illness so by removing the stigma so that parents feel comfortable getting their kids that need treatment the treatment they need without fear of the social stigma that is currently attached to mental illness.  It’s no different for adults either.  The vast majority of people who find out someone has mental illness seek to stay away.  I once took some training with the state mental health provider and one exercise we had to wear a headband with a diagnosis on it and see how people treated us.  It was astonishing to see even when people in the class that knew it was an exercise saw your diagnosis still responded with a facial expression.  People until this changes, we might as well buy guns and bullets for the mentally ill persons with violent tendencies.  What needs to happen is a link to firearms background checks that those that have been petitioned against their will or institutionalized for mental health have a flag pop up on a background check just like a criminal or domestic violence history does.  Now In addition I think that the address mentally ill persons live at needs to be flagged as well so no guns are sold to the rest of the household unless it has been petitioned and approved by the court.  And down the road the person who has been institutionalized as well can apply to get his rights restored if he chooses to, and if approved by a court order can again purchase guns.  Until we do this, there will be no lasting change.

As far as the most violent among us.  I firmly believe that there are two parts wrong with the judicial system.  First, County/District Attorneys are elected and not appointed.  This makes a scenario where in order to get re-elected, they push for a high “conviction rate” by offering sweetheart plea deals to get a “win”.  When they go looking for votes they can tout their high conviction rate.  Now the second part I think would cure that problem as well as the rest of what I consider the problem.  If Judges, Prosecutors, Department of corrections and parole boards were able to be held civilly liable for going outside of the sentencing guidelines, they may second guess putting violent people back on the street. 

I think back to a public sexual indecency case I had where a subject would expose his genitals to women and children.  In this case the child was five years old.  When it went to trial I testified as well as other witnesses but the case was heard by a judge not a jury.  And in the end the judge said, “I’m pretty sure you did what you are accused of, but you are a young man and I don’t want to ruin your life so I am going to find you not guilty and hopefully this is a learning experience for you”.  WHAT??? How would you feel if when he progresses his sexual perversion molests your child? I also had an armed robbery suspect that was caught on video robbing a pizza store; the video was so good that I recognized him by name.  A photo lineup was shown to the victims and they all picked out the suspect.  He was caught the next day with the gun, the money and the pizza box.  Now understand that the state legislature and passed law in sentencing guidelines that the presumptive minimum for this type of offence is 3.5 years in prison for a first offense and 7.5 years with previous felony history.  This suspect had multiple felony burglary and drug charges in his recent past.  He pleads guilty to armed robbery a class 2 felony.  His sentence??? 3 years probation.  He gets to live out in the free world check in with his PO once a month and promise not to commit any crime or do drugs.  Well, even after 4 drug arrests later do you think he stayed incarcerated?  Nope.  If you were the three victims he robbed after this, wouldn’t you have some words for the court personnel who let him back out? 

If we remove the immunity from the judges and prosecutors whenever they go outside the statutory minimums set forth by the legislature, the streets would be safer.  That’s not saying they don’t have discretion, they can still go outside for persons they feel deserve the discretionary relief.  But they can just be liable just like the rest of us are when we do stupid stuff.  Now I fully understand that not all persons that commit crimes are evil people and don’t deserve a chance.  I think in those situations the judge can offer a reduced sentence.  It’s just if that guy goes out and rapes or kills someone, the family is allowed to seek civil remedy.  That’s what happens when I go outside of the laws and policies of my agency.  It’s not like I’m asking for anything that we as police officers don’t live with every day. 

I truly believe that this would have a significant impact on keeping the most violent among us, behind bars longer and keeping less of us from becoming victims.  I think this would have a lasting impact.  Let’s face it, when I pull a car full of gangsters over, can I assume that they A) are abiding by the law that they are prohibited from possessing firearms and B) are not going to have a high capacity magazine or assault weapon?  No, because my experience and history has shown the only people affected by bans on weapons are those that obey the law.  Criminals for some reason don’t seem to share the same concern for obedience to firearms laws or any laws for that matter.  But in prison it’s next to impossible to get a firearm and certainly harder to store in your “prison wallet” than a shank.  But prisoners still violently assault each other on a daily basis.  Why would you expect them to not do this on the outside?

So keep those that seek to do evil locked away longer.  In a pre Donaldson v. O’Conner world that is what we did with our mentally ill.  Surprisingly mass acts of violence are on the rise after we stopped doing this and cut funding for the mentally ill among us.  If we take better care of our mentally ill and lock those away that have proven themselves unworthy to live among us.  Now understand, there are good people who make bad choices and end up in prison.  Those are the ones that deserve the exception on sentencing, not the violent career criminal.

Where the blame belongs?

I have not been one to jump on an blog about political or social issues.  A recent event near where I grew up in Southern California had brought me out of the wood work so to speak.  On July 5^th a subject that was apparently being arrested ended up in a physical struggle with members of the Fullerton Police Department and subsequently died.  I don’t have very many of the details, only what I have read in the media and in comments of blogs.  The only videos I have seen show very little if any of the actual incident but rather all of the spectators reactions.  I know many of you that know me will assume that since I am a cop I will side with the cops.  Well the simple fact is I have not seen enough information, I have not interviewed any witnesses, I have not reviewed the evidence, i.e. video, and audio recordings;  to side with anyone about anything.  Do I have concerns with what I have seen (only part of the picture)?  Yes I do.  Do I think it warrants an investigation?  Yes I do.  It’s hard to tell what is fluff and what is fact in this case because there is so much emotion attached to it. 

The subject that died was a local homeless transient named Kelly Thomas.  I did not know him and I am not a mental health professional.  Most say he suffered from sczchophreina.  Most say he was homeless because of his SMI (serious mental illness) for nearly 20 years.  I have read just about everywhere that he was a kind and gentle person.  I have also read that his mother had a restraining order against him because he had choked her and stripped naked then urinated on her front porch.  Again, I don’t know exactly what happened that night, I wasn’t there, I haven’t reviewed all of the facts so it would be irresponsible for me to comment as to guilt or innocence.  Like I said before, there are concerns that should be investigated.

Just about everything I have read has morally convicted the officers.   And let’s face it that is the easy path.  Our proxy guilt seeps in on situations like this and takes over.  We are outraged that a mentally ill homeless person gets beat up by cops and dies.  The second easiest place to assign blame is on the family.  Why let their child live on the street to be cared for by nobody?  That’s an easy place to point the finger too.  I am of the opinion that the real blame resides with all of us, you me and everyone we know.  I will get to the specific reasons for that claim in a bit.  But first I need to explain a few things.

We as society have assigned police officers to deal with the things and people that we don’t want to.   We have them deal with the problems that we don’t want to take care of deal with ourselves.  If the neighbor is playing his music too loud, we call the police and want them to tell the neighbor to turn down their music.  We have the police deal with the criminal element of society because again, we don’t want to.  We have officers deal with suicidal persons because we don’t want to.  We want officers to take bad guys to jail when they break the rules we make.  We also have them deal with our mentally ill.  Law enforcement is the gateway to the mental health industry more often than not.  You may not like this or agree with it, but it is a fact and you have tasked officers to deal with your mentally ill.  Many of you have even called to have them moved along from the bus bench or from the park.  You get offended when they pull down their pants in public and defecate behind the 7-11 and want them “dealt with”.  You, me and everyone else does not want to deal with them.  We want them out of sight.  We don’t want to smell them as we walk into a convenience store and they ask us for money.  In essence we have asked police officers to be our garbage men.  To deal with the refuse of society is the task we all have given them.  Yet we harbor utter distain when officers acting as garbage men smell (figuratively) like garbage men.

In the 80’s the US Supreme Court decided that we could not keep people locked away in mental institutions against their will any longer.  In order for a person to be seized against their will taken to a mental institution they must present a danger to self (DTS) or danger to others (DTO) and be mentally ill and refusing treatment.  Well, they can only be kept there for a limited time without a court order to do so.

So why is this all of our faults.  Because you, me and everyone else has turned our back on the mentally ill, we chose to pay our CEO’s Billions of dollars a year.  We chose to pay our sports stars billions of dollars a year all the while our mental health system is underfunded by millions.  We as a society have placed more value on our entertainment than treating our mentally ill.  Look at our country compared to other countries.  In Japan, CEO’s make 11 times what the average worker makes compared to the US were the Average CEO pay is 200 times what the average worker makes.  How much do professional athletes in other countries make compared to the US?  How many mentally ill live on the streets compared to the US?  Yet we all sleep just fine in blissful denial of our massive problem of how we have turned our back on the mentally ill in this country.  We as US citizens have decided that we want the state (government) to care for our mentally ill.  We have also decided to cut funding to the programs that help treat these people.  You can point your finger at the officers involved for this incident, but the root cause for this happening is our collective denial of taking care of our mentally ill.  The officers will be held accountable for their actions here.  But it is your guilt for how you have treated the mentally ill that fuels the fire of outrage over this incident.  And if the officers are found guilty of a crime, what will change?  You will still be sitting on your ass watching your flat screen TV super duper NFL game day package and expect police officers “deal” with the homeless mentally ill.  So it will happen again, and you will shove the dirty secret into a corner until your guilt overcomes you again and you will voice your outrage, but we will still be standing in the same place asking the same questions.  So if you want someone to blame for this incident and the thousands just like them.  Look in the mirror.

As with all in death incidents, it would have been investigated.  With in custody deaths they are treated like a homicide from the onset.  The important thing to look for with an in custody death is cause and manner, which in this case the medical examiner was not able to determine.  The most common “cause” of in custody deaths is MI (Myocardial Infarction or heart attack) this would be indicative of a subject struggling so intensely that his heart gives out.  The second you would expect in a case like this is BFT (Blunt Force Trauma) from intrusive impacts delivered  by the officers.  Once the cause is determined they can move to the manner.  Which is Homicide (death caused by another) suicide, natural or other.  So until the professionals can definitively determine what caused his death everyone is just speculating. 

I have seen many comments about how people can’t understand why they just couldn’t restrain him.  When I see that I see a comment from a person who has never attempted to restrain a person in a full blown psychosis (SMI or drug induced).  As with most things it’s not as easy as it seems.  In fact the last person in a psychosis I was restraining was a 105 pound female.  I weight 215 and with 33 lbs of equipment on makes 248 lbs.  And she threw me off of her (and two paramedics) like we were rag dolls.  She literally sent me flying.  All the while she was biting big chunks meat out of her cheeks and spitting  the bloody chunks out.  You see she was in a psychosis and thought we were devils and were trying to destroy her.  She thought by destroying her mouth she could keep us from defeating her.  When dealing with SMI people in crisis or worse a full blown psychosis it is not as easy as people make it seem.   Have you ever seen the orderlies at a mental facility?  The look like pro football linemen.   So when I hear people say how they can’t understand how it takes so many officers and tasers and such, I think the person is ignorant to the facts of life.  Not ignorant as in not smart, just no experience in dealing with mentally ill persons in crisis.

As to if the officers or Kelly Thomas were right or wrong in this situation, I do not have enough information to make an educated statement.  I think it needs to be investigated.  I think the video needs to be reviewed as well as audio recordings and witnesses interviewed.  What bothers me about the whole situation is many of the people outraged and protesting are the same people that have called the police to move along smelly SMI transients from in front of their business or from the park.  I hope the guilt that drives their rage is not misplaced and they look into the root cause of this situation.  I hope they have the courage to make the hard choice to finally look at how we treat our mentally ill in this country.