tvc184

I don't disagree but I honestly believe that it was those days also. I think that times have changed and we see a lot more and more is permissible on what teenagers can do today however I don't think parents 50 years ago were telling much more than what is being told today. It was still learned on the streets but the streets were different. We did not have the government to cover our butt if a pregnancy happened or if a disease occurred. We also didn't have the federal babysitter covering the unwanted children either. Therein lies the difference, not the parenting. In my opinion.

WTG BPD!! This is a potential death penalty case or at the least, life without parole.

  Yep, it worked so well in that rural TX county.   We aren't talking inner city Dallas where people might tend to say, "figures".    Looking at the results, apparently the ranchers in that area weren't doing much teaching to their kids. In fact according to the article, neither was the school district that only taught abstinence.    I see no problems in a science class with telling teenage children, if you have sex, this is what may result and it does not end at pregnancy. It is not taking over parenting. Whether to have sex or sexual morals is an issue for the family but I suspect that has never truly happened going back to the "good ol' days". I graduated high school over 40 years ago and if people think that we weren't having sex....................... 

It kind of gives a perspective of what the police face when speaking to "witnesses".    Hands up, don't shoot never happened but I am sure there are several signed documents in possession of the police in Missouri that say that or something similar. "Sure, I saw it!"....... but I really didn't.   Some of the problem is that at times the people actually believe what they are seeing. Their eyes see one thing and they draw a conclusion that is plausible but may not be at all what happened. They then fill in the blanks with the unknown and report it as fact. 

I would like to say congratulations and much respect to the police officer that was facing overwhelming odds and came out on top, potentially saving many lives. For a person with a lone handgun to face multiple opponents with high capacity rifles and come out on top would have been almost like the Texians winning at the Alamo.    I suspect there was a lot of courage, a lot of training mentally and physically for that day and a desire to present his life as a bargain against those of innocent people. 

By law, they did destroy property or caused monetary damages.    I thought that I saw in a news article that the school would take care of it under school rules. If it will be handled internally, why would the PD even be involved?    Of course the news media is not well known for correct or more likely, complete reporting so the truth could be different than appears in print. 

They will likely continue to win unless someone takes it to the federal system in which case it will likely be thrown out under case law precedents. We are talking about local judges elected by the population of the people where he/she is making a decision.    It is almost like asking a school principal if he/she agrees with the decisions that he/she made in his own school... knowing that if he goes against the rules, he will likely be out of a job. 

Note that (a) is about all illegal weapons (illegal knife, handgun, club) and (a-1) deals only with handguns. It is "an offense" under (a-1) if and it lists the crimes. So you reverse it to see what is legal if that makes sense. Such as... it is an offense if the handgun is (1) plain view. That means that it is "not a crime" if it is concealed. The law is kind of stated the opposite of the way people discuss it. The law doesn't say "it is legal if concealed, not committing a crime, etc. Laws generally say what the crimes is, not what is legal.    The reason I bring that up is that people are looking for what is "legal" and they skip down to (a-1) and simply see the words "plain view" and their mind is on the "what is legal?" question. I have had people argue with me that they read the law and saw it was legal IF in plain view. I have to point out that the law lists what is a crime, please reread.   Then (a-1)(2) goes into the parts about committing other crimes (like Boating While Intoxicated, Possession of Marijuana, etc.), being able to legally own the firearm to begin with and not a member of a criminal street gang.    § 46.02. UNLAWFUL CARRYING WEAPONS.   (a) A person commits an offense if the person intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly carries on or about his or her person a handgun, illegal knife, or club if the person is not: (1) on the person's own premises or premises under the person's control; or (2) inside of or directly en route to a motor vehicle or watercraft that is owned by the person or under the person's control.   (a-1) A person commits an offense if the person intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly carries on or about his or her person a handgun in a motor vehicle or watercraft that is owned by the person or under the person's control at any time in which: (1) the handgun is in plain view; or (2) the person is: (A) engaged in criminal activity, other than a Class C misdemeanor that is a violation of a law or ordinance regulating traffic or boating; (B ) prohibited by law from possessing a firearm; or (C) a member of a criminal street gang, as defined by Section 71.01.

A boat under a change in the law a couple of years ago is the same as a vehicle. No CHL needed. It must be concealed, you cannot be committing another crime (like BWI) and you must already have the right to possess the handgun (not convicted felon). Texas Penal Code 46.02 UCW

A terrorist is a criminal, period. It doesn't matter if he is in a group of people flying a plane into a building killing thousands of people or a lone person shooting a single person because of a political opinion.    Speeding and DWI are both traffic crimes and both can and do kill.    Things are not always the same however just because they are grouped together.    Honestly, how many people have been killed by people protesting abortions? Who is likely to be killed by such an attack?    Looking at Wikipedia as a source, in the last quarter of a century, 8 people have been murdered due to abortions. The attacks were targeted and not random people for the sake of terror. All of the victims worked at the abortion clinics.     In the last 33 years, an additional 11 people have been wounded or kidnapped. Let's see, in more than 3 decades we have not quite 20 known victims killed or wounded by abortion clinic attacks. That is an average of a single victim every year and a half.    None of them bombed a mall full of people in order to call attention to the cause. No one kidnapped planes and flew them into buildings. No one threw hand grenades into a bus full of random people. None of them took over a cruise ship and threw people in wheel chairs overboard.    When the abortion clinic attacks have happened, I have seen almost no one support the killings from the Christian religion. The abortion terrorists are an anomaly just like the Westboro Baptist Church. Yeah, they exist but they are minuscule in percentages and have no support in the mainstream. When an abortion doctor is killed you will not see Christians in this country taking to the streets and cheering like their team just won the Super Bowl. You will more likely see disgust and condemnation.    That is not the same as the Muslim terrorists that we have seen and will continue to seen. They are targeting people totally at random, killing many including women and children and no one is safe including people of their own religion. They kill for the sake of killing. They aren't killing an abortion clinic to doctor to save an unborn child's life.    When some of the more horrific Muslim terror attacks happen, you will see thousands of like minded people in the streets around the globe cheering the events. When I see such a response, it sure seems to be to be more than 0.01% of the religion. I have seen religious and national leaders in Muslim majority nations take the the podiums to cheer mass killings and to encourage others. I have yet to see that in an abortion clinic attack in this country.    Yes, they are all criminals. An 18 year old kid that steals a candy bar and a person that commits and armed robbery are both criminals that committed theft by various means. I would hardly call them the same.    Approximately (again Wikipedia) 75% of this nation is Christian or Jewish. Only 0.6% are Muslims. What are the odds of being killed in a terror attack from the less than 1% as compared to 75% based solely on religion? And remember that the people being targeted by abortion clinic attacks are likely attacking people of their own religion. They aren't attacking Muslim or Jewish doctors.    A terrorist is a criminal, period.  I think a lot of people in this country are wary of future attacks from Muslims and have some level of fear due to that threat. I doubt many people in this country walk  around being worried about being killed by a Christian terrorists for any reason. When a religion in this country has more than 220 million followers but the members of another religion with less than 1.8 million people can strike more fear in the hearts of the average person, there might be smoke where that fire is. For that reason I suspect that a majority of Americans have a hard time comparing them and seeing them as equal.   And for a comparison and a possible claim of it being just a different religion is why there is the distrust or hatred of Muslims, about as many people are Buddhists in this country as there are Muslims. I don't think many Christians or Jews (or even a single person) are worried about being attacked by Buddhist terrorists. 

  Yes but he turned himself in. 

Caught.

.....or lay off the bath salts.

Very true and profound statement.

It does seem to be quite a stretch….....

The suspect has been arrested. The point of the rioters in every case recently is the lack of (their claim) justice with no charges. While I think that in almost every instance they are full of crap, there at least is the correct claim of no charges of what they (wrongly) believe is an injustice and police "getting away with it". In the case of the officer where the case has been made, where can there be a claim of injustice or the guy got away with it?

Yes and no. Technically it is Att Capital Murder of a Peace Officer. That crime is a 1st degree or up to 99 years in prison. But we likely won't use that charge. Under Aggravated Assault (using deadly weapon) of a Peace Officer it is also a first degree felony but with no need to prove intent.

Medium complexion. Kfdm has a photo of him.

    Brandon Charles, I think 25 years old. It happened about 5 blocks from your old residence. 

Yeah. I was on scene pretty quickly trying to cut off the suspect.

    Yes, I was on scene.    Officer not hit.

Every police dept has polucy on prisoners. Ours is that if a person asks for medical treatment or if they appear to be seriously injured/ill, we bring them to the hospital or call EMS immediately. I was the supervisor on scene once after a foot chase of a guy with a bunch of crack on him. We called EMS to check him out after officers tackled him. They said that he was okay and clear to travel. The officers started to put him in the patrol unit and he said that he could not walk and was losing feeling in his legs. The officers started to drag him to the patrol unit, saying that he was faking it to try and keep from going to jail. That is not an uncommon occurrence to fake injury or illness. I stopped them and asked the guy if he was really having problems and he said that he was. I had EMS put him on the gurney and get him out of there and quickly. The officers insisted that he was faking it and I agreed that it was likely. I was not going to take a chance however. I had an officer ride in the back of the ambulance on the way to the hospital in case he tried to escape. Fortunately we were not far from the hospital as the guy's heart stopped before he arrived. Since he was already under medical care and got to the hospital a minute ir so later, they got his heart started again and he ended up living. He spent a good bit of time in ICU after he swallowed a bunch of crack while we were chasing him. The point is that our policy is to err on the side of caution. Even I believed that the guy was full of crap. I cannot tell you how ecstatic the two officers involved were after it was all over and I had the guy ride in the ambulance. They were going to roll the guy to jail and he would have died in the back of their police car. They made sure to thank me several times. I am sure that Baltimore has a similar policy. Did the guy ever ask for help during this incident or did he display obvious signs of serious injury? If so someone is responsible to some extent. Does that make all six officer is responsible in a murder? Not hardly. For all that we know, all six officers could have gotten together and conspired to beat this guy's butt and cover it up. If so that they are all culpable as part of the incident. If so then they all need to be held accountable. I have the feeling that the DA does not have that kind of evidence however. I have no problem at all with the officers being responsible. Just like everyone else though, there needs to be evidence of it and not just politics to keep people from writing and to appease voters. Look at the case of the Lamar student that was recently killed in Beaumont. Even after arrests had been made, it took several weeks to get the information to a grand jury to present the case to get a murder indictment which I think came out this week. In the case of these officers in Baltimore, six officers that we don't even know were all on the scene, were charged/indicted within hours of rioting breaking out and the DA publicly stating that this was for the protesters. I find that hard to believe as is the usual way that law-enforcement and criminal justice is done. Had a citizen been murdered at a local convenience store robbery in Baltimore and the police made an arrest with several witnesses, you would almost never have seen an indictment within a few hours. That is just not how things are done. In this case that makes me wonder if there is actually any evidence to charge all six.

The same thing as always. Looking at video, showing photos, interviewing possible witnesses, swabbing for DNA, talking to informants, etc.

Maybe the people of Beaumont will riot and have chants of.... Business owners lives matter.

Really? Who is "they"? Six officers killed this guy? Let's say that six young black males were walking across the parking lot. The police show up on patrol and someone tosses down a bag of heroin that can get the person responsible 20 years in prison. We aren't sure who did it and there is a chance that some or maybe all of the others had no clue that a felony was even being committed, much less being criminally responsible for it. Let's say that one of them is Big Girl's son. Maybe the DA in Jefferson County should just charge every one if them. After all, they were all in the same parking lot. At least one of them is guilty. Let the others prove their innocence. Isn't that the way it works? No proof beyond a reasonable doubt, let's make them prove that they were not involved or face 20 years in prison. Sounds fair right? I am sure that BG would be satisfied with guilt by association for her son, even if that association was just being there and a member of the same demographics. Well that is exactly what is being done to the officers. Let's charge them all. I suspect that if the shoe was on the other foot as my example, there would be outrage at the criminal charges. We know that a man is dead, we are not sure how it was dome and not sure who did it but at least six officers at some point had contact with bim so they all must be guilty of some form of homicide or other crime. Just like BG's son woukd be guilty of selling heroin because he was walking across the same parking lot. If not, let him prove otherwise. When the prosecutor without a grand jury indicts six people and it appears to be merely guilt by associationand then makes the statement, this is for the protesters ..... not a witch hunt? Not a rush to judgment? Right......