tvc184

No takers?

This from one website: Three changes aimed at shortening Division I and II college football games and reducing the number of plays per contest next season were approved by the NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel, the NCAA announced Friday. The NCAA’s own website said it is to better manage the game to cut down on plays. It never mentions the NFL that I could find.

The intent is to speed up the college game. They probably have much more capable officiating crews. Is there a problem with high school games running long? Toss in that college has 15 minute quarters but high school only 12 minutes. The college game is the equivalent of 5 12 minute periods. I just don’t see where there is the need to speed up a high school game.

We are losing our younger customers. Putting a mentally ill trans female ought to fix that!!! After all, a person that represents about 1/50 of 1% of the adult public should do it…. A company should fire someone with such marketing stupidity and then fire the person about that who approved it.

I don’t drink much, maybe a six pack a month. When I am feeling wild, maybe two. I have almost always bought Michelob Ultra for maybe 40 years. Last night I bought my first Yuengling. I have had their Light and Flight before. I am big into boycotts but this one? Yep. I don’t like the idea of picking up a can with the image of a freak, nearly 30 year old male, pretending to be a prepubescent female. He can do what he wants and AB can do what they want but to put this guy on a pedestal like some kind of hero to society and then plaster his image on their product for the masses, is both sick and stupid in my opinion. When I think of the word Woke, this is the kind of example that comes to mind.

I thought the Saturn V rocket was the most powerful machine ever built before this…. but I have not looked it up.

The sarcasm is….

After reading an article from yesterday on KBMT… Let’s say a person displays a handgun in self-defense. The person however does not use the handgun. The article says that to display a weapon only is “considered deadly force”. In Texas law, displaying a deadly weapon and making a threat is Aggravated Assault and carries up to 20 years in prison. Can a person lawfully present/display a deadly weapon but not use it? As the saying goes, if you pull a gun, you had better use it.

I think Musk is the ultimate entrepreneur. He is trying to build the better mousetrap (EV) so the world will beat a path to his door. He knows that people have been convinced to buy EVs and is providing what people are willing to pay for.

NEWSFLASH: All charges against Alec Baldwin dropped. One of the rare occasions where Big girl agreed with me. The DA could have saved a lot of money and time had they just consulted me first….

Yes. You can watch about a 10 minute YouTube video of multiple NASA(and formerly NACA) test rockets exploding on the pad or soon after liftoff. Certainly they wanted a completely successful flight but flying true for several minutes probably more than accomplished their testing goals.

As a point from some of the silly sarcastic comments, it is plausible that the guy had no clue it was the police. That is criminally irrelevant in self defense. The question that will be asked is if the officers reasonably thought they were facing possible serious injury or death. If a guy squares off at a person in a two handed shooting stance (shown on video) from 10-15 feet away, is it reasonable to be in fear of serious injury or death? A person in another sports forum that I participate in asked, did the guy just crack the door to peak out and the police shot him. I am assuming that he was implying that the police acted to hastily and shot at an opening door. I posted a photo I screenshot from the released video of the man with a completely opened door and the gun raised. I never saw a response. I assume that wasn’t the answer some people were hoping for.

The only thing more to the story is why the guy chose his actions. We will probably never know. Everything else except what was going through his mind is on camera.

Your continued ask him supposition is nonsense. The guy caused his own demise so he can’t be asked. Bringing it up multiple times doesn’t change his actions.

If you think they were screaming and beating then you either didn’t watch the videos or are easily scared by knocking. Your straw man (a true straw man) of “armed to the teeth” is nonsense. He could not have known that whoever was knocking was armed. How can he claim a defense of your family of someone armed to the teeth when he didn’t know who or what is on the other side of the door? If a person was in fear, why would any rational person open the door completely and step into that doorway? I guess anything is possible but the law says “reasonable” and a jury, if such a case sent to court, would determine what is reasonable. Even the Supreme Court addressing what is reasonable in Graham v. Connor, where the police broke the foot of a completely innocent man who was having a medical crisis, unanimously ruled that the police didn’t violate Graham’s rights. Graham was acting irrationally due to insulin shock but the police didn’t know that and only acted on what they witnessed, even though try were completely wrong. Again, a unanimous Supreme Court said that the police must make “split second” decisions and looking back at it at a more calm time in hindsight is not valid.

Yes, the man’s actions were irrational, unprovoked and probably a crime although that is irrelevant at this point. Looking at the last few days and a few incidents of innocent people being gunned down by homeowners, you might be correct.

In response to his unprovoked pointing a gun at them from 15 feet away.

There are plenty of police Computer Aided Dispatch/CAD programs. They have to match security including FBI protocols including each individual vehicle computer and tablet. If you have friends who will to donate $500,00 - $1,000,000 for programming, secure operating system which has to link with a secure body cam system, I’m sure a city would appreciate it. It isn’t like building a database and putting it on a dell computer and plugging it into a vehicle. Finding an address isn’t hard but mostly it’s done the old fashioned way, by driving to a block and start looking at addresses… in many cases while trying to be safe and maybe unseen. The officers in this case appeared to have parked at the correct location but went to the wrong side of the street. I think the address was 5308 and an officer saw 5305 which in the dark probably looked the same. What if the guy’s daughter had called the police and the man did not know about it? The police could’ve then been at the correct house and likely had the exact same result. Why would a step out of his house and start pointing a gun without a valid reason? And no matter how someone tries to spin it, there was no valid reason for the man to do what he did.

I should have been a TV cop. DNA results don’t take 6 months… Your computer tells you if you are at the wrong house… Witnesses usually cooperate…

I said access to it. Police calls aren’t dispatched on iPhones. I showed you what a typical call looks like on the computer screen. It doesn’t use a map and there is not a voice saying you’re arriving in two more houses on the right. If you can look at this and show us where the location is, please educate us. 3581-23 331 1201 7St 1757 Dist I have a couple of drones that will land within a couple of inches from where they took off and will do it on its own if the battery gets low or I lose contact with it. A lot of good that does in a patrol unit……

The only hard part about technology is getting a city/county to decide what there priorities are and where they want to spend the money. It usually isn’t the police until something big happens and public pressure gets it done. Body cameras existed years before they were mandated in most states. If not, most police agencies still probably would not have them. All of the technology in the world won’t help if you can’t access it.

You continue with the technology nonsense. You think the police carry handheld devices that point to a home as they are walking up? They read an address on a screen. Most police departments don’t navigate or dispatch by maps. When I saw an address on the screen, I drove to that block and started looking like anyone else. When I was trying to do it covertly (almost always at night), I tried not to use a flashlight at night. On my computer screen there was a single line of information. It had the address, time the call came in, type of call (burglary, theft, vehicle accident, etc.), unit(s) assigned and incident number. I can’t type it on a single line here but….. So I see this: 26731-23 184/251 1405 7th St 1858 accident That is: The 26,731st call for service in 2023 (which would be maybe in May or June), officers 184 and 251 assigned, at 1405 7th St, received at 1858/6:58PM and it is a vehicle accident. If you can look at that string of information and tell me exactly where a house is, please explain it to me. There are typically multiple calls on the screen so they are stacked on top of each other. These officers went to an address ending in 5 where it was supposed to be an 8. 5/8. Glancing at night, it isn’t so easy to distinguish. I believe in the video, one of them even said, isn’t this xxx8. This unfortunate situation came down to one factor. A man for no valid reason came out of the house and raised a gun handgun up into a firing position. Apparently some people in this and other forums think that if you are on your own property, anything is legal. If a kid is taking a shortcut across your lawn and you point a firearm and threaten him, it is up to 20 years in prison. “It’s my property” is not justification for Aggravated Assault.

The only item in the Texas Penal Code that is listed as a deadly weapon is a firearm. Under that law, “anything” else can be a deadly weapon if it was “manifestly designed, made, or adapted for the purpose of inflicting death or serious bodily injury or anything that in the was manner of its use or intended use is capable of causing death or serious bodily injury“. So an item has to be specifically designed to inflict serious bodily injury or at the moment it was used, including in a threat, was intended to be used to inflict serious bodily injury. In the police academy we ask questions of the cadets like, if you go into Walmart and buy a Kershaw knife, was that knife manufactured with intent to kill people? The obvious answer should be no. CAN it be a dw? Sure it can. What about a machete with a 24” blade? Again the answer is no. It was designed to cut brush while in the woods, etc. How about a rag stuffed down a person’s throat while trying to kill the person? Was the rag’s intended use to cause death or serious bodily injury? Yes so a machete sitting on a table is not a dw but the rag is because the moment it was used or intended to be used, it became a dw. If a person pulls a knife and threatens to kill someone but never actually cuts the person, is the knife a dw at that point? Yes. In the manner of its intended use, the threat, it was capable of inflicting serious injury. Threatening a person is a class C assault or the equivalent of a traffic citation with no jail time possible and a $500 maximum fine. Threatening a person while holding/displaying the knife and it went from no jail time to a maximum of 20 years. There is no blade length under the definition of a deadly weapon. In fact, a couple of years ago, Texas changed the law that had restricted a knife carried in public to 5.5”….. if the person is at least 18 years old. A place such as a bar or school still has the restriction of the 5.5” blade but a person can now legally carry a sword in public.

By definition, is a knife a deadly weapon in Texas?

What mistake for the police make? Knocking on a door? That is a very good question about lights. Sorry I missed it. The flashing emergency lights is a television or movie deal. It isn’t usually based on reality. Emergency lighting is to move traffic out of the way or to block a roadway for an emergency. It is not intended to, nor legally demanded to notify everybody in the neighborhood that the police are discussing something of a private matter with a citizen or to notify potential suspects that the police are arriving and to prepare. It is often seen as a violation of officer safety in many cases. I believe in the last week two police officers were killed responding to family violence situations. In your previous comment, you mentioned the volatile situations in a domestic disturbance and using lights. That very volatile situation that you are asking about is the reason NOT to use lights. From a police perspective, using lights in some situations is asking for trouble and being killed. We don’t use it anymore but when I first started we had a switch that we could flip that would kill (conveniently called the kill switch) all of the lights on our patrol vehicle. Brake lights, tail lights, turn signals or whatever, were disable to at least try to keep us from being seen. So while from your point of view, it might be great to use a bunch of pretty flashy lights that can be seen from over a mile away, an officer might see as asking for the death sentence. Officers now are at times lazy but I normally didn’t park within a block of a family disturbance and if possible, not even on the same street. I would park on scene around the corner and then walk up cautiously. Because of this, state law specifically allows the police to operate an emergency vehicle in an emergency without using lights or siren, whereas for EMS or the fire department, it is mandatory. Sec. 546.004. EXCEPTIONS TO SIGNAL REQUIREMENT. (b) An authorized emergency vehicle that is operated as a police vehicle is not required to be equipped with or display a red light visible from the front of the vehicle. (c) A police officer may operate an authorized emergency vehicle for a law enforcement purpose without using the audible or visual signals required by Section 546.003 if the officer is: (1) responding to an emergency call or pursuing a suspected violator of the law with probable cause to believe that: (A) knowledge of the presence of the officer will cause the suspect to: (i) destroy or lose evidence of a suspected felony; (ii) end a suspected continuing felony before the officer has obtained sufficient evidence to establish grounds for arrest; or (iii) evade apprehension or identification of the suspect or the suspect's vehicle; or (B) because of traffic conditions on a multilaned roadway, vehicles moving in response to the audible or visual signals may: (i) increase the potential for a collision; or (ii) unreasonably extend the duration of the pursuit; or (2) complying with a written regulation relating to the use of audible or visible signals adopted by the local government that employs the officer or by the department. For safety and apprehension reasons that other emergency services don’t face, the police are exempt from the pretty flashy lights and making noise. This situation was obviously terrible. Let’s face it though, who reasonably walks out of their house and start pointing guns without knowing who is out there. Your own comment was that the guy “clearly made a bad decision”. I agree. Out of literally millions of police calls each week, how many had innocent people walk outside with a gun in hand pointing toward officers? This was an anomaly that will likely never be answered. Why didn’t he peak outside first through a window or the door peephole? Why didn’t he ask who it was at the door? Why didn’t he open the door slightly to look outside with gun in hand but unseen? Again, we will likely never know why he pushed open the door and immediately pointed a gun.