One of the side-effects of the recent focus on police shootings in the US, is that outside agencies are starting to track and publish statistics about the police. Those attempts uncover additional layers of horror; under the shit, there’s more shit.
A Supervisory Special Agent is a Big Deal in the Secret Service. And SSA Jack Lewis was a Big Deal.
The tactical needs of Americans continue to boggle my mind. Given the way many of us buy tactical gear, you’d get the impression that we are in a constant state of being attacked.
It’s hard to understand the bizzaro-world where authoritarians live. As a skeptical person, I tend to think about what authority figures say, and question their motives and whether what they’re saying even makes any sense at all.
I’ve described a bunch of situations as “white privilege” when I see cops talking politely to threatening-looking white people who have guns. For sure, white privilege is part of it, but I think there’s something more basic going on, as well.
“If you take out the biggest mouth, everybody just withers away, so you concentrate on the ones you believe are your organizers,” he said. “Once you identify that person, you can run computer checks on them to see if they have a warrant out or any summons failures, then you can drag them in before they go out to speak or rile up the crowd, as long as you have reasonable cause to do so.” [guardian]
Thursday afternoon, I went over to my studio, which is about 10 miles from my house. Normally, I never see cops on the road, so I was a bit surprised that there was one clearly following me.
Saturday, at Paris’ Orly Airport, a man attacked a soldier, tried wrestle her rifle away from her, and was shot and killed. Earlier, he had exchanged fire with police in another incident when he was pulled over for speeding. In the earlier incident, he fled in his car; he had a record of robbery and drug offenses. That’s a summary of some of the facts in the case. [mcdc] [cnbc]
This time when I renewed my vehicle registration for one of my trucks, I didn’t get the registration sticker.