There’s nothing groundbreaking here; it’s casting a wide net with cell phone geolocation data and then winnowing it down using other evidence and investigative techniques. And right now, those are expensive and time consuming, so only used in major crimes like murder (or, in this case, murders).

What’s interesting to think about is what happens when this kind of thing becomes cheap and easy: when it can all be done through easily accessible databases, or even when an AI can do the sorting and make the inferences automatically. Cheaper digital forensics means more digital forensics, and we’ll start seeing this kind of thing for even routine crimes. That’s going to change things.

Xanthro
3 hours ago

After all, how could a dog be biased during interactions with the public?

Do you have dogs?

People who have or interact with dogs, know that dogs will try and please the people around them.

There was a famous experiment, which "proved" wolves were smarter than dogs. They put both in the same chainlink fenced area (one at a time, not both together) and timed how quickly the canine was able to escape the pen. Wolves ALWAYS won. 100% of the time, the wolf was able to escape in a shorter period of time. In fact, many times, the dogs never escaped, despite making rounds around the area and checking for what looked like escape routes.

Then someone pointed out, that the dogs are likely not even trying to escape, because they know they are supposed to stay in the pen. So, the experiment was changed, so that the dogs owner would call for help, and suddenly, the dogs always beat the wolves in time to escape, and it wasn't even close.

Dog behavior is GREATLY affected by human interaction, even when humans are not nearby. Dogs are even more affected when humans are close.

There is no such thing as an impartial dog.

BTW, not only was the reason for the traffic stop invalid, the entire stop would be invalid the moment the officer states that he doesn't write tickets. A traffic stop is over once the initial reason for the stop is complete, nor can the stop be extended. The moment the officer stated that he wasn't writing a ticket, the person should have been free to leave, but obviously he was not. That is an unlawful detainment.

Let's be honest, the reason for the stop was the hope of finding money that could be stolen via forfeiture.

Those who favor civil asset forfeiture argue that it helps law enforcement fight crime by depriving criminals of the resources used to perpetrate crimes. But, critics argue, that it is nothing more than a revenue-generating scheme. Many have criticized policing for profit, including Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

In the case of Leonard v. Texas, he laid out his case when writing his opinion. He noted that “unlike a criminal case in which a prosecutor must prove a defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, in a civil forfeiture case, the prosecutor only needs to establish the basis for the forfeiture by a preponderance of the evidence.” //

State governments have raked in tons of cash from civil asset forfeiture. In 2017, Texas’ law enforcement took in about $50 million, which included people who were not charged or convicted of a crime. Since the state’s attorney general does not distinguish between the two when calculating the numbers, it is not known exactly how many were never charged. Since 2000, state and federal governments have taken at least $68.8 billion, according to the Institute for Justice. //

According to the Institute for Justice, the clearance rates for violent crimes tends to drop as the amount of forfeiture revenue increases. This Is largely due to the fact that when police are hunting for cash drug offenders, they are not as focused on addressing violent criminals. Moreover, the practice has not led to a decline in drug use in communities in which it is used. //

C. S. P. Schofield
6 hours ago
“ The rationale behind this practice is the notion that property can be charged with an offense, even if the person who owns it has not been charged or even convicted. Proponents argue that this ability is critical to the efforts of law enforcement to crack down on crime.”

This is the inevitable consequence of the “we gotta get them goddamned drug dealers” mentality that has driven the War On Drugs my whole life. RICO, Asset Forfeiture, no-knock raids, and so on are all justified to ‘get’ drug dealers…and gradually crept into general use on the population.

I like cops, as a rule. I have only had one bad interaction with a policeman (rent-a-cops are another matter), and his own department was trying like hell to get rid of him (thank you, civil service rules). But the War On Drugs has made a LEO culture that has much broken about it.

I don’t think street drugs are a good thing. I’ve known junkies, and they were mostly sad, broken people, and often seriously untrustworthy. But the fallout of the War On Drugs seems to me to be worse than the drugs themselves.

So the courts reduced it to simplicity itself: Miranda became only required in situations of “custodial interrogation”. That meant the suspect had to PHYSICALLY be in custody when the interrogation occurred for the courts to feel the overwhelming presence of the state was inherently coercive. There could still be questions involved regarding whether or not a person was considered physically in custody, and to a great extent they relied on ‘reasonable man’…. i.e. would a reasonable man observing the circumstance objectively think the suspect was in custody? If not, police were free to ask anything they wanted-to. Spontaneous statements were also admissible.

Clearly ‘custody’ obtained if the officer said the magic words, “You’re under arrest”. It would also obtain if the officer physically restrained the person before asking questions, and it may even obtain if the person was in a police station when being questioned. For this reason, any time I questioned someone at the police station, I had them sign a document that said they were in the police station of their own volition and were free to leave at any time and say nothing to me at all. It also said if that situation changed, they would be further advised of their rights at the time it did. This is a common practice in police investigations and is known as a Behelor admonishment. //

The idea that police can be sued for failing to Mirandize when there is no requirement they do so is ridiculous. If you don’t want to have police be able to do their jobs… just defund them. We’ve all seen where that leads.

BNN Newsroom
@BNNBreaking
BREAKING: Surveillance video from inside Robb Elementary School shows that police never attempted to open either of the two classroom doors that housed the shooter-mass murderer and his victims-children/teachers.

This contradicts previous statements that police attempted to gain entry by using a ring of keys from a janitor.
12:05 AM · Jun 19, 2022 //

To make the timeline clear here, the shooter was shooting for 12 minutes outside without any police response. He then entered an unlocked backdoor, followed in by police minutes later. The police then barricaded the shooter inside the room per their own admission. Instead of attempting entry to stop the carnage, they sat around for over an hour until a Border Patrol team went in of their own volition.

Prior to this surveillance video, the police claimed they attempted to enter the room but were forced back by gunfire. Now, we know that they never even tried to get inside, choosing to retreat like cowards, completely absconding from their duty to protect and serve.

Further, a mother who entered the school to rescue her children recently revealed that the shooting inside the classroom continued well after the police arrived (again, contradicting initial claims by police that the shooter had killed everyone within a few minutes). That means that the shooter was systematically executing children while the police just sat there. That’s so unconscionable that it makes me feel sick to my stomach just to write.

It doesn’t get any worse than this, and it’s infuriating that so many, including some GOP senators, are choosing to obsess over meaningless, ineffective gun control policies instead of talking about the biggest, most direct failure in Uvalde. Lastly, the idea that any law-abiding citizen of the United States should be disarmed in the face of this shooting is asinine.

Last week, an Alabama police detective named Tanisha Pughsley was murdered. It isn’t just cops like Rivera and Mora, Arroyo, and Pughsley being shot – crime and particularly homicides have rocketed up. Why? Because criminals no longer fear that they will be prosecuted. Thieves now walk into stores, rob them, then walk out. Criminals like the man who killed Officers Mora and Rivera have been told that cops are the enemy – that cops are to be treated, not with respect, but with derision. Cops are to be resisted. You can lay some blame at the feet of high-profile personalities like LeBron James, Colin Kaepernick, Al Sharpton, and Ben Crump who have created a myth — one that people have bought into.

LeBron James was quick with his fingers to tweet when a cop did his job and to call him out for “accountability” even when that cop saved a black life. When cops are murdered by cop-hating men? Silence. James has not tweeted about cops being murdered. It’s below his outrage line. Not a word from LeBron James on Officer Pughsley being murdered. She was a Black woman, but she wore blue.

John Schreiber
@johnschreiber
Keep hearing of train burglaries in LA on the scanner so went to #LincolnHeights to see it all. And… there’s looted packages as far as the eye can see. Amazon packages, @UPS boxes, unused Covid tests, fishing lures, epi pens. Cargo containers left busted open on trains. @CBSLA

6:30 PM · Jan 13, 2022

As you can see, trains frequently slow or stop in this area as they get worked into the @UnionPacific Intermodal facility near Downtown LA. The thieves use this opportunity to break open containers and take what’s inside. I’d say every 4th or 5th rail car had opened containers.

Missing a package? Shipment delayed? Maybe your package is among the thousands we found discarded along the tracks. This is but one area thieves have targeted trains. We were told this area was just cleaned up 30 days ago so what you see is all within the last month. @CBSLA

Responsibility for policing the railroad right of way falls on Union Pacific Police... not local agencies like LAPD. We did see Union Pacific police chasing two people today off the tracks and keeping an eye on things.

New Today: My colleague @CBSLAKristine spoke with @UnionPacific about train theft and they forwarded her this letter they sent to LA County DA in December. UP says they arrested > 100 people in last 3 months but many were fined and released within 24 hours. //

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1481770722271760384.html

There are 90 containers breached a day, theft up 356 percent, according to Union Pacific. UP is now considering rerouting its trains out of LA county, so they don’t have to deal with this, but are begging the DA to be harder on the thieves. //

“Have we reached the ultimate stage of absurdity where some people are held responsible for things that happened before they were born, while other people are not held responsible for what they themselves are doing today?”

"You cannot take any people, of any color, and exempt them from the requirements of civilization — including work, behavioral standards, personal responsibility, and all the other basic things that the clever intelligentsia disdain — without ruinous consequences to them and to society at large."

-- Thomas Sowell

While Los Angeles, New York City, and Chicago — which leads the country with at least 739 murders this year — remain below their respective record annual homicide rates of the 1990s, at least 12 large cities across America have already broken their annual records. These cities have one thing in common:

They’re all run by Democrats. //

Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸
@JackPosobiec
BREAKING: Philadelphia now has MORE murders than NYC and LA in one year
Philadelphia now has MORE murders than NYC and LA
dailymail.co.uk
5:45 PM · Dec 8, 2021 //

521 homicides YTD blows away New York City

Thomas Paine
@Thomas1774Paine
Philadelphia Nears 500 Murders in 2021; Mayor Wants Gun Control To Combat It
Philadelphia Nears 500 Murders in 2021; Mayor Wants Gun Control To Combat It
paine.tv
1:15 AM · Nov 30, 2021 //

As retired NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce told ABC News:

Nobody’s getting arrested anymore. People are getting picked up for gun possession and they’re just let out over and over again.

tobybrut
26 minutes ago
These cases are superficially similar but have a huge difference between them. In the Coffee case, Coffee was considered the bad guy and was arrested and tried. In the Taylor case, the police were assumed to be the bad guys with lies about Taylor being innocently in bed being thrown around in order to railroad the police officers. In both cases, you saw criticism by conservatives on the policies surrounding how these officers ended up getting in shootouts. Whether it was lies about no-knock warrants or whatever, it wasn’t the officers who screwed up. It was the people who put them in that position. The left kept lying about the Taylor case, yet the right pointing out the lies are somehow hypocrisy when there were no such dynamics in the Coffee case. There were no leftist lies to debunk because the left was utterly silent on the case. In that respect, politically, these cases are not remotely similar.

In both cases, conservatives were fine with the outcome. Both boyfriends got off on murder charges, where people understood in both cases, self-defense was an issue. The boyfriends didn’t know they were cops shooting at them and had legitimate rights of self-defense. In the Taylor case, one officer was charged with indiscriminately shooting into the next apartment. Whatever happens to him is fine with whatever the law says. If he goes to prison according to the law, that’s the way it should be. Coffee is going to prison for a gun charge, which is fine because it has nothing to do with his right of self-defense.

The big difference in the Taylor case was that the left was trying to destroy the cops before the case was even investigated. In the case of Coffee, nobody had heard of the case until a few days ago, so people had a different perspective with which to decide since the jury had already resolved it. We saw the Coffee case, heard the jury’s decision, and thought, good, it seems the law was followed and the right decision was made. There were no politics about anti-cop versus pro-cop surrounding that case, merely the right of self-defense. The only reason conservatives brought it up was to fight the politics surrounding Kyle Rittenhouse and how both were self-defense cases. The only reason Coffee’s race mattered was because the left accused Kyle of white supremacy. If the left had said nothing about Kyle, no one would have ever mentioned the Coffee case as it likely would not have generated any controversy. Was the Coffee case opportunistic for refuting the left’s arguments against Rittenhouse? Yes, because the same result happened for people of different races as it should. Opportunistic is not the same as hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is saying Coffee was innocent while Rittenhouse was guilty. The hypocrisy is all on the left.

Absent the Rittenhouse case, I can say conservatives would have responded to the Coffee case the same as they did with the Rittenhouse case. Justice was done and the right decision was made. The Taylor case was different in that the emphasis was on the cops, not the boyfriend, as to who did wrong. The boyfriend was practically an afterthought while the left demanded the cops be charged. But in all three cases, it seems justice was done. Where is the hypocrisy on the right?

LGB //

VRW
28 minutes ago
I think the real question is why is the Left choosing to use the Taylor case to push their race-baiting defund the police systemic racism narrative, but not the Coffee case.

It’s always a good thing to evaluate why the Left supports an issue since generally the “issue” is not the issue.

You seem to be painting with a very broad brush, Scott, and it’s not a good look. As for the Taylor case, why is a no-knock raid that ends tragically a sign of systemic racism? I keep hearing about this system that is racist, but no one can ever give specifics. It’s so tiresome. Is it a system in desperate need of reform? Absolutely. That doesn’t make it racist. Is it a system that disproportionately affects poor people negatively? Absolutely. It doesn’t make it racist.

Ask yourself this, Scott, had Breonna Taylor and her boyfriend been white would we have ever heard about them? Nope. No one would give a sh** about her. This constant pandering to race is muddying the waters to a real problem this country has, that problem being an ever increasing descent into totalitarian government control.

the same people who find George Floyd a problematic hero for the left, are suddenly foisting felony-convicted police assaulter Andrew Coffee IV upon a tower and claiming “justice was done!” The same people who claimed Breonna Taylor got what she deserved for formerly dating a drug dealer, are the same people ignoring that Alteria Woods was in bed next to Andrew Coffee IV. The same people saying Gaige Grosskreutz shouldn’t have been in possession of a firearm without a license, are praising a man who shot at police with an illegally possessed firearm. Here, they are cheering Andrew Coffee IV, who is still going to prison for possession of a firearm as a convicted felon, but should you ask these same people the name of Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend, they wouldn’t have the first clue. Can you blame me for thinking the only reason they care about this case is that Coffee’s blackness could be weaponized against claims regarding Rittenhouse? If it isn’t, why do they support Coffee and not Walker?

This brand of conservatives is so laser-focused on opposing the left that they are willing to sacrifice truth and justice at the altar of “owning libs.” Instead of taking a look at the facts of cases and making their own determination as to what “justice” looks like, they look to the left to see what they are doing so that they can do the exact opposite. Instead of taking a moment to acknowledge that we are failing at “liberty and justice for all,” they are busy googling “black guy self-defense acquittal.” They aren’t choosing what to support. They are choosing to oppose BLM and the left at all costs.

Both of these cases are tragedies. Both of these cases are examples of injustice. Both deserve our support and outrage and not just when it serves our narrative. If anything, the Breonna Taylor case is more of an injustice and something for which we should be more outraged, but I guess there were no white kids recently acquitted of self-defense at the time.

Furthermore, two innocent women are dead as the result of the incompetence of police officers, and no one is being held accountable. That is the biggest injustice. //

Being at war with the left should also be a war against the type of tactics they employ. Not the use of them. Being glad that Coffee was acquitted is commendable. I am glad to see conservatives supporting it. I just wish it was because they understood the case and agreed with it and not because they are using it to dunk on liberals.

And remember the lesson of the Fauxnly Ones, just in case your legal defense is that you weren't sure the scary person you resisted was really an "Only One."

Just because you got pulled over doesn’t mean that you’re going to wind up with a ticket, says Hamburger. “As soon as you realize you’ve caught a traffic cop’s attention, you’re going to want to slow down, stay calm, and think polite thoughts because there’s a right way to talk to a policeman, and a wrong way. The right way is to be unfailingly polite. The wrong way is any other way.”

A few rules of thumb:

• Don’t get out of your car. No matter how long it takes the officer to make his way to your car, just stay put—because whatever you might be feeling when you’re stopped by a cop, you should assume the cop is concerned for his own safety. Being a law enforcement officer is a dangerous job. “Even with a weapon, every traffic stop a police officer makes could be the last,” Hamburger explains.
• Follow instructions to the letter. This shows you’re making an effort cooperate, and it goes a long way to alleviating the police officer’s own worries concerning the stop.
• Don’t confess. Anything you say can be used against you in traffic court. Instead, as politely as possible, talk about how safe of a driver you generally are and how you understand that driving safely is of critical importance. “You have 30 seconds to convey that you’re a safe-driving, law-abiding citizen,” so use it wisely, Hamburger emphasizes. If whatever you did had a safety reason attached to it, let the officer know.
• Ask politely to be released with just a warning. It can’t hurt as long as you don’t flirt or otherwise act smarmy. The key phrase here is “ask politely.”

We spoke with police officers around the country, and their answers offer a glimpse into the great highs and debilitating lows they experience as they try to serve our communities. Their jobs have been put under a spotlight in recent years––here's what they want you to know.

Where do things go from here? They go nowhere. There is no massive “right-wing” threat. There will be no redux of January 6th. Democrats are going to have to compete in 2022 on their own merits, and boy, do their merits suck. The feds can keep poking and prodding, hoping to stoke a reaction that provides fodder, but it seems no one is up for taking the bait. Thus, you end up with today’s laughable scene.

This country has real problems. People gathering to protest is not one of them. And let’s not forget that while the feds were wasting masses of men and resources to stand around at a non-violent rally, the Southern border is quite literally being invaded due to a lack of law enforcement personnel. That’s the idiocy of our government perfectly illustrated.

As we reported earlier, there were more police and media than demonstrators at the Justice for J6 rally in DC today. //

These guys were so obvious that a lot of people had fun mocking them — the coordinated shirts, shorts, watches, and sunglasses. Also, what looked like possible guns in their pockets. //

But it’s hilarious that even the participant allegedly arrested for a gun was actually law enforcement of some sort. So many feds, they’re arresting each other.

Fed-a-palooza.

Rush
@exRAF_Al
This is a seminal moment. The police hold power through illusion, they are only bestowed moral authority. Once it’s gone it’s gone - and it has gone, openly now. The issue now for Australian coppers is where do they go from here? #Australia #Melbourne //

What happens when the government has pushed normally law-abiding people much too far, completely abridging their basic freedoms? This is what happens, and it’s likely just the start. It’s likely to get even crazier there, as people let the government know that they’ve had enough.

Daily Caller
@DailyCaller
Sen. Dick Durbin describes Sen. @TimScottSC's police reform bill as a "token, half-hearted approach" //

Scott, who is black, had slammed Democrats and others last week for their attacks on him, according to the Daily Caller.

“Not surprising the last 24 hours have seen a lot of ‘token’ ‘boy’ or ‘you’re being used’ in my mentions. Let me get this straight … you DON’T want the person who has faced racial profiling by police, been pulled over dozens of times, or been speaking out for YEARS drafting this?” Scott said on Twitter. //

Tim Scott
@SenatorTimScott
Y’all still wearing those kente cloths over there @SenatorDurbin? //

It also happens that the kente cloth they wore was connected to the slave trade. //

RNC Research
@RNCResearch
Sen. Tim Scott: for Sen. Dick Durbin “to call this a token process hurts my soul for my country”
https://youtu.be/z5WnM9ZBrQw

The New York Times
@nytimes
Six months after the Jan. 6 riot, the U.S. Capitol Police is planning to expand operations outside Washington in an effort to better protect lawmakers, beginning with the opening of field offices in California and Florida. //

According to the New York Times, the U.S. Capitol Police have announced they are now planning to expand operations outside Washington “beginning with the opening of field offices in California and Florida” but the plan is to open “several additional regional offices.” Their spokesman says they need to monitor and quickly investigate threats against lawmakers.

The New York Times tries to justify this by saying that Secret Service has field offices elsewhere. But the Secret Service has multiple missions including not just covering protectees like the President or Vice President but also investigations into crimes against the financial infrastructure of the United States. They’re also part of the executive branch and subject to review and FOIA.

The Capitol Police is now basically just saying we’re going to have this huge expansion of this police power without any review or even a vote of Congress. They are completely controlled by Congress (translation: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, at this point). We’ve seen how they respond to a basic question of who killed Ashli Babbitt by simply refusing to answer because they can. How do we think that’s going to work as they fan out and start investigating people across the nation? As we saw in the case of Babbitt, they are also not subject to FOIA.

Vox
@voxdotcom
"It is worth considering whether [Ma'Khia] Bryant might have still been alive today if a mental health expert — or someone else trained in nonviolent deescalation — had responded to the call," says Merushka Bisetty. https://trib.al/kPTwZ1o //

Ian Haworth
@ighaworth
It is worth considering whether Ma'Khia Bryant might have still been alive today if she HADN'T TRIED TO STAB SOMEONE.