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["David R. Matusiak" <dave AT matusiak.org>]

woo hoo!!  i love it when the bloods begin to boils!!
that means we are "on to something."

now, admittedly, i don't know sh*t, (i think that has been proven in 
past posts)
but here is what i think is going on here.

1. Shea is upset that his friend (who was out of the state, mind you) 
is being suspended without pay for what some other goons did.  sorry 
about your bud, Shea, but i'm sure this is all a part of what they like 
to call "procedure."  it stinks, but maybe he should have told those 
two "Hey, don't go wearing those fancy new shirts until your Diplomas 
come in!!"

2. Everyone else in the area (who knows about this case) is upset that 
we PAY GOOD MONEY to have such stupid people with guns stalking us.  i 
think you should have to attain a PhD in order to be a cop, but no one 
listens to me.  these guys stepped over the line -- NO EXCUSES, NO 
EXPLANATIONS.  they were playing cowboy (which they learned from our 
illiterate fake president), and some wiseass teen gave them the 
smack-down.  nothing could be more perfect.

3. To anyone who wants to defend these two Senior officers.  don't.  
don't even try or you will wind up in a category /with/ them.  or 
called out along the lines of a Ben Brunk diatribe.

"Every cop is a criminal and all the sinners saints."

On Tuesday, June 3, 2003, at 01:44  PM, Ben Brunk wrote:

> > Law enforcement is a thankless job that puts good people in harms 
> > way.  I
> > know many officers and I can tell you that most of them are just like 
> > you or
> > me.  Most of them are good people, who care about their jobs and do 
> > their
> > utmost to uphold the law and uphold their oath to serve and protect.  
> > If 95%
> > of the people at your company are good people, then I'd venture that 
> > about
> > 95% of law enforcement is as well.  The difference between them and 
> > you or
> I
> > is that we don't do our jobs under the continual scrutiny of the 
> > press and
> > by individuals with an axe to grind.  And we aren't met by hostility 
> > and
> > resentment each time we attempt to do our job.
>
>
> I knew someone would come to rescue of the cops here, it is inevitable 
> that every time that the police overstep their boundaries, we get some 
> acolyte who reminds us how thankless the job is and how 
> over-scrutinized they are and how we need not question their gestapo 
> tactits.  Working at a gas station is a thankless job, too, but nobody 
> ever praises our brave gas station clerks whose statistical risk of 
> getting murdered on the job is far higher than any police officer's.  
> We just take gas station clerks for granted and we don't even have to 
> pay taxes for them!  Because police are "good people" I am not 
> comforted, given that every goofball idiot I went to high school with 
> wanted to be a cop because they thought it would be exciting and got 
> off on having unquestionable authority because nobody payed any 
> attention to them otherwise.  We place some questionable people in a 
> position of power over us, and ignore that fact that it can have a 
> corrupting influence on them.  That's why I cringe whenever I hear 
> things like "only the military and police should have guns."  Yeah, 
> right, becuase they're so responsible and none are alcoholics, drug 
> users, wife beaters or crooked.  Sure!
>
> The police are far too under-scrutinized.  Most of the time, the media 
> is on their side no matter how egregiously they screw up and even when 
> they do get taken to task, it is a slap on the wrist.  It is 
> absolutely necessary that the police be scrutinized and kept 
> accountable given that they have such power over us and can take away 
> our freedom at the slightest pretext. We damn well better complain 
> when local officers get absorbed into the federal machine because if 
> we don't, we lose the all-important accountability that is supposedly 
> guaranteed when we elect a mayor and town council.  You will find that 
> many other officers are on various federal task forces, most of them 
> dealing with drugs.  I think Chapel Hill needs a citizen review board 
> to review their conduct and their policies, not only in this case, but 
> also in general matters such as the installation of those wretched 
> stop-light camera money grabbing machines.  But a review board will 
> only work if it is made up of skeptics and not cheerleaders who just 
> rubber-stamp whatever they do.
>
> I think all these task forces on cybercrime are pretty much a waste of 
> time.     Two years ago at Duke, the FBI cybercrime people came around 
> and gave a seminar about their "services." It left me feeling as 
> though they were just out trying to drum up work to do.  They were 
> begging local companies to open up about hacking incidents so they 
> would have something to investigate.  Now here come two new recruits 
> looking to make a name for themselves and impress the real feds and 
> they show just how dumb an idea the whole thing really is.  None of 
> this would be happening except for the wild hysteria over all things 
> terroristic and technological and the police unions taking advantage 
> of people's naive fears to justify an across the board increase in the 
> ranks of the police AT OUR EXPENSE.
> Ben Brunk