The Morning Roar: TN Cop Fired For Choking, LAPD Tampers with Recording Equipment, and License Plate Scanner Error Leads to Guns Drawn by Police
Welcome to your Tuesday edition of The Morning Roar! Tennessee Cop Fired for Choking Student Unconscious]In a follow-up to a story reported in yesterday's Roar, Tennessee police officer Frank Phillips, who choked a non-resisting student to the point of unconsciousness while handcuffed, has been fired over the incident. Reuters reports on the officer's termination:
Knox County Sheriff Jimmy "J.J." Jones said in a written statement that Phillips was found by department investigators to have used excessive force during the arrest on Saturday night."In my 34 years of law enforcement experience, excessive force has never been tolerated," Jones said in the statement, posted on the Knox County Sheriff's Department website."After an investigation by the Office of Professional Standards, I believe excessive force was used in this incident," the sheriff said.Jones said that Phillips had been terminated with immediate effect and that the investigation would be turned over to the Knox County Attorney General's Office to determine if any charges should be filed. Phillips had been with the Sheriff's Office since 1992.
It's great to see a Sheriff who seems to not only respect the rule of law, but isn't afraid to act swiftly in the name of justice. So often when we hear stories of police abuse we are fed the all-too-familiar line by local police that the officers involved are "under investigation" and will be suspended pending that investigation, which of course amounts to a paid vacation courtesy of the taxpayer. Sheriff Jones should be commended for overseeing Phillips' immediate termination, while he awaits charges and hopefully a lawsuit from his victim, Jarod Dotson.Sheriff Jones also left us with another reason to praise him:
"This incident provides a perfect example of why we are in the process of purchasing officer-worn body cameras (video and audio recordings) so incidents like this will be fully documented," the sheriff concluded.
Excellent! Jimmy J.J. Jones for POTUS?LAPD Tampered with Recording EquipmentMy good friends at the Los Angeles Police Department probably wouldn't be big fans of Sheriff J.J. Jones if their latest malfeasance is any indication. According to an internal investigation, officers in one patrol division were found to have tampered with recording devices intended to monitor their activity and stem police abuse. The LA Times reports:
An inspection by Los Angeles Police Department investigators found about half of the estimated 80 cars in one South L.A. patrol division were missing antennas, which help capture what officers say in the field. The antennas in at least 10 more cars in nearby divisions had also been removed.LAPD Chief Charlie Beck and other top officials learned of the problem last summer but chose not to investigate which officers were responsible. Rather, the officials issued warnings against continued meddling and put checks in place to account for antennas at the start and end of each patrol shift.Members of the Police Commission, which oversees the department, were not briefed about the problem until months later. In interviews with The Times, some commissioners said they were alarmed by the officers' attempts to conceal what occurred in the field, as well as the failure of department officials to come forward when the problem first came to light.
In typical local government police monopoly fashion, even when they do something right - like investigate possible tampering with recording equipment - they have to make up for it with multiple wrongs such as not investigating which officers were responsible, failure to notify the police commission and the public, etc.When pressed further, the LAPD Police Chief Charlie Beck chalked it all up to your standard government ineptitude:
Beck said there was no deliberate attempt to keep the commission in the dark, saying the failure to alert the board was "unintentional.""The department did not try to hide this issue," Beck said, emphasizing that he has been a vocal advocate for the in-car video cameras that rely on the antennas.
It's funny how those that rely on government paychecks, and defend the continued looting of the taxpayer to fund their salary by touting how "essential" they are to the "public good," will default to the "inept government" position when it suits them.Government police can indeed be inept at times, but they can also be efficiently deadly. This is why, as long as these local police monopolies continue to exist, we must at the very least insist that their actions be recorded as much as possible, both by their own-installed recording devices, as well as those belonging to "citizen journalists" - aka anyone with a cell phone.License Plate Scanner Error Leads to Guns Drawn by PoliceYes, it appears that this is another all-Police-State edition of The Morning Roar, as our third and final story regards a frightening encounter that a an attorney from Prairie Village, Kansas had with local police. The Prairie Village Post describes the incident:
Mark Molner, whose law office is just north of the intersection of 75th Street and State Line Road, was driving back from a sonographer’s appointment with his wife around 5:15 p.m. Monday when a Prairie Village police car pulled up behind him.“As there were tons of cars around me, I was not certain who they were pulling over, but as I had been at the light some time, I did not think that I had had the opportunity to do anything to interest the officers, so when traffic permitted, I pulled forward with it, slowly,” Molner said. “At that time, the cruiser darted in front of me and attempted to pin me by parking diagonally across both lanes of traffic, and the motorcycle took up a place directly behind me.”As one of the officers approached Molner’s car, Molner noticed that he had his gun out.“He did not point it at me, but it was definitely out of the holster,” he said. “I am guessing that he saw the shock and horror on my face, and realized that I was unlikely to make (more of) a scene.”After a few moments of conferring with the other officer on the scene, the policeman returned to Molner’s window and told him that a license plate scanner mounted on his police unit had thrown off an alert that Molner was in a stolen vehicle. As it turned out, though, the license scanner mounted on the car had misread a “7″ on Molner’s license plate as a “2.” The alert the officer received was related to a stolen Oldsmobile. Molner was driving a black BMW. Molner’s wife, who is four months pregnant, watched the incident unfolding from her car in the parking lot of Molner’s office.
Luckily this incident fizzled down before the case of mistaken stolen vehicle caused anyone to get hurt. As we've seen in our first two stories, police monopolies are often prone to abuse their customers and many officers will do anything in their power to see that those abuses aren't documented. All too often, it seems that overzealous police officers are looking to use violence as a first resort.Even in this incident, an officer had drawn his gun before assessing any information regarding the vehicle or its driver. The scanner error seemingly gave the officer in this incident enough information to presume "probable cause" and treat Mr. Molner as an actively dangerous subject.License plate scanners give local police just one more bit of ammunition that they need to cause a potentially life-threatening incident, and the real danger lies in allowing these local, largely unaccountable monopolies to continue to use these and other technologies to track those they claim to "protect and serve."Read The Morning Roar every weekday Monday-Friday!The Lions of Liberty are on Twitter, Facebook & Google+Receive access to ALL of our EXCLUSIVE bonus audio content – including “Conspiracy Corner”, “Degenerate Gamblers” and the “League of Liberty Podcast” by joining the Lions of Liberty Pride and supporting us on Patreon!
