The Glade 4.0

http://georgedonnelly.com/asides/plymou ... -terrorize

Ignore the tone but concentrate on the facts. Notice nothing they claimed they stopped him (and then violated 4th amendment repeatedly) for is RAS in Pa.


It was a beautiful autumn day in the Delaware Valley - until some thugs on the payroll of the Plymouth, PA police department assaulted me and terrorized my son just steps from my home. How did this happen? On this warm fall day I took my little one out for some needed exercise in the nearby park, to see the falling leaves and let him win foot races in classic turtle-and-hare style. I did all this while securely carrying a holstered firearm on my hip because my son is simply too precious to put at risk.

Unwilling to Prove He is a Cop
Back on the street, outside the park, just steps from our home, a dark blue crown victoria pulled up behind me and asked if we could talk. I asked about what? He said I was carrying a gun. I said that open carry is legal in Pennsylvania. He claimed he was a cop so I asked for badge, badge number and bond number but he did not comply except for a brief glance at the badge on his belt.

Am I Legally Required to Provide Identication?
He asked if I had ID and I asked him if I was legally required to give it. He said it would make it easier or some other nonsense so I did not give it. Looking back, had I reached for it I might be in jail or worse right now since my pistol was on the same side as my wallet. Later he claimed that I refused to cooperate in his “investigation” and when I denied it he claimed I was lying.

Cuffed Before I Knew it Without Justification
My son immediately sensed that something was very wrong and hugged my right leg. I felt threatened by the way the man moved, too. I comforted him with my right arm which made this guy very nervous. He demanded I stop moving my hands. I put them up. I had not moved my hand towards any weapon or even thought about defending myself against the person. I told him I was peaceful and was not aggressive. But before I knew it he had my hands cuffed behind my back. He took my firearm out of the active retention holster, removed a pocket knife that was clipped onto a pocket and, amazingly, reached into a closed cargo pants pocket and removed my wallet!

I Do Not Consent
I immediately made it clear that I did not consent to any searches and informed him that he was violating my fourth amendment rights. He chuckled. I demanded his identification again. I told him I had to verify he was really a cop. But he did not comply. I still can not believe he so blithely searched me like that.

Six Thugs for a Peaceful Dad
In addition to Mark Anthony Lacy (badge number 142, “Juvenile Detective”, pictured above), the one who cuffed me, five other cops showed up. That’s a total of six cops who wasted at least 30-45 minutes on this. There was O’Brien (badge number 137 I think) in a white shirt (a “lieutenant”), Bolinsky, Zinni, another one in plain clothes who showed no evidence of being a cop and a portly one who never got out of his car. When I mentioned near the end how wasteful this was, they told me not to worry about how much it cost because I don’t reside in their jurisdiction anyway.

Intimidation
There were ongoing attempts to verbally intimidate me, primarily by Bolinsky. He told me to shut up and stop talking several times. In response to which I asked if he was also violating my first amendment right as well as my fourth. I addressed them as “sir” and “gentleman”. I was not rude. I did not blabber but I did take advantage of their pauses in speaking and their questions and statements to refute their weak justifications, guilt trips and other bullshit.

It’s About Doing What’s Right
After demanding they return my wallet and cease violating me, O’Brien said it sounded like I had good basis for a lawsuit and lots of damages. Several of them laughed because they know the courts are part of their same gang. But I said, it’s not about lawsuits. It’s about doing the right thing. Are you peace officers or law enforcement officers? Right now, you’re a law enforcement officers and you’re hassling me for nothing.

NOT Peace Officers
Later one tried to twist my words into support for LEOs in general saying I called them peace officers. I said, I would have complete respect for you if you were peace officers (without the state monopoly, which I left out) but right now you are aggressing against me and you are not acting as peace officers.

I Might be a Child Kidnapper
Bolinsky made special pains to convince me they were right to check me out since I was with a child. I might be a child kidnapper. He said if it was my son kidnapped, he would go all out for that and implied he would risk his life. I said I appreciate that and understand, but you overreacted. You did not have to do an unwarranted search and assault in order to find out if I was the boy’s father. And I told him that since I carry everywhere and am very careful about security in general that it’s unlikely my son would be kidnapped in the first place. Also, the FBI works kidnapping cases, so it’s pure blather.

Ooops, Made a Mistake
When Zinni appeared, he gave me the good cop routine and I was already in cuffs. I thought I was about to be arrested and taken away. I did not want my son to be in the charge of social services even for a moment so I gave him my address and asked him to take the boy to my wife. What a screw up. They forgot the address later on and asked for it again but I didn’t give it again. My driver’s license has a Philly address on it.

Attempt to Establish Rapport
As soon as he appeared, Bolinsky asked me if I was an NRA member, trying to profile me as a conservative type I suppose. So, instead of answering, I asked him if he was an NRA member. Yes, he said. That’s just him trying to form a rapport.

First on the Scene a LIAR
Lacy (who arrived first) claimed he had already promised to provide his business card at the end of the encounter, after I asked repeatedly for their ID. That was a lie. But he claimed I lied, instead and proceeded to invent two other lies, apparently trying to discredit me in front of the other cops.

Finally Asked My Son
Bolinsky asked for my son’s name and I refused to provide it. I should have asked him for his son’s name. When finally they asked my son if I was his dad, he nodded. He was huddling against my left leg and they claimed it looked like I had him scared. He is scared of YOU I told them. It was another attempt to get the advantage over me but it failed. Before that Bolinsky asked me three times if I was his dad. I answered him clearly the first time, I said. “I am his father.” So the next two times I said “I already confirmed that for you, sir”.

“What a Nice Day” Says the Thug
The other plain clothes person near the end said “What a nice day!” I said yes, it is a beautiful day to go for a walk with your kids, except when people like you come and assault me like this. Then he said he would not carry a firearm if he was out walking with his son. I said, that’s terribly dangerous. It’s a crazy world out there and my son is too important to me for to take any chances. Isn’t yours? And you know when seconds count the police are minutes away, I added.

Peppered with Questions and Claims
They constantly peppered me with questions and statist-perspective claims meant to get me to cooperate and submit. I always rebutted their nonsense and clearly stated how they had violated the rights they were supposed to respect and protect.

Obstructing Justice
They checked me several times on their computer and then when they were ready to let me go they checked my firearm and it all came back negative of course. Zinni claimed I was obstructing justice for not providing personal information they demanded, which was a lot. That claim can give one a panic attack when they have you in that position of stress they create. But it’s just more bullshit to get you to submit.

Outright Refusal to Identify
Near the end I demanded their badge numbers, names and bond numbers (again) and they outright refused to give them to me. I was able to see Bolinsky and Zinni’s names because they’re embroidered on the shirts. They said I should go to the police HQ. I said, no thanks. if you’re violating my rights wantonly out here I don’t dare risk going into your own house.

Who’s in Charge? The Thug, Of Course
When all but O’Brien and one other person had gone O’Brien snarled at me asking if I thought I was in charge, how dare I ask for their information. “What makes you so special,” he asked. I said, you have the guns and the willingness to use aggression - you’ve proven that today - so clearly you are in charge. I could have had the same exchange with a mugger.

Pathetic Profiling
One made a snide comment about numbers not being good with the bible so I shouldn’t be asking for them. This was another attempt to refute my logical self-defense against their aggression with ridicule based on some assumption from random profiling. A guy exercising the right to open carry a firearm on an autumn walk in the park at 1:30PM on a weekday must be a bible nut conspiracy theorist. (People who study the bible are not nuts of course.) This is like when democrats claim I am a birther because I said something critical of Obama and they have no reasoned rebuttal.

More Aggression?
When finally I was released and picked up my son to comfort him the O’Brien character gave me the “I am going to sock this SOB” look but since I was holding my son he didn’t do it - this time. He was the last one to leave the scene and there would have been no adult witnesses had he chosen to commit further aggression.

They handed me back my firearm, then my mag and left the rounds 10 feet away. Of course they were fully armed and even Bolinsky had a four extra magazines sitting on his belt.

See Son: Words Work
I sat down and talked with my son for several minutes, hugging him and telling him, look it works, you can face the bad guys and talk sense into them until they leave you alone. We can deal with people just with words and not with violence - even when they assault us. I hope I can continue teaching him this. He got some extra attention this afternoon, which is why this posting is delayed.

Not Angry, Relieved
I am relieved about making it through without significant caving or mistakes. I looked them in the eye and talked to them like equals. I did not bow down or mince words. I stood up for myself without doing wrong or being rude. I am not even angry about it. I am traumatized but not angry. I’m not “out for justice”. I am not planning to file a lawsuit. I just want the aggressors to STOP. I may visit them at their lair, still debating that one. I am so disappointed I did not get it on audio or video.

Oh and it turns out an older lady walking an angry little dog called the cops on me. Man with a gun in a blue shirt, khaki pants and a little boy. Textbook aggression.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

What facts? This is one man's side of the story. Where's the cops' side?

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

This allegedly happened about 1 mile from my home in an area I frequent. While I realize that every officer needs to respond very seriously to a man with gun call, it's also been ruled that Open Carry is NOT grounds for investigation.

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

Or didn't happen. To be perfectly honest, if Monty had posted anything this obviously biased people would be all over his **** for it, and with good reason.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Sorry the local media has been alerted but is refusing to cover it. Currently files are being exchanged to start a lawsuit and engage in discovery. Until then this is the only source of information. If you don't want to comment on the currently available information you don't have to.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Oh, but I do want to comment on it. I think it's biased, almost certainly contains gross inaccuracies that serve nothing more than the self-interest of the writer, and the fact that the local media "refuses to cover it" speaks volumes. Stories about police misconduct are wonderful for the media. They get people all worked up. Even if they don't like to appear to be defending a guy carrying a gun, the clarion call of ratings is always their first priority.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

You know how long it took the Hain story to break into big media DE? About two weeks. This happened friday.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

What about cases where there is legitmate police misconduct? Should those be shrugged aside as lunatic-fringe media fodder as well? How does one know the difference? Do some that are in one category get granted (or denied as the case may be) legitimacy where they shouldn't?

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

Yes, they should, and especially when it's posted by an individual who values personal freedom. Police misconduct is a fabrication created by malcontents. The police only create a hassle for people who are acting suspiciously, and those individuals deserve to be searched and detained anyway.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

What about them? I'm talking about this particular case. As for how we can tell the difference between ones that might have legitimacy and those that are outright lunatic fring, thats easy: The ones that are outright lunatic fringe will appear primarily in outright lunatic fringe places, and like this one will be written in a manner that's obviously intended to promote one side over the other - and like this one might even be written by the supposed "victim".



Yeah, that's clearly the logical conclusion to draw from cricticism of a biased stroy written to serve the interests of a party to the incident on his personal blog. Obviously anyone who questions blogosphere allegations of police misconduct thinks the police should be able to detain and search anyone for any reason. Blog posters would never distort or outright lie about incidents, especially ones they are personally involved in. Nope, never.



Truly fascinating.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Define Irony: A man complaining that the cops wouldn't show ID when he wouldn't show his.

but wait the cop did show ID: his badge.

Also this is a mans story and not a news article. I'd be more inclined to agree with an article were someone did some looking into this mans story.

Hopefully we will hear more about this though.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

I don't think that's true at all. Just because this thing has garnered regional or national attention says nothing about its legitmacy. It speaks mostly about its scope, if anything. Whether or not it is written with a victim mentality tone is not indicative of whether or not it occurred. I'm skeptical of the story, but not for the reasons you listed.



While those might be mostly true generalities, they aren't anything substantial to speak as to the legitmacy of this particular piece. In fact, they don't have any useful meaning at all, because you didn't speak to them in context of the article. Because something is generally true, doesn't make it true in the case where it isn't and there's nothing to substantiate either case in this situation. Not only is there a lack of information to assert the truthfulness, there's a lack of information to debunk it as well. Like I already said, I'm skeptical of this story, but not for that reason. The local media not having anything on this piece, my guess (whether it is legitimate or not, I do not know) is because it's terribly minor. Things like that fall below the scope of the regional media, regardless of how flagarant the alleged violation was or flagarantly untruthful the story is.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

Need more information before I can form an opinion. By reading just that, I am inclined to believe that the guy is blowing this way out of proportion and is exaggerating greatly.

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Los Angeles Kings 2014 Stanley Cup Champions

"I love this **** team right here."
-Jonathan Quick

The problem with your assertion is that we aren't discussing whether an incident occured. I'm not at all in doubt that this man did have some sort of interaction with the police that involved his posession of a gun. Beyond that, I do not think there is any reason to believe that the events happened as he describes them, or for the reasons he claims. He has a direct interest in the story, and the entire thing is written in language that clearly describes it from a highly predjudiced point of view.



Yes I did. I was talking specifically about this article.



The problem with that is that if there's a lack of information to establish something and a lack of information to debunk it, the burden of proof is not equal on both sides of that.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I have no reason to believe that the events may not have unfolded in a manner similiar as written. Though that is hard to say what he's describing objectively, because it's almost impossible to remove the tone from his writing. While there's yet to be presented anything to substantiate or debunk what he's claimed, I have no reason to dismiss it outright.



But what about what was written makes it so appealing to (or would make it) as a media story? It reeks of oversensationalism, and while that's certainly a trait of the media, it's not typically done in a flagrant and browbeating manner.



I agree completely. However, this seems to be a piece of psuedo gonzo-journalism written (as I garned from the context of: "He got some extra attention this afternoon, which is why this posting is delayed.") I don't want to dismiss it at all or validate it until anything more comes of it. The problem is, if he prepares something more formal, I doubt we're hear anything about it, even if it does end up being legitmate, because let's face it, it just isn't a great story. So I hesitate to strike this as a case of a one-off nut job if it doesn't ever make the news, just the same as validating it.

But let's face it, we're both biased. You are an LEO. I've had run-in's with ******* cops. Major assholes, who did their duty but just to the letter of the law, and even questionable. But I've also had encounters with LEO's (Sheriff's deputies) who were completely personalitiless robots and did their job in a completely unremarkable (positive or negative) manner. And I've met some cops (Hoboken Police Department of New Jersey) who were awesome and did their procedural required jobs (though we both discussed how silly it was) and did it with a good attitude.

But I'm trying here to eliminate that as much as possible.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

I'm not dismissing it outright either. I did say that I have no reason to doubt that an incident very generally similar to that described took place. I am, however, discarding prety much all of the details until some corroboration is available.



I think that if you cannot validate something you eventually discard it by default.



I think you're attributing too much to bias on both our parts. If this were a legitimate news story I'd be willing to discuss the facts as we know them. We don't, however, have a legitimate news story, or even a semi-legitimate blog story; we have a complaint from a party to the dispute. It doesn't deserve to be considered in the same league as a media story, even a poor one because of the simple fact that the author has an interest.

Finally, no one has addressed the fact that this story is getting a lot more benefit of the doubt just because it's anti-cop, which is part of the prevailing attitude on the glade. As I posted before, if Monty had posted something equally biased but towards some topic he views as important, people would be all over his ***. That's fine in and of itself; something of such poor quality as an OP deserves to be derided. When it doesn't get the same treatment because it plays to a common viewpoint, that adds weight to the argument of a double standard.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I'll just say it again, though I know it'll ruffle some feathers:

"Paperz? 'Vere are ze paperz?"

Presuming this guy is even halfway right or honest: the whole thing kicked off when he refused to show ID. It is abhorrent to me that we've become a culture that has decided papers are mandatory on your person at all times.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

I don't think the analogy is appropriate, since "papers" provided much more information than an American ID did, and they pertained much more to whether you were allowed to be in a place. For example, if you were released from the GULAG you couldn't live within 100 miles (kilometers?) of certain urban areas.

Then there's the question of whether the guy was behaving as innocently as he claims. I'm not buying it at this point.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Irony would have been if the man in question detained the "police officer" as a potential kidnapper posing as a cop and called 911 on the situation. Then 911 would have two calls about a kidnapper with a gun in the area.

Which is why I never post things like this. This post is bereft of any actual journalism.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

but...the man is a gun owner. Surely that means he couldn't have been doing anything wrong! all gun owners are law abiding upstanding citizens!

Generally speaking? Yes. They are.

People that have legally purchased guns, and gone through the necessary licensing and training etc to get a CCW are generally more law abiding than crims.

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Holy shitsnacks!

^ Post of domination.

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"The map is not the territory."

Statistically less likely to commit a felony than police officers in fact.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Elmo:


Police officers interact with criminal activity all the time. Obviously they will be committing more crimes. If police officers sat a computer all day, they would not be committing felonies. Anyone who is out on the streets all the time interacting with strangers, especially criminally-prone strangers, will inevitably be guiltier of crimes. Statistically speaking. It goes with the job. Nobody is perfect.

edit:

The only way to have police officers commit less felonies is better training or less police officers. Better training results in less police officers and is equally expensive.

edit 2:

Another way is great journalism or public outcry to put pressure on police departments.

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"The map is not the territory."