…Corrupts Absolutely
By Mitch Berg
Minnesota’s Gang Strike Force is temporarily shutting down due to, er, irregularities:
Commissioner Michael Campion also said he will hire a former federal prosecutor and former FBI agent to investigate the agency, and will restart the funding only when he is sure the problems are fixed.Legislative Auditor James Nobles said the missing cash adds up to more than $18,000. Thirteen cars are also missing.
Read the whole thing; it shows what happens when government gets too much power. For example – Bill Clinton’s property-forfeiture laws?
The report found that a member of the strike force sold a seized flatscreen TV to a student worker for $30. The TV had to be recovered when the original owner asserted his legal right to get it back.
Joel Rosenberg has a fictional(ized) conversation with Public Safety czar Michael Campion on the subject:
“You called me, Mike. Don’t interrupt so. As I was saying . . . if I had to guess, a real thorough investigation would exonerate a bunch of guys, and might just convict a few. I dunno. But, either way, it would do something to persuade people that you really want to get to the bottom of this, and not apply a slow-rolled coat of youknowwhat. And cover up your tipping off the perps, and all. ”
“Yeah. I see your point. Get to the bottom of it, even though we screwed up by announcing the investigation before we preserved the evidence.”
“Yup. Admit the screwup, do your best, clear the innocent and arrest the folks you’ve got reason to think are guilty . . . and let the system handle it while you move on. Glad you called?”
“Not really.”
“Didn’t think so.”
“Hey, I’m just trying to help, Mike. Really. But, relax, it’s not like there’s any proof that they shredded — “
*click*
Read the whole thing; fictional though it is, it reports the details behind the story better than anyone in the mainstream media…
May 22nd, 2009 at 9:39 am
WTF?? Did you just question the ethics and morality of a group of our boys in blue?
Better be careful Mitch…you’ll have Dirreah Stool over here in a minute fingering you for the cop hatin’ reprobate you evidently are.
May 22nd, 2009 at 11:44 am
I think that Randy Furst at the Strib has been doing a terrific job of painting the dots; I’m just a bit better at drawing connections, stepping back, and looking at the whole picture.
More on that later on.
For now, I just want to emphasize the obvious, which doesn’t need dots connected: if anybody without a badge had done just what Campion did — alerting the perpss (and, let’s give him credit: he did it by calling a press conference, not by picking up a phone and sending a coded message . . . as far as we know), he’d be under investigation, and might well have already been arrested. What more do the authorities need?
Nada.
The standard thing to do when there’s reason to believe that, say, at least fifteen grand has been disappeared (don’t count on it being that low; some of the line items in the books may or may not stand up), along with more than a dozen automobiles, is to get a warrant issued, and secure the evidence — it’s not to convene a press conference to alert the perps that it’s time to hit the shredders, and then flee home and start scraping their laptops.
By an interesting coincidence, shortly after Campion issued his public warning, the perps shut down the security system and fired up the shredders. See http://www.startribune.com/local/stpaul/45805632.html . Don’t know if they’ve gotten their laptops scrubbed, but, sheesh, they’ve had more than enough time.
I guess we’re going to find out, pretty quick, how good a cop Chris Omodt is. As to Mike Campion, sheesh; we already know, and it’s an embarrassment.
May 22nd, 2009 at 12:31 pm
I’m guessing that there has been an oubreak of a new kind of virus among the laptops of GSF…it’s the kind that causes the hard drives to jump out of the computer, start a fire in the backyard and throw themselves in.
But the public need not panic…this virus will be targeted carefully and only cop laptops will be effected.
Must have been a cop hater, eh Stool?
May 22nd, 2009 at 1:06 pm
It is possible, of course, that the majority of cops on the Gang Strike Force are honest, swiftee. We can eliminate the six who took that kickass Hawaiian vacation, of course, but it’s possible, I guess that they’re the only ones who also managed to “lose” that more than a dozen cars and much more than a dozen thou (how much more money went where, we don’t know; it could be that the $400K found in Ryan’s safe was legit, after all, and that it was all that he was supposed to have), and that among the Swingin’ Six are the only guys who had the shredding party, and shut down the security system.
But it’s not the way to bet.
That said, I bet there is at least one honest cop there. Really.
May 22nd, 2009 at 2:15 pm
“That said, I bet there is at least one honest cop there. Really.”
No there isn’t.
Not every cop engages in crooked activities, but every cop knows at least one other cop that does, and makes the deliberate decision to keep quiet about it.
Add to that, the fact that every cop tells lies on a daily basis and the chance of finding an “honest” cop becomes as likely as catching a leprechaun.
I understand that we need some cops; we need time to earn a living and if nothing else, a few cops can keep the crooks heads down while we’re busy. But they are a necessary evil that needs to be carefully watched and weeded out often.
May 22nd, 2009 at 3:35 pm
I assume you’re talking to me, swiftee, although your inability to get my name right suggest you may have some intelligence problems.
Mitch is pointing out that these particular cops might be corrupt. You say that all cops are corrupt. There’s a difference.
You claim not to hate cops, but you say we are all corrupt and liars. I would hate an organization I believed was thoroughly corrupt. Why do you claim not to?
May 22nd, 2009 at 4:17 pm
That’s easy stool. I don’t hate cops because they are following their nature, doing what the public wants them to do.
If we lived in Mayberry, I’d hate most of the cops out on the streets these days, but we ain’t in Mayberry. Most metro area cops are chosen for an ability (with careful supervision) to maintain a balance that allows them to effectively deal with scumbags without actually becoming one.
I’m sure there must be at least one cop out there somewhere that’s as honest as can possibly be expected of anyone.
But when you deal with scumbags every-single-day, it’s almost impossible for some not to rub off. Hence, in the least severe cases we see the willingness to lie, verbally and\or in writing, to make a criminal complaint “more solid” for instance, or to get someone to implicate themselves or others (it’s done every day, and you know it), and in the worst cases, a cop loses all sense of right and wrong and starts stealing, raping, killing.
The problem is, it looks like it’s either getting harder and harder to find people that can maintain that crucial balance these days or that those in charge are so corrupt they’ve tossed in the towel on mentoring new recruits.
I don’t hate cops at all, stool.
I wouldn’t trust a cop as far as I could throw one, I do my best to maintain a safe distance from them at all times and certainly wouldn’t socialize with them, but I don’t hate them. Like I’ve said, I see cops as a necessary evil. They do a job we want done, and sometimes they really do manage to do something good; we just need to keep them on a very short leash.
Here’s a bonus question. Can you tell me you’ve never seen a cop do anything shady? And if you have, do you always turn them in to “the proper authorities”?
Psyche! I wouldn’t believe you either way! 😉
May 22nd, 2009 at 6:09 pm
DS: an organization can be thoroughly corrupt without every member of it being thoroughly corrupt. (I’m not saying, at the moment, that the Metro Gangbangers were; I think it’s theoretically possible that there are only six corrupt cops*, and a bunch of incompetent supervisors, and that the rest are feckless, but more or less honest. Just as I said, some time ago, that while I don’t know that all of the Imperial Stormtroopers in their identity-concealing masks at the RNC were thugs, the bunch who slugged that girl with their bikes and then used her for pepper spray practice sure as shit were. )
Me, I like hanging out with Swiftee not just because he’s a nice guy in person — although he is — but because while his generalizations are often on, his categoricals are off, and make me look moderate. Which I, well am.
As to all being liars, just to pick an example . . . well, I don’t know where you did your Skills training (not asking; none of my business), but when you were taught how to do a takedown, weren’t you taught to be shouting “Stop resisting!” while you were doing it?
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* Easy to show, unless one grades on the curve.
May 23rd, 2009 at 10:49 am
You are too kind, Joel. It is my pleasure to make you look moderate 😉
In related news, the MPD has pulled it’s support from the GSF. I hate to be cynical ( 🙂 ), but I can’t help but wonder if that’s not a preemptive measure in the expectation that there are criminal charges on the way.
God knows the MPD has enough on it’s plate already.
May 26th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
All cops are liars. Prove me wrong and show us a cop that has NEVER lied.
*cue whistling mayberry*