Posted on 04/21/2013 4:40:36 PM PDT by Vince Ferrer
I have a general policy that when something*****es me off enough to want to throw things at my TV I go have a drink and refuse to write on it until having slept first.
Sometimes I wake up with a different perspective.
And sometimes not.
This is one of the "nots."
Last night, unless you live in a cave, you know that the second bombing suspect was captured alive. The first one died from a combination of bullets and being run over by his brother in a carjacked vehicle trying to escape.
Yeah, that really nice kid who we now have in custody ran over his brother.
But let's take a look at the facts, shall we?
Such as the fact that despite every news anchor and many of the people in Boston pumping their fists and screaming "USA!" along with lauding law enforcement, the fact is that law enforcement could not find its ass with both hands.
It doesn't stop there. Oh no, by effectively occupying a part of the Boston metro area they made an utter mockery of the 4th Amendment. There was no "hot pursuit" and thus no argument available to them allowing searches of private property without consent or a warrant. Not only did they search without a warrant there were multiple reports through the day of seizure of firearms, among other things.
The Constitutional Rights of an entire town, some 30,000 residents, were wantonly and outrageously violated yesterday, yet not one media outlet is focusing there.
Nor are they focusing on the fact that after a full day of undeclared and illegal martial law, complete with "papers please", unconstitutional searches and seizures and military hardware and weapons all over the streets (heh Barack, what was that crap about "weapons of war"?) the cops FAILED to find the jackass.
Instead, within a half-hour of the "can't find our ass with both hands" cops giving up on locking down the town an ordinary citizen finds the bad guy in his boat.
In 30 minutes "We the people" do what thousands of cops spending millions of dollars and violating the rights of every citizen in the town could not and the people did it without all that fancy military hardware too.
So what do the cops do? They shoot at and destroy the boat, of course, in "convincing" the bad guy to come out. Boats you see, must not have extra holes in them or they don't float very well. The cops added many extra holes and a few flash-bangs to the mix too, despite knowing that the vessel had a full tank of fuel on board and might catch on fire or explode. It didn't, fortunately, but that's small consolation to the owner who is almost-certain to see both the city refuse to pay for the damage and his insurance company refuse to cover it too (look in your policy; in general such "acts of war, declare or undeclared" are considered non-covered perils.) Never mind that the guy actually doing the warlike things (the terrorist) didn't cause the damage -- the cops did.
Was there anything the cops did right? Well, yeah, I suppose. Their fancy FLIR gear on the chopper, once pointed out where to look by the homeowner, did detect the heat of the jackass in the boat. Ok. Wow man, technology. I'm supposed to be impressed by this after the specific location of the bad guy was pointed out by the homeowner who saw him in the boat and called the police?
FAIL.
Massive, outrageous, millions of dollars in overtime and worthless hardware FAIL, to go along with a citizenry that cowered in abject fear of a couple of jackasses.
Not only did the terrorists win they learned that we're cowards. We will hide in the closet shaking like a leaf in a hurricane and let them get away for hours or even days instead of going about our business, observing what's different, reporting what doesn't make sense and arming ourselves so we can defend ourselves if, in the gravest extreme, they decide to do so something outrageous.
Massachusetts has some of the "toughest" gun laws in the nation. They are an abject failure as well. In 1998 they were passed and signed by a Republican. The state went from 1.5 million active gun licenses to under 200,000. Not only did murders double from 1998 to 2011 and robberies increase by more than 20% but the state was just targeted by two murderous jackasses who blew up a number of innocent people. The national murder and violent crime rate, on the other hand, has been falling since the early 1990s. Gee, you don't think the lack of people's ability to defend themselves might have had something to do with all that, do you? Don't expect the media to call Massachusetts or its former governors on this fact and its contribution to the blown-off legs of the victims at the Marathon. Oh, and while we're at it, let's not forget that the number of people these jackasses murdered (about a half-dozen, all-in) are eclipsed by the roughly 10x as many residents murdered annually since Massachusetts further trampled on the 2nd Amendment's recognition of fundamental human rights. Exactly how many excuses would the government of Massachusetts like to try to make for all those dead people that directly resulted from their incessant and outrageous trampling of those Constitutionally-guaranteed rights? Let me guess -- we're going to hear crickets on that account.
I'm glad the remaining bastard suspect (remember, he's a suspect until proven guilty in a court of law) has been caught and will face trial. I'm of mixed view whether or not he should be considered an ordinary criminal or an enemy combatant. We don't know enough to make that call here and now in the general public. What we do know is that the FBI knew damn well that the older brother was a problem and had been watching him and worse, they lied about it when asked by the media, denying they had contact with him until the family went public with the facts.
We have learned many things over the last week, and none of them are good. We have learned that an entire major city is full of pussies who will hide in the closet rather than sling a rifle or holster a pistol and go about their business, refusing to be cowed by a couple of murderous jackasses. We have learned that the FBI will and does lie to the public and only stops lying when called on it in the media. Just as before 9/11 when the FBI knew damn well that the towelheads were buying simulator time with thousands of dollars in cash and not wanting to know how to land and did nothing with the information to interdict the jackasses who would use that knowledge to murder 3,000 people this time around they knew there was a problem as well and tried to lie about it. This in turn means that if they come talk to you you must assume they're going to lie as well -- and maybe lie about what you tell them. This makes it downright stupid for you to help law enforcement in any way, and that makes us all far less safe if for no other reason than repeatedly-demonstrated and very-official gross negligence. Never mind that the younger brother appears to have a nice online history too which was also ignored and he was actually out partying in the local area after the bombing. We have learned that the older of these two clowns had a domestic violence history which made him eligible to be deported and we did nothing to revoke his green card, thereby effectively giving him license to commit his murders. We naturalized the younger brother despite knowing the above. We have government agents sticking their hands down the crotch of 80 year old dying Grandmas with leukemia in airports, fondling her adult diaper instead of interdicting jackasses like this. We have learned that two young men willing to die for their alleged belief that 27 virgins await them in paradise (who I suspect are both male and literal gorillas, if they exist at all) can shut down all economic activity among a city of millions and strand thousands more, which means that fewer than a hundred said jackasses could literally destroy our economy. If you think I'm divulging some "state secret" by mentioning this you're not very bright either; we televised this fact all day, on every channel, throughout Friday. We learned that thousands of cops, despite being all geared-up and full of cum, can't find one jackass that the people can and do locate in a half hour with no special training and no fancy hardware. We also learned that in a real assault the so-called "good guys" will wear digital camo in an urban environment that sticks out like a sore thumb against everything in the area. FAIL!
And finally we learned that The Constitution is used toilet paper and a fetid relic of our former (and now-shelved in favor of American Idol) imagination, and that the founders who fought just miles from where this took place are looking down on us in shame from heaven -- we no longer merit the nation they left us.
Wake up America -- if our nation can be said to still exist.
It would have been excellent had Joker not been able to drive away. But he did, and there was no changing that. Once the police got to the neighborhood, what could they have done differently?
Ditto. The house to house search was unnecessary as proven by events. Not to mention your hypothetical hostage situation which ends with dead hostages and perp and maybe a dead cop since house to house is extremely risky.
The reality of the situation is that Joker did drive away, and he led the police to a neighborhood in Watertown
Wrong. There was no pursuit, they lost him. Searching specific houses is legitimate only in hot pursuit.
A private citizen told the LEO’s where the criminal was. Please re=read the first sentence in my response. How could a person elude officers with the presence that they had?
“I saw nary a “tracker dog” all day”
Maybe they feared that over-zealous policemen, who were full of adrenaline, would shoot the dogs? ;-)
Probably right ....
At some point, they found the abandoned hijacked SUV, and they picked up a blood trail and they knew he was on foot.
I have no theory on why he was able to stay hidden with that massive presence, but he did. That being said, they had to see him to shoot him. And they didn’t see him until after they were closing the operation, and only then after the citizen reported seeing him in the boat.
Hindsight proves that to be true. But the police did not have a visual on him they had to make decisions based on the best information they had.
The police DO know that many fleeing fugitives WILL enter a house and take hostages. Sometimes, like Christopher Dorner, they will bind and gag them and steal their car.
Uh, incompetence?
Joker was in the area and was hiding.
The police kept him in the area because of their massive presence, but they couldn't see him. Not being able to see him, they couldn't know for sure if he had entered a home in the area, and the only way to know is to go house to house and contact the residents.
When night approached, they police decided to leave.
Then the citizen spotted Joker.
If the police had not had the numbers in the area, they would not have subsequently captured Joker.
So far, I have not seen a satisfactory answer about what they could have done differently.
Wrong again. They had 9000 cops in the area. They violated the 4th all day long then held a news conference and stood down to a fraction of that number (officially they said Watertown plus an equal number of state troopers but they probably had more). It was at that point that the citizen called 911.
"Wrong again. They had 9000 cops in the area. They violated the 4th all day long then held a news conference and stood down to a fraction of that number (officially they said Watertown plus an equal number of state troopers but they probably had more). It was at that point that the citizen called 911."
If the police were there all day, then so was Joker. He did not get out of their perimeter. When they stood down to a fraction of their numbers, Joker was still there because of the prior actions of the larger number of officers. Then the 911 call came in. And then he was arrested.
What Joker was facing was, obviously, a huge police presence. Some stood guard on the perimeter. Some went door to door contacting the citizens. Some were on the ground searching the area, and some were in the air. Joker couldn't move freely, so at some point he simply hid. The police got a break when the boat owner went out to get some fresh air. Luck played a part in this, as it does sometimes in other incidents. And now, Joker is in custody.
What I am waiting to see is a good diagram depicting where they picked up his trail, and where he was finally located.
The police got a break when the boat owner went out to get some fresh air.
Wong yet again. The homeowner was forced to stay in and it would have been over early AM if people had been free to move about and inspect their property. Instead they shut down a city and violated everyone's 4th amendment rights (i.e. confiscated weapons). They were hot in hot pursuit but lost the suspect in an area.
What I am waiting to see is a good diagram depicting where they picked up his trail, and where he was finally located.
From http://www.wcvb.com/news/local/metro/Watertown-homeowner-discovers-bombing-suspect-in-backyard-boat/-/11971628/19830042/-/gyw2ql/-/index.html "The boat is located about 3,000 feet from where a police chase with Tsarnaev and his 26-year-old brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, ended late Thursday night."
From a tactical standpoint a perimeter search of all vehicles makes much more sense. The suspect as driver would be dead meat. Suspect holding a driver hostage would probably result in the death of the hostage. But it is almost certain that a suspect defending a house with hostages and bombs would succeed in killing the hostages and probably wound or kill police doing that kind of search.
>>With respects to Mr. Deninnger, what could the police have done differently to catch Joker?
They should have been on a watch list and been visited to get checked on within a day of the bombing. Given the older brother’s history, this is not unreasonable.
Just to add to the list of FBI/DHS/local LEO FAIL.
What the heck happened to the other thread (the one where a couple posters thought that house-to-house searches were ok?)
Freepers! Please stay calm and stay in your assigned threads. The administrators are searching each thread and will eradicate any mistakes.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.