Category Archives: crime news

crime news

Hoping to get the call for jury duty

I am not a weirdo. Really. I’m not. I do, though, want to fulfill a civic duty that always seems to escape me.

I want to serve on a trial jury.

My wife and I moved from Randall County to Collin County in Texas a little more than a year ago. We registered to vote almost immediately. We have renewed our motor vehicle tags in Collin County. The folks at the county clerk’s office know we’re residents of this county; so do those at the district clerk’s office as well as the tax collector-assessor’s office.

It’s just that whenever I have gotten the call during all those years — 23 of them, in fact — that we lived in Randall County, I always was told “don’t bother to report.” I’d get my summons. I would call the preceding day after 5 p.m., per the instruction on the summons. Then I would get told that the cases all had settled and that “all jurors” were excused.

Damn, man!

I once served on a grand jury in Randall County. The district attorney, James Farren, told us that service on the grand jury likely would disqualify us from any trial jury, given that grand juries serve under the direction of the state. The grand jury receives criminal complaints from the DA’s office and then decides whether to indict someone for the crime listed on the complaint. That was a marvelous experience.

Still, now that I’ve moved away I am hopeful that the court system in Collin County — whether it’s a district court, a county court at law or a justice of the peace — would see fit to summon me to report for jury duty.

I’ve always wanted to sit on a trial jury. Does my grand jury experience taint me forever as a “pro-cop” kinda guy? No. It does not.

Hey, I’m retired now. I’ve got nothing but time on my hands. I don’t work for a living, although we have plenty to do around our house. It can wait, though, while I would serve on a trial jury.

Too many people look for ways to evade/avoid/skip jury duty. Not me. I want to serve. Come and get me. I’m all yours.

crime news, national news

The conspiracy theories have started … already!

Jeffrey Epstein’s corpse likely isn’t even all that cold just yet and already social media are crackling with conspiracy notions of how he died, why he died, who made it happen … along with all manner of nefarious motives.

Epstein was the accused human trafficker who peddled underage girls reportedly as sex slaves. He was pals with people in high places, most notably Donald J. Trump and William J. Clinton, the current and former president of the United States of America.

What is admittedly bizarre about Epstein’s death is the manner he supposedly was taken off suicide watch. He reportedly tried to hang himself in the Manhattan jail where he was being held. Corrections officers found him unconscious; he had marks on his neck suggesting he tried to string himself up. The jail put slapped a suicide watch on him. Then they supposedly lifted it.

That begs the question: Why do you remove the suicide watch on an inmate you believe tried to kill himself in your custody?

My maximum distaste for conspiracy theories has nothing to do with what we need to know in this moment. Yes, I want answers. I want to know how this a**hole was able to hang himself in the presence of corrections official who were tasked with keeping this high-profile suspect alive long enough for his case to be determined.

I want those answers delivered in a timely fashion. It would seem to be within easy grasp of those in charge of the Manhattan jail that was housing Epstein.

What I don’t want to hear are those crackpots out here way beyond the perimeter who think they know what happen and will concoct any harebrained scenario they can think of just to keep the pot stirred. I detest, for instance, those theorists who think they know what happened to JFK in Dallas in November 1963.

I will agree wholeheartedly that there are a lot of questions to be answered. The presence of a president and a former president in this guy’s sphere of friends and acquaintances makes this case extraordinary on its face. There likely were a lot of high-powered individuals with a lot to lose were this guy to go to trial.

Let’s find out what happened to this dude.

crime news

How in the world did this guy ‘off’ himself?

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Well now. Allow me to offer this initial reaction to news that an accused sex trafficker killed himself in a New York jail cell.

W. T. F.

This isn’t your run-of-the-mill pervert who hanged himself. He was worth many millions of dollars. He claimed to be friends with at least two highly visible politicians: Bill Clinton and Donald Trump.

Jeffrey Epstein had been convicted already of sex crimes in Florida. He stood accused of running a sex trafficking ring involving underage girls. He was a bad dude, man.

But here’s where this story breaks down for me. He was on suicide watch. Authorities found him July 23 lying in his cell; he was unresponsive; he reportedly had what looked like robe burns on his neck. The revived him and slapped the suicide watch on him.

Now, I am no expert on how you handle these matters, but I have just a hint of experience at it.

For six months after I left daily journalism in 2012, I worked part-time as a juvenile supervision officer at the Randall County Youth Center of the High Plains. The facility incarcerates youngsters accused of various crimes. Some of them need special attention. Those with suicidal tendencies, for instance, need real special attention.

When a kid was deemed a threat to himself or herself, the YCHP would require security officers — such as me — to keep eyes on the kid at all times. We had to check on them constantly. The lights were never turned off in their cell. They couldn’t do anything within the confines of the room without someone watching them.

My question is this: How did Jeffrey Epstein hang himself while under the supposedly keen eyes of security officials who were supposed to prevent such a thing from occurring?

Obviously, there won’t be a trial. Epstein has taken whatever secrets he had with him to somewhere in the great beyond.

I am not mourning this guy’s death. However, I would like an explanation from the lockup hierarchy on how this monster managed to off himself in plain sight.

Anyone?

crime news, national news

Speak to us, Mr. President, about violence against Latinos

Mr. President, your silence is giving me a headache.

The gunman who opened fire on Latinos at the Wal-Mart in El Paso, Texas, allegedly had declared his intention to “kill as many Mexicans as possible.” He allegedly was motivated by your own rhetoric that many of us have deemed to be hateful toward people of Latin American descent.

So the gunman took matters into his own hands, allegedly.

Why haven’t you spoken out? Why have you declined to categorically declare that you — the president of the United States — will not tolerate hateful actions against Latinos.

Yes, I saw your speech at the White House the other day. I heard you declare that the nation must fight against intolerance and hate. The nation, Mr. President? Yes, that’s right.

What about you, sir? What is going to be your role in that fight? Are you going to lead that fight? Will you speak directly and personally to the pain you are feeling — if you’re feeling it — in the wake of this monstrous act of hate?

Your visit to El Paso and earlier to Dayton, the other community that mourns the deaths of those at the hands of another lunatic gunman, didn’t go well. You must know what we’re saying about all of that out here.

What are you going to do to repair the grievous damage that has been? I am not going to lay the direct blame at your feet for the deaths of those folks. I do believe your rhetoric has played a role.

It now falls on you, Mr. President, to speak directly to what has occurred … and why.

I am prepared to wait for as long as it takes. That, of course, depends on whether the silence-induced headache gets the better of me.

crime news

POTUS faces lose-lose encounter

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Donald J. Trump is set to plunge into a place where he is likely to get bloodied — politically speaking. He intends to venture to El Paso, Texas, in the next day or so.

He will presumably speak to folks who were affected by the mass slaughter of 22 people at the Wal-Mart shopping center over the weekend.

The president is being told he isn’t welcome. Why? Because many Americans — including myself — blame Trump’s fiery, divisive rhetoric for spawning the shooter to massacre Latinos gathered at the store for some last-minute, back-to-school shopping.

Should he go? I believe he should. It’s a critical part of the job he agreed to do when he got elected president of the United States. Is this president good at lending comfort? Is he adept at saying just the right thing, in just the right tone, to just the right audience in its time of intense grief? No. He isn’t.

Will he step up and acknowledge the role his rhetoric has played in the tragedy that exploded in El Paso? I doubt it seriously.

I am left to wonder: Has there ever been a recent U.S. president who has felt the scorn of stricken communities the way this one is feeling it now in the wake of the El Paso tragedy?

Did Bill Clinton feel it when he went to Oklahoma City in 1995 after the bomber blew up the Murrah Federal Building? Did George W. Bush feel it when he ventured multiple times to the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina in 2005? Did such recrimination fall on Barack Obama when he went to Charleston, S.C., after the madman opened fire in that church, or when he went to Newtown, Conn., after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre that killed all those precious children and their teachers? No, no and no!

This visit, and the trip he plans to take to Dayton, Ohio — another city stricken by gun violence during the same weekend— likely won’t go well.

All I can say is: Suck it up, Mr. President.

crime news

Video games, Lt. Gov. Patrick? They’re to blame?

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said the following, among other things, on “Fox & Friends”: “We’ve always had guns, always had evil, but I see a video game industry that teaches young people to kill.”

He cited other causes as well, as did Donald Trump, the president of the United States.

Patrick, quite expectedly, didn’t attribute any of the hatred that erupted in El Paso over the weekend to the rhetoric that has come from the mouth of POTUS. Oh, no! Nothing there.

This is where Republicans’ defense of the president breaks down. Donald Trump does not own any responsibility for the way he talks about Hispanics, about African-Americans, about any people “of color.” Nor do many of those who support him.

Lt. Gov. Patrick has held up video games that teach young people “to kill” as a primary cause of what transpired in El Paso. To be fair, Patrick does call the massacre a “hate crime.”

Fine, so far. Why not take the next logical step, though, by identifying the catalyst that lit the spark of that hate and resulted in the slaughter of those innocent victims?

crime news

Should the POTUS visit El Paso?

Donald J. Trump is set to fly to El Paso, Texas, later this week in the wake of the massacre of 22 victims at the Wal-Mart shopping center.

The alleged shooter reportedly hates Mexican immigrants. He was prodded to act reportedly by rhetoric uttered by — that’s right — the very same Donald J. Trump.

Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke said today that the president should stay away. So has O’Rourke’s successor in the U.S. House district he represented for six years in Washington, Veronica Escobar, another Democrat. They both say the president isn’t welcome in their city.

“He’s helped to create what we saw in El Paso on Saturday,” O’Rourke told the El Paso Times. “He’s helped to produce the suffering that we are experiencing right now. This community needs to heal.”

Oh, boy. I happen to believe the president should go to El Paso; he also plans to visit Dayton, Ohio, which erupted in gun violence hours after El Paso suffered its grievous wounds. And, yes, he faces the prospect of getting an unfriendly welcome from angry El Paso residents.

Donald Trump is facing the most serious quandary perhaps of his presidency. What in the world does he say when he visits with victims? Is he capable of holding himself accountable for the actions of a lunatic who drove 660-plus miles from the Metroplex to inflict such damage?

If lightning strikes and hell freezes over, perhaps there’s a chance he’ll do what he needs to do, which is take responsibility for fueling the anger that erupted at the Wal-Mart in El Paso.

I am not going to bet the farm on it.

crime news

Astonishing lethality in Dayton massacre!

If it’s true — and I believe it is — that Dayton, Ohio, police officers shot a gunman to death just 30 seconds after the first shots rang out in the city’s entertainment district, then we need to ponder a serious question.

How in the world did the shooter act with such lethal efficiency to kill nine people and injure many others in such a short amount of time?

More to the point, what kind of firepower was this moron packing before the cops “neutralized” in a hail of gunfire?

We’re talking about two horrific massacres in the span of hours this past weekend. A Wal-Mart shopping center in El Paso, Texas, was the scene of the slaughter of 22 people. Then came the Dayton tragedy later that evening.

The police were able to respond rapidly to the Dayton tragedy. They deserve the highest praise imaginable for acting as quickly and decisively as they did, gunning down a shooter who was dressed in body armor.

But still …

He was able to kill all those people in a mere blink of time!

To think, therefore, that many within the gun lobby resist efforts to legislate restrictions on the purchase and ownership of such weapons of mass destruction. What’s more, our political leaders knuckle under to their demands to keep their hands off inadequate existing laws.

Wow!

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Here’s what POTUS could have added about massacres

Donald Trump today laid the blame on the mass shootings at the feet of several institutions and cultural trends.

He blamed the Internet for promoting violence, the media for their “fake news” reporting, a lack of mental health awareness and care, the preponderance of violence-ridden video games.

I’ll accept that most of those causes as valid areas of concern; the media, though, have been singled out only because of the president’s hatred and mistrust of them.

What he didn’t do was take any personal responsibility for the coarseness of the political dialogue. Therefore, if I were writing his remarks, I would have added something like this:

Finally, and most significantly, I want to call attention to the coarse rhetoric that has infected our political discourse. I also want to express my personal regret for contributing to it.

Yes, I declared my presidential candidacy in 2015 with a direct assault on Latin American immigrants who were — and still are — crossing our border illegally. However, I went too far in ascribing criminal intent to too many of them. For that I apologize.

Furthermore, from this day forward I am going to dial back my own hard-bitten rhetoric. I will pledge to work openly toward developing a more civil political climate. 

My regret runs deep and I am sorry for whatever I have done to inflame the deeply held passions to which I have referred already in the wake of the El Paso and Dayton massacres.

Why didn’t he say that? It’s simple. Donald Trump does not possess the gene that allows him to express regret for any mistake he commits. So he shrouds institutions and people all around him with blame and responsibility for matters that he –as the president of the United States — has the power to control all by himself.

He once said that “I, alone” can fix what ails the country. He ought to say that “I, alone” will demand an end to the hate-filled rhetoric that has poisoned our political atmosphere.

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2nd Amendment serves as barrier to ‘slippery slope’

Now that we’re talking once again openly and relatively urgently — once again! — about gun control legislation, I want to offer an argument that I believe doesn’t get as much attention as it should.

Nearly 30 people are dead after massacres in El Paso and Dayton. Donald Trump has called for “urgent action” to stem gun violence. The nation once again is horrified at the actions of two individuals motivated apparently by vastly different reasons, but whose actions have brought untold misery and heartache to us all.

I believe in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I have read it zillions of times. Although I believe it is worded awkwardly and can be interpreted in any number of ways, it does say that the right to bear arms is guaranteed to all U.S. citizens.

Does that constitutional guarantee act as a barrier against what some might call a “slippery slope” argument opposing efforts to “register” firearms owners? I believe it does.

I’ve heard a bit of social media chatter about how gun registration necessarily leads to “confiscation” of firearms. I want to shoot that argument down — pun very much intended.

The Second Amendment’s language, in my view, prohibits confiscation. Thus, to allow the government to confiscate firearms would require repealing or amending the Second Amendment. Does anyone with half a brain believe that is going to happen, even in the wake of this deadly back-to-back outburst over the weekend? Of course they do not.

Therefore, I maintain my belief that there are legislative remedies available to help stem this epidemic of gun violence. Universal background checks is a start. There might be a registration component to consider as well.

As for the “slippery slope,” the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment acts as an impenetrable barrier to prevent us from sliding too far down that slope. It doesn’t preclude wise men and women in government from doing what they can to legislate a cure for the scourge that is killing too many innocent people.