Comments on Police Guild Goes After The Stranger and Our "Ilk."

don't be surprised if they arrest you as suspected taggers.

yeah, all cops should be presumed guilty !

That's fair becausethey're ....um....cops. You know wehpi people don't lik cops. Yeah. So, um, let's assume they are al guilty.

And that barista who took money from her employer....or was said tohave done so....yeah that's fair too, if anyone says you did something bad, you are guilty!

Let's carry this further....if anyone says you might do something against me....off with your head!

I feel sorry for you - you must be up all night Googling yourself. It would be interesting to add up the number of Slog entries you've posted that draw mention to articles you've written (present and in high school). You poor, insecure thing. Hittin' 40, huh?

Josh, please forgive me, but is there a shorter way of saying all this? I'm brain is hurting from the double-reverse backflip of all of this and I'm getting confused.

I know you don't work for USA Today, but I'm having difficulty wrapping my brain around all of this.

The guild seems to be saying, that they, like an A -4.0- student, all the way down to a D -1.0- student, all get to graduate since they are all passing students. An F -0.0- student, does not pass therefore they do not graduate.

True to reality that is. But there is a difference between an A and a D. This difference is often lost on D students, but A students know its state full and well.

Furthering in the Guilds logic of the D student: there should be no difference between the benefits a passing student receives, regardless of the grade. All passing students should be able to enroll in Harvard, not only A students. A D student can object to not getting into Harvard, but the protesting doesn't change the fact that only the most superior of students, the A students, get to enroll in Harvard.

Josh has a point true to reality, which is getting a D must have consqeuences. maybe more homework, more studying, or eventually, not getting into Harvard.

Personally, though, aren't newsletter supposed to be, well, drab and dull, or at least not a forum to attack with insults. In theory, Josh as a reporter, is at least fair game since he put it out into the public arena.

It's the use of "Sheeple", an insult, pisses me off. I am very insulted that the Police Union, in their official Union/Guild newsletter, refer to Seattle citizens who think police being accountable, are "Sheeple".

"if a law enforcement officer pronounced a Seattleite guilty at the time of arrest, and called for their imprisonment?"

Newsflash, that IS how the police operate! The police in this country very frequently over react with an attitude of 'the lawyers will sort it out later'. This has lead to cities having huge slush funds (10 million per annum for LA) to deal with the inevitable righteous lawsuits that follow such actions by the police. Unfortunately it is now status quo and just seen as the cost of doing business rather than the police actually treating people like human beings instead of 'sheeple'.

They don't work for us, they protect the property of the wealthy and are a law unto themselves.

the "...we write a ticket anyway and impound their hybrid?" quote is cute. I have to note the specificity- that's a lot of axe to grind.

It's not like we're talking about a one-off incident. The cops in question have a history of shady behavior (or am I confusing them with a different set of semi-corrupt cops?).

I know policemen & women have (one of) the toughest jobs there is and I'm all for giving them the benefit of the doubt but don't piss in my bucket and tell me it's raining. 90% of the time smoke means a fire is burning and the SPD has a history of ignoring smoke.

Also, kind of sounds like a long winded defensive "just trust us, damn it!" After the last 6+ years of government run amuck that kind of statement makes me nervous. I, as a citizen, deserve to be able to trust the people who I pay to protect me.

Josh can you tell us what these five levels are ? Very hard to evaluate any of this without this knowledge.

1) Is Ron Smith's handle "RonK" when posting on slog?

2) Ron Smith is right. Olson did not recommend discipline. Her criticism of the OPA's finding in the Patterson case was minor. She might not have exonerated Neubert and Tietjen of lying, but she did exactly what the Mayor asked her to. She recommended no new discipline, she exonerated the Chief for meddling, and she attacked the credibility of the OPA Review Board.

3) All of this ignores the fact that there was enough evidence to prove that Neubert and Tietjen lied. Olson was just too cowed by her superiors to say so. That, Josh, is the real story.

Cops have vaguely-written "obstruction" statutes to take care of that large shade of gray between innocence and guilt.

I, too, am troubled by the "Sheeple" comment.

Does this represent the view of the Guild toward the City and citizens that employ them?

Josh, looks like you're doing something right if you're pissing off the Guild.

Not to kick the shit out of this maggoty carcass, but there's good reason that Neubert and Tietjen were on the KC prosecutor's watch list. They're a couple of cowboys -- especially Neubert -- and everyone including command knows it. They like busting people, but don't like doing boring stuff like conducting legal Terry stops, filling out usable reports, or testifying at trial. Buy a couple of drinks for some KC DPAs, Josh -- everyone who's rotated through the drug unit has at least one story of a case that was screwed 'cause of one of these jokers.

I do want to make it clear that they've made a lot of good arrests and, undoubtedly, taken some bad, bad folks off the street. But so have many other cops without being lazy and without chipping away at the system.

And, oh yeah...poor wheelchair-bound Mr. Patterson is not your average innocent victim. He's a piece-of-crap known scumbag who most certainly was dealing on that corner sometime that night as he did (and does) many nights. Does that mean that Neubert and Tietjen's stop was good? Who knows, but probably not. Does that mean that we should feel sorry for Patterson? Hell no. We should feel sorry for *all* the rest of us who are at risk when those in power are too lazy to follow the rules.

I just can't get over the intense, vicious irony of the Guild wanting to protect the "due process rights" of Neubert and Tietjen as they skull-fuck the due process rights of all the rest of us. They're making it hard to be a union man...

The letter grade analogy doesn't quite seem apt to me. I mean, the A students presumably aren't going to be in trouble in the first place. This sort of seems more like ranking the kids in detention from best to worst.

Also, "sheeple"...seriously, fuck tha police...

It's simple. Josh has constructed a cockamamie interpretation of the several possible outcomes of a complaint, he'll fight to the bitter end against anyone who tries to straighten him out, and he keeps wondering why nobody that matters sees it his way.

"Exonerated" means "you did it" ... and secondarily that it's OK (for any of various reasons).

"Not sustained" is more agnostic: "we don't know, and can't determine whether you did it or not".

You can make tendentious cases for "exonerated" being better or worse than "unfounded" or "not sustained". It's somewhere from an A to a C+, depending how hard you want to bend language and logic.

But there's just no way you can make it a D, except by sheer faith.

And there's no way that faith will command a significant following.

Josh, have you asked Olson about this? Or even Holmes? Any buy-in, anywhere?

Josh,
Christ. Do you know anything about anything?

This sentence is so full of poop:

"Likewise in my job: If I publish something as a statement of fact and someone challenges it and I can’t prove its veracity, I could get my ass sued (successfully) for libel."

First of all, your a self described "advocacy" journalist, so you free yourself from convention bounds of ethics, fairness, accuracy, etc.

Second, you don't give a shit about accuracy. You have a point of view -- or at least impulses, and you go with them.

Third, if you spent a little time with libel law, you'd learn about public figures and reckless disregard for the truth and facts, etc.

You don't have to prove the truthfulness of anything to be sued successfully. There are many more layers of defense.

But the larger point is your implication that you hold some high standard because that's your job.

Josh, you're no Walter Cronkhite. You're a worm who works as a "reporter."