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Kerry Howley busts a rhetorical cap on curfew injunctions targeting suspected gang members.
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|8.2.05 @ 5:19PM|#
.. this is one of the more disturbing articles I've read in a bit .. the Kalifornia High Court out-trumps the US Constitution?? (I'm thinking at least the First and Fourteenth Amendments)
.. Hobbit
|8.2.05 @ 5:22PM|#
Can one Bust a Cap on something? I'm not sure. It seems to me that in standard use, the cap winds up in stuff. You know, asses and the like.
Warren|8.2.05 @ 5:23PM|#
Local papers and Web logs are rife with accounts of men who must now stay indoors after 10 p.m. because they wore the wrong colors, sport the wrong tattoos or were photographed in the wrong company years ago. Some 95 people have been served with the injunction, which theoretically lasts forever. Many reportedly live in the confines of the safety zone. For as long as they stay in Broderick, they're under lifetime house arrest past 10 p.m.
Please explain to me how this doesn't violate their sixth amendment rights.
|8.2.05 @ 5:33PM|#
This whole concept makes no sense. This gem left me particularly puzzled:
"Police Chief Drummond says the tactic has been more than modestly effective in West Sacramento. Violent crime, he says, has dropped 26 percent in the past five and a half months. To community members worried about civil liberties, he points out that only 12 people have actually been arrested for violating the injunction alone."
So those 12 people were behind 26 percent of the crime? Not likely... do they really think the criminals (if you want to call association with a gang a criminal act on its own) care about some curfew? Hell law abiding teens in my community cant abide by a curfew, what makes them think that a kid bent on crime gives a damn. "yo, I would totally rob that store wit' ya bro, but I gotz to be home at 10, how about we change the time?"
Kalifornia gets stranger by the day.
|8.2.05 @ 5:37PM|#
First, Fifth, and Sixth by my count, Warren. All in the name of crime prevention. You know, at some point, someone will extend the logic far enough out to realize that if everyone was required to obey a curfew, crimes could be drastically cut.
|8.2.05 @ 5:42PM|#
Does anyone have access to the California Supreme court decision which permitted this abomination?
|8.2.05 @ 5:42PM|#
I thought the phrase was "pop a cap."
|8.2.05 @ 5:43PM|#
"Please explain to me how this doesn't violate their sixth amendment rights."
Warren, why do you hate America?
|8.2.05 @ 5:45PM|#
"Does anyone have access to the California Supreme court decision which permitted this abomination?"
There was a link provided in the article, but here it is again:
http://home.comcast.net/~jasonanderson102/acuna.htm
|8.2.05 @ 5:53PM|#
On a related topic I read today that the Dpt. Homeland Security has arrested 500 'gang members' over the weekend.
What is particularly disturbing to me is:
Gangs are a local problem, not a federal problem, local law enforcements job is to deal with crimes commited by gangs. Now im not saying that these 'gang members' were saints, im sure they have commited crimes, but thats where local law enforcement comes in, they are the ones that solve crimes and arrest the suspect and then let justice run it course.
If we have Dpt. Homeland security just rounding up 'gang members' because they MIGHT be involved in a crime, or MIGHT commit a crime what next?
|8.2.05 @ 6:19PM|#
From the decision:
----------
Rocksprings is an urban war zone. The four-square-block neighborhood, claimed as the turf of a gang variously known as Varrio Sureo Town, Varrio Sureo Treces (VST), or Varrio Sureo Locos (VSL), is an occupied territory. Gang members, all of whom live elsewhere, congregate on lawns, on sidewalks, and in front of apartment complexes at all hours of the day and night. They display a casual contempt for notions of law, order, and decency-openly drinking, smoking dope, sniffing toluene, and even snorting cocaine laid out in neat lines on the hoods of residents' cars. The people who live in Rocksprings are subjected to loud talk, loud music, vulgarity, profanity, brutality, fistfights and the sound of gunfire echoing in the streets. Gang members take over sidewalks, driveways, carports, apartment parking areas, and impede traffic on the public thoroughfares to conduct their drive-up drug bazaar. Murder, attempted murder, drive-by shootings, assault and battery, vandalism, arson, and theft are commonplace. The community has become a staging area for gang-related violence and a dumping ground for the weapons and instrumentalities of crime once the deed is done. Area residents have had their garages used as urinals; their homes commandeered as escape routes; their walls, fences, garage doors, sidewalks, and even their vehicles turned into a sullen canvas of gang graffiti.
The people of this community are prisoners in their own homes. Violence and the threat of violence are constant. Residents remain indoors, especially at night. They do not allow their children to play outside. Strangers wearing the wrong color clothing are at risk. Relatives and friends refuse to visit. The laundry rooms, the trash dumpsters, the residents' vehicles, and their parking spaces are used to deal and stash drugs. Verbal harassment, physical intimidation, threats of retaliation, and retaliation are the likely fate of anyone who complains of the gang's illegal activities or tells police where drugs may be hidden.
----------
What an incredible indictment of our current drug laws! The police are absolutely powerless to stop open-air drug-dealing, extortion, intimidation and a host of other public nuisances.
And the response? Curfew everyone who looks like a gang member.
Fucking pathetic.
Larry A|8.2.05 @ 6:31PM|#
Can one Bust a Cap on something? I'm not sure. It seems to me that in standard use, the cap winds up in stuff.
Well, no. A cartridge consists of a bullet (the part that "winds up in stuff"), the case (which holds everything together and seals the chamber against high-pressure gas), the smokeless powder (which burns to provide the high-pressure gas), and the primer "cap" (which when struck by the firing pin ignites the smokeless powder).
Thus, whether you "bust" or "pop" a cap on someone, it still means shooting at him. But the cap stays in the base of the cartridge case.
Warren|8.2.05 @ 8:14PM|#
Warren, why do you hate America?
It's very much like my attitude toward my fellow man: I love the human race, but I can't stand the goddamned people.
|8.2.05 @ 9:29PM|#
Government spends how much blowing self-esteem smoke up our children's asses? Same government spends how much informing our children they're gangsters?
Sounds similar to tobacco price supports, eh? Especially the part about the smoke.
|8.2.05 @ 9:37PM|#
Here's the answer to why "bust a cap":
Julian couldn't think of the word, "gasket."
|8.2.05 @ 10:29PM|#
the final dissent gets it right:
"No doubt Montesquieu, Locke, and Madison will turn over in their graves when they learn they are cited in an opinion that does not enhance liberty but deprives a number of simple rights to a group of Latino youths who have not been convicted of a crime. Mindful of the admonition of another great 18th century political philosopher, Benjamin Franklin, that "[t]hey that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety," I would, unlike the majority, in large part affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeal.
The majority would permit our cities to close off entire neighborhoods to Latino youths who have done nothing more than dress in blue or black clothing or associate with others who do so; they would authorize criminal penalties for ordinary, nondisruptive acts of walking or driving through a residential neighborhood with a relative or friend. In my view, such a blunderbuss approach amounts to both bad law and bad policy. Justice Black warned in Jay v. Boyd (1956) 345, 367 [919, 931, 100 L.Ed. 1242]: "Unfortunately there are some who think that the way to save freedom in this country is to adopt the techniques of tyranny." The majority here appear to embrace that misguided belief. Accordingly, I dissent."
|8.2.05 @ 11:16PM|#
Gangs are a local problem, not a federal problem, local law enforcements job is to deal with crimes commited by gangs
Nope. As in Wickard, local thuggery invariably affects all thuggery, in other locales and interstate, therefore gangs are federal problem. "Lifestyle Membership Clubs" provide a service in exchange for a consideration, and are Commerce, subject to regulation by USA.
|8.3.05 @ 12:51AM|#
Ruthless wrote: "Here's the answer to why 'bust a cap': Julian couldn't think of the word, 'gasket.'"
Wait, don't you "blow" a gasket rather than "bust" a gasket?
|8.3.05 @ 4:40AM|#
For what it's worth, having lived there for 6 months and in the vicinity for the better part of a decade...
West Sacramento, aside from a strip of liquor stores, XXX motels and the like just across the Tower Bridge from Sac, is a very tame town. In no way is it dominated by gangs. Broderick is in a nice part of town, but, yes, as you might expect, it has lots of brown skin. I'm sure the pot and meth are ubiquitous, but so fucking what? Like most places, people in the area have been dealing very well with a manageable amount of petty property crime. As best as I can read it, these law enforcement orgs are just drooling over the possibility of escalating a stable community into the kind of war zone that characterizes parts of the L.A. area. It's truly sickening.
|8.3.05 @ 10:42AM|#
Jack,
Okay, how about "bust a gusset"?
The Wine Commonsewer|8.3.05 @ 12:30PM|#
I've heard my grandparents talk about "busting a gasket" in the context of laughing really hard. In my past life of crappy cars it was usually "blowing a gasket" as in "head gasket" which means lots of expensive repairs, even if you did it yourself.
|8.3.05 @ 12:32PM|#
I have little to add, other than to register my disgust and outrage at this, and to wonder just how it is that my NYC hasn't tried this yet.
|8.3.05 @ 12:44PM|#
what would they do? erect fences around east new york, brownsville, south ozone park, etc?
oh shit, i hope they don't start reading hit and run. gotta be careful about giving them new ideas.
|8.3.05 @ 2:21PM|#
No offense, Commonsewer, but, with your name, one might assume your cars still might not be mint, if you get my drift.
You should see my Geo Metro "Stickermobile" BTW.
|8.3.05 @ 6:02PM|#
dhex,
Given that the "gang" look is more or less ubiquitous in NYC, I can't see how something like this would ever fly here. At least I hope not.