SWAT Team + Hooters Girls + White Supremacist + Katrina Humanitarian Mission = Best Local News Story Ever

I really can't write a summary that does all of this justice. Just head on over and click around.

Comments

[J sub D]

Speechless.

[Kwix]

Aahhh, "Police Professionalism". Now it makes sense.

[VM]

It seems that this site's time has finally, ahem, come.

h/t: you-know-who

[iih]

No offense, Balko, but here is a Fox-related (but not affiliated) site that gives a perspective on why we see more of that stuff on Fox but not CNN or msnbc. This came to me attention just today: foxnewsporn.com (not hardcore).

[Episiarch]

This is...utterly unsurprising. Why would anyone become a cop? It's not for the pay, or the ease of the job. It's for power. And since chicks tend to like power, and some like guys in uniform, that's another bonus.

And whose fucking idea is it to put pantyhose on short-shorts wearing girls? The little bit of cellulite you might hide is completely offset by the utter cheap shittiness of it. It's not like the girls are fat.

[dcpotts]

Best local news story ever. Too bad it's on the worst local tv website ever. You'd think they'd have at least a few bucks to buy a cheap template or something.

[Captain Chaos (now in thrall t]

I'm not sure which is more offenive-the cop's actions or the "news" coverage of it. Man, I'm glad I got out of journalism.

[Mo]

The best part: his defense that the Hooters stuff is legal because they were in Alabama, where you're allowed to display guns in public. Nothing about misusing city resources, or doing shots on paid time. I wonder how often that excuse will work, "I was in Alabama! There aren't any f'ing ;laws here."

[Eryk Boston]

The hooters photos are the least damning of the allegations in the story but the only reason this story was actually reported.

Racist abuse? Misallocation of police resources? Rampant corruption in an elite unit? Yawn.
Hooters girls with guns? Stop the presses!

[Episiarch]

Hooters girls with guns? Stop the presses!

I appreciate your outrage, but this is so fucking obvious it didn't seem to require mention.

If it takes some tits to get police corruption on the radar, what's the down side?

[Chris Terry]

Former Alabama resident and gun owner here. It is indeed legal to carry firearms publicly, but it is not legal to do so in an establishment that serves alchohol.

[Abdul]

Look at the bright side--that shotgun in a waitress' hands means it can't be pointed at a grandmother who lives at an address some coerced informant coughed up to get 2 months knocked off his probation.

I say Kudos to girl-loving SWAT teams too busy to serve warrants on jay-walkers and tax dodgers.

[JW]

For some odd reason, I suddenly have the urge to go and become a cop.

[bama]

Roll Tide

[Bingo]

Episiarch: The downside is that it gives nanny-staters reasons to ban guns and boobs. The abusive cops are fine but the guns and boobs have got to go.

[Jozef]

The best part: his defense that the Hooters stuff is legal because they were in Alabama, where you're allowed to display guns in public.

I was more concerned about what he said next: That the guns were privately owned. I didn't know you can buy and carry such big fucking guns (TM) in the US. I also didn't know that people who own said guns and travel with them around the country have been declared mentally fit to be SWAT officers.

[smacky]

This story needs to be submitted to hotchickswithdouchebags.com, a.k.a. douchebags and more douchebags.

[drawnasunder]

My favorite is the image of the logo on their swat van - a death commando skeleton with drawn guns.

[Grignr the Ecordian]

War Eagle!

[mantooth]

Apparently no fitness requirements to be on the team.

[grizzly]

Former Alabama resident and gun owner here. It is indeed legal to carry firearms publicly, but it is not legal to do so in an establishment that serves alchohol.

Slight correction. As a current AL resident, it is indeed legal to carry a concealed weapon in public with the proper permits, but it's not legal to open carry.

P.S. AL also has some of the most stingent transport laws. They basically have to be unloaded and locked in a separete compartment (trunk)from any driver or passenger. I wonder if this SWAT team followed all these laws while they were passing through.

[Episiarch]

I was more concerned about what he said next: That the guns were privately owned. I didn't know you can buy and carry such big fucking guns (TM) in the US. I also didn't know that people who own said guns and travel with them around the country have been declared mentally fit to be SWAT officers.

Uh, Jozef, I believe you are a foreigner, right? It is perfectly legal to have those guns privately owned. What are you freaking out about, the 12-guage with the light hardware that looked really big because it was held by 5'2" girl and was shot with a wide angle lens that made it look bigger because it was in the foreground?

I've travelled through many states with a 12-guage like that (no stupid flashlight though). My mental fitness is fine.

I however did not bust out the 12-guage to impress some Hooters chicks. I usually rely on my looks and charm rather than my power over fellow citizens and gun.

[ed]

I have many a problem with SWAT teams. I just can't really stand the whole "Gotcha" aspect of (usually) men enjoying themselves and then coming up with the petty laws that we might be able to stick them. The pictures seem pretty tame to be perfectly honest.

Again, I can't stand the SWAT nation we live in and the power trip that members seem to get off on but this news just provides talking points outside of what is really wrong with SWAT teams.

What's next, catching a cop smoking a cigarette? And on company time too!!!

[Shannon Love]

I am absolutely shocked!

There are over a dozen pictures of Hooters girls holding guns and not a single of one of them has their finger on the trigger! How the hell did they manage that. I usually have to use a cattle prod to teach novice gun users to get their fingers off the triggers but these cops seemed to have accomplished it without resorting to force.

As to the rest of it: I think this just reaffirms my long standing belief that New York is the most provincial and insular part the U.S. Its hysterically funny that the people of New York have become such passive wimps that the sight of chicks with guns shocks them to the core.

Am I the only one who finds it strange that the "KKK hood" shot appears to be the only image obviously cropped. I wonder if that could be that peering through two holes in a napkin really doesn't look like a hood unless you hide the edges of the napkin?

Naw!

[Shannon Love]

Jozef,

I didn't know you can buy and carry such big fucking guns (TM) in the US.

All the guns pictured are available "off the rack" as it were at everyone of my neighborhood gun shops. Incidentally, none of the weapons shown would qualify as "big fucking guns" for anybody with testicles.

Or ovaries for that matter.

[NotThatDavid]

Am I the only one here who saw this and thought "Jesus, what the hell would have happened if one of the dozen untrained civilians holding an assault weapon for the first time fired it accidentally at the wrong moment"? Especially if the people responsible for said guns were drunk at the time? Seriously, it's not hard to see what's wrong with that picture, and it's got nothing to do with tits.

[gaijin]

I think you are being too hard on our enlisted dudes...they are just trying to blow off a little stress as they return from their deployment in a combat zone. I forgot though, which branch of the armed services is the SWAT corp?

[Pain]

I have to say the reporting was so bad, I instictively wanted to side with the cops.

Seriously, you don't have to sound breathlessly appalled every other word.

[The Wine Commonsewer]

Jesus Chrysler, I'm still LOL.

Am I the only one here who saw this and thought "Jesus, what the hell would have happened if one of the dozen untrained civilians holding an assault weapon for the first time fired it accidentally at the wrong moment"?

Probably.

Although SOP for most of us to assume any weapon is loaded and to act accordingly, it is also not very likely that any of these weapons were loaded.

[The Wine Commonsewer]

Here's a hot chick with an even BIGGER gun.

[Episiarch]

Am I the only one here who saw this and thought "Jesus, what the hell would have happened if one of the dozen untrained civilians holding an assault weapon for the first time fired it accidentally at the wrong moment"?

It didn't occur to me because, well, I am a responsible gun owner and just assumed that at the very least they must be unloaded.

But then you reminded me that we're talking about cops, who will arrest you without blinking for doing something (possibly) irresponsible with a gun that they do all the time.

I was associated with NYPD cops (not my choice, long story) when I lived in NYC, and some of the stories they told made me boil with rage, like a (very high up) cop getting angry (he was already buzzed) while arguing with another (high up) cop and shooting his fucking gun into the ceiling in the police station. Of course, nothing happened to him.

[The Wine Commonsewer]

Shannon, like Pain, I hate siding with cops.

And yes, I think you are exactly right, the napkin shot was cropped to make it dovetail with the white supremacista news story angle.

To be sure, the Looie is probably a scum sucker, espc if he's using the cops for manual labor around the house, so let's nail him for that.

You're also right to note that in a state where Hiro Nakayama would be arrested for trotting cross town with his samurai sword, chicks with guns has got to play well on local TV.

But, it is a great story and I'm still LOL.

[Mo]

Is it normal police procedure to let their officers use their own private weapons as part of their official business? That seems pretty shady to me. Methinks he's lying to the TV station.

And Shannon, it's not the chicks with guns, it the abuse of public resources. I know you're a big fan of the police state and it gives you an excuse to bash New Yorkers, but the fact that public resources are being wasted. And the fact that local news overdramatizes pictures and takes them out of context isn't a NY thing alone.

[The Wine Commonsewer]

Epi, there was a time in my life when, for several years, I was around a lot of cops. I liked them, they were funny, but man it just gives you the creeps to know what is really going on in their brains.

[Jozef]

Episiarch: Thanks for the clarification. Despite me having been living in the deep south for three and a half years, I haven't seen a real-life gun yet. I always assumed that the biggest you can get (other than hunting rifles) are Dirty Harry - like Magnums. I didn't realize that Commando was a documentary...

[Stevo Darkly]

Is it just me, or does the SWAT lieutenant look kind of like Zach Braff as he will appear 30 years in the future?

[Episiarch]

TWC, I don't like them, don't find them funny, and yes they fucking give me the creeps.

Try talking with a NYPD detective, who carries 2 guns but practices with them one time a year. Then you tell him you are a gun owner and have a pistol permit and can carry (not in NYC, of course, just outside), and that you practice once or twice a week.

Then watch his face contort into a mask of suspicion while he snarls "you aren't carrying now, are you?" as if I would illegally carry my gun into NYC (which I would, but not when I know I'll be around fucking cops).

Then when you tell him you aren't, he relaxes and says something to the effect of "that would be dangerous because you don't know what you're doing". From a guy who practices once a year because the department forces him to.

This is just one of a number of examples, and is extra good for highlighting the "cop vs. civilians" mentality.

[The Wine Commonsewer]

Mo, most jurisdictions allow officers some discretion as to the weapons they carry. I didn't look really carefully but I wouldn't be surprised if the weapons came right out of the SWAT van. They did have the SWAT van, right?

But still, if they were in 'bama, they must have been on the way home. And while I see your point about 'on duty', being on the way home isn't the same as standing guard at a flooded warehouse in NOLA.

Wonder how many of those dorks are still married after that broadcast?

I'm still LOL.

[Episiarch]

Jozef, it's just a shotgun. That is the absolute easiest type of gun you can get in even the most restrictive parts of the country.

[The Wine Commonsewer]

Oh, forgot to say, the capital offense that deserves a hanging is that whole it's okay cuz it's legal down here where the owls screw the chickens schtick.

But that's a time honored tradition in American jurisprudence. Technicalities. Nobody gives a shit about the truth so long as all the tees are crossed, the eyes are dotted, and the attorneys get paid. Saw some of that yesterday with the Blackwell technicalities that Jacob mentioned.

[The Wine Commonsewer]

Stevo, you ARE the man. Got any wine?

[dangerman]

Compared to these, those shotguns are nothing...ahhh I Love America!

[Taktix?]

I'm not sure which is more offenive-the cop's actions or the "news" coverage of it. Man, I'm glad I got out of journalism.

One thing I've found entertaining about local news is that, whenever someone doesn't want to be identified on camera, the cameraman simply shoots their crotch.

This is universal, I've seen it everywhere...

[Frank_A]

The Wine Commonsewer | November 15, 2007, 3:03pm | #
Here's a hot chick with an even BIGGER gun.
Hells yeah!
Nothing hotter than a millitary women on a Spectre gunship about to blast something to smithereens with the "extreme prejudice" of a Vulcan Cannon...and she's got some purty grey eyes...

[Shannon Love]

Mo,

And Shannon, it's not the chicks with guns, it the abuse of public resources."

Well, unless I misunderstood the report, the guns were the private property of local police in Arkansas and that the activities in the pictures had absolutely nothing to do with allegations of corruption in New York. It appears to me, based on the report itself, that the officers just partied while they were traveling on company time which is very unusual except for everybody who isn't an actual monk sworn to a life of poverty.

What's important here is that the news reporters expect their viewers to be shocked and outraged that the police were letting civilians handle GUNS, the tools of the devil! Why guns are so fantastically dangerous that touching one drives a person permanently insane. It comical and shows the degree to which people in New York have been broken to the lash and rendered near children.

I know you're a big fan of the police state..

No, I just don't think the actual police and military are the main threat. I am far more concerned by a tax code that tracks every expense or a regulatory environment that dictates peoples choices in food, clothing, shelter, medical care and virtually every other facet of their lives they need to actually live free.

...and it gives you an excuse to bash New Yorkers,

So, incredibly guilty. Most people from New York are so damn passive it simply creeps me out. I realize that its a cultural thing and that I grew up in an environment where authority was to distant to help and wherein people had to do it themselves or die but the Northeast urban culture of standing around waiting for commands just weirds me out.

[gaijin]

No, I just don't think the actual police and military are the main threat. I am far more concerned by a tax code that tracks every expense or a regulatory environment that dictates peoples choices in food, clothing, shelter, medical care and virtually every other facet of their lives they need to actually live free.

All of which is only important if there is a state that can back it up with force.

[The Wine Commonsewer]

Epi, how do you really feel about cops? 🙂

I've had enough run-ins with the PO-leece that I am not fond of them neither.

Course your first mistake was discussing guns with a cop. 🙂

[The Wine Commonsewer]

Dangerman, need to lean into it a little more....LOL

Frank A, glad to be or service. [grins, hoists a cup of coffee, sez cheers]

[Lurker Kurt]

none of the weapons shown would qualify as "big fucking guns" for anybody with testicles.

Or ovaries for that matter.

Preach on, sister Shannon.

[The Wine Commonsewer]

Since we're on guns....

http://www.ammoday.com/

November 19th is National Ammo Day, you ought to buy some. You'll need it come the Night of the Long Knives. Just make sure you're on the right side of the barricades.

tip of the glass to Col Hogan

[R C Dean]

Is it normal police procedure to let their officers use their own private weapons as part of their official business?

Not unusual. Most departments will let you use your own gun if you don't like department issue, and at least some used to require officers to supply their own.

Methinks he's lying to the TV station.

Of course he is. If that's full auto (and its SWAT, so you know it is), then even cops can't own it privately without a Class III license, which I guarantee you they don't have.

[Mo]

The report didn't say it was private property. The cop that was accused claimed it was their own, when calling the same TV station that he didn't want to talk to in person (because he "wasn't home"). I'm guessing going across state borders to work on a relief operations, they were given department equipment.

And the fact that he's making police officers work on his own property during their paid time has nothing to do with it. Why no expose on the other half dozen officers that were at the Hooters event?

No, I just don't think the actual police and military are the main threat. I am far more concerned by a tax code that tracks every expense or a regulatory environment that dictates peoples choices in food, clothing, shelter, medical care and virtually every other facet of their lives they need to actually live free.

What planet are you on where the government determines what I where I live and what I wear? Obviously, you don't read this site if you're not concerned about police power and their abuse of it.

While I don't think that New Yorkers are passive? Heck, it's the rest of the country that was crapping their pants after 9-11 and letting the government trample over their rights. I noticed people in the South deferring to authority as well. Same goes for the Midwest and even, though less so, in the West. It's a human nature thing.

[Shannon Love]

Mo,

The report said that the guns were not the property of the New York police department. Even if they were, so what? Guns are just tools to Cops, farmers and others who use them on daily basis. If the city issued him a laptop and he poised with a hooters girl holding his laptop would it be a big issue?

I don't see the connection between the hooters incident and his abuse of his office back in New York proper.

What planet are you on where the government determines what I where I live and what I wear?

Building permits? Rent Control? Housing subsidies? Inspectors?Property taxes? Tried painting a room in a historical building? If you think you have the right to create and inhabit any shelter that you resources allow you are seriously delusional. You've also never tried to build or remodel a house. And you really, really, really never tried to develop property.

The state controls a vast swath of what you consume by controlling the people who produce it. You can't "choose" to buy what the state doesn't let others produce. You think your free to choose where to live but in reality you can only choose to live in the places the State allows to exist. The same dynamic applies to all other goods.

While I don't think that New Yorkers are passive?

Compared to say, Texans, they are very, very passive. Do you want to guess why there is no mob in Texas? You should look into the story of how BFI a Texan company broke the mobs hold on New York garbage pickup. Somehow, the people of New York tolerated these yahoos extorting and terrorizing them for decades. A bunch of Texans show up and the problem disappears.

I am particularly repulsed by the many people I meet from large urban areas of the Northeast who are actively proud and brag about the fact that they cannot and will not defend themselves or others. They consider it a badge of honor and a mark of status that they rely soley on the State to rescue them. They shudder at the thought of taking action themselves and denigrate those who do.

I think this news story largely reflective of this attitude.

[GILMORE]

know you can buy and carry such big fucking guns (TM) in the US. I also didn't know that people who own said guns and travel with them around the country have been declared mentally fit to be SWAT officers.

Uh, Jozef, I believe you are a foreigner, right? It is perfectly legal to have those guns privately owned.

Well, one of them may be debateable = there's a pic of something like a M4/SOPMOD that (unless the barrel length is 12"+ and is semi-only) wouldnt be kosher AFAIK to be pulling out at a hooters boozing party.

I dont know what the rules are regarding off-duty use of Mil/LE rated carbines, but in general, it strikes me as odd that these guys would privately own street-legal weapons that they also use on the job. Maybe they do? Who knows. Doesnt really change the incredible stupidity of the whole thing.

Hoboken, FWIW, has for decades been the mecca of douchebags. Most NYr's refer to hoboken only in the contect a derogatory remark. Like, "he probably lives in Hoboken". It used to be nothing but guidos who worked shitty sales jobs in Manhattan. I suspect this SWAT team behaves largely the same way in their own town. The 'boss' there has douche written all over him. This is sort of par for the course for that town.

[GILMORE]

Shannon Love | November 15, 2007, 2:37pm | #
I am absolutely shocked!... I think this just reaffirms my long standing belief that New York is the most provincial and insular part the U.S. Its hysterically funny that the people of New York have become such passive wimps that the sight of chicks with guns shocks them to the core....Most people from New York are so damn passive it simply creeps me out. I realize that its a cultural thing and that I grew up in an environment where authority was to distant to help and wherein people had to do it themselves or die but the Northeast urban culture of standing around waiting for commands just weirds me out

Hey Shannon? Hoboken is in NEW JERSEY

...of course, only new yorkers are 'provincial'...

And you dont know the first fucking thing about this place. You can be "shocked" by your imagination all you want. If you think people "stand around waiting for commands"... you have indeed either never been here, or spent your time amongst Tourists in times square. Get a fucking life you dumb cunt.

[GILMORE]

...and maybe just to add to my "FUCK YOU, YOU DUMB SELF IMPORTANT HICK" ranting...

this news story was brought to you by Fox, the shitty NYPost-style conservative nightly news tabloid news program whose mandate for sensationalism has little to do with what NYrs find 'shocking' or not, and everything to do with today's "lets make everything a scandal" culture. Whether this is dumber than the Iowa state legistature accusing Satan of trying to undermine the institution of marriage, i can't say, but it may be more of a difference in kind than in degree

[mantooth]

Shannon,

Save your "Northerners are passive wimps; here in the South we take care of our own" spiel. Throw that attitude around in the Bronx and tell me how passive they are. Louisiana is in the South - they stood around and waited (and waited and waited). I live in NC now and I can see the same thing happening here. I could not imagine the same happening in my home state of Maine.

[GILMORE]

correction = I double checked, and limit for street legal carbines is a 16" barrel, not 12". The one in the pics looked like 14.5" to me, but im just a civvy and havent handled one since my "6 months of ROTC" days, so who knows

[grumpy realist]

Isn't the question about the intelligence of allowing loaded (large) guns into the hands of people who don't have the training to use them? Maybe that's what this is all about.

Of course, since this is Alabama...I wouldn't be surprised if the females in question know at least as much about guns (and the safety issues) as the guys do.

Meh, chalk it up to Fox breathless news service and the frisson any red-blooded male gets watching a cute blonde chick play around with his piece.

[Tom]

I just want to know whose crap-ass market research taught these TV newscasters that dropping the predicates from sentences was the most effective way to grab viewers.

These pictures released two weeks ago. And now these pictures from a swat team trip. Inside, even more kinky."

Ugh. It's goddamned brain-numbing.

[GILMORE]

Tom | November 15, 2007, 8:20pm | #
I just want to know whose crap-ass market research taught these TV newscasters that dropping the predicates from sentences was the most effective way to grab viewers.

Tom -

this has been common practice in 'business english' (also 'miltary english'), which has leaked into News English, probably to the detriment of the quality of most news programming. The whole idea is to state facts with as few words as possible. It boils into Pidgen at times, which is very bad - i used to moan about it at a management consultancy I worked at. People couldn't express a complex idea in a coherent sentence. Emails often sounded like "mungo": 'Go do the thing. Make Good. More harder. Fun have, good product make. Require diverse attention. Penalties possible. Questions about individual objectives discouraged. Improvise with approval of legal department." All you got from it was that we probably had a new contract client and that the salespeople and executives had no idea what they'd actually agreed to do.

Increasinly people resorted to 'bulleting' everything, and let the associated argument/explaination simply be left unstated, which seemed ridiculous, given that the very job we were supposed to be doing = making sense of disparate facts and showing how they interrelated.

News people are trying to create new "impactful!" lingo and rhythm to reach out to both tp otherwise well-educated people, as well as those who find commas etc disorienting. I know a little partly because i've worked with media consultants who focus on this very stuff. The more shit you can shovel per minute is really the main driver. But they really dont seem to understand the difference between the 'sitting in the airport bar' level of attention and actual news reporting. It's easier to just do headlines and a few dramatised limited 'facts' (Pictures!) than actually try and tell a story.

The only news I can watch without headaches and flinching is the News Hour on PBS. Thank jeebus for them.

[The Wine Commonsewer]

They shudder at the thought of taking action themselves and denigrate those who do.

Kitty Genovese knows all about that.

[Mo]

TWC,
Kitty Genovese is more of an example of the volunteers dilemma than the callousness or passivity of New Yorkers*. It's why when you're in an emergency situation and need to dole out tasks (say car accident), you tell specific people to do specific things rather than a blanket, "Someone call an ambulance."

* I think some of it is also a measure of the fact that you hear all sorts of noises and shouts that are much ado about nothing in a big city.

[goldthwait]

I guess the White Supremacists were taking a breaking from raising money for the Ron Paul campaign.

[B]

"Shannon, like Pain, I hate siding with cops. "

What a total fucking douchebag you are. There are a few corrupt cops so therefore you are opposed to all of the individuals who risk their lives to protect the citizenry in their community. I guarantee if a pussy like you were to be in real trouble, the first thing you would do is call the police. I pray to God I am alone with you in a dark alley you whiny piece of shit.

[GILMORE]

B = I pray to God I am alone with you in a dark alley you whiny piece of shit.

Way to go captain courageous. Internet threats of violence are just...i dont know... Cute? It's the cry for help of the desperately ineffectual.

And, FWIW, dude was trying to give the above yokel hoboken shithead SWAT goofoffs the benefit of the doubt. His comment was a caveat. Apparently anything other than mindless obescience to the great men in blue is treasonous in your mind. Here's a cookie.

the callousness or passivity of New Yorkers*

yawn. Dudes... yall are just a bunch of player haters. Kitty G was in 1964 for fucks sake. in QUEENS. I saved 4 people from brutal stabbings last night alone! Quit the bullshit! Come out here, we'll get a steak at Lugars.. then we'll throw you on the sidewalk and pretend you just got stabbed, and I'll work the stopwatch. We'll even go to Queens to do it! (actually... fuck that. Im not leaving brooklyn. I dont know what they do up there.)