Brickbat: Anonymous Sources

In Colorado, officials at Loveland High School barred Nathan Myers from classes after someone used an anonymous tip service run by the state attorney general's office to report he was planning to attack the school. The person who made the report claimed to be concerned that Myers had posted a video to Snapchat before a family trip to a gun range. The clip showed some of his mother's firearms and was captioned "Finna be lit," which is slang indicating he was going to have a good time. Local police were also involved, and while they quickly determined nothing was amiss, the school did not allow Myers back until it conducted a threat assessment. But Myers says that even after being cleared by authorities, some classmates are still calling him a "school shooter" and a "terrorist."

Comments

[AlbertP]

Acting on anonymous tips also ended the lives of an elderly couple in Texas. And, in this case, though no one was killed, it would seem that the injured party has no way to seek compensation from the injurer. That pretty much sucks.

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[MatthewSlyfield]

At this point, I'm not convinced that the "anonymous" tips were any more real that the controlled buy that was claimed in the warrant application and has since been determined to have never happened.

[NashTiger]

No, an 85 year old woman called and said her daughter was “doing drugs in the house” - that she lived in.
So they treated it like you would a 17yo sex trafficking victim being zombified for trade

[mad.casual]

And, in this case, though no one was killed, it would seem that the injured party has no way to seek compensation from the injurer. That pretty much sucks.

Petition, due process, facing your accusers... the FF didn't foresee the semantic shift where these actually mean gay people have a right to a wedding cake rather than police conducting anonymously-motivated 'threat assessments' on law-abiding citizens.

[MoreFreedom]

The thing that gets me about anonymous sources, is none of the liberal MSM will reveal who their anonymous sources are, even though those sources have been shown to be lying.

There's a reason our founders wrote that someone had to swear under oath to a judge to give the government probable cause a crime had been committed to search through someone's stuff. One reason being to protect us from others who'd like to use the government to harm us.

But in this case, no crime was alleged nor committed. But at least some "evidence" was posted on the internet, not that it was evidence of any crime.

I'm reminded of the fact that police don't protect you from criminals, other than via creating a disincentive to crime, by going after the ones who've committed crimes, arresting, prosecuting and jailing them. You are responsible to protect yourself, and you are the first responder in situations involving yourself.

Now if we could just get the police to go investigate, and keep the potential suspects from government property, when we get evidence someone is going to harm us by voting for government violence to take away our freedom and money, e.g. their yard signs supporting gun grabbers, taxers, and statists.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The school also released a statement on the incident earlier this week: “The safety and security of our students, staff and visitors is always our number-one priority. When safety-related incidents arise, we must take them seriously and we have gone to great lengths to train our staff and develop appropriate procedures.”

The school's safety was never in danger, but always remember that it's acceptable to bully anyone who appreciates his Second Amendment rights.

[ipsquire]

Shouldn't educating the students forced to attend be the number-one priority? Otherwise, the bill for bubble-wrapping everyone daily is going to require higher taxes.

[Naaman Brown]

[rant]
The anti-gun elite have decided any interest in guns - recreational, self-defense, hunting, historical, curio & relic collection, safety training, civilian marksmanship - marks one as a deplorable beyond the pale and justifies unleashing armed state agents to Wacoize one's compound under Ruby Ridge Rules of Engagement.

I expect scanning social media and making anonymous reports to get "gun nuts" SWATted will be (or already is) a new social justice warrior trend among our "betters". It can be done sitting on one's derriere behind a computer, no need to go in public in a black balaclava carrying a length of rebar to crack heads in the name of anti-fascism. Plus, there's too many over-testosteroned cops eager for excuses to choke, crack heads or shoot people.

Even if the target is unscathed, an investigation or a charge can show up in future background checks. The disposition of the investigation or charge - no evidence that a crime was contemplated or committed - may not be part of the record that shows up in a future background check.

If you are ever investigated, arrested, or charged with a crime, and cleared, for God's sake, get and keep official copies of the disposition of your case. We are entering an era of Universal Background Checks and crappy records keeping and tracking. Accusations will be kept forever by the system. You will have to keep documentation of exculpation or exoneration, the system doesn't.

I know of a guy who after highschool worked at a hotel, which was robbed. As routine at that time, all hotel employees were listed as suspects until cleared by investigation. He was cleared. He served in the military, was entrusted to guard the President. After service he bought a farm, opened a gunshop. Years later after old records were added to the NICS, he got a letter from ATF that he lied on his firearms license application when he declared he had no criminal record. Luckily the state bureau of investigation agent who handled the hotel investigation had become his hometown chief of police and made a deposition to the satisfaction of ATF that the man had been investigated and cleared decades earlier.

At a routine traffic stop, a guy's name came up as a wanted federal fugitive. He was arrested. FBI came back the next day, same name, wrong guy, and he was released. He had the presence of mind to to get a paper from the judge that it was a mistaken identity arrest. When he goes to the gun shop for a gun transfer, the BG check comes back denied, he and the dealer fill out an appeal of the denial, attach a copy of the mistaken-identity disposition of the case, send it off, and eventually the transfer is approved.

More recently, a Florida man with the same name as a guy on a restraining order had his handgun carry permit pulled.* When he went to the permitting agency and demonstrated that he was not that guy, he was told to go to the sheriff's office to clear it up.* The sheriff's office agreed he was not the man on the restraining order, but he would have to get the woman to go before a judge and tell the judge he was not the man she took the restraining order against. Until then, he had to surrender not only his handgun carry permit, but every gun he owned. Franz Kafka would find this inconcievable. And I would warn that if he fails to keep records of the disposition of this case, he could be on the hook in the future. (John Crump, "Florida Man Has Firearms Rights Taken Away Over Mistaken Identity", Ammoland, 18 Aug 2019.)

The feds reward local agencies to add old data to the NICS Prohibited Person database. Accuracy or completeness of the data is not a concern. When it comes to guns, the anti-gunners are willing to shred 2A, 1A, 4A, 5A, and any pretense of due process or fair play. Fine. At minimum this kinda stuff represents court and law enforcement time and money wasted on going after the innocent when there are not enough resources to handle real bad guys.
[/rant]

_______________
* They had taken the name on the restraining order, run it through the handgun permit database, and sent a revocation order to the first match.

[SQRLSY One]

Well, these ID-confusion things clearly demonstrate that we need confusion-proof methods of IDing people! EVERYONE must get DNA-scanned into the fed database, and you need to show your DNA when buying a gun, knife, hatchet, bandsaw, screwdriver, belt, hammer, or chair, or anything else that can be used as a weapon!

/sarc

[Quo Usque Tandem]

You can still get most of those things [clearly not guns or knives] in Great Britain, but you'd better have a damned good reason for that hammer or screwdriver.

This is where we are headed, and we have a choice. Increasingly radical progressivism or Trump. It ain't pretty, but that seems to be our choice. Again.

[MatthewSlyfield]

Even that wouldn't be confusion proof.

Identical twins (or triplets)

Human Chimeras, fraternal twins that merge early in gestation, yielding a single individual with different DNA in different parts of their body.

[SQRLSY One]

You're absolutely correct! I wonder how often THOSE particular facts (especially about the human chimeras) are explained to juries, along with the "expert DNA testimony".

[Hit and Run]

But if you require it for voting, that's raciss...

[Vernon Depner]

So, maybe Black people had the right idea when they started giving their kids silly made-up names with nonsensical spellings.

[Adans smith]

And people wonder why I don't use 'social' media.

[Ride 'Em]

Anonymous tips are a form of revenge. I lived in Connecticut for a few years. There was a case where a woman was being harassed by an unidentified neighbor. The neighbor kept calling Children Services anonymously reporting that the woman was abusing her children. It report had to be investigated and because of state law the reporter could not be named. It went on for a while. The woman finally just moved.

So, I agree that gun control nuts will weaponize anonymous tips.

[Hit and Run]

Women have weaponed sexual assault accusations, with no fear of repercussions. It's human nature.

[Enjoy Every Sandwich]

Ah, the Brave New World of the Socialist Worker's Utopia, where neighbor denounces neighbor to the Stasi.

[Quo Usque Tandem]

"Myers had posted a video to Snapchat"

Don't do that, ever. I avoid social media like the cliche'd plague, but even if you do use it do not post guns. You are just giving some asshole and opportunity to harass you and push their own agenda.

[susancol]

Sigh. And if you avoid posting anything about firearms being productively and safely used for sport or fun, our silence confirms the perception that "no one [implicitly, no one who's a good guy] has any reason to want a gun."

[loveconstitution1789]

This was Colorado FYI.

Colorado is now run by the lunatics.

[loveconstitution1789]

Sue the living shit out of the kid and family who falsely reported this kid as a school shooter.

If that's not Defamation of character, I don't know what is. This kid was being accused of a crime.

[Hit and Run]

"if you see something, say something"

[Azathoth!!]

Doesn't anyone ever stop to ask--if you're seriously trying to stop some kind of mass shooting, why do you want to be anonymous?

Especially since it's pretense at best.

[crufus]

Would it be OK for Nathan Myers to put in an anonymous tip that the school officials who barred him were planning a mass shooting?

[Vernon Depner]

Nah, they're school officials. Make it that they're having sex with students.

[Liberty Lover]

No one cares.

[SQRLSY One]

OK,then, Oh Great Wise All-Knowing Russian Spam-bot... Tell me my real name! Hint: It is NOT Trumplestiltskin!

(but we all know that YOUR real name is "Mary"!)