I linked Massad Ayoob several months ago. I'd seen him thanks to a link from The Truth About Guns and thought he was a good read. I'm having second thoughts. His snarky post earlier this week about the conduct of the police in Deming New Mexico gave me serious pause. What happen, is to me, not a joking matter.
That the police were proven wrong in their suspicions is a matter of record. David Eckert was stopped for a supposed stop sign violation. In the course of the stop. he was detained, His vehicle and his person searched for drugs, culminating in a colonoscopy conducted on an expired warrant at a hospital outside the jurisdiction of the warrant.
I strongly expressed my opinion. "Mas, I know you can’t admit it, but you are wrong. The facts PROVE
beyond any shadow of doubt that you are wrong. NOTHING was found.
Previous cases were dropped. Why, we do not know. There is no credible
proof to back up the claim that he had previously done any such thing.
We are a nation of laws, and our court system requires proof. All the
evidence proves he had done nothing to deserve this.
1. The dog is not certified.
2. The warrant expired.
3. One hospital refused to participate. Possibly because they were the ones duped the first time.
4. This was not the first time this had happened.
This has a stink factor about it like a dead carp in the back seat. The
officers in question, right down to muttly, should all be kicked out of
law enforcement."
He replied, "
Jeremy, if you were at all familiar with my work, you’d know that I do admit when I’m wrong.
And if you had spent 40-some years in the criminal justice system,
you would have learned to wait to get both sides before you judge. You
would have realized that you’re operating on only one side of the story.
And you would realize how little relevance the four points you raise
actually have.
Judging by how many critics of cops are first-time posters here, and
how many don’t grasp how things really work, I think I’ll need to do a
follow-up blog post to explain.
In the meantime, JeremyR, feel free to peruse this blog for the
entries from July 13, 2013 to about two months later, and see how
another case turned out where folks jumped to conclusions after only
hearing from the plaintiff’s side."
He does admit when he is wrong, but only when a preponderance of evidence forces him to do so.
My next comment back to him generated a shit storm.
I posted "Mas, I don’t have forty years of “expertise” as a LEO. I served only
eight, and quit due to the lack of ethical standards which were placing
my own life at risk. Cops won’t back up a guy who won’t lie on the stand
to cover them. I’m not anti cop, I just don’t like bad ones.
As a municipal judge, I made USA today for dismissing two months worth
of tickets for a small town after the officer admitted on the stand that
he could not remember any of the defendants in the court room that day.
It was a small town, we had court once a month. Arraignments first,
followed by the trials from the previous months arraignments. In sworn
testimony, the officer stated his inability to recognize the defendant,
then added, that he did not recognize any one who was there.
After that statement, the city attorney asked for a brief recess, exited
the building with the officer and stepped around back to talk. They
chose for that location a point directly beneath the open window
adjacent to my chair. The lawyer told the officer, “If you can’t
remember, then lie”.
When they reentered the court room, I tossed all the cases, then
admonished the liar about what I had heard. I got fired for that. Small
towns want kangaroo courts. I don’t jump.
BTW, I spent most of the night reading up on this case, and am fully
convinced the cops were absolutely wrong. I set high standards for law
enforcement. As a Military Police sergeant, I would not tolerate
misconduct. Nor as an undercover, nor as a town mayor, and certainly
not as a municipal judge. There has been sufficient time for both sides
to come out. This is not poker. No surprises here. This case has seen
enough daylight since it began in January that all the mold is dead.
The travesty I see here is that the city of Deming’s residents will pay
the price for this instead of the perpetrators, the feral officers who
are not of the law. If bad policing resulted in a personal penalty for
those involved, the Police would choose a higher standard.
If a swat team who kicked down the wrong door and shot dead an innocent
citizen were made to face the death penalty, they would not be as apt to
make those kind of life and death mistakes. Heck, if they were forced
to pay a few million of personal damage claims, they might wake up and
fly right.
As for the Zimmerman case, I do believe most of your readers had viewed
both sides. I know I certainly had. I read about Zimmerman and martin
less then a week after it happened. I for one was not fooled by the hue
and cry raised by his parental failures. I’ve been reading your blog for
nearly a year.
As for me, prior to 9-11-01, several of my weapons rode with local
deputies as a matter of routine. Small counties in Kansas could not
afford all the geegaw that now gets handed out, and they needed top gear
which I happen to own." and this is what I got in return, "
Banks to avoid
11 minutes ago
November 11th, 2013 MD Matt—-
Just read your post on the previous thread. It brought back memories of an incident years ago in my department.
A trainee, not long out of the academy, refused to come to the aid of his training officer during a traffic stop. The trainer was attacked, overpowered and subsequently murdered with his own weapon. The trainee retreated to the squad car, ducking down in the seat and hiding until the suspect drove away.
The trainee, after being brought up on internal charges of cowardice and facing dismissal from the force, changed his initial story of the events leading up to the death of his training officer. After hiring counsel, his new version was that the training officer was a vulgar, verbally abusive person who he could just not bring himself to help or come to the aid of.
This flew in the face of everyone who knew the training officer.The veteran officer was well known for his even temper, being everyone’s friend on and off duty. People from all walks of life lined up to come to the defense of this fine man’s reputation, whose memory was being sullied by a self serving ex-M.P. from Kansas who had failed his evaluations from his previous field training officers, and placed with the murdered officer as a last attempt to save the city’s investment in him.
But the damage was already done. With the only surviving witnesses being the murderer, his friends, and the coward who watched his partner be murdered, the murderer was found not guilty and the coward became the darling of the media, as the murderer was African-American and the murdered officer and the coward were white. Without any living witnesses to contradict the murderer’s and the cowards story, the department dropped the internal charges against him.
When nobody would work with the coward or cover him, he went to the press bemoaning how badly he was being treated, got one more story about his being shunned for refusing to lie in court about what had happened that day, then resigned and returned to Kansas.
As I recall, he filed suit against the city, blaming them for his inability to find work in law enforcement, but the report in the papers mentioned he had found part time employment as a municipal court judge in his home town.
You haven’t run across this guy have you?"
He followed it with this, "
November 11th, 2013 M.D. Matt,
My apologies. My post was actually intended for JeremyR."
I replied, " Mas, I just read the trash posted by Dennis. That you allow such conduct from America’s supposed finest shows us what you and they are. If you care to offer an apology, you know how to find me.
I served 21 years in the United States Army and ended my career as a commissioned officer. That you let Dennis put up such trash is beyond contemptible.
BTW Dennis, I’m not from Kansas. This is where I was last stationed, this is where I retired. Maybe you were one of the shit bags from the 977th who got reassigned but were not court martialed? You sound like one them.
Thank you for confirming that those who comment here and have little trust for the police are not wrong in their assessment. I’ve fired better men than you."
I got this back from Mas, "Don’t hold your breath on the apology, JeremyR. If you fired men for looking at both sides of an issue, it says more negative about you than it does about them, or about anyone posting here."
My reply back is, "Dennis, this is just my opinion, I think you are too stupid to see how your slander aimed at me here reflects on you, your department, and officers in general.
Instead of a thought out defense of the conduct of those officers in Deming, you chose to post a fabrication worthy of Saul Alinsky. Are you proud? In the morning, will you go to work and show your chief how you belittled me? Would he be proud?
Is this how you conduct yourself on the job? Do you go into court and act the same way? Dogs don’t meow when they are off leash. A man (that’s a compliment here) who would lie in a semi anonymous forum would also lie in court if he thought he could get away with it. Do you conduct yourself at work the same way? Are you proud of it?
At the first Kansas Municipal judges conference I attended, several of the judges were sitting at a table behind me discussing an occurrence that happened at the previous judicial conference. Two of them had engaged in a drag race in the early hours through a residential neighborhood. The local judge had pulled strings with the PD there to cover over what happened. They were proud of what the did. It sure lowered my esteem for them especially since one of the men sitting there laughing it up was the man who administered the Municipal judges exam to me the month before.
I can tell you, I was not proud of them, and I don’t think the citizens of their respective cities would have been proud either.
“We enforce the law, we don’t uphold it” Nice motto… If you reign in Russia." and this, "So Mas, explain to me how his tall tail, the 19th comment down is looking at both sides of this issue? His comment five above my reply confirms he was aiming his trash at me. Yup, fabricating a story and calling me a coward is looking at both sides of the issue. Great call. I am humbled. Lots of facts there. Tons of em."
I do not put a lot of my personal information out there. I often feel like I publish too much about myself. In this case, Dennis, a commenter, and purported cop, instead of arguing facts chose to attack me personally. This is our law enforcement, and this is how a good blogger conducted himself. I hope Massad and Dennis are proud. Are you? Knowing that your police act like this, do you feel better about them and the possibility they might think you were smuggling drugs?
I hat to see David Eckert get millions. Not that he does not deserve compensation for what happened, but because the men who did this deed, the officers of Deming, will not be the one who pay it, it will be the citizens who had nothing to do with this, and those officers will walk away untouched.
I have not decided whether to delist Mas. I am leaning toward it. It will depend on his reply to my comments.
The articles in question are here, and here.