To: Dallas City Council and Chief Kunkel
RE: Officer Robert Powell
Subj: Dismissal for “Conduct Unbecoming”
Exactly how long does it take to review a 20 minute video? If my math is right you can do it three times in one hour.
For ease of use, here’s the subject matter:
A review of the video is all it takes to decide this. I don’t care if Powell has also saved numerous kitties from trees… the public does NOT need to have an immature bully with a gun, a badge, and an “I can screw you over” attitude that is so ingrained he will verbalize it when he KNOWS he’s on tape.
Abuse under color of law is a VERY serious issue, and those that practice OR condone it are unfit to serve. That was NOT a traffic stop, that was assault with a deadly weapon.
I don’t know if Powell’s issues are with blacks, with blacks that are wealthier than him (aka: “uppity”), with *anyone* wealthier than him regardless of color, or just with anyone he thinks can power trip on. It doesn’t matter.
Simple fact:
He has issues that preclude handing him a gun and a badge with which to terrorize citizens.
Now that Texas has again had yet another 15 minutes of international shame thanks to a punk that anyone viewing the tape can see should have been cut during his initial psych eval… kindly do your job and get rid of him.
While you’re at it, get rid of ANY officer that considered his actions justifiable. It’d be a nice litmus test to detect power-tripping sociopaths. Correct answer: They were not.
BTW – A serious note… y’all take a look at this story on HonestLoneStar’s blog.
http://www.texasdiscussion.com/2009/…mother-in-law/
I’d planned on addressing it on my blog already, but it’s a story about an idiot Dallas Police officer (Robert Powell) who decided to let a guy that broke some traffic laws rushing to the hospital for his wife’s mom’s dying moments spend those moments being harassed about running a red light.
Talk about abuse of power
This officer should have his picture in the dictionary beside the phrase.
Here is the news report including THE DASHCAM VIDEO.
A Bully with Anger Issues – “I can screw you over…”
The officer drew his weapon on the desperate flustered man and his wife for running a red light. The wife ignored the idiot and went into the hospital. The husband remained below as the officer screamed at him, said “I can screw you over”, threatened to jail him for running the red light, threatened to jail him for not being able to locate proof-of-insurance (the officer could have checked himself, they now have computer access to the database), told the man “Shut your mouth!”, and in general acted like a bully with anger issues instead of a public servant.
Lack of Discretion, Judgment, or Human Decency
Common sense dictated letting the guy go up to the hospital room. Several nurses and a Plano cop begged the officer to do that, assuring the officer that the patient the guy came to see was dying even as events unfolded… but he persisted. The mother-in-law DIED while the guy was downstairs being screamed at by this idiot who should never have given handed a badge and a gun. There is a responsibility that comes with the job, and this guy doesn’t get it.
Watch the Dash Video
After I saw it, like pretty much everyone else here I found the officers actions to be ridiculous, asinine, inhumane, pedantic, and contemptible. I support the police in the performance of their duties, I do not however support giving guns and badges to immature bullies with anger issues and a total lack of sense or compassion.
Dallas Police Chief Kunkel
Chief Kunkel is a local guy from Hurst, graduated from Bell a few years before I got outta local rival Trinity. Given his background you know he was raised to believe this kinda behavior is wrong. This officer simultaneously reinforced pretty much every negative stereotype about policemen that exists, and his fellow officers don’t deserve to be tarred by his brush.
It isn’t good for the department to have Powell out there. He demeans the badge, and it is a violation of their commitment to public safety to allow a little bully with anger issues and zero judgment running around with a badge and a gun abusing people under color of law. I have no doubt Chief Kunkel will give his actions the appropriate due diligence, then unceremoniously return the little bully to the ranks of the public he obviously holds in such contempt.
There seem to be almost as many social networks as there are people on the net, but this one has gained enough traction that I figure ignoring it puts me behind the curve. Well, far be it from me to ignore the old adage that it’s easiest to ride a horse in the direction it’s already going.
For those that’ve been hiding under a rock, Twitter is like a mini-blog. It’s a stream of consciousness thing, people write short statements (it won’t take long ones) on whatever is on their mind. Like a blog, it isnt directed at specific individuals, it is seen by whoever “follows” your feed. Also like a blog, the vast majority of what you’ll see either doesnt pertain to you or is simply horse shit.
Maybe it’s a fad, maybe not, but nobody could afford to BUY the kinda publicity Twitter is getting on the news and various talk shows, and there are a lot of people utilizing it that might be worth following to see what they have to say.
Granted… I don’t fit that last part, but I can at least read what the one’s that do fit that profile have to say. Meantime, if you’re terminally bored or just addicted to reading the pithy and/or irascible nonsense with which I entertain myself (hey, it’s a gift), feel free to add me to your list. My Twitter address is:
Of course, for following what a few hundred of your closest friends say there’s already FaceBook, which lends itself a bit better to that purpose. [Btw, to those who bare their most intimate thoughts on FaceBook, WTF are you thinking!?]
Twitter might be a better app for following the thoughts of the truly newsworthy and such. For example, I don’t think George Stephanopolis is sitting around waiting for me to ask him to add me as a friend on FaceBook, but I can follow his posts on Twitter without imposing on his privacy.
Gotta admit the biggest draw for many Twitterers (not sure of the nomenclature, should they be called “twits”?) may be the simple fact that the Twitter dashboard doesn’t say “215 idiots are reading your blather”… it says “You have 215 followers”.
How could having “followers” not be good for morale?
I'm Rob Jones, and I approve this message.
Told Ya So…
Like I said when they did the OTHER bailout… the money would mostly go to the hogs at the trough and do pretty much zip. Now that’s the way it is being assessed, and I watched Nancy Pelosi blame that bailout on, imagine that, the Bush administration and all Republicans.
Yes, that’d be the same Pelosi that was the Speaker of the House when it was in a House controlled by the Democrats, the same Nancy Pelosi that literally screamed when it didnt pass the first time saying it was due to GOP holdouts (which is odd given the DNC majority… but math apparently isnt her strong suit).
Bailout #2… The Sequel
And as I said before, when that bailout failed, they’d be back for another. Just once I wish Washington politicians would quit living up to my low expectations.
But What About Saving the AutoMakers?!
Hell no. Handing tax dollars to the auto companies that painted their own way into a corner is designed to garner votes, nothing more. Politicians viewed as having “let GM die” are going to get lambasted by the employees that lost jobs, the stockholders that lost money, unions that lost a free lunch, the suppliers that went under in the process, and they’d lose their Washington gravy train job.
Propping up companies being robbed from the top by ridiculous executive compensation packages and looted from the bottom by stupid union regs is stupid. It’s like the movie “Weekend at Bernies” where the guys visiting a beach house discover the host is dead, so they spend the next few days posing him in lifelike positions.
HINT: The sumbitch is dead either way. Throwing tax dollars in after the money they’re hemorrhaging isnt bright.
When your computer OP system is corrupted do you…
- A – Do an op system “upgrade”?
- B – Wipe the hard drive and totally reinstall?
The answer is “B”. The auto companies are corrupted beyond repair. Doing “A” retains most of the errors.
Yes, let them crumble
Someone that has a brain will buy them and rebuild them without:
- Contractual obligations to pay silly sums to assholes at the top who expect golden parachutes and
- Having to live by union regs designed to stifle any semblance of a work ethic.
They’ll rise out of the ashes like a phoenix and be stronger for it.
What about the stock-holders?
Seriously, anyone recall these stockholders offering to donate their profits to the taxpayers in good times?
We are creating a terrible precedent if we let people to assume they can take any risk and keep it if they make money… but if they lose they get tax dollars. If they’d paid attention they’d have voted out the directors that allowed this to happen.
Putting it in perspective
If I go to a Vegas Roulette wheel and bet everything I own on 31 Red… can I keep the money if I win and ask for reimbursement if I lose?
No, and requiring every man woman and child in the nation to involuntarily fork over dollars to companies that ran their business as if that were the norm is possibly the stupidest idea to come out of Washington, and given their history that’s a pretty tall hurdle.
I'm Rob Jones... and I approve this message.
Search for Middle Ground
When I transitioned from Volunteer at Dmoz to working at Best of the Web, there were a few friends that had misgivings about doing what we’d done for so long on a commercial basis. Apparently they didnt agree with the wisdom of the Dmoztivator (see also: Blatant Idea Ripoff) I’d done a few years earlier…
GO HERE to collect the whole set.
BOTW VOLUNTEER BLOG EDITORS
In keeping with the idea of finding middle ground… there’s now another opportunity for those that like to give back to the web thru exercising their Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I won’t go into detail here since I just did it elsewhere, but they can go to the BOTW Blog for details if interested.
For added benefit, the forum intersects with those neer-do-wells that edit the main directory at BOTW, so for some it’s a good opportunity to renew a few old friendships too.
RUMORS OF MOZZIES
BTW – Rumor has it I just got a Mozzie en absentia for “Most Expired Editor”?! ROFL. Somebody send me a link to the appropriate jpg… I’ll put it on here along with my gracious acceptance speech. Thanks (ermmm… I think). :p
I'm Rob Jones... and I approve this message.
THE SCENARIO
Some of you have heard my various gripes about my home connection over the past year (while the rest of you had the good sense not to read when I start bitching about it). When I work from the house I’m stuck with AT&T Wireless GSM service, which despite the nifty commercials (I’m in Bumfuck Egypt… and I just found the internet) is somewhere between dialup and communicating with two soup cans attached by kite string.
This is of course only true when used in a poor line of site location (aka – “my house”). Everywhere else it is just as good as being plugged into a t-3 line, but I live in one of the few spots in the Dallas / Ft Worth metro that it sucks to use it. It’s been such a pain to work from home that there are people at Starbucks that probably think I’m an employee there.
CONFLEECTS? We don’t have no steenkin’ confleects!
I’ve long suspected there was an internal conflict between Vista’s network software and the AT&T Communication software required to run the nifty little plug-in wireless modems. I’ve purchased 6 wireless cards in less than 1 year, trying to find a combination that worked well, and spent hours on the line with AT&T support when the freezups and conflicts occurred, always with them assuring me I couldnt connect without their fine AT&T Communication Manager software running the thing. Various reps there have blamed the issues on everything but global warming, but never their product.
ACCIDENTAL “GHOST” CONNECTION :-)
A few minutes ago I shut off the AT&T Communication Manager from the “Processes” tab of Windows Task Manager because both Firefox and Vista were in “Not Responding” mode. Had to shut them both off that way… if I try shutting down AT&T CM off via the “Applications” tab it locks up my entire computer and forces me to do a hard shutdown.
I accidentally restarted Firefox before re-starting AT&T Communication Manager. Shoulda given me a failed connection when my homepage opened up. No such thing. Right now I’m online… and have the best connection here to date. The only thing visibly running in my apps tab is Firefox… no AT&T software.
I gotta write all this down so I can try to recreate this connection. Got here accidentally, but if I can run this without their POS software I gotta feeling life in the kingdom just took a huge step toward “less frustrating”.
I'm Rob Jones... and I approve this message.
Naah… as I post it’s actually a couple of nights… but nobody has a decent poem out that starts “It was a couple of nights before Christmas”, so I’m claiming poetic license.
BOTW BLOG POST
On the topic of poetic license, I figure mine’s gonna get revoked. Wrote yet another parody of the Christmas classic “Twas the Night Before Christmas”. That probably makes mine about the 12 millionth, so there’s bound to be a penalty. License revocation’s about the least they should do.
Having already defaced the poem once I won’t repost it… but you can see it in all its infamy over at the BOTW Blog.
Twas the Night Before Christmas (Webmaster Version)
Feel free to go throw rocks and stones. You won’t be the first.
Meanwhile: The BethO Hostage Crisis Continues
Beth (aka: TheBride™) is on about day 20 or so in a row at work.Economic downturn or not, the guys that buy saddles and horse stuff down at the saddle shop seem to able to buy… so things are pretty busy.
Unfortunate part, her boss is a little fella named Klint Owens, and he is in my opinion a jerk… a preening, posturing little bully that has an amazing shortage of men at his shop. Could be because it’s easier to pick on girls and smaller guys. A full sized cowboy might clean his clock.
[Edited this section on 3-27-2009 to add what I diplomatically avoided in December.]
[Hi Klint... hope you have a Google alert going, you pompous little windbag.]
Anyway, at this rate I’ll probably see her around March.
NOTE TO SELF:
Tell the dancing girls to quit coming to house at the end of February.
Hope everyone has a great Christmas. Best wishes on making 2009 a great year.
I'm Rob Jones... and I approve this message.
Catching Up
Note that I didn’t say “and a glass of NICE wine”. A minor semantic differentiation, but when you buy wine in a box generically labelled “Trailer Park Baby Starter” you make allowances. Doesn’t matter to me, my taste buds were raped years ago thru years of abuse in college. I could probably drink motor oil with a hint of alcohol and it wouldn’t make a difference.
On the bright side this stuff can also be used to strip paint if needed. Still the glass I’m drinking it from IS really nice.
Your Point is?
Point? Why start making a point now? If you’ve read this blog before you know lucidity is my major strongpoint anyway. Still I had an email asking if I’d quit blogging because I was depressed about the election, so I figured I oughta come out of seclusion and explain that I’m not staying silent due to an electoral disappointment, those come n go, and nobody wins ‘em all.
That said, frankly I suspect if Obama is as smart as his supporters have told us he’d be asking for a recount before going into office… cause he’s gonna have a lot on his plate come January. Whether I voted for him or not, he IS our next Pres and I wish him the best of luck, cause he’s damned sure gonna need it.
A Weekend at Bernies… DC Style
Meanwhile as his term approaches, the DNC heavy brain trust we’ve previously elected to office in DC is pondering deep elected kinda thoughts, like whether to squander our grandchildren’s future propping up dead companies or to throw in our great-grandchildren’s future too. It looks like Congress is doing a command performance of “A Weekend at Bernies” and trying to play like all kinds of dead corporations are still alive by handing them tax dollars.
Personally I think they have a great idea, because everyone knows if you find you’re riding a dead horse the best thing to do is pay unfathomable sums to whoever killed it so it can come magically back to life and stride boldly through the trails again. Reality as seen by Congress.
Still More Hogs Line Up at the Bailout Trough
It was a nice touch to see the auto execs show up to ask for welfare… ferried there by private jets at an average cost of $20,000 a pop. Our privileged class is so outta touch with reality it didnt even occur to them we’d notice. As one Congressman said, it was like showing up for a meal at a soup kitchen in a top-hat and tails.
That said… hide and watch, not only will Congress give them funds… they will bitch for the cameras about their failure to show that they have any plan to change the practices that have caused them to hemmorage cash, make lots of headlines… then they will give them more than they asked for without requiring them to do anything different fron the practices that have failed in the past.
Why?
Tradition. We traditionally fill Congress with the biggest idiots on the freakin’ planet. I don’t know why WE do that, I just know it is true. The only difference between the GOP in congress and the DNC appears to be who they give stolen money to and who they take bribes from. They are two sides of the same devalued coin.
Until we quit sending total blithering idiots to make our laws and direct our tax dollars, we can forget seeing anything come outta DC that makes sense.
All told, the more I watch DC the more I cringe. The bailout has been given a new name (thanks, that makes it SO much better), is not even being used for the supposed reason it was voted for (the toxic mortgages), IS being used to fund billions in bonuses for the people that drove their ships onto the rocks (remember all the great soundbites the politicians gave us on that? They meant nothing)… and we wonder why our economy is in tatters.
Dang… I can still see the page. Need more wine. LOL
I'm Rob Jones... and I approve this message.
PLEASE READ CAREFULLY:
NEW OPERATING PROCEEDURES
As of November 5, 2008, when President Obama is elected, our company will adopt new policies in keeping with his inspiring message of change and fairness:
- 1. Salespeople will pool sales and bonuses into a common fund to be divided equally. This will offer those underachieving a “fair shake.”
- 2. Wage employees will pool wages (including overtime) into a common pool to be divided equally. This will enable those too busy for overtime to share equally with those blessed with the time to work extra hours.
- 3. Management will now be referred to as “the government.” We will not participate in “pooling” because the law doesn’t apply to us.
- 4. The “government” will give eloquent speeches each week encouraging workers to continue to work hard “for the good of all.”
We are certain you will be thrilled because it’s “good to spread the wealth.” Those who have underachieved will finally get an opportunity; Those who worked hard to attain success will feel patriotic.
ADDED: The last few people hired should clean out their desks. It’s OK, President Obama will give you free healthcare, handouts, oil for heating your home, foodstamps, and let you stay in your home as long as you want even if you can’t pay your mortgage.
If you appeal directly to congress you might even get a free flatscreen TV and a coupon for free haircuts. Shouldn’t we all be entitled to nice looking hair?
========
Got this from an email sent by Mark Skinner. Didnt ask if it was original before posting it… even if he wrote it he stole the ideas from Obama, who in turn borrowed ‘em from the Soviet Union.
Reminds me … Howard Dean never paid for my nice artwork in ‘04. He said something about having security escort me, I just figured I was getting a really big fee.
I captured the core values of the Democrats pretty well if I do say so myself.
LOL… some things never change.
I'm Rob Jones... and I approve this message.
Poindexter Endorses GOP Ticket
Oct 23, 2008 – UP Wire
Despite having long supported Democrats (and specifically black cats), renowned scientist and precocious intellectual “Poindexter” has in a shocking reversal of tradition announced he will endorse the McCain/Palin ticket.
“I’m tired of hearing that all intellectuals support Obama” said Poindexter. “The guy doesn’t have a handle on free-market theory. Besides, after seeing him try to dance on Ellen… I’m pretty sure he’s lying about being black. I wanna see a birth certificate.
As many know, Poindexter has been friends with Felix the Cat for over 40 years, and as expected this news has caused a rift in their relationship.
“Seriously, to defeat The Professor, Rock Bottom, and the Master Cylinder, we need Obama” said Felix. “McCain hasn’t kept up with the menaces in the cartoon world… nor does he understand the oppression of black cats in America.”
The Friends in Happier Days
Does this Signal a Shift in Cartoon Loyalties?
The verdict is still out. Poindexter’s announcement wasn’t entirely a surprise, as Rocky the Squirrel, Underdog, Mighty Mouse, Dudley Doorite, and George of the Jungle had already led the way of Toons for McCain.
On the other side, Bullwinkle, though initially a McCain supporter, was violently opposed to staying in the camp as his Moose Rights party defected en masse after the announcement of Sarah Palin as the VP candidate.
“Face it” said Bullwinkle… “this is a civil rights issue we just can’t ignore“.
Meanwhile other noted cartoon characters such as Boris and Natasha, Snydley Whiplash, both Pinky and the Brain, and Alec Baldwin have long been firmly entrenched in the Obama camp, although several have publicly objected to Baldwin’s presence.
Their objections to Baldwin were summed up by Pinky…
“Every time that dimwit leaves California to attend our meetings in New York he lowers the average IQ of both states.”
————–
Figure if we’re gonna get an announcement for each and every person that endorses Obama I oughta throw in a few of my own. I figure this one means about as much as all the others. Kinda sorry we lost Linsey Lohan though, she’d have been a lotta fun at the parties.
I'm Rob Jones... and I approve this message.
