Are You Crazy?

Some concerned police officer sent me this ad from the Commercial Appeal. He said it was from the August 25th issue. Go figure . . . .

From Bad to Worse

I highlighted some issues with a few of the Shelby County Jail's booking mugshots a few days ago. Well that's no longer a problem. None of the booking photos are showing up now.

Mayhem in Memphis

Fun with Booking Photos

The pictures taken at the time of booking can be critical at a later date. They can be useful later when used in a lineup. It might be that someone could look at a particular photo and make a positive ID in a major case, like a murder, robbery, rape, etc. How much trouble is it to make sure the photo is a good one and can be used downstream? Most of the photos from the Shelby County jail are very good, however sometimes it appears whoever has the final say on a particular mugshot gets lazy. That laziness could wind up hurting major investigations. Here are some examples of what I'm talking about - click the photos to enlarge:

Shootout at the Tulane (OK Corral)

We've only had 109 murders in Memphis so far this year. We were over 100 back in June. I thought the professors at MSU were chaining crime to higher temperatures, you'd think there would have been more murders. I mean it's been nasty hot and we've only had a few more murders.

Of course there was a little shooting spree last night at the Tulane Apts. and surrounding area, but that's no big deal (8 people shot). We were doing a little light Fugitive operation down there last year and the gangstahs shot at us as they ran away. Hmm, I had forgotten about that.

I think we have needed to get serious with these gangstahs for a long time, but I was told I'm too aggressive. Well, look who's aggressive now. Someone else is going to die if law enforcement doesn't step up and do the job. Of course, these shootings aren't happening in Germantown, Bartlett, Collierville, Arlington or other municipalities. It's happening in Memphis - Crime capital of the South.

The DA's Office is saying some of the apartments are to blame for crime in the area, but guess what - the whole county is a crime scene. Failure to aggressively pursue criminals, give them the maximum punishment and hold them in jail is the reason we have such a high crime rate.

Here, There and Everywhere - but jail

Here's where the people who haven't shown up for "booking and processing" are supposed to live. This map also demonstrates the problem of issuing Misdemeanor Citations. As you can see, it's not a good plan for anyone except the criminals.
Click the Map to Enlarge

Arrest or Hall Pass?

From Wikipedia -
An arrest is the action of the police, or person acting under the color of law, to take a person into custody so that they may be forthcoming to answer for the commission of a crime. In many legal systems, an arrest requires mere verbal information to persons that they are under arrest; the laying of hands or restraints upon the arrested person is usually not required to affect an arrest. Also, there are certain non-criminal arrests that allow for the seizure of representatives not present in the legislative body lacking a quorum, and the forfeiture of property.

For serious crimes, the police typically take suspects to a police station or a jail where they will be incarcerated pending a judicial bail determination or an arraignment. In other instances, the police may issue a notice to appear specifying where a suspect is to appear for his arraignment.

While an arrest will not necessarily lead to a state sanction such as imprisonment, the arrest itself may have serious ramifications, such as a loss of a job due to inability to pay bail, loss of public housing, and social stigma. Such effects are termed the collateral consequences of criminal charges.

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I keep seeing these "beer sting" stories on the news where the headline says N store clerks Arrested! Uh, not quite, they were cited. It sounds like we're being tough on crime, but not really. What has really happened is we issued a "hall pass" to the clerks. I've worked these "stings" and we made "arrests" every time. That should tell someone that what we are doing is not effective. If we keep going back to the same places, and making arrests, we are not changing behavior. Isn't that the goal - to change behavior?

I have never liked the idea of issuing misdemeanor citations. I've always felt misdemeanor citations facilitated crime, rather than curtailed it. Think about a shoplifter who gets a misdemeanor citation. How does the shoplifter perceive the situation? How about, "wow - I'm glad I didn't have to go to jail. Now I can go to the next store and try to be a little smarter. Maybe I won't get busted again." The signal that is sent to the perpetrator is there is no penalty for wrongdoing and the signal sent to the store owner is the cops aren't going to help you.

Under the current system, the person who receives a citation agrees to come in at a later date and be "processed". Consider that this person has already committed a crime and now the "system" is going to trust them to show up at a later date to have their fingerprints taken. Yeah right. That may be one reason we currently have over 2000 warrants for "Failure to Appear for Booking/Processing". These honorable citizens have played the system once again.

Another problem with issuing these citations is that we are turning people loose who may have warrants from other jurisdictions. Until we positively identify a person, we don't really know who we have. The only "positive identification", I believe, is 10 fingers on the fingerprint cards and a little trip to the AFIS machine.

For that reason, I believe law enforcement should cease issuing misdemeanor citations, and instead transport the offenders immediately to a processing station. This would achieve several things if the strategy were adopted. Here are a few:

1. It would inconvenience the perpetrator, which is a small psychological deterrent.
2. It would demonstrate to businesses that the system is doing something.
3. A first offender would get the benefit of having handcuffs placed on them and getting to see the city from the back of a squad car - more applied psychology.
4. We would no longer have warrants on people who don't show up. (we actually get two warrants on these cases because a warrant is issued on the original charge and also for failure to appear)
5. We would capture many fleeing felons from other jurisdictions because we would know, positively who we were dealing with.
6. The community would benefit, because long term, crooks would understand that we are serious.

For those who are issued the citation, once we process them, if they have no other warrants, they would be free to go. That is another benefit of transporting them downtown - they would have to get a ride home!

The immediate processing of misdemeanants would be a cost saving move which would also send a strong signal to would be criminals - commit a misdemeanor - take a ride!

A New Court Date for #3

Number 2 tries harder

It appears Larry Wayne West has been arrested again. While he is trying to become the number one, most arrested person in Shelby County, he is now at 156 arrests. However, Kimberly Johnson has also moved up by one to 201 (if you count misdemeanor citations - which some do). I'm thinking Kimberly will continue to pull away in this race, because she is working the streets and when she doesn't get physically arrested, she gets a "hall pass" otherwise known as a misdemeanor citation.

Misdemeanor citations are a wonderful invention of the legislature. They were invented to let criminals know they can continue their criminal ways without the police getting in their way, so long as they don't make a mistake and commit a felony or a serious misdemeanor in the presence of an officer. (ONE OF THE ABSOLUTE WORST LAWS EVER PASSED)

At least Larry is still in jail. He can't make the $100.00 bail apparently. I wonder what the system is doing to try to "rehabilitate" him after 156 arrests? I'm thinking - nothing. I think he needs to be in a program of some sort, like maybe a program at the correctional center for 11 months and 29 days where he might do such interesting things as cut grass, pick up trash, farm, etc. Mr West is due in General Sessions divison 11 on the 17th at 9:00am. I'll be interested to see what the judge does. He will be getting an attorney appointed at his next court date, or so it seems, since he can't make the $100.00 bond.

The Voters and Convicted Felons Have Spoken

It appears the voters where scared into voting for the incumbent Sheriff. As always, they get what they ask for. I have done what I could to raise the issues in this race because of the incumbents lack of vision and passion for the job, and his hypocrisy. The county attorney is still investigating his ethics violation, and I believe he will be found guilty, particularly after hearing from another person who was on the "cruise". I don't know if it rises to removal from office, but that is out of my hands.

Unfortunately, the mantra was "he's the lesser of two evils" and I feared this would get him back in office. People didn't voted for Luttrell even though he unapologetically took money from felons, indictees, shady characters - at the same time he was raining all over the deputies parade for visiting one. More accurately, they voted against French. I am so close to the situation, I couldn't vote for him, nor could I sit by and let a tyrant get reelected without saying something. Maybe he can learn that not all deputies are afraid to speak out against wrong.

Luttrell will continue running non effective "beer stings" that are paid for by the state, while doing nothing with his band of officers. Twelve officers in narcotics, and twelve in the gang clubs (you can't even call them bureaus due to their lack of numbers) and he has Fugitive whittled down to less than 50 officers. The department needs an additional 100 officers as soon as possible and someone who understands law enforcement in control. Oh well! Shelby County is hopelessly in a tailspin, I fear. Not that French would have been much better, but at least he wouldn't be terrorizing the deputies.