Stop! (BANG) Or I'll shoot!

In case you were wondering, it's probably not a great idea to be hanging out in the Toronto entertainment district at 3:15 a.m. Especially if you're in a luxury Lincoln SUV and you've got a ponytail.

In February of 2006, Toronto police officers arrested Irshad Ahmed and Omar Betty for failure to stop, failure to comply, and obstructing police.

Their trial is currently being conducted at Old City Hall, and some interesting evidence has emerged in the form of a voice mail recording.

When Ahmed and Betty were stopped by police, Ahmed immediately called his lawyer. (Oh, like you don't have your lawyer on speed dial?) It turned out to be an ingenious decision, as his lawyer's answering machine captured the entire exchange between the suspects and the police.

And what an exchange! The tape captures officers telling Ahmed and Betty to open the doors and get out of their vehicle. When the two did not immediately comply, the police smashed the window open and used a taser on Ahmed.

He was then handcuffed and placed on the ground.

What was particularly striking was the contrast between the profanity used by the police and the seemingly compliant behaviour of Ahmed, who repeatedly addressed the officer as "sir."

As well, one of the officers on the tape can clearly be heard to tell Ahmed, "I'll break your fucking ponytail," which, you've got to admit, is a pretty stylish and creative threat, even if it's not entirely practical.

At the trail last week this tape was taken from the lawyers answering machine and introduced by the defense into evidence of excessive force by the police, namely Constable David Rubbini. (Below)

Officer (Rubbini): Open the door!

Ahmed: Why sir? Why sir?

Officer: I am warning you.

Ahmed: Can you tell me one more time why I am under arrest?

Officer: Open the door now (police dog can be heard barking). Open the door now. Get out the door now! (at this point police smash the driver and passenger side windows of the car).

Ahmed: Whoa. Whoa. Hold up, hold up. I'm coming out. I'm coming out. I'm coming out sir. I'm coming out. I'm coming out sir.

Officer: Get out the fucking door. Get out the fucking door.

Ahmed: Sir, I am coming out. Can you relax? Can you relax?

Officer: Get the fuck out.

Ahmed: I'm coming out sir. I'm opening the door. I'm opening the door sir. I'm opening the door. I'm opening the door. (screaming is heard as Ahmed, who is on the driver's side, is hit by a taser shot, fired by an officer on the passenger side of the car).

Officer: Unlock the door now. Get on the ground or I will let the dog in. On the ground. On the ground.

Ahmed: Okay (Ahmed is now placed on the ground face first in the broken glass and handcuffed behind his back. A police dog can be heard barking loudly on the tape and there are sounds of police and paramedics talking on the radio).

Officer: I'll break your fucking ponytail (Ahmed has his hair in a ponytail).

Ahmed: (inaudible)

Officer: Yeah, you're right. You lost. You fucking lost....don't ever fuck with us.

THERE IT IS FOLKS, YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK!

Allan W Janssen is the author of the book The Plain Truth About God (What the mainstream religions don't want you to know!) and is available at the web site www.God-101.com

Visit the blog "Perspective" at http://God-101.blogspot.com

Asshole of the Week and My Hero of the Day!

This guy might be a bit stupid once in a while, but you have to admit he has balls.

For his tenacity in the face of adversity we give this unnamed tow truck driver both the Asshole of the Week trophy and also a trophy for being "Perspectives" Hero of the Day!

An Oregon tow truck driver upset over a recent ticket tried to take revenge by towing a police cruiser. Police say the 32-year-old man was arrested after he hooked his truck to the marked police vehicle while an officer was responding to a domestic disturbance call.

The driver released the cruiser when another officer ordered him to, but police say he later locked the doors of his truck and refused to cooperate.

The driver then called the police station, "apparently unsatisfied with the police response he had generated when he tried to tow the cruiser.

The manager of the tow company was summoned and eventually coaxed the driver into surrendering. He was charged with unlawful use of a vehicle, obstructing governmental administration, interfering with a peace officer and criminal mischief.

Just goes to show that cops have no sense of humor!

Allan W Janssen is the author of The Plain Truth About God at www.God-101.com and the blog "Perspective" at http://God-101.blogspot.com

Police Brutality!

I seems things are not that different in the land down under than they are here!

TWO police officers handcuffed a 64-year-old pensioner, threw her to the ground and then searched inside her bra and underpants on a busy suburban roadin Sydney, Australia in the mistaken belief she was a drug dealer.

The ordeal left an ailing Leentje McDonald, of Maroubra, in hospital and severely traumatised.

But she did not receive an apology from police. Rather, she has been charged with assaulting an officer.

While it is unusual for a pensioner to be mistaken for a 40-year-old drug dealer, as was the case here, civil libertarians say such aggressive searches, and the charging of people for assault or resisting arrest if no drugs are found, are a common and disturbing feature of modern policing.

In her case, Ms McDonald resisted the intrusive search because longstanding nerve damage in her right shoulder meant she was in excruciating pain when the two police officers handcuffed her during the full body search on Maroubra Road.

"I started screaming, screaming so loud because it was extremely painful. It was so painful I could feel it in my spine. I had a blackout. I thought I was going to die from a heart attack," Ms McDonald told the Herald at her small Department of Housing flat, where she lives alone.

October 18 had began like any other pension day. Ms McDonald went to the shops to buy some ingredients for a "nice dinner" and stepped into the Maroubra Junction Hotel to play the pokies for a few minutes while she waited for her bus.

As she left the hotel, two plainclothes police officers, a man and a woman, approached.

"They said, 'Are you dealing drugs.' I said, 'No, never in my life. I don't even like smoking,' " she said. Ms McDonald says the two officers said they were looking for an Asian woman in her 40s.

"I said, 'You must have a mistaken identity. I have never done this in my life. I'm 64, a grandmother of six, please.' I said, 'You can't search me like this on a busy road. I beg your pardon, no.'"

The police grabbed her bag, finding only her wallet, some bills and two cans of coconut cream. But they were not satisfied. While Maroubra police station was directly across the road, about 20 metres away, the officers moved to handcuff and search her on the street.

"I said, 'Please don't do this, I have a frozen shoulder,' " Ms McDonald said.

In terrible pain, she lashed out, scratching one of the officers. They finished handcuffing her and threw her to the ground.

"They did a full body search. They put their hands inside my bra, inside my pants. I said, 'My God. Why is this happening to me?' Then the officer, she says to me, 'Stand up.' But I couldn't stand up. I was crying. Then they said, 'Put your shoes on.' My handbag was everywhere, my glasses, my coconut cream.

The commotion drew a large crowd of onlookers, intensifying Ms McDonald's humiliation. One witness, Josephine Chen, who worked at a nearby photo studio, said: "Everybody stopped to look.

"She kept screaming 'My shoulder, my shoulder' but the police kept ignoring it. She was struggling to free her arm. She wasn't trying to hit anyone."

In the past 10 years, NSW police have been granted increased powers to search people, culminating in the decision last month of the Premier, Morris Iemma, to extend indefinitely the powers given to police to deal with the aftermath of the Cronulla riots.

These powers mean police need only have a "suspicion" of illegality before they undertake an intrusive body search in an authorised area.

Cameron Murphy, of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties, said: "We get hundreds of complaints about this, more than any other issue, particularly when it involves police sniffer dogs at train stations or outside nightclubs.

"If you get upset about what is often a degrading and humiliating experience and they don't find drugs, the police charge you. Some people get what we call the trifecta: disobeying a lawful direction, resisting arrest and assaulting a
police officer."

A police spokesman from Eastern Beaches command, Chief Inspector David McBeath, would not comment before Ms McDonald's scheduled appearance at Waverley Local Court on December 19.

However, he said police would take into account any comments from the magistrate before determining if any action would be taken against the officers.

(And as further proof of the Hubris of cops and how they think they can do whatever they want we have this news about questions being asked in Albuquerque about one recent case in which a pair of the city's finest dropped in for a box of Krispy Kremes in a police helicopter.

Eyewitnesses said a Kiowa OH-58 chopper owned by the Albuquerque Police Department --which reportedly costs taxpayers about $180 an hour to fuel and fly, not including salaries and benefits for two crew members -- came swooping in out of the night sky one recent evening.

It circled several times around its intended target, then alighted in a nearby lot while a passenger went in for a box of doughnuts. Mission accomplished, the chopper buzzed off, sounding the siren by way of bidding onlookers adieu.)

Allan W Janssen is the author of The Plain Truth About God at www.God-101.com and the blog "Perspective" at http://God-101.blogspot.com

Cops are Liars (among other things)

I will start this post with a confession.

Back between 1987 and 1997 I drank way too much for a variety of reasons, none of which are important now.

I started to think that maybe it wasn't such a good thing for my health or sanity after a few arrests for public drunkenness and a DUI!

The clincher was in 1995 when I was in downtown London at a bus stop waiting to take a bus home when I was again arrested for being pissed.

The first part of my detention was rather uneventful until we got to the police station. There I made the mistake of telling the cop that was taking me out of the cruiser to go take a "flying fuck!"

For my candor I had two front teeth kicked out and then I was charged with assaulting the cop to make it harder for me to sue them.

The Special Investigations Unit, (A civilian watchdog agency) got involved and hounded me for months to give them all the details, since they wanted this guy for a bunch of incidences where he had gotten carried away with his treatment of prisoners and his conduct in general.

(I won't tell you about the time this cowboy was on his way to a crime, and even though the call was cancelled he continued to roar through town with sirens blasting until he finally went through a red light and killed another motorist! As far as I remember the cop got a slap on the wrist for this.)

After loosing my teeth, I decided that enough was enough, and let the matter drop rather than have the cops follow me around a harass me for making trouble for them.

It did, however, lead me to the conclusion that cops very quickly forget that their purpose is to uphold the law.

Instead they rapidly loose that perspective and start to think that they ARE the law, which leads to a very dangerous mind-set on the part of the police.

I won't even get into the stories about Rodney King or others but instead focus on recent events right here in Canada

Now don't get the impression that I think all cops are lyin' bastards, because that is not true. When it comes to covering up their own ass and closing rank to protect themselves, only most of them are lyin bastards.

There are also one or two good cops.

Here is the latest hue and cry in the papers about our police forces.

There was a guy at the Vancouver airport last month who was killed when the RCMP tried to arrest him.

To make this long story short he was needlessly tasered twice and died while in custody.

Just so you don't think this is my bias against the police force I will give you part of an editorial by Greg Weston of the Sun Media Group on what happened that day!

The Polish immigrant's first and fatal encounter with four RCMP leadfoots and a 50,000-volt stun gun was amply documented in the now famous amateur death video taken by a civilian bystander, Paul Pritchard.

While right-thinking Canadians everywhere are disgusted and outraged over the incident, it is clear from the video that the Mounties did their spinning best to cover up the whole affair.

This is one sick story: At age 40, Dziekanski had never been away from his home in Poland, much less on an airplane, when he landed in Vancouver exhausted and confused after more than 20 hours in transit.

After seven more hours of bureaucratic hell in the airport, with no food or water, and no one to translate for him as he searched in vain for his mother, Dziekanski tossed a piece of computer gear on the floor, and a small wooden folding chair at a partition.

HANDS RAISED

The video showed the four RCMP officers arriving on the scene a few minutes later, Dziekanski backing up with his hands in the air, and suddenly he is screaming in agony on the floor.

Even as he is writhing in pain from the first jolt of 50,000 volts, he is zapped again, as the burly RCMP officers descend on him, at least two knees on his back and neck as he lies face down.

By the time the cops are finished, he is dead.

RCMP spokesman Sgt. Pierre Lemaitre subsequently told reporters that when police arrived on the scene, they tried to calm down Dziekanski, but he continued "throwing things around" until he had to be subdued. False.

Lemaitre went on to say the first Taser shot "didn't seem to have any effect on him." False.

The officers held the victim down by the shoulders face up, he said. False.

The one thing the RCMP spokesman did not mention to the media was they had seized Pritchard's home-video showing the entire incident.

Indeed, if Pritchard had not taken court action to get his video back, and then posted it on the web last week, the RCMP might well have gotten away with explanations of the incident we would generously describe as a pile of crap.

And where was commissioner Elliott while all of this deception was going on in his department?

For 34 days after Dziekanski's death, Elliott remained completely silent, finally issuing a statement last Saturday -- four days after the damning video became public.

Elliott called the affair "tragic," but insisted that while the images on the video are "disturbing," no one should draw conclusions from them.

Baloney. One conclusion from the video is that the RCMP spokesman was not telling the truth.

MISINFORMATION

Since it is likely the spokesman was only the messenger, what has commissioner Elliott done in the last month to ferret out the RCMP official(s) responsible for feeding so much misinformation (lying) to the public?

This was not a case of four officers having their recollections distorted by the heat of the moment -- the RCMP had the home video.

As I said, police forces in this country and others develop an "us vs. them" mentality and when you combine this with an acquired belief that they are above the law we get into very dangerous territory.

Probably the best example of this is the taser gun itself.

The original purpose of tasers was as a substitute for "Deadly Force."

Instead of shooting someone that was threatening them with a weapon, cops could use the taser and not have to kill the guy.

BUT, because the police are a law onto themselves some bright guy arbitrarily decided that a taser would be a perfect tool for enforcing COMPLIANCE on suspects without the trouble or bother of having to physically restrain them.

Once this was established they just started zapping everyone left, right and centre!

I will leave this with a comment from a reader here in London.

Thank goodness for the video!

Having the RCMP investigate the RCMP's conduct into the taser death of a Polish immigrant at Vancouver International Airport is nothing short of absurd.

Indeed, having any Canadian police force - all of which must rely on the RCMP from time to time - to investigate the conduct of other police officers - is absurd.

It is long past due for this country to have an independent, civilian body to look into the conduct of police officers and to review police procedures.

The amateur video capturing the last 10 minutes of the life of Robert Dziekanski, 40, is extremely troubling on many levels.

First, it proves that the initial official statements issued by the RCMP following Dziekanski's death were inaccurate to put it mildly.

RCMP admitted that they tasered the disoriented and agitated man twice.

"(The taser) didn't seem to have any kind of effect on him," said Sgt. Pierre Lemaitre shortly after Dziekanski's Oct. 14 death.

In fact, the video clearly shows the taser having a profound effect on Dziekanski, who started to scream and fell to the ground writhing in pain and panic, which is when he was tasered again before lapsing into unconsciousness and dying.

Liberal Public Safety Critic Ujjal Dosanjh is right to call on the Harper Conservative government to establish public hearings in order to develop national guidelines for the use of tasers.

Police argue that tasers save lives since they give officers an alternative to using their firearms.

If that were the only circumstance in which these potentially deadly devices were used, then this debate, which is raging around the world, wouldn't be taking place.

Instead, this gut-wrenching video proves that the RCMP officers who attended to a clearly disturbed Dziekanski used the taser as a first resort within 23 seconds of approaching Dziekanski, who was breathing heavily and sweating.

This shameful incident has sullied Canada's reputation around the world.

Independent oversight would go a long way to preventing this kind of abuse of power in the future.

POSTED BY: Licia Corbella, london

Allan W Janssen is the author of The Plain Truth About God at www.God-101.com and the blog "Perspective" at http://God-101.blogspot.com

Great Grandmother arrested and roughed up!

A 70-year-old woman arrested in a dispute over her brown lawn pleaded not guilty yesterday, then stood by as a Los Angeles lawyer waved handcuffs for the cameras outside court.

All because she wouldn't give her name to a cop at her door!

Betty Perry, left, sits with attorney Gloria Allred in Utah's Fourth District Court on Tuesday in Orem, Utah.

She is charged with resisting arrest and failing to maintain her landscaping, both misdemeanors.

She was arrested July 6 after failing to give her name to a police officer who visited her home. During a struggle, Perry fell and injured her nose.

She spent more than an hour in a holding cell before police released her.

"I ask the citizens of Orem: How many of you would like to have your great-grandmother taken from her home with bruises and blood and placed in handcuffs for failing to water her lawn?" attorney Gloria Allred said.

"Let's bring sanity back to law enforcement," she said.

The mayor and City Council apologized, and the police department said the situation could have been handled differently.

But, the city attorney still is pressing charges, and Perry is due back in court next month.

A state investigation found that Officer James Flygare acted properly in arresting Perry after trying to get her to cooperate.

Perry's water had been turned off for about nine months, at her request, although she was living back at the house at the time of the arrest. Orem has a shutoff policy for people who are away for extended periods.

Whatever the outcome, this proves once again that District Attorneys (or Crown Attorneys in Canada) don't give a shit about the law, they just want their convictions! The whole legal system in North America sucks!

Allan W Janssen is the author of The Plain Truth About God at www.God-101.com and the blog "Perspective" at http://God-101.blogspot.com

Cop This!

Cops, unfortunately, are a necessary evil.

Society needs cops to protect us from criminals and violence, while at the same time there is nobody to protect us from the cops. The whole problem stems from the fact that while an officer of the law is sworn to uphold that law, he or she very quickly starts to assume that they ARE the law.

This is a very dangerous situation and one that I'm not sure there is a cure for!

A North Carolina couple who were terrorized by a police officer who had recently returned from Iraq are now fighting back, after sheriff's deputy Brian Scarborough broke into their house, assaulted them and then arrested the Kuhns for the crime of flying an upside down U.S. flag.

Mark and Deborah Kuhn of Asheville, North Carolina made headlines last week when they were arrested for flying an upside down U.S. flag, a commonly recognized sign of distress, in their backyard, after police claimed they were violating a statute for "desecration of the flag".

"This is a distress signal, we're not trying to desecrate the flag," Kuhn told Scarborough when he told the couple they were violating a statute. Police claimed the messages attached to the flag were the problem, but the notes merely pointed out that the upside down flag represented a distress signal and a warning that the country was in danger.

Even though Kuhn took the flag down, the officer immediately demanded that the couple show their ID's and when they refused told them to put their hands behind their back and was about to arrest them before the couple shut and locked the door.

Scarborough then proceeded to kick the door in, "And the next thing we know, the glass is flying, he unlocks the deadbolt and he comes into our house after us," Kuhn told The Alex Jones Show.

The officer then pursued Mark Kuhn through the house before intercepting him in the kitchen and putting him in a choke hold.

Deborah Kuhn called 911 to report that the officer had broken into the home and was assaulting her husband.

The officer then pulled out pepper spray to which Mark Kuhn responded, "Are you going to spray me in my house?" before Scarborough whipped out his billy club and the Kuhn's ran out of the house into the street, pleading for help from their neighbors.

"Nine police cars showed up, they whipped out the Tasers, they said 'get down or we're gonna Taser you' added Kuhn.

The couple were handcuffed, arrested and bundled into a squad car, to the protests of numerous neighbors who demanded to know why the Kuhns were being incarcerated, but were told to leave by police.

Contradicting the police's account of the incident, that Buncombe County Sheriff’s deputy Brian Scarborough was injured when the Kuhn's slammed the door on his hand, Deborah Kuhn vehemently maintains that Scarborough smashed the glass of their door with his bare fist before breaking in, a description which is backed up by three other eyewitnesses, one of which appeared on TV later that day.

The Kuhn's are now also being charged with "assault on a government employee" - meaning that the new definition of assault is if a police officer cuts his hand by breaking into your house and putting you in a choke hold - you have assaulted him.

Scarborough claims that Deborah Kuhn slapped him while she was on the phone to the police, but the audio file of the call clearly contradicts this.

They each face over a year in prison.

The Kuhn's case is similar in many ways to that of Kelly Rushing, a man from Lyon County Kentucky, who was arrested and charged for handing out videotapes of Ron Paul videos to police officers. Rushing was later found not guilty of the offence of "terroristic threats" but continues to be harassed by police.

It also mirrors the case of an Alabama man, who was arrested in 2004 for displaying a sign in his yard that read "Our Courts System is a Joke," under the pretext that it was illegal to criticize the authorities.

I urge all readers readers to call the following number and remind the officials concerned that that they are not living in Russia or Nazi Germany, and that officer Scarborough's conduct was shameful and an insult to everything America is supposed to stand for.

Scarborough's experience in Iraq of kicking down doors and taking innocent people to camps is not something that should be brought back to North America, and the charges against the Kuhns should be dropped immediately along with a formal apology issued.

Sheriff Van Duncan's Office: 828-250-4503

Allan W Janssen

The Ballad of Genarlow Wilson.

Wilson v. State is a court case brought about to appeal the aggravated child molestation conviction of Georgia man Genarlow Wilson.

Here's a quick re-cap of what has happened so far boys and girls.

Genarlow was at a party back when he was seventeen and made it with two, that's right, count em,two girls that night. First he had sex with the older (17) girl and then had the younger (15) girl perform oral sex on him later in the evening.

Now instead of becoming a local hero for making it twice during one party the cops got a hold of a tape of the whole thing and started an investigation.

As soon as she heard this the older girl yelled she had been raped and this is where the shit hit the fan. (It looks like the girl yelled rape to save being labeled as "loose," but our wayward hero was eventually exonerated of this heinous crime.)

But! The cops still had him on tape getting the dirty (oral sex) from the fifteen year old and pressed "aggravated child molestation charges" against him!

The "aggravated" nature of the charge refers to fellatio (oral sex) rather than a mere "immoral or indecent act."

But, be that as it may, had Wilson just had intercourse with the 15-year-old and not received oral sex from her, he would only have been subject to a 12-month penalty (statutory rape), with no sex offender status instead of the 10-year minimum term that the judge gave him.

(Wilson received the 10-year sentence following a refusal to enter into a proposed plea bargain, stating of his adamant belief that "It's all about doing what's right...... And what's right is right, and what's wrong is wrong. And I'm just standing up for what I believe in."

His decision, as well as his continued fight to overturn his conviction also take into account that sex offenders in Georgia must register themselves and are subject to penalty laws for life, and that the law was not intended to penalize teenage partners [a fact which has since been included in updated legislation.]

As the law stands, Wilson would not even be able to return to his own family after an early release, as he has an 8-year-old sister and would be forbidden contact.)

This pretty well brings us up to speed, right up to today, where our hapless protagonist was granted the right to appeal his excessive sentence.

The only trouble is that the Judge sitting at the hearing refused to give Mr. Wilson bail while the appeal is being heard so his ass is still firmly parked in jail.

It couldn't be because he is BLACK, could it?

Your "give em one for the gipper" scribe;
Allan W Janssen

(Oh by the way, no matter how you slice it, this consensual B.J. came with one hell of a price! So remember; A blow job a day keeps the doctor away, but it won't do anything about the cops!)

As of this writing, (Thursday - P.M.) Denarlow has been set free and a new trial ordered!

Five Year Old Arrested in Florida!

Charged with Public Intoxication and Mischief!

Your humble scribe;
Allan W Janssen

Saturday Morning Confusion!

My problem with the shooting of Ian Bush that we discussed in the last article is that the man was handcuffed and shot in the back of the head. This, to me, stinks to high heaven and needs to be looked into.

On the other hand, there are some situations where the use of "deadly force" is justified and even demanded. Take this case!

An Ontario Provincial Police officer was not criminally responsible in the shooting death of a mentally challenged Renfrew man in April, the provincial Special Investigations Unit has found.

Michael Foster, 24, died after the officer shot him in the chest outside Foster's home west of Ottawa. He was pronounced dead in hospital after he was shot in the chest by police.

This shooting is also a tragedy but; "It is entirely reasonable to conclude that the subject officer had an honest and reasonable belief that it was necessary to shoot Mr. Foster in order to protect himself from either death or grievous bodily harm," SIU director James Cornish said in a news release issued Friday afternoon.

The SIU, a civilian agency, investigates cases of serious injury, sexual assault or death involving police. Its investigation found that the officer only shot Foster after the man had brandished a pellet gun and multiple knives at police, thrown a knife in the direction of the officer who later shot him, and ignored repeated commands to stop and put the weapons down, the release said.

Police were called to Foster's home after he began acting aggressively toward his mother and girlfriend after an afternoon of drinking.

After Foster was shot, the police officer administered first aid and Foster was sent to hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Something like this I have no problem with and sympathize with the cop who had to shoot someone, because not only do they have to do a difficult job, he will have to live with the shooting the rest of his life.
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I don't often agree with everything Donald Trump says but I have to admit I like Rosie O'Donnell about as much as he does.

Rosie O'Donnell has had enough of The View.

ABC has announced she won't be back on the daytime chat show following an angry confrontation over U.S. politics with co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck on Wednesday.

Rosie O'Donnell started at The View last September, and will not complete the season. The fight was a prolonged discussion about the war in Iraq, with harsh words by both parties.

Though the pair have frequently disagreed on air, this was their longest and most bitter argument to date. Toward the end, the network went to split screen as both co-hosts were speaking at once.

O'Donnell, known for her outspoken manner and strong political views, has received an early exit from her contract, which was due to end in mid-June.

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Chickenshit Shia cleric al-Sadr emerges after months of hiding

Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr resurfaced in Iraq Friday after nearly four months in hiding, and demanded U.S. troops leave Iraq.

Al-Sadr, 33, went underground, reportedly in Iran, at the start of a U.S.-led security crackdown on Baghdad. He also had ordered his militia off the streets to prevent conflict with U.S. forces.

Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr resurfaced Friday after spending four months in hiding.

His return to the Shia holy city of Najaf appeared to be an effort to regain control over his militia, which has begun fragmenting, and to take advantage of the illness of a Shia rival — Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq leader Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, who was recently diagnosed with lung cancer and went to Iran for treatment.

Al-Sadr drove in a long motorcade from Najaf to its sister city of Kufa to deliver an anti-American sermon to 6,000 chanting supporters at the main mosque.

While the call for a U.S. pullout was nothing new, al-Sadr also peppered his speech with nationalist overtones, criticizing the government for not providing services, appealing to his followers not to fight with Iraqi security forces and reaching out to Sunnis.

"To our Iraqi Sunni brothers, I say that the occupation sows dissension among us and that strength is unity and division is weakness," he said. "I'm ready to co-operate with them in all fields."

Al-Sadr did not address his reasons for returning but during his time in absentia, his militia appeared to be splitting into extremist and moderate factions.

Gee, maybe we could send a few of our cops over there to deal with this nutcase!

Your "all the news" scribe;
Allan W Janssen

Allan W Janssen is the author of The Plain Truth About God-101 (what the church doesn't want you to know!) www.God-101.com

This is one of the reasons I quit drinking!

End of story!

Labrador policewoman cops to abuse!

Police in Labrador have apologized to a woman who was held naked in a lockup for two days last winter, and have disciplined an officer for mistreating her.

An internal RCMP report has found that police did not follow procedure in a case involving Carol Ikkusek, 26, who was kept naked in a small lockup cell that had no mattress.

Ikkusek, an Innu resident of Nain on Labrador's northern coast, was brought into custody in Happy Valley-Goose Bay last February, and was waiting for a court appearance on charges of assaulting a police officer. (Now we know why they abused her!)

An internal RCMP report said Ikkusek threatened to use her clothing to harm herself, so Cpl. Edwina Tuttle intervened, taking Ikkusek to hospital for a medical assessment. A doctor there recommended that Ikkusek be admitted, however, the hospital's secure room was not available, so Tuttle took Ikkusek back to the lockup.

Ikkusek was stripped and left to sleep on a steel bench with no blanket. Ikkusek was given a blanket after 16 hours, but she remained naked for another day and a half. (Inside or not, we have to remember that this was winter in northern Labrador and global warming doesn't help much up there!)

Details of Ikkusek's treatment surfaced during sentencing.

Insp. Greg Bursey made an apology on Tuesday to Ikkusek, on behalf of the force's Labrador district. "I'm sorry she felt that she was mistreated in any way or put through any undue hardship, but certainly there was no intent," Bursey said. "I'm satisfied, within reason, that it shouldn't happen again."

Tuttle was disciplined for not following procedure. She still works with the RCMP in Happy Valley-Goose Bay.

Meanwhile, Boyd Rowe, chief executive officer of the regional health authority, says there's a need for more secure medical holding areas. "More and more, we are utilizing that particular secure room, and it has led us to give some thought to designating another space within the facility," Rowe said.

Nobody with the Ikkusek family could be reached to comment on the police report. (P.S. Even if they could reach them, they would be too afraid to file a complaint, let alone charge the cop with assaault!)

Your "on the beat" scribe;
Allan W Janssen

Take off your clothes and bend over.

As I reported in the article "Bang, bang.......stop or I'll shoot!" cops very quickly go from upholding the law to thinking they "are" the law and can dispense it at their own discretion.
(For example, the Rodney King-thing in L.A. a few years ago!)

Even though this story is 12 years old we are hearing about it here for the first time and it goes to show that some things never change.

On the morning of May 20, 1994, Ms Gray was taken by sheriff officers to Narre Warren Police Station in Victoria, Australia to convert some $400 in unpaid parking fines into community service work.

Shortly after her arrival she was made to stand naked in the corridor of the station as a sheriff's officer, Janet Pike, and Senior Constable Sandra Hatch searched her clothing and person.

In March 2001, a jury awarded her damages totalling $337,000 and represents the highest damages award for police misbehaviour.

Ms Gray said today she was glad the case had been finalised, but an apology "would still be nice".

"All I've asked for for the last nine years is a simple apology and I have never gotten it. Two courts have now found they acted wrongly and all this has just been so unnecessary."

I guess the cops weren't taking any chances with scofflaws in their city, after all, you can never be too careful.
Right boys?

Your ever-vigilant scribe;
Allan W Janssen

Bang, Bang............stop or I'll shoot!

The police have a built in problem that affects every police force and individual cop on the planet.

A policeman (or woman) is an individual who has the power of the State vested in him/her so that we can maintain law and order.

Over the course of time, (sometimes quickly, sometimes later) this individual seems to loose the distinction of having the "authority" vested in him/herself and starts to assume that they "ARE THE LAW."

As I said, this eventually affects every cop on the planet sooner or later and the consequences can be severe!

These two examples from New York City show what can go wrong!

Mayor Michael Bloomberg weighed in yesterday on the uproar over a deadly police shooting, saying bluntly that officers appeared to use excessive force when they fired 50 shoots at an unarmed man in a confrontation outside a strip club hours before his wedding.

The groom, Sean Bell, 23, was killed and two of his friends were wounded early Saturday after a bachelor party at the strip club.

Suspecting (?) that one of the men had a gun, police fired 50 rounds into the fleeing vehicle. It turned out the men were unarmed but just the same one 12 year veteran of the force fired his weapon 31 times, emptying two full magazines of ammunition into the car.

It's nice to see someone so enthusiastic about their job. It must also be said that one officer was struck (but not injured) by the suspects car as they tried to leave, but this has not been proven.

The other case is even more bizzare. A few months ago in the Bronx, Amadou Diallo was an unarmed BLACK West African immigrant who was shot 19 times by four WHITE officers.

THEY WERE ACQUITTED OF ALL CRIMINAL CHARGES!

Your "lock the doors!" scribe:
Allan W Janssen

One foot in the door!

You know someone with a name like Ezekiel Rubottom is a person to watch. Described as a "21-year-old artist, occasional hip-hop emcee, and recovering methamphetamine addict, Mr. Rubottom was also born with a club foot.

This summer, upon advice from his doctor, he had the foot amputated, but instead of letting the hospital dispose of the body part, he took it home and stuck it (along with a can of beer and a porcelain horse!) in a bucket of formaldehyde on his front porch.

When a neighborhood kid told one of his parents about seeing the foot, they called the police, who in turn confiscated the foot pending an investigation.

As it turns out, it's perfectly legal to keep your own body parts, so the foot was returned to Mr. Rubottom, who's already planning on giving a couple of toes to close friends.

Oh, to be young and foolish!

I don't think this requires too much in the way of comment!

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) - A botched kidnapping ended with one of the assailants shooting himself in the groin, police said.

The man had just stuck the gun in his waistband when it fired, shooting him in the left testicle, authorities said. He cringed, causing the gun to fire again and strike him in the left calf, they said.

The 23-year-old man managed to walk into a hospital for treatment. He and his two alleged accomplices, ages 18 and 20, were arrested on attempted kidnapping charges.

They were accused of trying to kidnap a teenager in a dispute over stereo speakers.