OFF THE WIRE
 

OFF THE WIRE
By Lawrence Adams, eHow Contributor
Where the law on firearm ownership across the nation and among states is often clear, the laws and regulations concerning pocket knives can be rather vague and subject to sudden change. The federal laws regulating concealed and open pocket knife carry are, in most cases, more general than state and city laws. Because many of the regulations concerning pocket knives are derived through case law, these regulations are constantly changing and difficult to find.

Federal Law

• Federal law prohibits the carrying of all ballistic or automatic knives. These are knives with gas- or spring-powered blades that are released by a button. The mailing or transportation of switchblade knives across state lines is prohibited unless intended for military use. The concealed carry of a locking-blade pocket knife with a blade of two and a-half inches or less is allowed under federal law.

State Law

• State laws uphold the same prohibitory stance of switchblade and ballistic knives as outlined in the federal law. Because pocket knife regulations are set up through case law, and because each state has a unique set of laws that new case law is built upon, laws regarding the concealed and open carry of pocket knives differ drastically. In most cases, it is safe to carry a locking-blade pocket knife with a blade two inches long or less.

OFF THE WIRE

Overview of NV Knife Law | Nevada Knife Case Law
Nevada Revised Statutes | City and County Ordinances

Overview of Nevada Knife Laws

State Law
Generally speaking, Nevada law is silent on the carrying of knives, with certain specific exceptions which we will address later on. This means that unless explicitly prohibited by NRS or by city or county ordinance, it is legal to carry a knife in Nevada. Since there is no state preemption law for edged weapons like there is for firearms, municipalities and counties may make any law they wish with respect to the carry of knives. The Nevada Revised Statutes do not specify any maximum allowable blade length, or any restrictions as far as open or concealed knife carry. NRS 202.350 prohibits the possession of any switchblade or belt buckle knife, and makes it illegal to carry a concealed dirk, dagger, or machete. Additionally, NRS 202.320, which prohibits the drawing of a deadly weapon in a threatening manner in any situation where a person's actions do not constitute legitimate and necessary self-defense, applies to knives as well as to firearms.

Note that depending on circumstances, it is possible that carrying a concealed knife that does not fall into any prohibited category might still result in an arrest for carrying a concealed weapon, if it appears that the intent exists to use that knife primarily as a weapon rather than a tool. Remember also that a Nevada concealed firearms permit (CCW) applies to firearms only, and does not allow the carry of any concealed knife that would normally be illegal to carry under state or local law.
Nevada state law (NRS 202.265) makes it illegal to carry certain "dangerous weapons" on property of, or in a vehicle belonging to, a school or child care facility; this includes campuses of the University of Nevada system and the College of Southern Nevada. Prohibited items under this statute include dirks, daggers, switchblades (as defined below), and trefoils (aka throwing stars). While no other prohibited places are listed in Nevada state law, as a general rule, no knives may be taken into any facility with a metal detector at the entrance, including court facilities.

Definitions
Certain of the terms used in the Nevada Revised Statutes discussed here are defined in very specific ways, and an understanding of these definitions is essential to properly understanding what the laws do and do not permit. Interestingly, the words "dirk" and "dagger," although they appear in multiple statutes as a class of prohibited weapon, are not explicitly defined anywhere within the NRS itself. The definitions of these words as a matter of Nevada law derive from a number of Nevada Supreme Court decisions (see below), in which the Court noted that a dagger is traditionally "a short weapon used for thrusting and stabbing and that stabbing is using a pointed weapon to wound or kill" (Huebner v. State, 1987). A dirk is noted in the same decision as functionally being nothing more than a type of dagger. The court also noted in other decisions that any knife cannot automatically be classified as a dirk or dagger at the whim of an arresting officer or a judge, and that some "relevant factors" to consider when making such a determination include whether the knife has handguards and/or a blade that locks in place. In short, the Nevada courts currently accept the legal definition of a dirk or dagger as a pointed knife with a fixed or locking blade, designed primarily or solely as a stabbing weapon. Any double-edged knife with a fixed blade is generally considered to be a dagger.
A switchblade knife is defined by NRS 202.350 as "a spring-blade knife, snap-blade knife or any other knife having the appearance of a pocketknife, any blade of which is 2 or more inches long and which can be released automatically by a flick of a button, pressure on the handle or other mechanical device, or is released by any type of mechanism. The term does not include a knife which has a blade that is held in place by a spring if the blade does not have any type of automatic release." An automatic-opening knife with a blade less than two inches in length is not considered to be a "switchblade" as a matter of Nevada law, and is thus legal to possess and carry.
The blade of a knife is generally considered to be "that portion which is customarily sharpened from the tip of the knife to the tang, or the unsharpened extension of the blade which forms the hinge connecting the blade to the handle," as per the Nevada Supreme Court's decision in Bradvica v. State, 1988 (see below). In other words, only that part of a knife which is designed to be sharpened is considered to be the "blade" for purposes of determining length.
A concealed weapon is defined by NRS 202.350 as any weapon described within that statute, which is carried upon one's person "in such a manner as not to be discernible by ordinary observation." By this definition, if a weapon, or part of it, cannot be seen without first moving clothing out of the way, it is considered to be concealed. The Nevada Supreme Court, as part of its ruling in Huebner v. State (1987), found that a weapon which is visible or partially visible, but appears to be something else (for example, a knife contained within an item such as a pen or hairbrush), is still a concealed weapon even though it is not covered or hidden from view.
NRS 193.165 defines a deadly weapon as "(a) Any instrument which, if used in the ordinary manner contemplated by its design and construction, will or is likely to cause substantial bodily harm or death; (b) Any weapon, device, instrument, material or substance which, under the circumstances in which it is used, attempted to be used or threatened to be used, is readily capable of causing substantial bodily harm or death; or (c) A dangerous or deadly weapon specifically described in NRS 202.255, NRS 202.265, NRS 202.290, NRS 202.320 or NRS 202.350." Additionally, the Nevada Supreme Court, in Zgombic v. State (1990), ruled that for any instrument not so defined by statute to be considered a "deadly weapon," it must satisfy what the Court refers to as the "inherently dangerous" test. A weapon is inherently dangerous in this analysis if it, when “used in the ordinary manner contemplated by its design and construction, will, or is likely to, cause a life-threatening injury or death.” By this standard, most pocketknives or utility knives would not meet the "deadly weapon" criteria because they are designed and constructed for use primarily as tools and not as weapons. Note that under Nevada law, an instrument that does not meet the "deadly weapon" criteria might still qualify as a "dangerous weapon," the test for which is less stringent and is based on whether that item is merely capable of causing death or substantial bodily harm under the circumstances in which it is used.

City and County Knife Laws
In the absence of a state preemption statute, Nevada counties and municipalities are free to enact knife laws which are more restrictive than state law. Very few have done so. Those which have include Clark County and the cities of Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, Henderson, and Reno. Following are synopses of these jurisdictions' knife laws; links to the relevant ordinances can be found below.

• Clark County - Prohibits concealed knives with blades longer than three inches. No limitation on blade length for knives carried openly.
• Las Vegas - Prohibits concealed knives with blades longer than three inches. Does not limit blade length for openly carried knives. Prohibits switchblades or automatic opening knives with blades of any length. Prohibits any person from loitering, fighting, or engaging in disorderly conduct while carrying a concealed "deadly weapon" as defined by city ordinance.
• North Las Vegas - Prohibits concealed knives with blades longer than three inches. No limit on blade length for knives openly carried. Prohibits any switchblade or automatic opener, regardless of blade length. Prohibits the carry of ice picks or "similar sharp stabbing tools" and straight razors. Prohibits loitering, fighting, or disorderly conduct while carrying any concealed weapon.
• Henderson - Prohibits concealed carry of knives with blades longer than three inches. Prohibits the possession of any knife "commonly known as a switchblade, spring-blade or push button knife," with no limitation on blade length.
• Reno - Defines a "dangerous knife" as having a blade of more than two inches, and prohibits carry of same in any city park or recreation area. Prohibits, by city ordinance, the carry of any knife in a city courthouse.

State and National Parks
Nevada law does not specifically address carrying a knife within a state park, although NAC 407.105 does state that it is illegal to throw knives or other projectiles in state parks. As far as carrying a knife in any National Park, the only specific statute addressing this is 18 USC 44 § 930, prohibiting "dangerous weapons," which are understood to include knives, in any Federal park building, provided notice is given by means of a sign at the building entrance. Follow relevant state laws otherwise.
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No Duty to Retreat
In May of 2011, Nevada's governor signed AB321 into law. This bill amended NRS 200.120, which deals with the use of deadly force, by specifying that a person who uses deadly force to defend himself has no legal "duty to retreat" prior to doing so as long as he:

• Is not the original aggressor;
• Has a right to be present at the location where deadly force is used; and
• Is not actively engaged in conduct in furtherance of criminal activity at the time deadly force is used.

This statute applies to any use of deadly force, including self-defense with edged weapons.

Nevada Court Cases

Since the Nevada Revised Statutes are largely silent regarding knives, case law has given us a number of important precedents. Following are synopses of a few relevant NV Supreme Court cases, with links to the full text of each decision.

• Huebner v. State, 1987 - This case is important from the standpoint of Nevada knife law, since it codified two central principles. When arrested for a separate offense, Huebner was in possession of a four-inch knife concealed in what appeared to be a ballpoint pen, and was charged with possession of a concealed weapon and convicted. Huebner claimed that the weapon was not concealed, since the "pen" part of it was clearly visible in his pocket at the time of his arrest, and appealed. In upholding his conviction, the Court clarified that a weapon is still concealed, even if visible, if because of the appearance of the visible portion it appears to be some other implement. A footnote to the Court's decision also specified the definition of "dagger" that has been used by Nevada courts since then, even though such a definition was not central to the case.
• Bradvica v. State, 1988 - Bradvica was arrested for an unrelated offense and found to be carrying an automatic opening knife with a blade measuring 2 5/16 from tip to handle. He was convicted of carrying a "dangerous knife" under the (since superseded) wording of NRS 202.350 at that time. He appealed his conviction to the Nevada Supreme Court, which found that the wording "dangerous knife" was sufficiently vague as to be meaningless. The Court's opinion also defined the "blade" of a knife as "that portion which is customarily sharpened from the tip of the knife to the tang, or the unsharpened extension of the blade which forms the hinge connecting the blade to the handle." By that definition, the blade of Bradvica's knife only measured 1 15/16 inches, meaning that the knife did not meet the definition of a "switchblade" under Nevada law, being less than two inches long. His conviction was overturned.
• Zgombic v. State, 1990 - This case introduced the requirement that in order for an item to be a "deadly weapon" for purposes of sentencing or enhancements to sentencing, it must satisfy the "inherently dangerous" test. In Zgombic's case, the object in question was a pair of steel-toed boots, which was demonstrably not, when used "in the ordinary manner contemplated by its design and construction," inherently likely to cause death or substantial bodily harm. While this was not a knife law case per se, the "inherently dangerous" qualification to determine whether or not an instrument should be considered a "deadly weapon" has since been used by the Court in cases that did involve knives.
• Buff v. State, 1998 - The Nevada Supreme Court's opinion in this case applied the "inherently dangerous" standard for a deadly weapon introduced in Zgombic v. State to a Swiss army knife. The court found that even though the knife in question was used as the weapon in an murder, it was not by definition a "deadly weapon" as it did not meet the requirements of that test.
• Knight v. State, 2000 - In this case, Knight was convicted of carrying a concealed weapon after being arrested while carrying a steak knife concealed on his person. The Nevada Supreme Court recognized that the steak knife did not constitute a "dirk or dagger" as specified in the CCW statute, and further codified the definition of these two implements by introducing the "relevant factors" of handguards and a locking blade to be considered when determining whether or not a knife meets that definition. The Court also recognized that under the totality of the circumstances surrounding Knight's arrest, it was evident that he was carrying the steak knife to use as a weapon, and therefore his conviction was upheld.

Nevada State Knife Laws

Nevada Revised Statutes
The short titles of each statute are listed below; click on a statute to read the entire text. This is not intended to be a complete or exhaustive list of all Nevada knife or self-defense laws.

• NRS 202.265 - Possession of dangerous weapon on property or in vehicle of school or child care facility; penalty; exceptions.
• NRS 202.320 - Drawing deadly weapon in threatening manner.
• NRS 202.350 - Manufacture, importation, possession or use of dangerous weapon or silencer; carrying concealed weapon without permit; penalties; issuance of permit to carry concealed weapon; exceptions.
• NRS 202.355 - Manufacture or sale of switchblade knives: Application for permit; eligibility; public hearing; restrictions.

Nevada Administrative Code

• NAC 407.105 - Possession or use of weapons in state parks.

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City and County Knife Ordinances

The short titles of each city and county ordinance are listed below; click on an ordinance to read the entire text. This is not intended to be a complete or exhaustive list of all city and county knife laws or self-defense laws.
Clark County Ordinances:

• CCO 12.04.180 - Concealed weapons prohibited without permit.
• CCO 12.04.190 - Law enforcement officer excepted.

Las Vegas City Ordinances:

• LVCO 10.70.010 - Dangerous or deadly weapon defined.
• LVCO 10.70.020 - Loitering while carrying concealed.
• LVCO 10.70.030 - Fighting or disorderly conduct while possessing.

North Las Vegas City Ordinances:

• NLVCO 9.32.010 - Concealed weapon prohibited - allowed with permit.
• NLVCO 9.32.040 - Dangerous or deadly weapon defined.
• NLVCO 9.32.050 - Person with concealed weapon not to loiter.
• NLVCO 9.32.060 - Person with concealed weapon not to be disorderly.
• NLVCO 9.32.080 - Deadly weapon prohibited in vehicle; exceptions.

Henderson Municipal Code:

• HMC 8.98.010 - Concealed weapons prohibited except by permission.
• HMC 8.98.070 - Switchblades and similar weapons prohibited.

Reno Municipal Code:

• Sec. 8.23.140 - Carrying dangerous weapons in city parks.
• Sec. 8.12.160 - Courthouse security.

 

OFF THE WIRE

by Carl Donath
After following rec.knives for a while, it became obvious that a quick summary of knife laws would be handy. Here's what little I've been able to glean from my reading.
My goal is to find the clear portion of what is flat-out legal and easily summarized. I realize most states confuse the issue unmercifully; I'll let others figure out how to push the limits.
WARNING: This document is created from hearsay and whatever laws I could find. For legal advice, ask a lawyer. I could be lying. I only provide this to try to slightly improve the general lack of information on this subject. YOU are responsible for your own actions. If you don't know exactly what the laws are for any state or locale you are in, GO FIND OUT. (http://www.ncsl.org/public/sitesleg.htmis a good start, containing pointers to all state legislative sites.) I haven't updated this for a while, so consider it a cursory guide.

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Explaination

State (hyperlink goes to detailed explaination)

• Summary:

Basically, I want to answer the question "I'm flying to state X tomorrow, so which knife can I take?"
• Max length:

Size limit, measured the most unpleasant way possible. Some may permit longer in certain cases, but I won't suggest anything longer if it's in a gray area.
• Specifically illegal:

Specific styles which are explicitly forbidden.
Switchblade= Push a button/lever, it does the rest.
Gravity knives = Opened by gravity or centrifigual force. Butterfly knives (balisongs) included.
• Relevant laws:

A quick pointer to roughly where the relevant laws are (ex. Penal Code 642)
• Quirks:

Dark humor points (ex: a 1" lockback in a pocket is illegal, but a 15" Bowie swinging free is ok)
• Local restrictions:

City/county restrictions.

BTW So many places forbid sharp things in schools that this sentence is the only place I'll mention this: assume posession of knives in schools - even colleges - is illegal.
Use this as guidance: kids have been suspended for mere posession of nail clippers.

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US Knife Law Summary

• Ballistic knives (automatic blade throwers) are prohibited.
• Switchbladesmay not be transported/mailed across state lines unlessthe recipient intends to use it for military use.
• Possessing a knife in a federal facility is prohibited unless it is a pocket knife with blade under 2.5".

State Knife Law Summaries

Arizona

• Summary: Generally clear. Illegal to carry "deadly weapon, (except a pocket knife) concealed."
• Max length: None apparent.
• Relevant laws: ARS book

California

• Summary: Anything capable of ready use as a stabbing weapon is illegal. All concealed knives are a felony (except non locking folders).
• Max length: chaotic
• Specifically illegal: Switchblades, gravity knives, exotic conceal methods (pen, lipstick, whatever)
• Relevant laws: PC 653K, PC 12020(24), California Laws, Commentary (apparently removed - someone know where?)
• Note that interpretations by cops and judges are wildly varied. Police have actually told law-abiding citizens to break the concealment laws, and a judge has deemed a blunt-point knife (Spyderco Mariner) a stabbing weapon.
• Quirks: Pens may be illegal (potential stabbing weapon).
• Local restrictions:
• Los Angeles
• Three inch limit for open carry without a good explanation.

Conneticut

• Summary: Sounds normal.
• Max length: Cutting edge under 4 inches
• Switchblades: Are legal to carry with a Dangerous Weapons Permit (DWP) only. Good luck trying to find a police station that has an application.
• Gravity knives: Same
• Relevant laws:
• Local restrictions: Some police chiefs don't want to give out DWP's

Florida

• Summary: A "common pocketknife" is OK. All "concealed weapons" (knives included) require a license.
• Max length: None apparent.
• Relevant laws: Chapter 790

Georgia

• Local restrictions:
• Atlanta: A blade over 3" that LOCKS is illegal.

Indiana

• Summary: Generally OK.
• Max length: None apparent.
• Specifically illegal: automatics & throwing stars.
• Relevant laws: Statutes mentioning "knife"

Mississippi

• Summary: OK for "normal" knives. Don't try to conceal any bowie, dirk, switchblade or butcher knife.
• Max length: None apparent.
• Specifically illegal: none apparent.
• Relevant laws: 97-37-*
• Quirks: Threatening actions with a knife in the presence of less than three people may be acceptable.

Missouri

• Summary: any folder 4" or less is OK.
• Max length: 4"
• Relevant laws: State Laws (search for "knife")

Maryland

• Summary: "Penknives" are OK. Anything else is borderline illegal and may require a concealed weapon permit.
• Max length: None apparent.
• Relevant laws: MD Statues Crimes and Punishments § 36, § 36A-O
• Quirks: You may carry a "weapon as a reasonable precaution against apprehended danger", but it's up to a tribunal to decide the reasonableness/appropriateness of posession.
• Local restrictions:
• Cecil, Anne Arundel, Talbot, Harford, Caroline, Prince George's, Montgomery, St. Mary's, Washington, Worcester, Kent, and Baltimore Counties have special prohibitions regarding children under 18 carrying knives. See § 36(a)(3).

Nebraska

• Summary: Nothing over 3.5"
• Max length: 3.5"
• A longer blade maybe legal, but it's subject post-fact to a judge's decision.
• Relevant laws: Statutes mentioning "knife"
• Statutes may refer only to concealed knives.
• Quirks:
• A "knife" is defined as having a blade over 3.5". A pocketknife under 3.5" is not a knife.
• Local restrictions:
• Linconln
• Switchblades are illegal.

New Jersey

• Summary: General folders OK. Single-edged fixed blades may be.
• Max length: Under 18 may not possess knife with 5" or longer blade, or 10" or longer overall. No other apparent limitation.
• Specifically illegal: gravity knife, switchblade knife, dagger, dirk, stiletto, or ballistic knife "without any explainable lawful purpose" (i.e. an ill-defined exemption). Manufacturers and sellers are not exempt.
• Relevant laws: 2C:39-3.e 2C:39-9.d 2C:39-9.1 (Statutes, search for "knife" or "knives")

New York

• Summary: If it looks like a weapon, it's illegal.
• Max length: 6" (?)
• Specifically illegal: Switchblades and gravity knives unless hunting or fishing with permit
• Relevant laws: Penal law
• Local restrictions:
• New York City
• Must be under 4"

Nevada

• Summary: Generally OK.
• Max length: None apparent.
• Specifically illegal: switchblades, belt-buckle knives
• Relevant laws: NRS 202

Ohio

• Specifically illegal: switchblade, springblade knife, gravity (butterfly) knife, or similar weapon;
• Relevant laws: Search Statutes for "knife"

Rhode Island

• Summary: 3" or less OK. Don't posess anything "designed to cut and stab another".
• Max length: 3" measured from where the handle ends, not where the sharpened edge begins.
• Specifically illegal:
• Posession of a dagger, dirk, stiletto, sword-in-cane, bowie knife, or other similar weapon designed to cut and stab another.
• Concealed carry upon one's person of the above-mentioned instruments or weapons, or any razor, or knife of any description having a blade of more than 3".
• Relevant laws: Title 11 Criminal Offenses § 11-47-42
• Quirks: Children under 18 may purchase the above weapons with written parental permission.

Tennessee

• Summary: Folders under 4" are OK.
• Max length: 4"
• Specifically illegal: Switchblades, gravity knives (probably)
• Quirks: Fixed blades are probablya no-no.

Texas

• Summary: Folders under 5.5" OK.
• Max length: 5.5"
• Specifically illegal: Switchblade, throwing knives, daggers (in general), bowie knives, swords and spears.
• Relevant laws: Penal Code 46
• Quirks: The one state people associate with Bowie knives explicitly forbids them.

Virginia

• Summary: Don't conceal a dirk or bowie knife. Don't take a dangerous weapon (esp. bowie knife or dagger) to church.
• Max length: None apparent.
• Specifically illegal: Switchblades.
• Relevant laws: 18.2-308, search statutes for knife or knives.
• Quirks: 3.1-370: your knife must be cleaned daily.

Washington

• Summary: Anything over 3" is in a gray area.
• Max length: 3"
• Specifically illegal: switchblade, springblade knife, gravity (butterfly) knife, concealed dagger/dirk
• Relevant laws: Statutes mentioning "knife"

Wisconson

• Relevant laws: 134.71 (1)(a)9, 134.71 (1)(g)1, 134.71 (1)(h)1  (relating to pawn brokers), 941.24 (switchblades)

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Canada

• Summary: Careful; the country is getting antsy about weapons.
• Specifically illegal: a knife that has a blade that opens automatically by gravity or centrifugal force or by hand pressure applied to a button, spring or other device in or attached to the handle of the knife.
• Relevant laws: Annual Statutes Of Canada, 1995 Chapter 39 (Bill C-68)

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Airlines
Summary: No knives or sharp instruments of anykind.

OFF THE WIRE
By Jeff Berwick at LewRockwell.com

Would you dial up a known criminal, like a murderer or rapist, to come help you after you’ve been the victim of a crime? No? Then why in the world would you call the police after you’ve been assaulted, robbed or otherwise violated?
The police do not consider their job to protect you. They used to at least pay lip service to “keeping the peace”, but nowadays in the USSA it is clear their job is to enforce the law. In fasco-communist America, the law stopped being about your protection decades ago. The law is about the expansion of state power and control. That’s why there are so many of them, with more coming all the time.
There are literally thousands upon thousands of reasons in the Federal Code for the police to arrest you. That’s the very essence of a police state. Everything is literally a crime. As Lao Tsu said in the 6^th century, BC: “The more artificial taboos and restrictions there are in the world, the more the people are impoverished…The more that laws and regulations are given prominence, the more thieves and robbers there will be…”
In an environment like this, police cannot merely be keepers of the peace. They must be enforcers of the law. And enforcers use force, of course – intimidation and sudden and shocking violence in order to make you obey. And compliance is exactly what the police expect. They long ago stopped being “public servants” and became more akin to plantation overseers. Rapper and philosopher KRS One pointed out the similarities in his track, “Sound of da Police”:

“The overseer rode around the plantationThe officer is off patrolling all the nationThe overseer could stop you what you’re doingThe officer will pull you over just when he’s pursuingThe overseer had the right to get illAnd if you fought back, the overseer had the right to killThe officer has the right to arrestAnd if you fight back they put a hole in your chest!”

The most egregious example of this switch from protection to abuse is the so-called War on Drugs. The heightened prosecution of drug use (which was entirely legal a century ago in the US and in fact widely used in many products) has been right at the heart of the state’s increased monitoring and intrusion into personal life.
Do you want protection from theft and physical aggression? Or do you want “law enforcement”? Law enforcement is what allows the police to bust down your door and arrest you on suspicion that you may be using a plant that the state doesn’t like. Protection from theft and physical aggression is something that could be much better provided by free market transactions. You could simply buy yourself an alarm system or weapon. Or you could pay for bodyguards and remote ’round-the-clock monitoring and dispatch from a firm who will send people to actually help you and not gun you down. These people would also never bust down your door, kill your pets and hold automatic weapons to the heads of your children on suspicion that you might own plants that some politicians and voters don’t like. In every way, the private market protection option seems much better than the public option.
An 83-year-old grandmother recently learned the hard way of the dangers of calling the police. Debra Towler of Altavista, Virginia, called 9-1-1 and hung up without making a report. This triggered an automatic officer dispatch to her home. The police claim to have heard gunshots from inside Mrs. Towler’s home. But even if that’s true – and police regularly lie to cover up their mistakes – odds are that Mrs. Towler fired those shots for the same reason she called the police: she thought her home was being invaded. That would explain why she ran out the back door to her sister’s house when officers tried to get in the front door. It would also explain why this church-going octogenarian wouldn’t drop her gun when the police started barking orders at her from afar. They responded by gunning her down.

CALL THE COPS AT YOUR OWN RISK
This woman would have been alive if she’d simply defended herself instead of calling the publicly funded police. If there really had been intruders, she probably frightened them off by being armed. In any case the police would not have arrived in time to save her from being robbed or assaulted. All the police can do is show up to ask a few questions and interrogate the victim or some witnesses in case the victim is dead. Sometimes, apparently, the police themselves cause the victims death.
If just one private protection company did this one time, the typical statist would be calling for that company to be shut down with the murderers jailed. Yet when the publicly funded police botch things up this badly, the typical person finds a reason to blame the victim. A free market protection company – perhaps provided by the same company that insured Mrs. Towler’s home – would have treated Mrs. Towler like a customer whose harm they are paid to prevent. The publicly funded police force is under no such pressure to provide customer service. Their priorities are to enforce whatever nonsense laws are on the books and to use whatever lethal violence they deem necessary to keep themselves out of harm’s way.
Why do people put up with a monopolistic police force? Think about it. You are forced to pay (with taxes) for police who aggress against you for personal behavior that’s not anybody else’s business.

I HAVE NOT NOR WILL EVER CALL THE PUBLIC POLICE
Again, the police cannot stop a criminal from harming you or from stealing your property. They can only show up to “investigate” the crime after it’s been committed. The only way police can be truly proactive is when it comes to enforcing intrusive laws about personal behavior that doesn’t harm anyone else, like driving faster than the ridiculously low posted speed limits, or not wearing a seat belt or bicycle helmet, or using plants that politicians and your neighbors don’t like.
In my 41 years I have never once called the government (9-1-1) for any type of emergency. I’ve always instinctively known it was immoral and, in most cases, useless. Here in Mexico no one would ever consider calling the cops for anything – they know what the Americans are now learning. Here, the police are far more like tipsy Barney Fifes than they are like robocops.
A month ago my wife called. She was with our $10-a-day bodyguard, but he didn’t have his pistol on him that day and she said three very large men were following her in Walmart. I told her to go to the very back of the store and tell some staff what was happening and wait for me.
I arrived in less than 5 minutes on my scooter with my gun and sprinted to the back of the store. I saw my wife and bodyguard safely standing there and was relieved. We then went to the kitchen area of the store and got both my wife and my bodyguard some sharp butcher knives. We then went through the checkout and cautiously exited the store, with everyone well-armed (not to mention my bodyguard is a professional boxer and my wife takes kickboxing and Kung Fu lessons each week and is a powerlifter – and I’m a former amateur boxer).
By that point the three men had left. Whether it was a real threat or not is anyone’s guess. But this form of self-protection beats government protection any day. Not only was my response time certainly faster, and my “skin in the game” meant I’d fight anyone to the death to protect my wife, whereas government police will almost always choose their own safety over yours. But a really interesting thing happens when you stand up for yourself and don’t depend on others for your protection. It feels great.
Plus, there is the fact that the government police who we could have called likely would have tried to beat, rob or kill us. This happens all the time, worldwide – not just in the USSA. In Tunisia, for example, women are charged with indecency for being raped by cops. In the US, beatings and shootings by cops are the issue, not rapes (usually). Look at this recent thug scrum in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, New York. After watching police pile on and abuse this young man, even the guy who called the police wishes he hadn’t called to report the young man sleeping in the community center.
“I regret making the call,” says the caller, “I should have let him sleep.” 
Call the Cops at Your Own Risk

Would you dial up a known criminal, like a murderer or rapist, to come help you after you've been the victim of a crime? No? Then why in the world would you call the police after you've been assaulted, robbed or otherwise violated?
The police do not consider their job to protect you. They used to at least pay lip service to "keeping the peace", but nowadays in the USSA it is clear their job is to enforce the law. In fasco-communist America, the law stopped being about your protection decades ago. The law is about the expansion of state power and control. That's why there are so many of them, with more coming all the time.
There are literally thousands upon thousands of reasons in the Federal Code for the police to arrest you. That's the very essence of a police state. Everything is literally a crime. As Lao Tsu said in the 6^th century, BC: "The more artificial taboos and restrictions there are in the world, the more the people are impoverished...The more that laws and regulations are given prominence, the more thieves and robbers there will be..."
In an environment like this, police cannot merely be keepers of the peace. They must be enforcers of the law. And enforcers use force, of course – intimidation and sudden and shocking violence in order to make you obey. And compliance is exactly what the police expect. They long ago stopped being "public servants" and became more akin to plantation overseers. Rapper and philosopher KRS One pointed out the similarities in his track, "Sound of da Police":

"The overseer rode around the plantationThe officer is off patrolling all the nationThe overseer could stop you what you're doingThe officer will pull you over just when he's pursuingThe overseer had the right to get illAnd if you fought back, the overseer had the right to killThe officer has the right to arrestAnd if you fight back they put a hole in your chest!"

 
The most egregious example of this switch from protection to abuse is the so-called War on Drugs. The heightened prosecution of drug use (which was entirely legal a century ago in the US and in fact widely used in many products) has been right at the heart of the state's increased monitoring and intrusion into personal life.
Do you want protection from theft and physical aggression? Or do you want "law enforcement"? Law enforcement is what allows the police to bust down your door and arrest you on suspicion that you may be using a plant that the state doesn't like. Protection from theft and physical aggression is something that could be much better provided by free market transactions. You could simply buy yourself an alarm system or weapon. Or you could pay for bodyguards and remote 'round-the-clock monitoring and dispatch from a firm who will send people to actually help you and not gun you down. These people would also never bust down your door, kill your pets and hold automatic weapons to the heads of your children on suspicion that you might own plants that some politicians and voters don't like. In every way, the private market protection option seems much better than the public option.
CALL THE COPS AT YOUR OWN RISK
An 83-year-old grandmother recently learned the hard way of the dangers of calling the police. Debra Towler of Altavista, Virginia, called 9-1-1 and hung up without making a report. This triggered an automatic officer dispatch to her home. The police claim to have heard gunshots from inside Mrs. Towler's home. But even if that's true – and police regularly lie to cover up their mistakes – odds are that Mrs. Towler fired those shots for the same reason she called the police: she thought her home was being invaded. That would explain why she ran out the back door to her sister's house when officers tried to get in the front door. It would also explain why this church-going octogenarian wouldn't drop her gun when the police started barking orders at her from afar. They responded by gunning her down.
This woman would have been alive if she'd simply defended herself instead of calling the publicly funded police. If there really had been intruders, she probably frightened them off by being armed. In any case the police would not have arrived in time to save her from being robbed or assaulted. All the police can do is show up to ask a few questions and interrogate the victim or some witnesses in case the victim is dead. Sometimes, apparently, the police themselves cause the victims death.
If just one private protection company did this one time, the typical statist would be calling for that company to be shut down with the murderers jailed. Yet when the publicly funded police botch things up this badly, the typical person finds a reason to blame the victim. A free market protection company – perhaps provided by the same company that insured Mrs. Towler's home – would have treated Mrs. Towler like a customer whose harm they are paid to prevent. The publicly funded police force is under no such pressure to provide customer service. Their priorities are to enforce whatever nonsense laws are on the books and to use whatever lethal violence they deem necessary to keep themselves out of harm's way.
Why do people put up with a monopolistic police force? Think about it. You are forced to pay (with taxes) for police who aggress against you for personal behavior that's not anybody else's business.
Again, the police cannot stop a criminal from harming you or from stealing your property. They can only show up to "investigate" the crime after it's been committed. The only way police can be truly proactive is when it comes to enforcing intrusive laws about personal behavior that doesn't harm anyone else, like driving faster than the ridiculously low posted speed limits, or not wearing a seat belt or bicycle helmet, or using plants that politicians and your neighbors don't like.
I HAVE NOT NOR WILL EVER CALL THE PUBLIC POLICE
In my 41 years I have never once called the government (9-1-1) for any type of emergency. I've always instinctively known it was immoral and, in most cases, useless. Here in Mexico no one would ever consider calling the cops for anything – they know what the Americans are now learning. Here, the police are far more like tipsy Barney Fifes than they are like robocops.
A month ago my wife called. She was with our $10-a-day bodyguard, but he didn't have his pistol on him that day and she said three very large men were following her in Walmart. I told her to go to the very back of the store and tell some staff what was happening and wait for me.
I arrived in less than 5 minutes on my scooter with my gun and sprinted to the back of the store. I saw my wife and bodyguard safely standing there and was relieved. We then went to the kitchen area of the store and got both my wife and my bodyguard some sharp butcher knives. We then went through the checkout and cautiously exited the store, with everyone well-armed (not to mention my bodyguard is a professional boxer and my wife takes kickboxing and Kung Fu lessons each week and is a powerlifter – and I'm a former amateur boxer).
By that point the three men had left. Whether it was a real threat or not is anyone's guess. But this form of self-protection beats government protection any day. Not only was my response time certainly faster, and my "skin in the game" meant I'd fight anyone to the death to protect my wife, whereas government police will almost always choose their own safety over yours. But a really interesting thing happens when you stand up for yourself and don't depend on others for your protection. It feels great.
Plus, there is the fact that the government police who we could have called likely would have tried to beat, rob or kill us. This happens all the time, worldwide – not just in the USSA. In Tunisia, for example, women are charged with indecency for being raped by cops. In the US, beatings and shootings by cops are the issue, not rapes (usually). Look at this recent thug scrum in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, New York. After watching police pile on and abuse this young man, even the guy who called the police wishes he hadn't called to report the young man sleeping in the community center.
VIDEO, http://youtu.be/BnF2rq74Zqo
Rule #1: Never call the cops. Just like with health, prevention is a far best treatment for criminal acts. Check out TDV Homegrown for more details. (If you have the option of getting free of the USSA police state entirely, then try out a TDV Weekly Basic subscription for some great insights on expatriating.)

DON'T EVEN TALK TO THE POLICE
VIDEO, http://youtu.be/6wXkI4t7nuc
The police cannot help one bit once the crime is committed. They are unlikely to figure out who committed the crime. And they care more about somebody getting convicted for the crime than they are about the right person getting convicted for the crime. Police will lie in court. They don't care about finding the culprit. They just want a conviction. And any patsy will do. So don't talk to them. Ever. They will happily see innocents carted off to jail as long as they get to look like they're doing their jobs.

OFF THE WIRE
, Carlos Miller’s Photographyisnotacrime.com featured this article.

An Orange County sheriff’s deputy detained a man for more than 12 minutes because he was video recording her and another deputy making an arrest at a gas station.
The deputy pretended she was only looking out for the best interest of the suspect, who was getting arrested for unknown reasons.
The citizen told her he was also looking out for the suspect’s best interest, ensuring he doesn’t wind up the victim of police abuse.
Michael Schmidt said in his Youtube description that the incident took place two days after Kern County sheriff’s deputies beat David Silva to death, only to confiscate cell phone cameras from witnesses who had recorded the beating. Read More…

I’m sure OCSO would love to hear from you. They can be reached at (407) 254-7000.

 Another good example on how poorly trained the Orange County Sheriff is on civil rights and Terry stops. My first comment was "I don't consent to contact" It should have been over then. There was zero reasonable suspicion and no articulable probable cause, yet she still detained me illegally for over 15 minutes.
Maybe a review of this link would be in order.
http://www.caselaw4cops.net/searchand...

Just 2 days before this incident David Silva of Bakersfield was brutally beaten to death by a cadre of police and sheriff's deputies in California. The O.C. Sheriff's have a recent history of shooting unarmed people and they want to know why I want to exercise my fundamental rights to film?
COMMENT
Wow, this should be a video on, “What not to do, during a Terry Stop.” First of all, do not film from the driver’s seat of a motor vehicle. Being behind the wheel, allows a peace officer (Law Enforcer) to demand proof of a valid “Driver License” to determine if the driver, can legally operate a motor vehicle, in doing so they can determine wants, warrants and driver status. If the stop (Interaction) was made from the passenger seat or outside the vehicle, the Terry Stop limitations would have applied. The “Demand” for ID could have been legally declined. The deputy, would NOT be able to articulate how and why the detention was committed and then it becomes an unlawful detention. The right to remain silent is just that, invoke it.
Deputy: Do you have any weapons or illegal drugs in the car?
You: Deputy _______, I am invoking my right to be silent(is sufficient) and will not speak with you any further.
Okay, now you have invoked, now shut up. DONT interact, say NOTHING. If it de-escalates, great, then obtain a name and ID number NOT a BADGE number. Agencies of any real size DO NOT USE BADGE NUMBERS to track employees, the department ID# is used. STOP ASKING FOR BADGE NUMBERS.
You: Deputy, I am requesting a contact card with your name and ID#.
Rock on guys, 25+career of being a deputy and hold people accountable is honorable and any peace officer that worth his or her salt, knows you should always do the right and legal thing and conduct yourself as if being recorded anytime of day or night.
I love Cop Block, lies and wrong doing live in darkness, you guys bring light and it scares many. It also gives us who honor our oaths, an opportunity to show the world, we still exist.

NEVER TALK TO THE POLICE
Always tell the officer you are remaining silent and don’t fall for the snide remark, underhanded insults and coercion tactics they use to try to get you to implicate yourself. Your words are ammunition for their weapons so don’t give them any.

OFF THE WIRE
 "He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither." -Ben Franklin
 The California Supreme Court reached a decision in People v. Diaz that police may lawfully search mobile phones on arrested individuals, without first obtaining a search warrant. So with this ruling, should we just call privacy dead or are there still tricks to keep your personal information safe? Competitive Enterprise Institute's Ryan Radia explains.  VIDEO, http://youtu.be/vVCROjpgCB0

COMMENT,

OFF THE WIRE
“Confessions of a Traffic Cop” was written by Phil Berg and posted at Yahoo.com. After reading the article I thought it would make a good post here at CopBlock.org. I didn’t want to copy and paste the whole article so will only focus on a few of the questions. You can, and I encourage it, read the entire article by clicking here.
Phil, the author, interviewed Mike Brucks a now retired traffic cop of 22 years who claims to have wrote over 40,000 tickets (damn!) and now wants to share [brag about] his experiences. Phil’s questions are in bold, Mike’s answers are plain text and both (Phil’s and Mikes) are block quoted. I’ll add my two sense in outside of block quotes with italic font, so you know who said and wrote what.
Let’s get into the mind of a traffic cop, first question.

Besides speeding, which is the reason for most tickets, what’s most likely to get a traffic cop’s attention? 
Seatbelts, cell phones, red lights, and stop signs. I concentrate on all the things that can cause an accident. There are some cops who write tickets for expired plates, for having no insurance or registration, but you’re not going to crash because of any of that. I focused on safety issues—that’s what I like to do.

OK, good start. Officer Mike is actually concerned with safety, that’s good. I can get behind being safe. It’s nice to hear an Officer say he’s not as concerned the revenue generating, or the permission granting, aspects of the insurance, registration and plating business. 

How much leeway do you give someone before writing them a speeding ticket?
The speed limit in Texas used to be 60 mph, [and] well, out on the clear road where there’s a lot of visibility I give people leeway. I wouldn’t write tickets until they got to 80 mph.

There are two points to make here. First, how are motorist supposed to know what leeway the officer is giving? Maybe one day they drive by and Officer Mike is working so 75 in a 60 is ok but the next day, different cop, different results. Second, I’ve had Officers tell me time and time again, “the law is the law” and that they’re just enforcing those laws. Well in this case the law says 60 is the speed limit, not 80. 
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want people ticketed for speeding ever because it’s extortion, a racket. It’s a punishment with no actual proof of working, other than lining the pockets of government. I mean if laws restricting speeding worked, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. 
And before you jump on me about speeding being unsafe, I’ll get there, just wait. Moving on. 
             Are speed limits too low? 

No, the traffic engineers, at least in Texas, are pretty good. It’s not that some parts of the highway are safer for speeding, it’s that drivers aren’t always paying attention. People die on lonely deserted stretches of road too. There are a lot of times drivers aren’t concentrating. They need to understand you’re going 100 feet per second on the highway. Above 75 mph things just happen so fast, [whether it's] a flat tire, a coyote, wind, dirt, or rocks. It’s not that much better now that cars are safer; reaction times are still the same.

Wait, what? In the question before this Officer Mike allows a cushion, or uses his discretion, for speeders especially if there’s alot of ‘visibility.’ Now he says that Texas engineers are pretty good and that the 60 MPH speed limits are not too low. Officer Mike goes on to say that people die on deserted roadways too, that concentration is also a factor and that people need to understand that 75 mph is fast.
Boy I’m confused. Are the speed limits too low or is Officer Mike simply allowing people to break the law? Is he implying that driving faster is more dangerous, yet advocating Officer’s use discretion by allowing faster driving? Maybe the last question will help clear things up.

When do you not chase a speeder? 
I clocked a guy on a crotch-rocket bike doing 189 mph. Just let him go. Since police departments began to get sued for chasing speeders, around 1995, there’s a fine line. You have to determine if you can catch him, if chasing him will cause an accident for him, for you, for the public. There’s no way to catch anyone like that.

This is why all driving laws that don’t address an accident/damage to another person, or their property, are bullsh*t. First, they don’t prevent any accidents, if anything, they create them. How many times has an accident been caused, or almost caused, by police lights on the side of the road. Or due to heavy braking when sneaky cops are spotted by speeding drivers?
Furthermore, Officer Mike talks about not chasing down the speeding biker because it’s unsafe. Well Officer Mike, if that’s your stance then how did you ever ticket anyone? You had to chase down all 40,000 people you wrote tickets for in your career and risked causing an accident for them, you and/or innocent public bystanders.
Congratulations Officer Mike. Your 22 years of being a traffic cop were completely worthless. All you did was prove you are a hypocrite. Your traffic stops were based off nothing more than your subjective feelings at that particular moment. Had you actually taken the time to think though your actions as a traffic cop, you very well would have concluded, that you are unable to preform the job with any sense of consistency. Just like you did this interview.

DISCLAIMER : If I decide to share a news story with you the act of sharing does not necessarily mean that I endorse, agree, share opinion, or even think in the manner expressed by the article. It is here for discussion, debate, criticism, and conversation. Nothing more, nothing less. You have been warned.


Thank you 
Screwdriver & Bill

OFF THE WIRE
Members of a motorcycle club called the "Sons of Hell" claim in a federal lawsuit that they were treated unfairly by police.

The lawsuit contends that cops violated their constitutional rights and treat them as a gang "based solely on their associations and friendships with the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club."

The bikers allege that a couple of hours after completely unrelated murder/suicide that occurred near their campground south of Flagstaff, officers from the Arizona Department of Public Safety, the Gang and Immigration Intelligence Team Enforcement Mission task force, and the Coconino County Sheriff's Office "forcibly removed Plaintiffs from their residences with assault rifles and other firearms" at their camping spots.

"During the invasion, Plaintiffs were handcuffed forced to lay on the cold ground, detained and imprisoned for longer than three hours (some partially or mostly naked), photographed, forced to answer questions in interrogation, forced to reveal their tattoos for further photography, mocked, otherwise humiliated, yelled at, and threatened with violence by Defendants, under color of their authority as police officers," the lawsuit alleges.

This might be the reason that Sons of Hell members were at the state capitol earlier this year, calling for lawmakers to pass a bill about "motorcycle profiling."

The bill, which failed, said police would need to take courses about not "using the sole fact that a person rides a motorcycle or wears motorcycle-related paraphernalia as the basis for taking any law enforcement action against the person, including arresting, searching or questioning the person, without any other legal basis . . ."

On the other hand, New Times has documented many instances of other motorcycle clubs being involved in murders, shootings, bar brawls, and other crimes.

So, should cops be allowed to profile bikers, when, for example, they have a vest that reads "HELLS ANGELS" across the back?

http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2013/07/should_cops_be_allowed_to_prof.php

OFF THE WIRE
INTRODUCTION
These California Public Records Act guidelines describe the prescribed steps necessary for requesting access to inspect and/or obtain copies of public records maintained by the Department of California Highway Patrol (“the Department”) OR ANY CA POLICE DEPT...
The legislative enactment of the California Public Records Act (“the Act”) constituted a statement of policy that access to information concerning the conduct of the people’s business is a fundamental and necessary right of every person in this state. This policy was made part of the California State Constitution in 2004. It is the policy of the State that governmental records will be disclosed to the public upon request, unless the law provides an exemption from disclosure.
The general assumption is that all records held by state agencies are public and must be made available to the public promptly upon request. However, the Legislature has recognized the need to balance the public’s right to know against compelling rights to privacy and the government’s need to perform its functions in a reasonable efficient manner. As such, the Act contains several specific exemptions from disclosure and incorporates several other statutes that prohibit state employees from disclosing certain types of public records. It is the Department’s burden to justify any withholding of public records.
The Act also establishes reasonable procedures providing for prompt disclosure while allowing state agencies the time to locate records and to determine which records, if any, are exempt from disclosure. The Department’s policy is to provide all members of the public convenient access to, and to promptly make the fullest possible disclosure of, its public records. Department personnel are available to assist persons making such requests and will solicit the assistance of the requestor when clarification of requested records is needed so as to make focused and effective requests that reasonably describe identifiable records. As a law enforcement agency the Department is entitled to treat certain records as exempt from disclosure, and express provisions of the Act, Penal Code, and Vehicle Code, among others, preclude public disclosure of certain records. When a request to review or obtain records is received, whether made in person, by mail, or by other means, it may be necessary for staff to first locate, then secure, and then review the requested items so that a determination can be made whether one or more exemptions apply, prior to having the records made available for viewing or copies provided.
HOW TO REQUEST ACCESS TO A PUBLIC RECORD
Anyone wishing to make a public records request in person may do so during regular business hours at any Department office that is open to the public. Department personnel shall not ask or demand that persons requesting to inspect records provide their identification or the reasons for wanting to inspect records. However, if records are to be picked up or mailed to a requestor, relevant identifying information must be provided. Written requests to inspect or to obtain a copy of a public record should be
addressed to the Department, to any area office, field division office, or to Department Headquarters. The Headquarters address is
California Highway Patrol
601 North 7th Street
Sacramento, CA 95811
Attention: Public Records Coordinator
The Headquarters facsimile for requests under the Act is 916-322-3219. The written request need not be in any particular form, but should sufficiently describe the requested records to enable Department personnel to identify and locate the records sought. While not required by the Act, it is helpful for the request to include a telephone number or address where the person requesting the record can be reached to expedite the resolution of any questions concerning the request that may arise.
THE DEPARTMENT’S RESPONSE TO PUBLIC RECORDS REQUESTS
If the records are clearly disclosable, they will be made available as soon as possible. However, in most cases staff will have to review the records to determine whether all or part maybe privileged, confidential, or otherwise exempt from disclosure. Within 10 days from the date the request is received, the Department will determine whether the request, in whole or in part, seeks copies of disclosable public records in the Department’s possession and notify the requestor of such determination. In unusual circumstances, the 10-day time limit may be extended up to an additional 14 days by written notice to the requestor, setting forth the reason for the time extension (i.e., the request is too voluminous, seeks records held off site, or requires consultation with other agencies). The Department may need to request additional information if the request is not specific enough to permit the identification of the requested records. If the determination by the Department is made to comply with the request, the records will be made available as promptly as is reasonably practicable. While the Department will disclose or otherwise make available identifiable and existing records, the Act does not require the Department to create, synthesize, manufacture, or summarize records: the Act specifically does not obligate the Department to develop new records so as to be able to respond to a request.
Any request may be denied if the records sought are determined to be privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure, or are not found in the Department’s files or records. Notification of such a determination will be provided. The Department must justify the withholding of any record by demonstrating that the record is exempt under the Act or that the public interest in nondisclosure outweighs the public interest in disclosure. In most circumstances, when the Department removes or redacts exempt information from the record, it will disclose the remainder of the record.
REQUESTS TO VIEW PUBLIC RECORDS
Public records may be reviewed during regular business hours (generally weekdays from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. excluding holidays), at Department offices open to the public. Individuals who are interested in viewing public records are encouraged to make an appointment in advance. Appointments are not mandatory but can help Department staff facilitate the request, and the failure to make an appointment may result in a delay while the records are located and reviewed. Persons wishing to enter secured parts of the Department buildings must comply with the Department’s security protocol, including providing identification.
REQUEST FOR COPIES OF PUBLIC RECORDS
The Department will make copies of records for members of the public upon request. The Act provides that copies of records will be made promptly available upon payment of fees that cover the direct costs of duplication. The Department currently charges $0.30 per page for copying. The direct cost of duplication includes the pro rata expense of the duplicating equipment and the staff required to make a copy of that record. Direct costs of duplication does not include the staff person’s time in researching, retrieving, redacting and mailing the record. When the Department must compile electronic data, extract information from an electronic record, or undertake computer programming to satisfy a request, the Department may require the requestor to bear the full costs, not just the direct cost of duplication.
A public record that is not exempt from disclosure that is in an electronic format will be made available in an electronic format, if requested, but only if it does not jeopardize the security or integrity of the record or any proprietary software. The requestor will be charged the cost of producing an electronic copy of the record. Alternative charges apply for public records that are maintained in other formats, such as audio or video.
HOW TO CHALLENGE THE DEPARTMENT’S DETERMINATION NOT TO DISCLOSE RECORDS
Under the Act any person may seek mandamus, injunctive or declarative relief in any court of competent jurisdiction to enforce the right to inspect or to receive a copy of any public record.
These guidelines are posted in a conspicuous public place at Department offices that are open to the public, are available free of charge to any person who requests them, and are also available on the Department’s website (www.chp.ca.gov).

OFF THE WIRE
By MICHELLE ALEXANDER
THOUSANDS of people plead guilty to crimes every year in the United States because they know that the odds of a jury’s believing their word over a police officer’s are slim to none. As a juror, whom are you likely to believe: the alleged criminal in an orange jumpsuit or two well-groomed police officers in uniforms who just swore to God they’re telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but? As one of my colleagues recently put it, “Everyone knows you have to be crazy to accuse the police of lying.”

OFF THE WIRE
copblock.org
Originally posted at TheStar.com and written by David Bruser and Jesse McLean
It is so unjust for the victims of police misconduct to see bad officers receive awards and praise for good work. The justice system agrees and encourages police misconduct by the simple fact the justice system refuses to act and punish bad officers. The justice system is a failure and victims of police brutality and misconduct are added to the list each day.
Originally posted at TheStar.com and written by David Bruser and Jesse McLean
The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police says the justice system should report police officers who are found by judges to have lied, misled the court or fabricated evidence.
“If a judge perceives that an officer has not fulfilled his oath of honesty, a judge should report it to a police service. The national association would naturally support mechanisms that would ensure this happens,” said association spokesperson Timothy Smith.
The comments come after a coast-to-coast Toronto Star investigation that found more than 120 police officers have been accused by judges of courtroom deception since 2005. Many of the officers have gone unpunished.
The national chiefs spokesperson said the Star’s series caught the attention of the entire law enforcement community and “the public we serve.”
The issue raised by the Star “runs absolutely counter to why we in policing choose to make a career out of this profession.
While we do not feel that this issue is at all prevalent, we recognize that even a single instance can damage the reputation of policing overall.”
Meanwhile, the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police, headed by Waterloo Region Chief Matt Torigian, said if the provincial government in Ontario was to consider requiring prosecutors report such conduct to police forces, the Association would participate in those discussions.
There is so little oversight of the problem that in some jurisdictions police forces did not know judges found that their officers misled the court. Internal investigations into four cases — three in Peel, one in York — were started after the Star brought the courtroom misconduct findings by a judge to the department’s attention.
British Columbia seems to be the only province with a formal reporting system in place. If a judge criticizes the truthfulness of a police witness’ evidence or testimony, the prosecutor should report it to a senior crown attorney. The prosecutor should also recommend to the police force that it investigate alleged misconduct.
The chair of the civilian oversight Toronto Police Services Board, Alok Mukherjee, told the Star he is troubled by this “serious issue” and wants something done to stop the lies from eroding the public’s trust in his police force.
There must be a formal mechanism through which the prosecutor’s office notifies the force and the police board whenever negative findings are made about an officer’s credibility, Mukherjee said.
Elaine Flis, a spokesperson for Ontario’s Attorney General John Gerretsen, says there is no plan to make it a formal policy. But Flis said “where a judge raises perjury in relation to a witness, the trial Crown will refer the matter to his or her superiors.” Flis said it is important that when prosecutors hear something they suspect to be perjury they pass it on to the police force for investigation.
Toronto defence lawyer Reid Rusonik, as well as other sources in the justice system and many Star readers, say it is an easy, sensible fix.
“The Star’s investigation has only uncovered the tip of the iceberg of the problem. . . . It shouldn’t fall on (news) reporters to sit in every courtroom every day and then make complaints when they hear a judge make an oral finding of dishonest police testimony,” said Rusonik, who in the last few years has exposed police fabrications in more than a dozen cases across the GTA, six leading to the acquittal of clients charged with possession of a handgun.
“It must be incumbent on the Crowns to report every such finding to an independent investigator. The Crowns know full well how to get perjury prosecuted. You wouldn’t believe how quickly some of them will charge a civilian witness caught lying.”
Meanwhile, at the Toronto Police Service, where spokesman Mark Pugash has been dismissive of the Star series and has said the articles ‘cannot be taken seriously,” a force member wrote on Twitter yesterday: “Thank-you for such an indepth and well balanced, two sided series. looking forward to the rest.”
The Star called Toronto Police and learned the tweet was sarcastic.

Police Who Lie, Part 2: False Testimony in Canada

Just as in USA and other “so called” democratic countries, Canadian police have been unaccountable to no one. In some provinces, there are faulty mechanisms to arbitrate and investigate complaints of police misconducts, but the cards are usually stacked against the complainant as police investigating police only to end up absolving the accused officer, does not give any credibility to the process. Police officers who are found to be guilty of police misconduct hardly ever get punished or get just a laughable 2 day suspension.
Originally posted at TheStar.com and written by David Bruser and Jesse McLean

The first time Toronto police Det. Scott Aikman deceived the court, a judge denounced his “misleading” testimony and threw out a cocaine charge against a man.
The second time, Det. Aikman’s story explaining why he and his partner searched a minivan led to the acquittal of four suspects accused of masterminding an international credit-card data-theft ring.
Aikman “either fabricated or concealed evidence” to justify the van search, the judge said. The four suspects, charged with a total of 321 offences, walked free.
Was Aikman disciplined for his conduct in court?
“No. Of course not,” said Aikman, explaining to the Star that he had done nothing wrong.
A coast-to-coast Toronto Star Investigation found more than 120 police officers
have been accused by judges of outright lying, misleading the court or fabricating evidence since 2005. Many of the officers have gone unpunished.
There is so little oversight of the problem that in some jurisdictions police forces did not know judges found that their officers misled the court.
Internal investigations into four cases — three in Peel, one in York — were started after the Star brought the courtroom misconduct to the departments’ attention.
Compounding the lack of oversight is a lack of accountability to the public.
Big-city forces, including Montreal and Calgary, refused to say whether their officers were disciplined.
At the Toronto Police Service, where at least 34 officers have come under fire from judges for being untruthful in court in recent years, there is little indication Chief Bill Blair considers the judges’ findings a call for change.
The chair of the civilian oversight Toronto Police Services Board, Alok Mukherjee,
told the Star he is troubled by this “serious issue” and wants something done to stop the lies from eroding the public’s trust in his police force.

If we say a police officer takes an oath of office to uphold the law, if we require that they must be of good moral character and integrity …then someone who is found to have lied or falsified their notes, can they be said to be upholding their oath? Can they be said to have demonstrated integrity?” he said. “My simple, non-legal mind says: That’s misconduct.

The Star sent letters to police forces across the country asking how they responded to the judicial findings questioning their officers’ credibility.
The reactions ranged from receptive to unaware to dismissive.
In Edmonton, where judges found at least nine officers have been misleading or not credible, one was found guilty of three counts of insubordination, while two more are awaiting disciplinary hearings. Two others are being investigated.
Chief Rod Knecht said the force has a range of disciplinary measures for officers found to have been deceitful, from re-training and fines to termination.
“The credibility of a police officer is sacrosanct. Our entire profession is based on the principle that police officers will act and be held to a higher level of
accountability,” Knecht told the Star. “Every instance of deceitful behaviour damages the collective reputation of police everywhere. Once damaged, that reputation is hard to restore.”
In contrast, in two cases where judges found Ontario Provincial Police officers’ testimony and evidence was misleading, none of the officers were formally
disciplined. (The force would not say whether a third officer, a civilian court constable, was disciplined.)
While OPP Commissioner Chris Lewis said the force “takes any allegation of wrongdoing against its members seriously and will investigate,” he questioned
whether a judge’s “opinion” is “correct or proven.”
Lewis said criticism of the “quality and truthfulness of officer testimony is rare.” Where the force finds such cases, the officers could face additional training or supervision, or disciplinary action.
At the Toronto Police force, Chief Bill Blair would not be interviewed. His spokesman, Mark Pugash, accused Star reporters of bias and said “your story cannot be taken seriously.”
“A judge can comment on anything he or she wishes. Such comment, however, does not amount to a finding of guilt,” Pugash said. “The criminal justice system works on evidence, on examination, cross-examination and decision. It does not work on throwaway comments unsupported by evidence.
“You either don’t understand, or you don’t want your readers to understand, the fundamental distinction between a judge’s comments and a judge’s rulings.”
Toronto defence lawyer Reid Rusonik disagrees.
“How can there be any accountability or a proper disciplinary process in place if they don’t even allow for the possibility that officers lie? It’s surreal,” said Rusonik, who in the last few years has exposed police fabrications in more than a dozen cases across the GTA, six leading to the acquittal of clients charged with possession of a handgun.
Mukherjee, Toronto’s police board chair, said judges should not be ignored.
The chair has raised the issue with Toronto Police brass, he told the Star, but has been met with a defensive rationale that while police are catching bad guys, judges are letting them go on legal technicalities.
British Columbia seems to be the only province with a formal reporting system in place. If a judge criticizes the truthfulness of a witness’ evidence or testimony, the prosecutor should report it to a senior Crown attorney. The prosecutor should also recommend to the police force that it investigate alleged misconduct.
In Ontario, no one tracks instances where an officer’s credibility has been brought into question. Ontario’s Ministry of the Attorney General says it is a police force’s job to investigate lying officers.
That is assuming someone tells the police. Officers who testify often leave court and are not present when a ruling criticizing their credibility is made. Pugash said the Toronto force has completed 12 investigations into alleged courtroom misconduct since 2010 and found no evidence of wrongdoing with respect to false testimony.
He said the force only learned of the majority of these cases from media accounts of trials. He said defence lawyers and prosecutors have a responsibility to alert police to allegations of officers lying in court.
Yet there is no requirement for a Crown to report dishonest testimony. It is the
discretion of a prosecutor to contact the deceitful officer’s superiors. Some do,
some don’t.
The consequence: Police misconduct is going unpunished.
Apparently no one from Peel Police knew when Justice Steven Clark found two of the force’s officers were “misleading” when explaining why they illegally entered a suspect’s apartment.
“Few actions more directly undermine both goals of the integrity of the judicial system and the truth-seeking function of the Court than misleading testimony from persons in authority,” the judge said.
Seventeen months after the ruling, when questions from the Star brought Justice Clark’s ruling to the force’s attention, Peel Police began investigating.
The British Columbia reporting policy and the case of RCMP blood-spatter analyst Ross Spenard shows how an allegation of a police lie can be properly, and relatively quickly, dealt with.
Spenard was testifying in the 2009 trial of a First Nations woman who stabbed her toddler to death. During the cross-examination, Spenard was exposed for misleading the court, including testifying that another officer had written a flawed forensic report when in fact he was the author.
“Staff Sgt. Spenard is the perfect example of a person who clearly lied under oath, and violated his oath to tell the truth, and he even agreed to this,” Justice John Truscott told the jury. “That conclusion is so clear and convincing, and so serious, that I suggest you should consider his evidence to be completely tainted, and without any value whatsoever.”
Four months after the judge’s comments, the prosecutor’s office formally complained and asked Vancouver Police to investigate Spenard’s conduct on the stand.
He was charged and later pleaded guilty to perjury. He received a nine-month conditional sentence.
He is retired from the RCMP.
Mark Berry, a former prosecutor whose 2006 case against a 649-marijuana plant grow-op in Surrey, B.C., fell apart after a witness, an RCMP police officer, misled the court, said police forces should pay attention when judges make negative findings on officer credibility.
Otherwise, said Berry, now a defence lawyer, the police departments risk “dooming themselves to repeat the same mistakes in the future.”
Toronto cop Scott Aikman, who has several commendations from his force, did exactly that.
In the fraudulent credit card case, he and another officer stopped a van after it allegedly ran a stop sign.
The traffic stop turned into a search under the Liquor License Act after Aikman allegedly detected evidence of alcohol in the van. The search turned up a white plastic bag full of fraudulent credit cards.
The judge did not accept Aikman’s evidence that there was allegedly alcohol in the van, and said that his “claims were after-the-fact efforts to justify a vehicle search” that he should not have made.
The lynchpin of Aikman’s evidence was a Gatorade bottle that one of the passengers allegedly admitted contained vodka. The bottle was empty when it was finally submitted into evidence.
Aikman testified that it must have spilled while he was searching the van.
It also was not bagged as evidence right away, nor was the bottle tested until a year after the bust, and only after repeated requests by a defence lawyer.
At the time of the test, the alleged liquid residue was no longer testable.
The bottle’s “contents suspiciously and too conveniently disappeared,” Justice Miriam Bloomenfeld said, adding Aikman “either fabricated or concealed evidence in order to justify the search after the fact.”
Aikman’s “disregard for the accused’s Charter rights demonstrates how the actions of one state actor can denigrate the integrity of a prosecution,” Bloomenfeld added.
“It is precisely the type of state conduct from which the court must dissociate itself if the administration of justice is not to be brought into disrepute.”
The decision is being appealed.
When asked about the two cases where judges found he misled the court, Aikman told the Star he was not allowed to talk to the media.
Though he did not discuss either case in detail, he said, “It’s very unfair that one side is being reported,” referring to the judge’s comments on his testimony.
Aikman also said his force would have investigated his conduct had he done anything wrong.
“The fact that there can be multiple findings about an officer reinforces the need for a formal oversight process,” said lawyer Graham Zoppi, who represented one of the accused in the data theft case.
Toronto Police Board Chair Mukherjee has a proposed fix:
There must be a formal mechanism through which the prosecutor’s office notifies the force and the police board whenever negative findings are made about an officer’s credibility.
Ontario’s Police Services Act, which Mukherjee has said is “silent” on this issue, should spell out whether a judge’s finding that a police witness lied constitutes professional misconduct.
Police chiefs, who oversee internal discipline under the Police Act, “need to think about their responsibility” in responding to judges’ concerns.
While officer discipline is controlled by the chief, as spelled out in the provincial Police Act, Mukherjee is seeking legal advice on whether there is a punishment the police board, on its own, can levy to deter lying under oath: Blocking promotions of officers caught doing it.
Frustration with police dishonesty bubbled over in a Niagara Region courtroom last August, when a judge made a controversial ruling in an attempt to get police brass to act.
The case stemmed from one of the largest grow-op busts in Ontario’s history.
In May 2008, Niagara officers raided a series of buildings, including a greenhouse and former church.
They seized thousands of plants and arrested eight people in what was described as
the takedown of a $16-million operation.
The original tip came from a Hamilton detective, who had noticed a suspicious home in the town of Lincoln while visiting family over Christmas.
But the Niagara detective, James Malloy, and other officers tried to hide the source of their information and “made inaccurate and misleading notes” by claiming the information came from an anonymous source, Justice Peter Hambly said in his ruling.
“Malloy lied under oath and stated that he would have continued to lie under oath in court if he had not been caught,” the judge said.
The officers did not follow their obligation to share all the information they found in their investigation to the prosecutor, the judge said.
Instead, they censored and redacted the information on their own.
Once aware of the officers’ cover-up, Niagara’s senior officers were indifferent to the misconduct, Hambly said.
“Senior officers have taken no action. The chief of police (Wendy Southall), who
now knows what has taken place, has taken no action,” he said.
“It seems highly likely that what has happened here will continue to happen unless the court refuses to hear the case.”
Hambly, frustrated with the police force’s apathy, stayed charges against two of the accused, saying the decision was worth the “price” to maintain the integrity of the justice system.
The day after, Niagara Regional Police Service requested an outside police force probe the officers’ conduct.
The London Police Service’s investigation has been suspended, though, as the prosecutor appeals Hambly’s decision.
The force did not say whether the officers have been disciplined.

Police Who Lie, Part 3: How Officers Thwart Justice

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Acknowledgements

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This book is for you if ...

• Anti-war or environmental activists
• Recreational drug users
• Participants in the underground economy or anybody who does business in cash
• Critics of local or national powers-that-be
• Anyone whose profession involves "sensitive" information or activities
• Gun owners or dealers
• Third-party or "fringe" political activists
• Hobbyists who work with dangerous materials
• Photographers/videographers
• Religious dissidents
• People with offshore or unconventional investments (including perfectly legitimate ones)

This book is NOT for you if ...

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What exactly is a snitch?

The infiltrator/agent provocateur. This is someone (often a professional) who is inserted into a group for an active purpose, such as disrupting the group, or worst, talking formerly innocent (or at least formerly non-violent) people into committing crimes in order to bust them. Agents provocateurs may, among other things, try to turn non-violent protest into violent action, thus discrediting movements, giving excuses for crackdowns, and giving more publicity and power to government agencies.

The informer/informant. This snitch is often a legitimate member of a group or social circle who continues to be active while giving information to the police. This person may be acting under duress (to save his own skin after being arrested, for instance). This person may be hoping the cops will pay with money, drugs, or ongoing criminal immunity for her dubious "services." While this person isn't necessarily a professional agent provocateur, he may nevertheless try to talk friends into committing crimes so he can get more credibility or rewards from his police handlers.

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What makes snitches so dangerous?

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PART ONE

Recognizing and Avoiding Snitches

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FIRST RULE:

Learn and practice
good security consciousness

• Don't talk about secret or illegal activities outside your group.
• Within your group, talk about them only to people who have a need to know.
• Keep groups small. Maybe even as small as a "cell of one."
Attorney safety tip:
A lawyer who consulted on this book says:
"When dealing with police, prosecutors or their agents, do NOT base your theory-of-the-game on TV, movies, or other sources. Or on constitutional theory you may have learned in school. The other side is playing for keeps and to them rules are irrelevant inconveniences. Ask Bradley Manning."
• If you use email, encrypt it. Not only that, but encrypt all email you possibly can, not just email containing sensitive material. Encrypt your cute cat jokes and your discussions of last night's favorite TV show (that way you don't call special attention to your most confidential exchanges).
• Do not post sensitive material on social media (a no-brainer, but apparently some still do it).
• Do not post sensitive material on social media even when your privacy settings allow only "friends" to see it. A 2012 court ruling said it's perfectly okay for those "friends" to turn around and show your allegedly private info to government agents.
• Do not talk to cops or indeed any government agents — about anything. Ever. The most innocent remarks can be used against you. The "nicest" cop is still not your friend. (We'll have more on this in Part Three and in the appendixes. This is extremely important!)
• Know the laws, potential sentences, and likely prosecutorial practices against any crimes you're committing. Do not be caught unprepared.
Tip from experience:
This comes from a friend of mine who spent "the worst two weeks" of his life in jail, courtesy of a snitch: "Don't hang with people who are dishonest or lie, even in small, unimportant things. They have no honor to lose and everything they say and do is based on profit or benefit to them."
• If you're a political activist, keep your nose clean in other ways. For instance, if you're an anti-drug-war activist, don't sell drugs on the side. Don't make yourself an easy target for spurious (or worse, real) criminal charges.
• Unless you actually want to be arrested to become a test case (a dangerous but sometimes useful tactic), then do everything you can to avoid giving anyone ammunition to tarnish you or your cause.
• Do your best to make sure your associates also follow good security practices.
• Get yourself away from associates who are blabbermouths, boasters, loose-lipped drunks, or "friends" who insist on posting their (and your) every activity on the Internet.
• We repeat: GET YOURSELVES AWAY from anybody who can't keep his mouth shut!

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Recognizing a snitch

• A stranger or casual acquaintance tries to get you to do or advise on illegal activities.
• A friend suddenly starts pushing you to do or advise on illegal things.
• A person joins your group and statements he/she makes about his/her background just don't add up.
• A person joins your group and starts stirring up trouble and creating divisions.
• A person joins your group and is overly eager to be useful, to pay for the group's activities, to initiate activities, supply equipment, to escalate dangerous activities, etc.
• Someone goes out of his way to gain your trust, to be really buddy-buddy with you. Then, when you resist getting into dubious activities, he drops all interest in you (he's looking for an easier mark).
Advice from the underground
This ultra-basic piece of advice goes back at least to the agitators of the 1960s. Yet people still get entrapped by ignoring it: "You can always tell the FBI agent. He's the one who's trying to get you to bomb something."
• You're asked to do illegal or dubious business with a "friend of a friend." This is a big one. It's amazing how many "friends of friends" (where controversial activities are involved) are actually undercover cops.
• Someone asks you to do something illegal or dangerous that he could just as easily do himself or have done elsewhere.
• Someone starts agitating to have your group do something outside the group's purposes. ("Hey, we just run a little of this 'stuff' across the border and it'll make us a lot of money that we can use to do good.")
• An older, "more experienced" person joins your group or circle and soon becomes a counselor of sorts to the youngest, most edgy, most insecure, most angry, or most naive members. He "cuts them out of the herd" in order to pull them into illegal plots. (This is a classic tactic of the agent provocateur.)
• Anyone in your group starts agitating for violent action. People who agitate for illegal activities may be snitches; or they may be genuine fools who will attract snitches.

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What makes snitches so persuasive?

• Snitches play on your trust and/or your desire to go along with others.
• They may appeal to your loyalty or your fear or some other emotion ("You won't do it? Wow, and here I thought you were one of us." "C'mon, if you had any guts you'd do this." "How are we ever going to change things if we don't take radical action?")
• They may literally "cut from the herd" the most naive, trusting, foolish, or discontent of your associates, isolate them, and psychologically manipulate them into committing crimes.
• They may pretend to be your friend. — especially a friend in need. ("I know you don't usually deal, but couldn't you just sell me a little from your stash?" "Look, just help me get this money out of the country; it's no big deal." "Hey, I know you have a machine shop in your garage; how about helping me cut down the barrel on this shotgun? I'll pay you.")
• They may actually be your friend — but a friend who has gotten into legal trouble and has turned to snitching to save themselves from a long prison sentence. (Same sorts of urgings as in the last bullet point, but this time coming from somebody for whom that wouldn't be characteristic behavior.)
• They may make it easy to commit crimes by not only pushing the idea, but actually supplying the funding, the equipment, the transportation, and the planning for the crime. They may come across as natural leaders ("Trust me, I know how to do this!")
• They may make hyper-strong appeals to your cause — then use the leverage they gain to make equally strong appeals for committing crimes.
• They often play upon a normal human desire to want to DO something - which is likely why, if you're a political person, you're a member of the group in the first place.
• And finally — let's never forget — some snitches play on that most basic instinct of all — S.E.X. Spy agencies have known this as long as there have been spy agencies. The KGB used to call it "the sparrow trick"; get a red-blooded heterosexual male up close with an attentive, manipulative female and said male will eventually whisper all manner of secrets into her ear. These days, it probably works the other way around, too. And no doubt homosexual attraction can blind eyes and loosen lips just as effectively.

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"Mere" snitching vs active entrapment

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Dangerous myths about
snitches and undercover agents

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What to do if you believe a
snitch is personally targeting you

• Again, get away from the person
• Do not try to outsmart the person
• Do not feed the person false information (because if that person is an undercover agent this could be a crime in and of itself)
• Do not commit violence against the person
• Just get away — even if it means leaving a group
• If you think you've already said or done something compromising with this person, see a good lawyer and read the section of this booklet on how to conduct yourself if you get arrested.
• Another tip from this book's helpful attorney: "Consider making your OWN complaint to the authorities about this 'nutball' [the person you suspect of being a snitch]. This a) puts you on the record as NOT being in bed with the snitch, b) alerts the snitch and his handlers that you're aware of him and are thus less likely to be an 'easy target,' c) creates an appearance that you're not one of the bad guys - since you're not hiding anything, and d) maybe - with a little luck - the snitch ends up in jail himself for some time. I would not consider this 'do not try to outsmart' described above (which I agree with)." Of course, if he turns out not to be a snitch, you may have harmed an innocent person by calling the cops on him. It's a risk. But if the person really is an agent of the government, this can be a pretty good act of self-protection. Oh, and one of my friends who speaks from experience, points out that if you're going to report a snitch to the cops, it's best to do it through a lawyer. Otherwise you're talking to cops, which is a no-no.

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PART TWO

A Snitch Uncovered

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If you believe there's
a snitch in your group

• Document your suspicions.
• If possible, conduct some careful, subtle investigation to see if your suspected snitch's background and life matches her claims. Does she really live where she says? Has she been seen with police? Do her statements about her education or her friends hold up? If not, you may not have a snitch, but you have an untrustworthy person, for sure.
• Share your specific reasons for suspicion with people in the group that you trust. Yes, we know that snitches destroy trust, so be very careful when choosing one or two others to confide in.
• If you can do so without violating your state's law, quietly begin video or audiotaping all interactions with the suspected person. If state wiretapping laws forbid recording without the consent of all parties, then at least consider openly recording meetings to counteract any lies the snitch may tell his handlers.
• Start a 'Facts, Acts, and Circumstantial file.' After each incident write details down. Facts are the time, date, occasion, incident, characteristics of the person(s). Acts are what they did. Circumstantial is the impressions and anything odd about the situation. Use the FAC file and keep notes from unsettling situations and see if a pattern emerges. (Note: This item also appears in Appendix 2, where you will find details on how to do this, along with many other commonsense OpSec tips.)
• Do not make open accusations unless you have proof positive of snitchery or copness (as when New York Libertarian Party activists (see below) spotted a former "suspicious" member in the New York Times, helping the FBI with an arrest).
• Discuss with your most trusted associates what to do.
Here's one way to spot a snitch!
Online commenter BusyPoorDad writes:
Years ago, when the New York Libertarian Party was starting up, a new member joined and became active. He said he was from a low-income neighborhood, worked a manual labor job, and did not know much about politics. He looked the part but things just did not add up.
He knew how to set a table for a formal dinner, used the Robert's Rules very well, and fit in very well with the highly educated members. After about four months of working with us, he just stopped coming. This sort of thing happened a lot but there were no signs of discontent. He was always willing to do everything he was asked to help do (petition, run Nolan chart tables, etc.).
About a year later he was spotted in the NY Times holding on to someone arrested by the FBI for something.
His background just did not fit with him. We never saw him reading books, he talked about watching TV and working at a warehouse, but he was able to be cultured, had a good vocabulary, and really wanted to be part of everything.
• Just as your first individual move is to keep away from the suspect individual, the best group action may be to simply shut the person out. Stop talking with them. Stop inviting them to meetings. Stop asking them to be involved in projects. Freeze them out of all activities and discussions.
• In a serious case, you may end up having to shut down the entire group to foil a snitch or agent provocateur. If so, have a plausible excuse if you can.
• Always, always make sure that you and the other "on the up and up" members of your group remain on record as NOT advocating illegal, and in particular violently illegal, activities. Got a blog, a Twitter account, a Facebook page? Make your opposition to certain activities clear and public.
• Furthermore, make sure you stay on record as NOT advocating things that the snitch wants. Do not line up behind, or even pretend to agree with, that person's policy recommendations, strategies, or tactics. Remember, you may well be being recorded. You do not even want to appear to superficially agree with things an undercover operative is trying to talk you into.
• Again, finally, you may have to recognize that you can neither help nor save those who do not wish to be helped or saved. It may be that your final act has to be turning your files over to some other trusted member of the group and leaving. You always have a chance of finding another group. You're not going to have a chance to find another you.

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HISTORICAL ways of dealing
with known snitches

• The IRA used to shoot betrayers in the kneecaps. It wouldn't kill them, but everyone who saw a former activist lurching down the street on destroyed knees knew what he was.
• The Mafia would famously send stool pigeons to "sleep with the fishes."
• Resistance groups, particularly during wartime, have been known to leave the bodies of betrayers in public squares with messages pinned to them — or even carved in them. While still saying it's a bad idea, it did have the effect of discouraging the general populace from working with the enemy. Today snitches and betrayers often see benefits and face nowhere near enough drawbacks for their dirty work.
• In the 1980s and 1990s, the African National Congress punished perceived collaborators with the monstrous method called "necklacing." They'd shove a gasoline-filled tire over a miscreant's neck and arms and kill the person by setting the tire alight.
• After World War II, many women who had slept with or otherwise collaborated with Nazis were humiliated by having their hair hacked off while mobs screamed, "Nazi whore!" This might not sound like much compared with beastly punishments like necklacing. But public humiliation, shunning, and the attack on their femininity was hugely degrading and psychologically damaging.

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How do YOU treat an exposed snitch?

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Repairing the damage snitches do

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Beware of accusing someone
who might not be a snitch

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PART THREE

WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU GET BUSTED?

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You may be pressured to become a snitch

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Do NOT talk to cops. Period.

• No, you may not search my vehicle.
• No, you may not enter my home.
• I do not consent to any search.
• Am I free to go?
• On the advice of my lawyer, I cannot talk to you.
• I will not talk without my lawyer present.

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The police officer is NOT your friend

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The Prisoner's Dilemma

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Mindset: The common territory
between snitches and victims

• Overly naive and trusting
• Unprepared for bad things happening to them
• Cocky and overly confident
• Loudmouthed or prone to blat information without thinking
• Prone to believe that "nice" cops really do want to "help" them (yes, it's another form of being overly naive and trusting, but it bears repeating because if you get caught because you trusted a rat you're more likely to turn around and trust that rat's handlers)
• Very good at rationalizing their own less-than-stellar behavior
• (Or conversely) So idealistic and starry-eyed that reality, when it hits, knocks them for a loop.

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What happens if you refuse to snitch?

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What happens if you become
a snitch — and regret it?

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What happens to you if you
snitch and your friends find out?

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The rest of your life if you do snitch

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Appendix 1

The Reid Interrogation Technique^TM

By "Just Waiting"

Repeat the question before answering? That answer is a lie.

Little or no direct eye contact? You're evasive.

Too much direct eye contact? You're cocky and/or confrontational.

Change from "is" to "was" or "a" to "the"? You're changing your story to hide something.

Sit up straight, slouch, fold your arms in your lap, fold them across your chest? You're scared, you're cocky, you're defensive. Every movement, posture and expression has a meaning to LE.

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Appendix 2

Some Commonsense OpSec

Addendum on note-taking (Facts, Acts, and Circumstantial)

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Appendix 3

Line up a lawyer

How to hire the right lawyer

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Appendix 4

Other helpful resources

Dealing with snitches

How cops deal with snitches

Online advice on dealing with police

An online guide to interrogation techniques

Books

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