The Federal Air Marshal Program Is A Mess

To become a law enforcement officer you need two things, academy training and experience with handling criminals. State and local police departments include several weeks of field training in busy areas before academy graduation. Then you are only a green recruit for a year or two until you become the real police.

The most difficult part of police work is dealing with violators. Police work is the art of not turning littering into armed robbery and not missing dangerous tricks pulled by career criminals.

Unless air marshals have prior police experience their effectiveness will be limited significantly. The air marshal candidates and applicants lack the basic tools to handle the job even after training.

Do you really want to see a green air marshal engaged in close quarter combat with a trained and experienced terrorist? Of course the rub here is that this may well be the first time the air marshal ever had a real fight. Cops on the other hand deal with the best of street fighters and barroom brawlers.

The job of air marshal is boring, and swallowed in lots of government bureaucracy.

Remember the air marshal is the man or woman that is not listening to IPOD, watching DVDs, chatting with other passengers, reading or sleeping. The air marshal is breathing bad air and eating too much expensive and really bad airport concession food. This has to be a lonely and miserable life.

Years can go by before an air marshal is called into enforcement action. An air marshals experience on the job is as worthless as being unemployed everywhere in the American job market.

The truth is they air marshals are quitting as fast as they’re being hired. It’s so difficult to find qualified candidates they lowered hiring and training standards and are giving the jobs to the screeners these days.

We have a much better force and that’s encouraging trained, certified and fit off duty cops to fly armed for free or at greatly reduced ticket prices.

I’d set up a one day training session and vetting process for the volunteer cops wanting to participate.

Armed pilots and off duty armed cops are the best prospect for keeping Americans safe where air travel is concerned. It’s not only cost effective but the only effective way to deal with these issues.

Here is more about the TSA and their problems from CNN investigative correspondent Drew Griffin.

My Magical Monday Night In Culver City

Click on picture to enlarge.

Retired Chicago police sergeant, Andy Murcia was a vice dick turned into a 23rd District supervisor. He had a part-time gig as the house dick at the swank Ambassador East Hotel on the Gold Coast. Andy met more than a few celebrities there including the incredibly beautiful and talented, Ann Jillian. When that happened sparks flew and the two have been married ever since. I’m very blessed to have them as friends. I was invited by Andy and Ann to attend a staged reading of 'In Love--With the Music of great Antonio Carlos Jobim' at the Culver City Jazz Bakery.

The play was narrated by the Love Boat Skipper, Gavin MacLeod. Along with MacLeod the singers/actors were Amic Byram (playing the rich and sophisticated older man) Debi Nova (playing the very yummy, Girl from Ipanema) and Will Collyer (playing the idealistic cabana boy). They all did real justice to the great Jazz-Samba-Bossa Nova music of Jobim.

I have to single out Debi Nova who performs well beyond her 22 years. Nova knew just how to flirt with her co-stars and the audience as she amazed me with her voice, charms and talent. Jobim created a true fantasy girl from Ipanema and Nova filled that vision perfectly. I don’t want to slight Byram and Collyer here but I think they’d understand that my infatuation with Nova is a “guy” thing.

Music director/pianist Bill Cantos, guitarist Pat Kelley and drummer Michael Shapiro expertly showcased their rich talents for this production.

The story line was cute, contrite, fun and perfectly crafted around Jobim’s timeless music.

The concept and play was the work of Ernest Chambers, a long time Hollywood producer who spent many years working with the late entertainment legend Merv Griffin. Special material was provided by Ken and Mitzi Welch.

I look forward to getting my hands on the cast album as this ambitious and exciting show moves forward.

I want to thank Andy, Ann, Andrew along with the entire cast and crew for a wonderful evening of first rate entertainment.

I found a YouTube offering from that Costa Rican firecracker, Ms. Nova you can see here:

CNN Takes Aim At The TSA Over Pilot Gun Safety.

Today CNN’s investigative correspondent, Drew Griffen reported on the unsafe holster padlock procedures that I believe caused the accidental discharge of a pilot’s weapon on that UA Airways flight late last month.

Here again I demonstrate just how the the TSA turned a safe and reliable defensive weapon into a deadly booby-trap.

On Meeting The Incomparable Jackie DeShannon

Tonight at the Culver City Jazz Bakery I met the voice, charm and beauty behind the International Love Anthem written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, “What The World Needs Now Is Love Sweet Love.”

Rather than performing Jackie was in the audience. The gifted singer/songwriter was just a couple of seats away from me at the still in development, Ernie Chambers jazz musical called, In Love.

Jackie has a web site but her appearances are too rare these days for my liking.

Over the decades Jackie really rocked me with such hits as, “Needles and Pins” and of course, “Put a Little Love In Your Heart.”

I have to tell you first hand Jackie is a total babe and still has it, all of it!
Pay A visit to the Jackie DeShannon website and rediscover her great sound.

Here are two great clips of this star!

Gun Rights Infringements Press Ahead despite Supreme Court’s Impending ruling

Gun rights hating members of city councils, county boards, state legislatures and Congress are working harder than ever. They seem to be pushing forth every kind of scheme to separate law-abiding Americans from the means to defend themselves and their country.

I predict that most gun laws will begin falling in America after the Supreme Court rules one Monday morning within the next couple of months.

I’m no lawyer but I just can’t envision a ruling that says keeping and bearing arms is an individual right and then allowing any government infringement on the right.
Many Americans think that licensing guns and owners like automobiles and drivers are somehow constitutional. The cases involving Poll Taxes and Literacy Tests for voters settled that kind of requirement long ago.

Waiting periods, fees, taxes, purchasing limits, testing and training requirements will end. Next laws limiting certain types of firearms or magazine capacity must fall. Laws banning machineguns, short barreled rifles and shotguns cannot survive. I also see the impending death of the Gun Free Zones in America. Finally laws restricting the carrying of firearms by Americans will end for good.

Firearm registration will survive despite two previous Supreme Court Ruling barring prosecution of convicted felons for their failure to register on Fifth Amendment grounds. If you can’t require felons to register their guns, what’s the point of registration?

I anticipate no changes in the prohibition of felons from possessing firearms because the felons lose rights as part of their punishment for crimes.

The gun laws won’t just fall on their own in most cases as that will happen as prosecutions are challenged in criminal courts. There will also be challenges in civil courts as citizens ask that standing gun rights infringements be struck down. This time the gun-rights defenders will have the courts on their side.

I further expect to see more cowardly criminals lose the protection that gun laws have provided them. Crime will decrease as the good guys exercise the rights wrongfully taken from them.

As for the hand-wringing pacifists and gun-rights haters, they will be mounting a campaign to abolish the Second Amendment though the normal process or ask for a Constitutional Convention. Then there’s always the United Nations.

Master Gun Scribe Joins Blogosphere

I have a gun expert friend that has written books about firearms and a truckload of magazine articles. I was surprised to learn long ago that he was a serious Indiana corn farmer in addition to writing about firearms. Frank W. James is one of the country’s best gun writers.

I don’t know how Frank can do all he must and find time to keep up a blog. Gun writers like Frank James have a following of fans that grew up reading his books and articles. I trust that they soon find Frank's new blog.

Farmers all have a problem and that’s controlling God’s creatures that devastate crops. I’m sure we will see expert advice offered here to deal with them too.

I hope the word gets out and the advertisers for “Corn, beans, spent brass, an empty page and a deadline” bury Frank and his farm with cold hard cash.

You can Read his blog right here…

Despicable YouTube Teen Beating

At first blush YouTube should delete this kind of video because they encourage crimes. The reality is bullies do this crap every day without creating perfect evidence for the courtroom. In nearly every similar case without taped evidence the attackers always lie and claim they were just defending themselves. It’s almost impossible to get a conviction when all the witnesses are also the offenders.

I can just imagine jury members watching the YouTube horror show returning with a “Guilty On All Counts” verdict in record time.

The incredibly brutal and stupid central Florida teenagers involved in last week’s taped torture and kidnapping deserve long adult prison terms for their YouTube production.

These sadistic YouTube contributors wanted to show the world their deed. Now the world can watch these creepy kids spend the best decades of their lives where they belong, behind bars.

The video:

OBama’s “Bitter” Gaffe…

It’s no secret that Barack Obama loathes the Second Amendment and supports a total ban or firearms for Americans. It’s also quite evident that he and his wife sympathize, socialize and worship with anti-American and anti-White bigots.

The gun control issue places Obama on the side of the Ku Klux Klan that supported the first gun control laws in America. Those laws barred Blacks from owning guns through subjective permit schemes that favored White folks. Allowing Blacks to protect themselves was and is counterproductive to Obama and the Klan’s goals. Obama is the ultimate, “Uncle Tom”.

You can argue that the Klan is gone but it has been replaced by armed criminal aliens and minority membership street gangs that are killing Blacks today like never before. This is happening in the Gun Free Zones of places like Chicago, New York and Los Angeles. Law-abiding Black Americans are victimized at a much higher rate than any other ethnic group.

Obama’s rejection of rural Pennsylvania’s voter’s clinging to religion must be because they don’t because they don’t pray in churches run by the likes of his own favorite pastor, Jeremiah Wright.

Anyone who believes that Hillary Clinton has turned into a gun rights tolerant, moderate is living in a fantasy world for sure. Clinton was lock-step with Sarah Brady and Rosie O’Donnell who want to guarantee only the government and criminals have firearms.

Obama certainly knows how to alienate and divide Americans as well as the Clintons have done. Obama wants to deprive Americans of their basic rights to protect their families under a Constitutional right that too many Left Wing extremists want to destroy.

The TSA’s Response To Gun Accident is Deafening!

The TSA has muzzled their trainers and administrators as they throw good money after bad. Rather than give up their obstructionist ways the TSA is searching for yet another unorthodox, Rube Goldberg style gun locking contraption.

The TSA is hoping for anything at all, regardless of cost to separate FFDO pilots from their guns or a way to claim the program should be scrapped as unworkable. They just refuse to adjust to the law of the land that mandated armed pilots.

TSA officials will do anything and everything they can to aid terrorists and leave the public unprotected. I know and they know that we are no better off than we were on September 10, 2001.

The TSA has their head in the sand as they know full well that there are explosives that will defeat their screeners and technology. They are also aware just how passengers can improvise deadly weapons with legal everyday items once onboard planes.

The TSA has no reliable contingent plans to deal with a terror attack from the tarmac level at our airports. Their entire program is only very expensive smoke and mirrors. The scam is to fool the public with their privacy and dignity invasions.

As always, we can count on government’s arrogance, incompetence and ineptitude rather than a real solution like fully trained and armed pilots to protect lives and assets entrusted to them.

They need to retire the booby-trap holster padlock idea and instead rely the experience of millions of law enforcement officers that have learned how to safely retain their weapons and deploying them only to save lives.

Watch my booby-trap holster video one more time!

Adoption Duty Day For This Private Investigator/Terminator

Chino, CA--It’s a beautiful day as I enter the grounds of the California Institution For Men. I’ve got an adoption case assignment involving an inmate here.

For the most part I enjoy these assignments I do on behalf of couples seeking to adopt infants to raise as their own children. In many adoption cases the natural parents have a sad life of drug addiction, poverty and crime. These people are just not equipped with the skills or motivation to raise children in a happy or safe environment.

For the birth-fathers to be, I bring an end to the prospect of child support, medical bills and responsibilities. I bring them paperwork that ultimately terminates their parental rights to the child.

If the birth-fathers don’t sign the paperwork, I serve them with court documents that will force termination on the grounds that the birth-father is not a fit nor proper person to raise the child because of his criminal history and imprisonment. No matter what, the results are the same but going through court termination proceedings take a lot longer.

Many of the birth fathers I deal with are not in prison but they have many of the same problems.

Even imprisoned birth fathers have the power to put the adoptive parents through many months of additional expense, uncertainty and worry if the men don’t agree to the adoption. The upside of signing the papers is good will and a guarantee their babies will get the good life with financially stable if not wealthy adoptive parents.

The reality is these babies have won the lottery. The’ve won loving parents that will provide for their needs and educational tools along with a new birthright.

Thankfully most birth-fathers do the right thing once the options are properly explained to them. I rarely meet the adoptive parents but talk on the phone with them. Sometimes as they cry with tears of joy that the adoption is finally settled. These adoption assignments have a lasting feel-good effect on me. The results of this work I do has caused the social workers and attorneys to give me a special moniker, “The Terminator”.

International Extradition And The Death Penalty

Fugitive Marine Cpl. Cesar Laurean was bagged by Mexican cops in San Juan De La Vina, Mexico. Laureau was on the lam after being accused first of rape and then later killing the very pregnant, Marine Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach, 20. Police believe the killing was an ill-fated attempt to silence Lauterbach’s testimony against Laurean.

There is a simple lesson for all people on the run from a capital offense in the United States. International extradition has a price in most of the civilized world. That price is there will be no extraditions without a guarantee that the death penalty wont be sought or imposed on the accused.

Most convicted killers don’t live to see a prison death chamber because of the decades long chain of appeals involved in these cases. However spending time on Death Row is really hard time compared to even super maximum state prison general population housing units.

Touching foreign soil did much more than save Laurean’s life. Even if he serves a maximum term he will have his custody status reviewed and reduced with good behavior. That would never happen if he was under a death sentence.

I won’t comment on just what Laurean deserves more than a fair trial and conviction only after guilt is proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Laurean has already been convicted by blood thirsty television and blog offerings in their usual rush to judgment.

Spending most or all of your useful life in prison has to be pure Hell with the crappy food, an end to hetro-sexual relations, and any form privacy. Being subjected to victimization at the hands of career criminals with nothing to lose does not enhance the quality of life. Life in prison may be much worse than death.

I hate the death penalty because it gives government the ability to kill its own citizens. Sooner or later that power gets out-of-control as we have seen in Europe, Asia and the Middle East in recent history. Can we trust the politicians we were never that fond of not to abuse their power?

I’m Stuck In A Giant Time Warp…

Click picture to enlarge.

Thanks to retired, Chicago Police Homicide Sergeant Johnny “North side” Northern, I was taken back more than three decades. North Side worked at Area Six in another now demolished building located at Damen Avenue and Grace Street.

North Side sent me this picture of the old Chicago police Academy. The non-descript building was used as a hospital during the Civil War and has the look of so many of Chicago’s public grammar schools. I guess one architect had the clout to design so many buildings during that period. I wonder whose political campaign he had to fund to get the job? The building served the city well for a very long time.

I can remember every day I spent in that building that had no air conditioning but for a single window unit in the training director’s office. Rank has its privilege. The classrooms were large and noisy. You could smell the Vienna Sausage Company’s products in the air from several nearby hot dog stands on Maxwell Street.

The sound of a fellow recruit’s wrist snapping still rings in my ears from the great training provided by a certain notorious defensive tactics instructor. The boiler room was used as small running track where we did the Duck Walk for many miles before we graduated.

Compared to my basic training at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri the O’Brien Street Academy was an absolute country club. The instructors were the greatest as they gave me the building blocks to understand the job and also help me through a second career as a private eye.

The new academy on Jackson Street was finished the same year this picture was taken. It was new, modern much larger and lacked so much personality that the old school had.

Thanks for the picture John! If only I could be turned back into a kid and begin my training all over again…

We get letters! RE: Armed Pilots

I am FFDO and only joined the program so I wouldn't have to suffer the affront every time I went to work of being frisked by some guy named Mohammed, who couldn't hold a job at 7-11 or driving a taxi in Manhattan.

Only in America can you produce such an inept leadership of an orgination of morons who don't have the balls to work smarter...not harder. Let me see if I have this right; I'm in uniform with no gun, I have to go through same screening as regular passengers. Take my computer out as well as the gum in my shirt pocket. I carry a gun, I show two photo ID's, sign a book and NOTHING in my bag is searched! That makes a lot of sense.

When will this country wake up and stop all the insanity? If it is for the passengers, simply remind them that we are the most vetted employee group of almost any industry. And, if they are not comfortable, Greyhound and Amtrak would be more than happy to carry them safely to their destinations!

When will the pilots come together and say enough is enough and give the TSA 6 months to come up with universal access or we don't fly? Shut down the plans for one hour and they would have a solution in a week!

We are going to "politically correct" ourselves right up to another event that will make 9-11 look like a picnic!

Rick Ross’ Fingerprints Are All Over The Texas Polygamist Search Warrant Evidence

One man’s religion is another man’s cult. In America you have a right to join whatever floats your spiritual boat. This only becomes a problem when families are desperate to remove their kin from the groups they’ve joined. For that job there is convicted bombing extortionist and former resident of the Arizona State Prison’s Finishing School. His name is Richard “Rick” Ross. Ross learned that families will pay handsomely for anyone willing to kidnap and “deprogram” those wayward fugitive loved ones. Deprograming became Ross’s vocation and post prison career.

Ross also has made himself a media "expert pundit" on cults and such. The news media organizations unknowingly hire the fallen extortionist who does not like to disclose his past.

Ross has a website where he finally disclosed but really downplays his outrageous crime that would make a solid script for a really bad made for TV movie. Ross’ crime involved contacting the old, Broadway Southwest Department store in the Phoenix Biltmore Fashion Mall with a particularly nasty threat.

Ross and his group were going to explode a planted bomb inside the store killing everyone unless they took their all the jewelry and cash and deposited it in a certain location. For Ross that crime did not pay as he and another man were caught and sent to the Big House. As they do for all first time Arizona convicts that complete parole, Ross’ civil rights were restored. Of course Ross still cannot own a firearm.

Some interesting facts were ignored by the press about the Waco Texes Holocaust at the Mt. Carmel Church involving the Branch Davidians. Ross was trying to extract a member of that group on behalf of a family. Ross got a brainstorm after he learned that some members there had firearms. Ross arranged to transmit phony information claiming the church members had an unregistered and therefore illegal .50 caliber machinegun to the BATF. Ross hoped that the BATF would raid the church, and he could extract his prey during the confusion. We all know what happened at Waco and they never found that .50 caliber machinegun.

Now we have that San Angelo, TX case of a supposed 16 year-old girl with a cell phone that contained a Nashville TN prefix, calling for help claiming rape, beating and kidnapping. Added to the girl’s sory was the name of a real convicted Arizona sex offender, Dale Barlow. Somehow I suspect Mr. Barlow’s name and history was used to simply cause law enforcement authorities to get a search warrant. I would be surprised to find out Barlow ever lived at the San Angelo polygamist church. I smell a replay of the Waco stunt being used in this case. That M.O. is so familiar as we all know Ross is good with a telephone.

This stunt did the trick here as the cops predictably raided. How could I foresee that Barlow or the girl who I suspect never existed were not located inside the Polygamist church and community?

I’m not going to enter the debate of whether the polygamists are right or wrong. I don’t really care. There can be no debate that they have the same Bill of Rights protecting them against bogus search warrants. They also have a right to pray to whomever they like.

Somehow I predict that Ross will surface here as a witness or media expert. Time will tell if Ross orchestrated this raid like he did in Waco.

The Heat Of The Moment, A Flashback

Click photo to enlarge.

I took this photo in Chicago’s Marquette Park in 1978 at a Nazi rally that later found itself written into the script for the movie, The Blues Brothers.

Here some fellow Chicago police officers are helping this lad to his feet after he stumbled. I heard a rumor that the boy later was elected as a Democrat to Congress. Does anyone recognize him?

If You Loathe Commercial Air Travel, You’re Not Alone…

Air carriers are falling over each other on their way to our nation’s bankruptcy courts.

I think the reasons are obvious. Today air passengers are first assaulted by the TSA gauntlet that emulates the military checkpoints manned by Nazi or Communist countries. I say assault because we’ve fought wars to prevent what we now allow our own government to do to us.

Most Americans were not yet born when air travel was a pleasant adventure. There was no frisking of passengers and no identification was required to fly. The service was wonderful, as the beautiful young and well paid women flight attendants treated passengers like they were special. I used to go out of my way to fly rather than drive.

Today unhappy passengers suffer the privacy invasion and other indignities at the hands of all powerful TSA workers. We are forced to play a sick game of Simon Sez with the hard corps unemployed placed in the TSA jobs program.

Later the passengers are face to face with low paid airline employees who now have to cope with those traumatized by the TSA. The mood is far less than it should be and can be. We find ourselves in an environment where nearly all courtesies and smiles are faked.

Next the specter of airline horror stories of being trapped in a plane on the tarmac with overflowing toilets, no food, lost luggage and more TSA misadventures like when they re-screen an entire airport full of passengers.

Today I find any excuse not to fly and drive whenever possible. The airlines respond to me and my fellow passengers by lowering prices and cutting more corners on already, really bad service. They just don’t get it.

I’d train and arm every pilot and many flight crew members. I would also invite all trained and sworn law enforcement officers to fly armed at half-price air fare or better.

We’ve traded away our freedom and liberty in order to obtain security and as Benjamin Franklin warned we now have neither. Today I’d much rather see the TSA and their trashing of the Fourth Amendment ended for good. I will take my chances with terrorists any day.

A Giant Has Died…

A true American, an actor and the Omega Man of our time, Charlton Heston has passed away today, he was 84 years-old. Heston was elected President of the National Rifle Association in 1998 and served for several two year terms. Heston stepped down when he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

According to a family spokesman Heston died in his Beverly Hills home.
Here is my favorite line Heston ever delivered

Must have fashions For Big City Gang-Bangers!

It’s here! A bullet proof hoodie to wear when you’re out druggin’, robbin’, & killin’! Imagine how you’ll never worry about cops again! You will have better protection then they do with this little number. The girls will think you’re really cool when you can be like Superman!

Remember folks, if it only saves one gang-bangers life it was worth it! Thanks to Second City Cop for the heads up.

Read more about the new fashion trend here.

TSA Set To Brief Congress On Pilot's Gun Accident

The TSA is set to bring their findings and excuses for the accident to the Congressional Homeland Security Committee next week. The question is, will the TSA accept responsibility for the accident or make a scapegoat of the pilot?

In December the Crimefile News blog broke the story about the unorthodox, padlocked holster required for armed Federal Flight Deck Officers. The holster in conjunction with a common padlock was adopted and mandated by the TSA for transportation and storage of loaded guns on commercial aircraft by flight deck officers.

The problem is that long standing safety rules mandate that trigger locks, fingers and foreign objects don’t belong on the trigger of loaded firearms. The holster alone is a well made and safe item but the same cannot be said for the utilization of a padlock with the holster.

A video written and produced by Crimefile News has been seen in hundreds of airline, government and Congressional offices and has been heralded by gun safety experts for exposing the danger. The video replicates the actual discharge of the weapon by the padlock shackle. Pilots, flight deck officers, and TSA employees are precluded from talking about the holster or firearm handling procedures.

Congressman John Mica of Florida is convinced after a briefing by TSA officials that the accident was caused by the TSA mandated procedures and padlock.

So far the TSA remains silent on the cause of the incident or plans to prevent similar accidents in the future.

Let’s hope that the responsibility for the FFDO program is shifted away from the politicized TSA to a competent law enforcement agency where it belongs.

Read more about this here.
The Video:

Releasing Prisoners Because Of A Government Fiscal Crisis

This is a no brainer for me. We all know that dangerous and violent criminals are young. As criminals age their crimes decrease accordingly. A purse snatcher for example can’t do those escape sprints at 45 or 50 like he could at 25. Maturity also tames those who like to engage in risky behavior.

Life in prison is supposed to be just that. However the truth is life or at least the quality of life is really over for prison inmates and everyone for that matter when, disease, blindness, hearing loss and the inability to simply walk brings disability.

Our prisons have become nursing homes with significant health care costs. That’s over and above the cost of security over senior citizens behind bars.

The solution is simple if prisoners are so old or so disabled they are no longer a threat let them out. That’s far better than letting out a 25 to 45 year old burglar, robber or rapist early. That means people like Charles Manson, Sirhan Sirhan, other high profile ageing convicts will get their diapers changed in a nursing home.

There are thousands of dangerous young criminals that society needs protection from. We should not waste valuable prison real estate on anyone who is feeble and helpless.