Los Angeles, CA—In light of last night’s Westwood Village home invasion, robbery and kidnapping of a half-dozen UCLA students, lawyers can be counted on to uncover security shortcomings at Midvale Plaza Apartments.
Here are some tough questions:
1. What licensed security or investigative professional was hired to perform a security audit of the premises? 2. Did Midvale Plaza Apartments follow the recommendations? 3. Was there licensed, trained and armed security present, and if not, why not? 4. What in the way of recorded security cameras were present and operational? 5. What instruction did Midvale Plaza Apartments give tenants about not allowing strangers into the building?
Somehow I don’t think Midvale Plaza Apartments will have the right answers. The marketing signs I saw today offer a lot of wonderful extras for the tenants but I did not see safety and security on the list.
This seems to be a new complex. What steps have they taken to protect the very lives of their tenants? Last night’s horror show could have easily degenerated into mass murder bloodbath.
I can only hope that the owners Midvale Plaza Apartments take every possible future step to insure the safety of the tenants that have entrusted them with their very lives. At a minimum their building should be more secure than others in the area.
One last question: Why was there no lock on this door?
Los Angeles, CA--The Midvale Plaza Apartments located at 527 / 540 Midvale Avenue became the scene of a home invasion robbery last night. Six UCLA students were studying for final examinations only to find themselves being held-up at gunpoint.
Four male masked male offenders including one Black and one Asian were armed with at least one shotgun as they forced the students to turn over cash, jewelry, laptops, and their cell phones. The robbery crew tied up the students with shoelaces and forced them all to lie on the floor of the apartment.
The offenders escaped and are now being sought by UCLAPD and LAPD officers who will need all the help they can get.
The robbery makes little sense since students generally have little money. This sounds like a really dangerous crew that needs to be stopped and removed from society. Anyone with information needs to snitch on these thugs in a hurry.
Note: On January 3, 2010 there was another similar home invasion only a block away at 433 Midvale committed by a lone Asian male with a silver colored handgun.
Washington, DC—There may be benefits to this idea. What we really get is a greater Police State. This is about total control over every man woman and child.
They will be scanning your card everywhere, when you travel, vote, are stopped for minor traffic violations, visit government buildings or do your banking. The power connected to those with access to the database is absolute.
This is the kind of program that we need to resist with everything Americans can muster. To wait and see will be too little, too late.
With a national ID card our government will never be suddenly motivated to use any tool in for the apprehension and deportation of illegal aliens. Illegal aliens will still be working for cash under the table.
They will force me to obtain the national identity card over my dead body.
Burbank, CA—Another family is going to hit it big in the lawsuit lottery complaining about the “unfortunate” 14 year-old who learned too much, too soon from his sexy and hot English and Social Science teacher.
According to police sources, Amy Beck, 33 allegedly confessed to police that she had sexual relations with the male student between March and September of last year. If Beck really talked to the police she needs a mental evaluation since nobody in their right mind would do that.
For her cooperation Beck is now being held in jail on a $400,000.00 bond
Beck taught for ten years at Burbank’s David Starr Jordan Middle School until she resigned last Friday.
If I was on the criminal jury there could be but one verdict from me, NOT GUILTY.
Okay, I just don’t get it. I don’t see anything but a lucky young lad who got a special treat. If there was a crime here it was the kid blabbing.
As for damages against the school district I’d not give a red cent to anyone if I was on the civil jury.
Yes I would have a different opinion if the sexes were reversed or it was a same sex student-teacher relationship.
Can we please spend precious tax dollars on something important rather than this crap?
Chicago, IL—Adolph Hitler had absolute power during his 12 year reign of terror. Hitler’s wildest dream is about to be outdone in the Windy City if police Superintendent Jody Weiss has his way. The taxpayers of this once great city will be paying for hidden cameras to spy on themselves.
Citizen privacy has been on the ropes in modern times. With data collection, telephone records, privately operated surveillance cameras, I-pass toll roads, photo traffic enforcement, the TSA along with their naked cameras and relaxed government searching rules, there’s no escape. The only final privacy frontiers left to violate will be government bed, toilet and shower cameras.
There are those that will say, “We must do everything possible to catch criminals.” That, as they suggest just where to position the cameras. Of course it will be away, from themselves but toward their neighbors.
Is there no expense government can’t seem to incur? It’s great to live in a country than can afford to spend unlimited money on maintaining a police state.
China--Here we have loyal, brave, Kool-Aid drinking Socialists at work. We need to ask our politicians why do we trade or do any business at all with these despicable tyrants?
Karachi, Pakistan—In 2004, I began investigating Adam Gadahan in Southern California. He’d become a big news story following a captured American Taliban fighter, John Walker Lindh now doing serious federal prison time. I interviewed Gadahan's family members and people that knew him before he relocated to Pakistan.
Gadahan grew up in a rural area of Riverside County, CA. Gadahan's father still owns the goat farm there. Gadahan became a Muslim joined a Mosque in Orange County where his hot temper got his a brush with the law. His assault on another Muslim at the Mosque resulted in his only known criminal record.
Gadahan was vigorously defended by is aunt who first claimed that her nephew was not involved with al-Qaida but later suggested that he’s must have been brainwashed in Pakistan.
One thing we know for sure Gadahn made videos that threatened his former country, tried to recruit Americans to join the al-Qaida terror campaign and pissed off a lot of Americans. He also urged al-Qaida sympathetic Americans to make war here.
Gadahan was soon indicted and had a $1 million bounty placed on his head. Finally Gadahan has been captured and may face now the music for his behavior.
Gadahan was charged with Treason. The only person in recent memory to face that charge was 70 year-old lady lawyer Lynne Stewart. Stewart is doing time for that right now.
The defense of treason is protected free speech. Gadahan’s propaganda videos are all speech but really nasty speech at that.
I’m much more interested in his associations and knowledge. I’d give him immunity if his revelations could cripple or destroy al-Qaida. I’d hope they’d give this kid the opportunity to redeem himself. Of course if he can’t deliver that he can rot in prison for the rest of his life. Treason is not a capital offense these days.
Los Angeles, CA—I had a chance meeting with a TSA official high up in the food chain. I will not name this contact for obvious reasons. I will call the person, Col Klink the fictional German POW camp character from Hogan’s Heroes.
Col. Klink knew I had written scores of articles condemning the TSA and their employees. Klink also knew about a nasty run in I had two months ago at LAX. Klink said, these are just people trying to make a living at a very difficult job and they don’t deserve the constant bashing you give them. He further said, “They are only following the mandates given to them.”
I explained to Klink that that “only following orders” defense did not work for Nazi war criminals and the TSA workers should not rely on that either.
I told Klink we have a Fourth Amendment that was intended to protect Americans from warrant-less search and seizure when probable cause of criminal activity does not exist. Klink retorted with his belief that we don’t have to board commercial aircraft and that this is voluntary. I told Klink to tell that lie to people traveling because their livelihood requires it or people going to funerals of loved ones, I’m just not buying it.
The TSA does not properly select, hire, train or supervise their workers. The TSA is a total mess that’s beyond repair. It’s a jobs program gone wrong.
To begin with the searching of passengers will never preclude or even slow down the introduction of explosives or weapons on airplanes except for the passengers that care about the laws of contraband and weapons.
If wardens of maximum security prisons can’t keep weapons and drugs out of their facilities the TSA mission is indeed impossible.
I also told Klink that I believe that the government has only created the illusion of security through passenger, inconvenience, harassment and abuse. The government feels the public would believe we are unprotected and endangered without their layers of pretend security and high visibility.
Klink agreed that the TSA was involved in a security charade costing Americans hundreds of billions of dollars. Klink said Homeland Security officials would expect the airlines to go bankrupt over frightened passengers staying away especially after 9/11.
Klink said the public is ungrateful, rude and disrespectful to their officers and that bloggers like me legitimize that behavior. Klink told me too many passengers place a higher value on their perceived rights than the fragile feelings of the TSA workers and that is a recipe for unacceptable conflict.
I told Klink the TSA workers are overly impressed with their own importance. Further, I said the TSA workers view themselves as heroic law enforcement officers saving American lives and that’s pure hogwash.
Klink talked about low morale, poor self image and high turnover affecting workers in a negative ways. Klink said that they constantly reinforce to their officers that they are not cops and have very little authority to do more that contact police or federal law enforcement on an observe and report basis. Klink cited the expensive snappy new blue uniforms and gold police style badges as needed to combat their morale issues.
I told Klink that when there is a conflict or issues of attitude between his screeners and passengers that the screeners retaliate with slower and closer inspections of the passenger’s personal belongings. The passenger is treated like a criminal in a true sadistic sense and that is horrible.
Klink actually asked me, what I’d do in the way commercial air travel anti-terrorism security? Since he opened that door I hit him hard with answers.
I’d reduce the TSA employee numbers to 25% of the current strength. TSA employees would be properly selected, trained, armed and have limited police powers.
Routine searching of passengers and their luggage would end. All off duty local, state and federal law enforcement officers would be allowed to carry their loaded duty weapons.
All pilots would be required to be trained and armed with weapons to continue working. Pilots would have full police powers throughout every airport and aircraft they are assigned.
Every agent of the TSA would be engaged in criminal profiling, selecting passengers for screening based on behavior standards and suspicious activity. K-9 officers would be meeting and greeting passengers on a routine basis.
No person with a passport from a country we are at war with, declared or not, shall board our aircraft.
No citizen will ever face arrest or prosecution if they inadvertently pack or have a legal firearms or knife in their luggage. All legal property taken for safekeeping will be returned by mail or common carrier at the expense of the passenger.
The last thing that was brought up was whether I’d get involved with training TSA officers if requested. I told Klink that TSA officials would accept me for that role over their dead bodies. I told him I’d do it on a contract for my regular hourly rate.
Klink said I should have been called to testify in Congress when they were making laws. I told Klink that would only happen in a perfect world.
This is a typical TSA screener at her best playing God outside of the airport terminal. This nation is in trouble.
Los Angeles, CA—About a year ago I met the really fun veteran and hand-standing athletic champ of Saturday Night Live, Victoria Jackson. This lady is a real kick and was a true joy to meet.
Jackson is a true endangered species in La La Land since she is a Conservative. Above all she is an entertainer. Sit back and enjoy her little informative song,There’s a Communist in the Whitehouse.
Phoenix, AZ—I met J.D. Hayworth while doing investigative TV news freelancing. Hayworth was a talented sportscaster and good family man.
One day in 1993 he told me he wanted to run against the Leftist Congresswoman Karen English who among other things voted for the 1994 Clinton Gun Ban that has since expired.
Hayworth told me he was going to make an official announcement across the street from English’s office so I was there to watch the campaign get unveiled. Haworth won and English faded away.
Hayworth represented Arizona from 1995 to 2007, never lost sight of Conservative values and never once had an ethical dilemma. Hayworth kept his promises unlike most politicians but eventually lost his seat to a Liberal.
Today Hayworth his challenging that pretend Conservative and failed Presidential candidate, John McCain. McCain was and is exactly what was wrong with Congress. He voted lockstep with Clinton and Obama on most issues.
McCain tried to legitimize decades of trespassing across our borders by human traffickers, drug dealers, welfare cheats and economic refugees. He called it “Immigration Reform”. Rather than reform it was a blanket pardon for criminal acts and the reward of the keys to our treasury. The whole sickening concept gave Green Card preference to criminals over immigrants waiting in line following the letter of Immigration Law. Rather than reform McCain chose to take America down the road to ruin.
McCain ran a pathetic and lackluster Presidential campaign that never once challenged the eventual winner. Conservatives boycotted the polls because they knew McCain was a Progressive pretender.
Finally we have a chance to oust McCain and install a legitimate Conservative. Crimefile News asks that you vote for J.D. Hayworth for the United States Senate.
Cole Porter once boasted and made a bet in a bar that he could compose a song on the spot. He won that bet with this masterpiece recorded by Jose Feliciano more than 40 years ago.
Phoenix, AZ—At the Winter Range cowboy meet and shoot Eagle grips introduced the Evil Roy grip designs. They are both for the single action revolvers and 1911 .45 grips pictured here.
Evil Roy is one of the best known SASS shooters in the world. He was able to figure out a way to make the 1911 grips thinner without alteration to the bushings of the 1911. The grips as you can see are flat and not round.
The Evil Roy grips are available only at EAGLE GRIPS where the competitively priced grips can be shipped to you without delay.
These 1911 grip has generated quite a buzz around those shooters that idolize their favorite autoloader. The Evil Roy revolver grips are also available for your six-guns too.
Learn what inspired these great grips from Evil Roy himself below:
Chicago, IL—Retired firefighter Ted Kozak is a political prisoner of the State of Illinois. He is there because he dared keep and bear arms in Chicago, Illinois.
Someday it’s hoped that those despots who put him in prison be forced into the same punishment or even worse for violating Kozak’s civil rights. Kozack is not, nor has he ever been a danger to anyone.
In the meantime Kozak appears to have just been sent to the facility where he will stay until released because of appeals or when he is paroled.
As all Illinois prisons this one houses 90% miserable, African-American criminals. Kozack is probably in reasonable fear of his life every day and depression is his constant companion.
Please take the time to send Kozack a letter or card.
Ted Kozak #M11913 Dixon Correctional Center 2600 N. Brinton Ave. Dixon, Il 61021
Los Angeles, CA—In a Nanny Government orgy, the L.A. County Department of Children and Family Services has gone bananas on an investigation involving the Jackson family children.
According to TMZ.com, the 13 year-old son of Jermaine Jackson bought an electronic stun gun over the Internet. When the child welfare bureaucrats found out they went into a total tizzy.
The non-lethal device hurt nobody and the sky did not fall except over the heads of the overpaid government do-gooders who raced to conduct a major investigation and confiscate the little shocker.
Jackson family members my yet find themselves in court over this nuclear over-reaction to a non-event.
I guess the losers hired to protect Los Angeles children need to take a ride out to America’s farmland where 12 year-olds have their own .22 rifles and use more powerful cattle prods to control farm animals.
Yes, the little guy wanted a James Bond defensive device to call his own but that should not be the government’s concern unless or until the device is misused. In L.A.’s school districts I suspect packing a stun gun for protection may slow down the school bullies who may otherwise actually injure the kid.
Apparently there is also a government panic that the kids have access to the Internet sans adult supervision. I guess they don’t like to see kids learn more than they are spoon-fed at the local public schools where the educational levels are another national embarrassment.
I assume they think they are protecting kids from porn. I wonder how many children living on Americas farms have watched animals engaging in sexual activity without growing up to become axe murderers.
The L.A. County's Children and Family services, I say chill out!
Washington, DC—The landmark Chicago gun ban case argument has been transcribed. You can read the transcript right here.
Forecasting the decision is almost as risky as reading tea leaves when it comes to predicting how the court will rule. There is some insight that comes by way of questions posed by court members.
Chicago, IL—I think it’s a safe prediction that Chicago’s gun ban will fall. The sales of these constitutionally protected items can be expected inside the city’s limits.
If you’re old enough to remember Chicago had stores that sold handguns. Marshall Field’s, Sport’s Incorporated, H. H. Harris Company and the venerable Abercrombie & Fitch were the ones that come to mind. Sadly these businesses stopped selling guns or were run out of town.
Chicago back then had an equally unconstitutional requirement that handgun buyers had a Permit to Purchase issued by the Chicago Police Department. The permits were reserved only for police and licensed security workers. The Chicago gun dealers could only ship the guns to addresses outside Chicago for those who lacked the Police Permit to Purchase. .
The reality was that Chicagoans wanting handguns simply went out to the suburbs and purchased them there. Of course Chicago gained no benefit of the sales taxes or people employed at these stores.
Chicago’s despots can be counted upon to promulgate every kind of obstruction to any decision of the Supreme Court. That’s the nature of lawless and tyrannical politicians since the beginning of time. It’s never often enough that such tyrants are removed by force by angry citizens.
Thanks to Galco International for the use of their own Lady Liberty!
I have said before we live in a Police State. Here is more solid evidence of the tyranny we seem to accept without question.
Before E-mail and cell phones government had no access to anything but toll call records. Data collection was impossible and prohibitively expensive for communications companies. Today however that’s all changed since your movements, phone calls and internet communications are all set in stone. Your private information is being stored in bottomless data storage facilities.
Now it’s open season on all of our private communications records. It is the routine for government to obtain and use this information without a search warrant. These private records are used in administrative, civil or petty criminal matters.
The abuse of this information is endless. There is no private investigator worth his salt that can’t get this private information just to satisfy some client’s curiosity The privacy invasion is both un-American and unacceptable.
There is only one cure. We need to enact legislation at state and federal level that prohibits e-mail, web chat and phone providers from keeping the records beyond the time their subscribers have paid their bills. Further any use in courtrooms of this data must be precluded.
So many Americans criticize the mainstream media for not exposing corruption in government. That’s true in too many cases but in the last ten years it’s not due entirely to their sympatric relationship with the Leftist politicians.
The real reason is enterprising news reporting takes money and resources. There is a depression in the news business these days that make reporting anything difficult. Newsrooms have had their manpower slashed by half over the last decade and things are only getting worse.
This creates great opportunities for bloggers to do what the TV news and print organizations can no longer do. It costs little or nothing for you to cover a story in your back yard. News organizations must spend a bundle just for reporters commuting to their stories.
Finding and publishing public records maintained in government records and databases is always safe as long as you credit the agency keeping the records as the source. You have no liability for erroneous or falsified public records as long as you did not create them.
Learn how to use those great and inexpensive Flip HD cameras. Editing video is easier than ever. If you have a Mac computer, any Apple Store will give you free lessons on editing video.
Carry your little camera at all times and when in doubt get the video. The next step is uploading it to a host such as YouTube. Once the video is uploaded, grab the embedded code and insert that into your blog.
It’s not enough just to point and shoot the camera. You must interview people that are either witnesses or involved in the story you are covering. Never forget to ask the people you talk to if they know anyone with inside information about your story.
You must be careful not to personally endorse the statements of witnesses you publish or you may be held responsible if they mislead you. Rather than saying someone is corrupt, your story can play it safe with, “Public records (or former employee) raise conflict of interest questions about photo radar enforcement contracts.”
Every television newsroom in the nation has gone the way of the Video Journalist or Backpacker Journalist. Reporters with producers and film crews are becoming endangered species. Today they send out one reporter with camera to do it all. I say it can be done and done well if the VJ is committed to bring in the story.
Bloggers are only limited by free time, geography or the inability to share their story.
Washington DC—The Bill of Rights has been enshrined in America for over 200 years. This document is Americans only protection from government tyranny. The problem is our judges have been slow to strike down laws that have traded the mere promise of security over our liberty.
The Second Amendment was and is unambiguous in its strong language. Local and federal lawmakers have ignored the right to keep in bear arms enacting whatever they pleased with slim majority votes. These fools really want to repeal the Second Amendment and know Americans will never stand for that happening. So they appoint only judges that will ignore the portions of the Bill of Rights they can't tolerate.
Gun ban after gun ban has been enacted by Leftist politicians and been allowed to stand because of creative but defective reasoning that the people had a “collective” right for their government to bear arms. That ridicules analysis ignores the reality that government never needed a right to keep and bear arms. The idea fell in 2008 with the Heller Decision that made it clear that individual Americans have this right.
Now there is another equally if not more important legal question before the court. That is can state and local; governments continue ignore the Second Amendment. In general our 14th Amendment requires the states to honor the Bill of Rights but that happened, one right at a time with various cases before the United States Supreme Court. They just never got around to hearing a case on the Second Amendment until tomorrow, March 2, 2010.
It is inconceivable that the 14th Amendment only gives protections for some but not all rights. Watering down the 14th Amendment would be dangerous and allow local governments to legalize slavery or eliminate fair trials for accused Americans. This is just not a reasonable option.
The gun rights haters like Chicago’s Mayor Richard M. Daley dare suggest that outright bans like theirs are somehow reasonable controls. A ban is not control but simply a ban. The handgun ban, along with many other onerous related regulations, violates the civil rights of Americans.
There will not be any streaming audio for Americans to hear like in the Heller Case. We will have to wait until the court reporter’s, transcript of proceedings are available. When the transcript is ready I will post it here.
Don’t expect a decision from the court for several months. They could wait until just before the Summer recess in June to release and inform us of the law of the land.
Phoenix, AZ—I spent about five days with cowboys from everywhere. There was a lot of riding, shooting and historical recreation buy some folks enjoying being American. This Winter Range gala happens every year at this time.
There were lawyers, doctors, plumbers, entertainers and at least one old private eye out playing cowboys and Indians on a big scale.
Here is a Cowboy Quartet telling about Wyatt Earp in song. Enjoy!
Los Angeles, CA—In light of last night’s Westwood Village home invasion, robbery and kidnapping of a half-dozen UCLA students, lawyers can be counted on to uncover security shortcomings at Midvale Plaza Apartments.
