Ron Dean, the Cop Killer That Became a Successful Actor

Chicago, IL—It was a typically hot summer Chicago day in July of 1955 when a troubled 16 year-old Ron Dean was detained in the Shakespeare District lock-up.   He wanted out and found a can opener in his cell.  With a little luck he was somehow able to open the cell door. 

Dean wandered out to the booking area and found the unoccupied desk of the lock-up keeper, Chicago police officer Albert Brown, 57.  In the desk he found Brown’s loaded service revolver.  Officer Brown surprised Dean who then shot and critically wounded the cop.

Dean was able to flee the station and Brown was removed to the Alexian Brothers Hospital where he died some ten days later. 

Two days later Dean was spotted at the North Avenue Beach where he was arrested. Brown was a juvenile and paid the low price juveniles paid for murders.  Dean was given his freedom perhaps much earlier than any cop killer would deserve.

I hate cop killers and have attended and been part of the honor guard for too many fallen officer’s funerals.  I’m still horribly haunted by the unbelievably hysterical screams of two-time police widow Johanna Crowley when she buried her second cop husband Pat Crowley in 1976.  She married and buried both cops in that same Catholic Church. Her first husband was the fallen police hero, Mike Kelly. 

Ron Dean somehow was able to turn his life around and was never again involved in that kind of sordid behavior. 

Dean found he loved acting and was lucky enough to land an agent and an acting career that began in the mid-1970’s through today.

The irony here was that Dean actually landed roles as Chicago cops!  Including one in the wildly successful Andrew Davis film, The Fugitive starring Harrison Ford.  Dean was believable in that film and worked alongside of real cops hired as extras all unaware of his shocking past.

Dean’s dark and distant past soon surfaced understandably angering many Chicago cops.  Some took it in stride and others expressed hatred for the cop killing thespian.

I have to ask; if Dean paid his debt and left his criminal past doesn’t he deserve to enjoy life with the law-abiding?  After all it’s a rare event when a criminal emerges from the dark side to become a productive citizen.

I really wonder what the surviving members of Brown’s family would have to say about this?  I also would love to land an interview with Dean. 

Can a juvenile delinquent and cop killer get forgiveness some 65 years after such a horrific crime? 

Dean is 80 years old today and has enjoyed the fruits of a thriving acting career.  I know cops universally loathe any cop killer.

Can and should Dean be recognized for turning his life around for becoming a productive and taxpaying citizen?  If not, who can?

Could Dean have done anything that would have somehow undone the damage aside from changing his ways?

Dean easily could have stayed in the abyss of career criminals.  Somehow I can forgive Dean and applaud both his acting performances and important personal achievements.   

Why Politicians Really Fear Mini-Camera Drones

DJI S900 with a Panasonic GH4 video camera

Phoenix, AZ—With the New technology of the ubiquitous mini camera drones, politicians fear losing dominant military power over the common man.

They know that ground observers and modern radar can’t see these things.  They also know that almost anyone can nearly invisibly, deploy a mini-drone to monitor the movement, armament and size of police and military assets on our streets.

That’s raw power that would allow ordinary citizens with conventional firearms to succeed in a rebellion against government tyranny.

Today we know that African-American thugs have effectively used cell-phones and texting to organize takeover mobs to rob retail establishments.  Until cell phones existed the police were the only ones to have superior instant communication with their walkie-talkies. 

Cell phone technology has given mobs advantages in recent instances of civil unrest.  Past civil insurrections such as the Rodney King of the 1980s or the Martin Luther King riots of the 1960s were put down because of superior police communications.  Those days may be over.

Government has quietly taken control of the cell phone and Internet on and off switches.   We will see that used when civil unrest become widespread.  Still there is no shortage of advanced and cheap wireless walkie-talkies that cannot be controlled so easily by the government.

The very first aircraft brought into military application was for simple and absolutely needed reconnaissance.  Unarmed airplanes facilitated tacktical battle management like never before.

Airplanes and wireless radio were and are considered dangerous military assets.  Now it’s little inexpensive drones that show significant promise to keep government tyranny in check.  

The power of intelligence gathering capabilities of the mini-drones is immense.  Imagine if one side of our Civil War had them?  Imagine how Custer’s troops could have used a mini-drone to see the Indians at the Little Big Horn.

I can’t help but imagine what a great tool the mini drone would have been for European Nazi resistance fighters of World War Two!   

Politicians will always fear civilian technological and firepower parity with the government and can be expected to stop that from happening.

They have waged a propaganda war against the civilian mini drones citing bogus public safety concerns.  The media has fallen on their sword here even though they need drones to survive their serious and ongoing financial crises. 

Laughably the FAA has suddenly changed their airspace regulation from reactive measures to proactive and preventative efforts.  They are suddenly giving the toy like mini drones with more attention than our 747 jumbo jets.

The FAA manned aircraft regulations were never a form of prior restraint policy.  Instead they quite literally are written in blood.  Every FAA regulation has a documented deadly mishap behind it.  That is except for the mini-drones.   Suddenly the FAA has sought Ill-informed prior restraint based rules based on Chicken Little style dire predictions to establish multi-rotor drone policy.

Despite numerous near miss claims there has never been a notable accident involving a multi-rotor camera drone inside the USA.  No lives lost, significant injury or even measureable property losses have been reported.  No photos, video or recovered drones have ever been displayed as evidence to back up the near miss assertions.

The FAA has actually restrained basic commerce and First Amendment protected use of the mini drones for creative art and newsgathering.  They’ve done that without a single documented death or even minimal property damage report. 

Suddenly privacy issues from the little camera drones is a “serious” concern at a time when surveillance cameras, satellite imagery and helicopter photography is commonplace and accepted by the courts.  

This is all a government sham.  The real issue is about despotic politicians keeping government might superior to civilians for absolute control.  As such it becomes obvious that the Second Amendment as well as the First Amendment now protects drones.

Ignorant Americans still somehow seem to think the Second Amendment was about hunting.  It was put in place to prevent government from exercising total control of Americans or seizing their hard won liberty. 

As for the drones, the Genie is out of the bottle.  The technology can’t be stopped.  They are easily made and programmed by hobbyists. There are upwards of a million of them already in civilian hands.

Thankfully regulating mini-drones beyond making hollow threats to do so is an impossible task.  Soon indoor pilots that can’t be readily seen will be able to operate the mini-drone.  The drones will be deployed from all manner of locations far away from the pilots. 

There is simply not enough tax funds or humans to exercise effective regulation of the mini drones on this earth. 

There are some 7000 helicopters to regulate and well over a million multi-rotor drones.  We know what’s safer to use for purposes like newsgathering.  The FAA will still play games and pretend the are concerned about real safety.

Stopped By Police While Driving, Dos and Don’ts

Phoenix, AZ—You’ve been stopped by police while driving, how do you respond? There is no reason to make this a negative, life changing event. 

You may be in for some heavy fines or perhaps an only educational encounter.  Your behavior may well determine your fate.  Never assume this will be a an unhappy event.

Make no mistake, you’ve got few rights and the police are in charge.  Aside from traffic citations you could be publicly humiliated, injured, jailed  and see your car towed.

When you’re in court judges and juries will assume the cop is telling the truth and if your story is different that you’re lying.  That’s the way it is, unless of course a video exists. 

When you become aware that the police are stopping you, yield immediately.  Pull over and try to keep in mind the officer’s safety so he is not endangered as they get out to approach you on foot.  At night, turn on your interior lights.

Keep your hands in sight and avoid quickly reaching into the glove compartments, pockets or purses. Wait until the officer is at your door and tell him what you’re attempting to retrieve.  

When the officer approaches you, he’s going to issue requests, orders or commands.  Try to smile and greet the officer pleasantly.  "Good evening officer, how are you tonight?", will go a long way. 

The officer will probably just ask you for your license, registration and insurance paperwork.  Keeping your registration and insurance paperwork on your sun visor will prevent unnecessary fumbling through your glove compartment. 

The officer will tell you the infraction he’s stopping you for.  You are free to tell him if you disagree and that you’ make every effort to drive carefully.  Don’t try and hold court on the street.

You may suggest that because of current traffic conditions that your alleged infraction was not a hazard to you or anyone else.  That may work for the "Hollywood stop" at a stop sign where the visibility is not obstructed and the traffic is very light.

What you say can and will be used against you.  So the less said about your violation the better.

If you manage to stay pleasant you may get a simple warning.  If you get a citation you can feel out the officer about what he thinks your chances in court might be.

Officers generally will make notes about the stop on his paper copy of the citation. They may write nothing or if you are a pain in their ass they will write a Great Western Novel about you with lots of details.

The pleasant or uneventful stops are the ones that officers will be inclined to not remember.  The stops where people play the race card, threaten the officer’s job or make nasty comments will always bring bad Karma.

Cases tried in Traffic Court are much more easily won if the accused violators exercised good behavior.

Many people somehow believe that pleading Not Guilty is a denial of the offense and somehow Perjury.   The Not Guilty plea is only asking the court to require the cop to prove your guilt.  That is not always a slam-dunk especially if the officer can’t remember details of the stop.

Driving While Impaired?

In the 1970’s cops did all they could to avoid arresting drunk drivers.  Nobody really cared back then and the time such cases tied up officers, was considered a poor use of time and resources.

That all changed in the 1980s through today.  Officers are rewarded with good efficiency ratings for making these arrests today.

If the officer thinks you may have been drinking, he may ask you to step out of the car.  He may ask you to perform a field sobriety test.  I would suggest a polite refusal here.  I will never play “Simon Sez” with a cop! 

You have a right to refuse this test and you may suggest that your feet hurt and you may not be at your best.  Avoiding public humiliation is another reason to refuse.  No officer is going to punish you for refusing Simon Sez. 

Taking a Breathalyzer test is absolutely mandatory or you will lose your license in every state of the union if you refuse.   You will also not have any evidence that you’re not impaired.  

If you blow below a .08 reading you may still be cited.  If you’re cited for impaired driving immediately go to a hospital and request a BAC test to counter the less accurate Breathalyzer test. 

Be polite and friendly to the hospital staff because you may need their help. 

Cops are ordinary people and are sensitive to unfriendly encounters like all of us.  They also respond well to kindness and people that behave well under difficult conditions.  If you’re cited be sure to thank the cop for doing his job.   You have everything to gain and nothing to lose by being nice.

As for racial issues White cops like me are pleasantly surprised whenever African-Americans or Hispanics are friendly and nice.  Playing the race card is never helpful and is always counterproductive.

Concealed Weapons Permits:

Immediately informing the officer you have a permit and a concealed weapon is both helpful and smart.  If the officer wants to disarm you, let it happen.  Your weapon will be returned when the stop is over.

Having a valid concealed weapon permit has real advantages.  Your permit is solid evidence that you’re law-abiding and respectful of the law.  Your permit is a badge of good citizenship.

If you follow this advice you will find that you pay fewer fines and avoid regrettable encounters.  You may have made a friend out of that cop that pulled you over.

NBC News Credo--We Make Up the News That We Want You to Believe.

Brian Williams and Josef Goebbels 

New York, NY—NBC News has like all the major networks have lost audience, revenue and credibility in recent years.

Make no mistake; the days of Walter Cronkite are long gone.  When Cronkite said, “And that's the way it is.” that had some real meaning.  Instead today it’s,  “that’s the way we want you to believe it is.”

It was Nazi propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels who said that,  “If you tell a lie often enough it becomes the truth.”  He used the new media of the day, radio to convince the German people that Adolf Hitler was their savior.  Of course if you heard it on the radio it must be true. 

Likewise Franklin Roosevelt fed Americans what he wanted them to believe in his infamous radio Fireside Chats.  

Soon it was TV that took on the role of indoctrinating the masses. But in the USA they made somewhat an early effort to avoid the Goebbels style of reporting news.

In recent decades NBC has reported all things from a Leftist slant and like the others major news organizations.  They became the de facto Obama Administration’s public relations agency.  They’ve managed to cover-up scandal after scandal plaguing Obama.

We seem to have forgotten how relentlessly American TV news destroyed Richard Nixon on the Watergate Scandal.  The difference was Nixon was a Conservative and was naturally targeted by the Left leaning media.

Now in a senseless moment of stolen valor the NBC News primary news anchor claimed to be in a helicopter that was shot down in Iraq.  That fable took on a life of it’s own but was exposed as being so much baloney.  

Williams apologized suggesting that he misspoke mitigating it like it was some unintended teleprompter error.  In a real world where the truth matters NBC would have removed him the second he crossed the line. 

It remains to be seen what NBC does but they all know that the news media has seen instance after instance where news stories have been invented, slanted and fictionalized.  Do they even care at this juncture?

Williams is the masthead of NBC.  NBC is on a steep decline anyway so whatever they do will be too little and too late to save the network’s reputation.

Similar issues came up with CBS and their former anchor Dan Rather. Rather was spreading libelous propaganda targeting George W. Bush but when he was caught red-handed CBS had to show him the door.

If you see it on TV you can bet it’s a lot of things, but truth is not necessarily one of them.

For those that call themselves journalists and take that role seriously Williams is now as toxic as they come.  

Where America Went Wrong With Muslims

Washington, DC—The reality is that Arab Muslims are by nature a reactionary and savage lot.  They carry their bankrupt 13^th Century culture with them that cannot nor will not ever integrate into a modern civilized society.

Arab Muslims have historically roamed the deserts almost exclusively making war on one another until all the foreign commerce barons and trade profiteers began to exploit them. 

In the last 80 plus years we learned that the Arab Muslims were sitting on huge oil reserves we needed for our planes, trains and automobiles.  We began to pay them for their oil instead of developing the oil we already had.

The Arab Muslims also are the worlds leading Opiate suppliers.  They make a fortune satisfying all of the Western drug addicts.

The Arab Muslims hate the Western world despite that fact that they continue to do business with us.  These days bribes, favors and every possible form of corruption is what motivates and guides our politicians.  When it comes to our Muslim policy only dirty money rules.

Muslims may hate Westerners but the truth is they all hate each other more.  Today all internal Arab Muslim conflicts are all waged with American military blood, sweat and tears. We support our favored Muslim tribe and government’s battles over others.  

George H.W. Bush took us to an oil war benefiting his pal’s own interests against Iraq.  Of course that angered at least half of all Arab Muslims.  Eventually that brought devastating terror attacks to American soil.

In effect, we interfered with and policed Muslims so they could not make war on each other.  Had we stayed out of Muslim Arab affairs there would be many millions fewer Arab Muslims to worry about.  

Nothing would have been better for civilization than a massive war between Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan.  We could have simply came in after, cleaned up and gotten the cheapest oil ever.   

Frankly our CIA could have easily been able to inflame each side against the other and there would be little Arab Muslim interest in fighting with the West.  It would be far better if these Arab Muslims were weak, broke and totally dependent of the rest of the world.

Arab Muslims now hate us more than ever.  They have never been so united and we can thank our corrupt Congress, Presidents, Bush, Clinton, Bush and Obama for anti-Western terror, TSA tyranny and the massive cost of their corrupt mess.

Arab Muslims will eventually use all of the deadly war weapons we brought to them against us.  In the end we let our own government become our biggest enemy. 

The Marion “Shug” Knight’s Murder Case Really Smells!

Compton, CA—Rap Mogul, Shug Knight’s lifestyle is very troublesome.  He’s done things that may be acceptable in the African-American Rap Culture but few other places.

Personally I'm in no way vouching for Knight's lifestyle or prior conduct.  My interest is only in simple fairness. 

Violence seems to relentlessly follow Knight wherever he goes and he’s got numerous bullet scars to prove it.  Last weekend Knight was in the congested parking lot of Tam’s Burgers at Central and Rosecrans Avenues in Compton, CA.

Apparently once again violence broke out while Knight was seated in his truck at the drive in.   Knight understandably fled for his life.  In the process Knight apparently ran over his friend Terry Carter killing him and injured another man.

Knight was well known to the witnesses present.   Under the circumstances Knight’s flight seemed clearly necessary.  Knight fled to safety and called his lawyer, James Blatt.   Knight then quickly made himself available for the L.A. County Sheriff’s officers.  

Knight is now charged with murder, attempted murder and two counts of fleeing the scene of an accident.

By the way I went to the scene to investigate myself and most notably there are no surveillance cameras that could have obtained video of this event.  If any video exists it would have to come from a hand held cellphone or dashboard camera of a vehicle.

I also flew my camera drone overhead obtaining video of the entire area.  The images clearly show that lot is surrounded by an unusual and unnecessary brick wall that significantly limited Knight's options or anyone’s escape through the narrow entrances and exits. 

With the expected busy activity in the congested parking lot on a weekend night, quick vehicular escape from that lot would be nearly impossible without colliding with people or vehicles.  Had there been reasonable driveway space instead of the brick wall I suspect that no injury or death would have occurred.

When the laws related to exchanging information and rendering aid to accident victims there were promulgated there were no paramedics, just ambulance drivers and there were certainly no cellphones in everyone’s pocket.  Times have changed. 

Those injured in Tam’s parking lot almost immediately got the best help modern medicine could provide.  Knight is no paramedic or physician and reasonably understood help would be on the way.  Knight simply followed the natural law of, fight or flight choosing the later.

Cops and prosecutors have it in for Knight and apparently will go to any length to jail him whether there is evidence or not.

They want to keep Knight behind bars while this tragic case is tried in perhaps a year or two.  They also know that Knight’s criminal defense will deplete most or all of his financial assets.  

I simply can’t see any jury-convicting Knight who was obviously fleeing for his very life of anything here. 

As for the victims and their families the only thing that really matters now is civil justice and financial compensation.  That’s why we all have insurance. 

Using the Criminal Justice System for vendettas and publicity is wrong.  The cops and prosecutors need to recognize their duty and not waste taxpayer money on their current efforts to prosecute or persecute Knight.