Published: August 01, 2008 04:58 pm            

It couldn't happen here?

Brian Barnes works for the National Weather Service chasing storms. That's why he was in Crane County, Texas. But one Crane County deputy apparently doesn't think much of Barnes' occupation. He ordered Barnes to leave the area. When Barnes explained who he worked for and refused to leave, the deputy slammed him against a vehicle, handcuffed him and arrested him for obstruction of a highway. Dennis Greer, a TV cameraman who had his own run-in with the deputy while he was trying to photograph the storm, says Barnes was not blocking the highway. That claim is backed by other witnesses.



Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., seems to have some trouble with facts. Speaking against a bill that would keep the federal government from blocking Internet gambling, Bachus declared that researchers at McGill University have found that one-third of college students who gamble on the Internet ultimately kill themselves. That would likely be an astounding number of suicides if true. But it isn’t, according to McGill University gambling researcher Jeffrey Derevensky. After being called out by Derevensky, Bachus revised his claim. Now, he says that McGill University researchers found that almost one-third of teenage compulsive gamblers attempt suicide. That’s a little more plausible. But Derevensky says their research doesn’t show even that.



California may be facing a budget crisis of unprecedented proportions, but it still has the money to harass people who give foot massages. According to the Los Angeles Times, foot massage spas have mushroomed in Chinese neighborhoods across the state. The state board of Barbering and Cosmetology has declared that people who want to offer foot massage need a license for it. That requires several hundred hours of training. Of course, all of that training is in hair and nail work. None of it in foot massage. That makes no sense to foot massagers. But it makes perfect sense to bureaucrats trying to expand their little fiefdom.



New York City police officer Wilfredo Rosario has been arraigned on charges he molested a woman who asked him for information on becoming a school crossing guard. After that complaint, police went back and took another look at a complaint that he had demanded sex from a teenage girl in order not to give her a summons for being in a city park after closing time. Police had originally taken no action in that case. But now he has been charged for that as well, and police say they are looking for other victims. According to press accounts, Rosario’s personal vehicle sports a tag that reads TRNG DAY, after the Denzel Washington movie “Training Day.” This raises the question: Did no one else in the New York City Police Department see that movie? Washington’s police detective character steals from drug dealers, murders people and forces another officer to take PCP in order to blackmail him, among other crimes. Did anyone — a supervisor, another officer — ever ask Rosario why he liked the movie so much? Before they started investigating him for sexual assault, that is.



Two years ago, Tunde Clement stepped off a bus in Albany, N.Y. Undercover sheriff’s officers stopped him and began to question him. They arrested him for resisting arrest and took him to jail and stripsearched him. Then they took him to a local hospital where he was forcibly sedated and a camera inserted into his rectum, he was forced to vomit, and blood samples were taken from him. All of that was done without a warrant, and none of it uncovered any drugs. The charge for resisting arrest was later dismissed by a judge who noted that state law requires that police must first have reason to arrest someone before they can charge them with resisting arrest. Clement later received a $6,792 bill from the hospital for his “treatment.” He has since sued the Albany Sheriff’s Office.



Charles Oliver is a staff writer for The Daily Citizen.

        

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.