Published: July 01, 2008 10:09 pm            

Charles Oliver: It couldn't happen here?

Dispatch alerted Fire Station 21 in Austin, Texas, that a woman was having respiratory problems. And Lt. Michael Pooler immediately reacted by going to a restaurant nearby to grab a bite to eat. Meanwhile, the other firefighters in the station waited for him since department rules require four firefighters on each trip. Pooler’s food run delayed their response to the call by about two minutes. Fortunately, paramedics got to the woman first. The department has fired Pooler, but he plans to appeal.



---

New York Judge Robert Restaino demanded to know whose cell phone was ringing in his courtroom. No one took the blame, so he had all 46 people in the courtroom jailed. Most quickly posted bail. But some didn’t get out until the press started asking questions about the judge’s actions and he had them released. The New York Commission on Judicial Conduct voted to remove Restaino from the bench for the jailings. The state’s highest court upheld that ruling. But each time, local lawyers’ groups pleaded for leniency for Restaino.



---

Residents of Washington’s San Juan Islands are used to customs checks if they take a ferry from Vancouver. But many of them are not happy that the Border Patrol now stops people arriving on ferries from the mainland United States, forces them into a fenced-off area and questions them about their citizenship. The Border Patrol says no one has to answer any questions but it will detain them until it has run their names and license plates through its databases. Remember when only Communist dictatorships and apartheid South Africa had internal passports? Glad to see the United States is catching up with them.



---

In Marshall County, W.Va., school officials suspended horticulture teacher Nicole Shipman after she told some of her students, “If you want to act like trailer trash, I’ll treat you like trailer trash.”



---

Forget that “government of laws, not men” stuff in Philadelphia. Pennsylvania law and state Supreme Court rulings give the state, not cities, the authority to regulate firearms. But the City Council and Mayor Michael Nutter defied both the law and legal precedent by passing five gun control measures. A judge quickly tossed out two of the ordinances, one banning so-called assault weapons and the other limiting handgun purchases to one a month. Gun owners groups are looking for plaintiffs to challenge the others. And some are wondering exactly what message Nutter and his colleagues are sending on crime. “He’s committing five misdemeanor crimes,” Kim Stolfer, vice chairman of the Pennsylvania Sportsmen’s legislative committee said when Nutter signed the laws. “What kind of message is he sending when he and City Council are willing to commit crimes for issues that are not going to work?”



Charles Oliver is a staff writer for The Daily Citizen.

        

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