Here’s a little first hand story.

In 2003, I made my first trip to another country, which was England. I stayed at a private home in a place called Pinner in Greater London. My hosts gave my a room and let me use their facilities. It was the first time I actually saw and used those bizarre separate water taps for cold and hot water. So inconvenient. But that’s beside the point.

I spend most of my time hiking and sightseeing. One day I went to see central London. In the evening, when I was going to board my train to go back I learned that there was a blackout

Cops as Robbers!

It was about 11:00 p.m. when I first observed my sergeant get a cell phone call. He looked at me and told me he had to check something and left the office. I didn’t hear from him for about thirty minutes. The next thing I hear is that they are looking to establish a crime scene. I immediately went to dispatch and asked, “Where’s the scene and what’s going on?” The dispatcher who was half-asleep said he didn’t hear the broadcast, so I made him play back the audio recording. The department tape-records all radio transmissions and incoming phone calls, a fact that would save my bacon over the next few hours.

After hearing the recording of an officer asking about a crime scene, the dispatcher said nobody told him anything. I then called the sergeant over the radio and said: “What do you have?” He replied that he would give me a call (fortunately for me on a taped line). I took his phone call, and he explained that some drunken Mexican was saying that he got kidnapped, beat up and robbed by the police. They were driving the victim around looking for a crime scene, but the sergeant stated, that to him, it sounded farfetched.

I was aware that there had been some informant information saying that a rogue cop was robbing Mexicans. In fact, the chief, in a staff meeting two months prior, had brought up the information.

I told the sergeant to bring the victim to the station, which he did. At the station, I spoke to a friend of the victim and the victim. The friend spoke English while the victim spoke only Spanish. The friend said the victim was on his way to his house to pay him back some money. As the victim approached the man’s house, a marked police sport-utility-vehicle stopped the victim, arrested him, and drove off. The witness described the involved officers as wearing blue police uniforms with one of the officers speaking fluent Spanish.

The sergeant kept downplaying the incident, and I later determined he had misdirected my initial investigation. He said we only had two Spanish-speaking officers working, while he knew we, in fact, had three. I had the two Spanish-speaking officers I knew about come into the room, and apparently, these were not the officers.

The sergeant then reminded me that the state police had several units in the area who were driving similar vehicles. Two of their officers were at our station using our breathalyzer because their machine was down for repairs. I ran down those leads and came up empty.

Because of the informant information previously discussed, I called the chief of police at 2:00 a.m. and said, “I’m not sure what I have, but one of our cops may be involved in a robbery.” Both the chief and internal affairs commander responded to the department, as well as the two other division commanders.

Information started to leak out in small dribs and drabs. Everyone working that night was interviewed, and no one was allowed to leave. First, I learned that it had something to do with an off-duty police officer who was pulled over for drunk driving. Two officers from our community-policing unit offered to give the intoxicated officer a ride home so he wouldn’t get in trouble. Instead of taking him home, they transported the officer back to a local bar.

I would learn later, that when they transported this drunken officer to the bar, they had already kidnapped the Mexican who was in the back seat with him. The truth finally came out when one officer involved in the kidnapping came clean and turned state’s evidence. This officer had recently transferred to the unit. The second officer and ring leader was not Hispanic but apparently spoke fluent Spanish—a fact I didn’t know, but the sergeant did.

On this night, they were looking for a Mexican to rob. They kidnapped this person off the street and eventually took him to a secluded area of a park and robbed him of his money, assaulted him, and left him there.

However, en route to the park, they stopped a suspected drunk driver who was yet another officer. They then started to give the drunken officer a ride home, loading him into their car right next to the kidnapped man. They dropped the officer at a local bar instead of taking him home.

As word spread of the robbery, other officers knew of the drunken officer and learned of the man in the backseat. The sergeant and others on the shift knew this information, but at that point, all remained quiet.

Initially, I think the sergeant was only covering for the non-arrest of the drunken officer, but later learned of the man in the back seat and tried to continue to sell a false narrative. It’s unfortunate once you start trying to cover one officer’s bad behavior; you become caught up and locked into a much more severe situation. There’s no question in my mind that this well-respected sergeant would never have covered for officers committing a robbery. The problem was, he got caught up in trying to help the intoxicated officer and just got sucked into the middle of a bad situation.

By the next morning, the two officers left in handcuffs going to the county jail. A group of union idiots stood in solidarity at the jail parking lot supporting the officers. In fairness to them, they didn’t know the facts of the case, or they probably wouldn’t have been there.

One junior officer came forward identifying who knew what when, which took courage considering he was going against his entire platoon and his sergeant. He and other officers on the shift received discipline. The sergeant was initially suspended pending further investigation. During this extended period of months, he had several personal tragedies in his life, losing both of his parents.

Additionally, while he was still suspended, the current chief who wanted the sergeant fired was forced to retire. A new chief took over. This chief was a close personal friend of the sergeant. Under the new administration, this sergeant took some discipline but kept his job and more amazingly his rank.

The officer involved in the robbery who turned state’s evidence got a couple of years in jail. The Spanish-speaking ringleader pleaded guilty and got almost the same sentence. They were both out of prison in about three months.

Several years later, the ringleader was back in the news, this time for the armed robbery of several banks. He went away again on a seven-year sentence, but just as before, served only a portion of that time and is now out, yet again.

As a supervisor for a drywall company I hired a guy who had served half his life in prison.

he was 44 and had spent 22 years in prison. ( 4 year stretch 2 year stretch etc not one long 22 year hit),

He was by far the cleanest worker ( his work space ) and the most obedient worker too.

I had to measure up his work after his first 2 weeks.

He worked alone as he was 6 foot 9 and looked nasty.

I told him his count and that he had earned $7000 for 2 weeks work.

He apologized and said he would work harder next pay period !!! the most the other employees would make would be around $2500.

Next pay period rolls around and I measure his work. $8000 this time.

I tell him and he promises to work harder next time !!. 2 weeks later His measure was $9000. The owner strolls on the job site after the invoices have been sent in.

He asks me who Mick is? I take him to Mick and of course his work area is spotless and I introduce them. Mick shakes his hand and the boss pats him on the back. If Mick made $24000 in 6 weeks guess how much the boss made.

I had mick working for me for 5 years till he cracked and ended up in pokey again.

So YES I would employ someone who has been to prison.

I was on an hourly wage but loved to see Micks cheques

my insane landlady/neighbor reported me to the police. she said i went inside her house and stole her purse because it contained $5000 cash and her phone. meanwhile, she actually left it in the yard while nibbling on random plants in my ornamental garden (yes you read that right, i had cameras 😂)

thankfully, she also told the cops i did it because she works as jeff bezos’ assistant and i wanted the phone so i could blackmail him for money. needless to say they didn’t take it very seriously. i only found out she reported me when i went to the police station to talk to them about her erratic behavior. they were wildly unhelpful then, and throughtout the whole mess that followed 🤷‍♂️

random other crazy parts of the days surrounding the police report:

she has cameras, and could easily prove someone entered if it were true.

the day before she randomly texted me to ”go in her unlocked backdoor while she was out, and leave the rent on her kitchen table” – specifically asking me to do it while she wasn’t home. it was the same table she told the police i took the purse from. i didn’t of course – but it seems she intended to frame me

she had snuck into my place while i was at work three days prior, i caught her when coming home early. and immediately realized she had been doing it a lot. (things had been moved, doors open i didnt usually leave open etc.. i had figured it was a guest until then) it caused her to spiral with excuses for why she did it, and plots to make the situation go away – she admitted it but didn’t apologize lol.

thats just the beginning, but thats the police report part

Not fired per se, but often reassigned. I spent 20 years in the military. One of my supervisors, on realizing I was essentially a lazy git, put me in charge of a shop in a distant part of the ship. No one had really paid any attention to the processes in years. So, lazy man that I was, I dug in to work out the easiest, most expeditious way to do the work. Took about a month, most of it reading manuals and regulations. I completely streamlined everything, including our reporting, eliminating redundancies and revamping workflows. Another 3 weeks to train the staff on how to follow the new procedures, and I could do my whole job in about eight hours a week.

Well, my boss wasn’t going to have me sit on my rump for the other 32 hours, so he moved me again. Same result. A third time, and I was getting the hang of it. I was down to six hours a week. In sheer Puritan frustration, he sent me to the department head’s office to do admin work. Bad choice on his part; I quit paying any attention to the three shops I’d been in, they didn’t need it. In the mean time, I’d become indispensable to my new boss, by arranging things so he could do his job in just a few hours a week.

They gave me “extra duties as assigned”. Well, those were mostly simple enough; paying attention to the written procedures and manuals, and keeping in mind the actual goals, instead of “This is how we’ve always done it”, let me go back to being a lazy git in short order. I was up to maybe 10 hours a week, and that was mostly delivering verbal reports. Maintenance standards were ridiculously high, my people got a lot of time off because the work got done faster than ever before, and me? No one ever saw me actually doing anything. I’d just wander around, a cup of coffee in my hand, dropping a hint here and a word there, or sitting in the mess and catching the occasional phone call.

My evals made me look like a lazy incompetent. Because they used the wrong metrics. But anywhere I was assigned, actual productivity rose, down-time dropped, and everyone got more time off (the only truly effective reward I had to hand out). A lot of my bosses got commendations for “improvements” I had implemented. I eventually retired, after doing some of the easiest time in the service, drawing two pensions and only 38 years old. Drove my wife nuts doing the same thing at home, before she kicked me out of the house. 🙂

Depends on how you intend to live your life while you’re there.

Because simply existing in jail — an American jail anyway — requires no money at all if you’re willing to subsist on bad food, basic toiletries, and a blaring day room TV.

But any kind of a normal life at all is gonna require income.

Without money in your commissary account, you can’t —

• wash your hair with anything other than bar soap;
• soothe a raw throat with Menthol-Lyptus;
• take Tylenol for a headache;
• write and mail a letter;
• make a phonecall;
• listen to music;
• use deodorant;
• eat a snack;
• moisturize;

And if you consider any of these items luxuries, then you’re probably coming to incarceration straight off the street and sleeping rough.

Congrats on the upgrade.

Otherwise, you’re gonna need funds.

That means sympathetic family and friends on the outside, a work release or road crew deal from the judge and/or sheriff’s department, or a trustee uniform.

I know it’s possible to subsist in jail without means, because I’ve seen motherfuckers do it.

But it’s no way for a human being to live.

Network

Grease Palms

Update That Resume

Jail isn’t the free ride one might imagine.

I was managing a radio station in Colorado. One early morning, I was on the air and noticed the hotline lighting up indicating an incoming call: it was the guy whom I scheduled to be on the air after me. He was calling in sick.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “We’ll cover your shift so stay home and take care of yourself, and I hope to see you tomorrow.”

I was able to find a replacement for him, so after my shaft had come to an end, I handed over the reins to the next jock. I rarely did this, but for some reason, I decided to go home for an hour before I came back to work and spend the rest of my day working in my office. Once I was home, I turned on the TV just to have some noise in the background as I went into the kitchen to make a simple lunch. As I walked around the house, I looked down to see a basketball game in progress. Who do I notice seeing courtside, was none other than the guy who had called in sick.

It was well-known through my staff that if one wanted to take off a day – even if it were for personal reasons – I had a policy in place that would allow people to call in (even at the last minute) and request time off.

To make matters worse, he had lied to me.

The next day, I saw him in the hallway and simply said, “My office. Two-o’clock. Be there.”

At the moment, I couldn’t tell if I was going to fire him for being stupid enough to call in sick to attend a nationally televised event, or if I was going to fire him for lying to me. Either way, he was becoming gainfully unemployed that afternoon.

“Thank you for stopping by my office, but I am afraid that your services are no longer needed. Have a nice day.” I handed him his final check and he left silently.

I am glad that during my time in management I rarely had to fire someone (in fact, he was only one of two people I had fired during my career (the other person was dismissed for attendance purposes. I can tolerate a lot of things with people, but being lied to is, in my opinion, the worst.

The story starts in Denmark. It is 2012 and police officers have just made a pretty standard arrest: they found a sexual offender with possession of child porn.

Police had a much greater concern though. They needed to find who created the videos, not just who was watching them.

There were no clear clues, so they turned to the videos to see if they could find a lead.

In the background, at one point, there was the slightest shot of a pill bottle.

They zoomed in and managed to discern the man’s first name, the first two letters of his last name and the first three digits of the prescription order.

From there, the investigators applied these details to every possible person to whom they could be attributed.

After intensive searching, they conclude that a man named Stephen Keating is responsible, however they still have very little info about him. Furthermore, this evidence alone isn’t enough to convict him.

Rather than giving up, they once again went back to the videos. This time however, they found an image showing the man’s hand. From there, they used technology to create an impression of his fingerprint.

The resulting fingerprint was a perfect match.

53-year-old Stephen Keating was arrested, just three weeks after the investigation began.

Keating had repeatedly sexually molested three children, all under the age of 12. Outside of the ones captured on video, it was revealed there were another 12 children whom he had abused.

He was sentenced to 110 years in federal prison, but he may have never been caught had it not been for some brilliant detective work.