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Politics, Paranoispiricies, neologisms, diary, creative, ruminations

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Time for Cheney to go now

Craig Crawford recently opined on Chris Matthews' Hardball that he thinks, now that pal Rummy's gone, Cheney's next, since it isn't fun anymore for him. I'm inclined to agree, especially after this week Rob 'Prince of Darkness' Novak mentioned how some senior officials are so upset with how Bush so abruptly gave Rummy the heave-ho during election week.

I think it is plausible that Cheney would leave. In October there were some quiet rumbles about Rummy going, and so long!

Cheney loves power and he has less of it now without Rumsfeld and Congress behind him, plus he's not able to use fear as much to get people behind him.

Bush2 is so obviously flailing under Cheney's tutelage that Daddy's crew (Bush1, Baker, Gates, Kissinger, and maybe Scowcroft) is taking over. Bush2 has finally kind of gotten used to actually being President and is probably realizing that he's becoming an historical laughingstock. Shedding Cheney will be easy.

So, who's in line to be President for the next 9-10 years (in their dreamworld)? Jeb Bush? John McCain? Giuliani? They are all horrible, but McCain seems the least bad. At least he's served in the military and has a modicum of honor left. Giuliani is an authoritarian who chases the cameras and hogs credit for blown up but mostly flimsy accomplishments. Jeb is more evil and competent than Shrub.

It doesn't matter, all of them are profiting quite handsomely from their investments in military materiel and services via Carlyle Group, Haliburton, and KBR, as well as their oil and oil services investments and gigs. The war mongering leading to crises inflates the revenues from energy and guns. Their kids aren't dying, and their investments are ballooning from the situation. We were wrong saying 'no blood for oil;' more accurately it is: 'no blood for less oil (higher pump prices).'

Good riddance scarey Dick Cheney. He was creepy around 9/11/01 and we're safer with him away from the button.

Let the Repugs choose their next candidate now, so the Democrats can run polls against the VP and pick their most winnable opponent. Plus, this maneuvering will further cement George2 as even lamer duck. He doesn't care. His money is going to be coming and coming. Letting Dick go and letting the Republicans move on puts George in a position to say to his club house buddies how 'he' took one for the Republican team, whomever he appoints as VP to succeed him...

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Taser Cop, Cover-up Cops, and major weapons get off Campus!

The Taser Cop (who has a history of violence over the years in four incidents according to the LATimes and the UCLA Daily Bruin) and his campus police accomplices who aided him and threatened peaceful students with being tased should be fired after the investigation gathers the evidence of their abuses present and past. In the meantime, the Taser cop and his accomplices should be immediately be disarmed, then separated from the students and the campus for the safety of the students, and perhaps themselves.

The purpose of campus security is to provide a safe environment in which to study. These abusive police officers compromised student safety by brutalizing a student, and risked killing him by repeatedly tasing him. In addition, they disturbed the entire library during midterms, and when students asked the police to identify themselves, which is reasonable, the students were threatened by the security officers. These fellow officers: Alexis Bickamong, Kevin Kilgore and Andrew Ikedaare (or Ikeda), Ricardo Bolanos, and Sgt. Philip Baguliao, a supervisor, are already involved in a cover up and abuse of power that is obvious on the video tape on YouTube in which one officer threatened to tase a student for asking to identify himself.

A student going limp (a classic civil disobedience tactic, which campus police should be experienced with handling, especially an 18 year veteran) does not need to be tased, only carried out, even if he is shouting. Repeated tasing of the student is abusive and dangerous and disruptive.

The officers decided to use the Taser to incapacitate Tabatabainejad after he went limp while they were escorting him out and after he urged other library patrons to join his resistance, according to the university's account.
....
[The student who was Tased] Tabatabainejad's attorney, Stephen Yagman, said his client was shocked five times with the Taser.

UCPD Officer Duren seems to have serious issues with students, abuse of power, authority, and diversity including asians, south asians, and homeless people. My sense of this man is that he has some mental, emotional, or learning disabilities that fills him with rage when he sees people he perceives as being more educated and privileged than he, and that he tries to abuse people whom he sees as powerless, including homeless people, students who are alone, and in court representing that a student carrying books is a threat because the student's grip on the books resembled fists. This is not ideal for a campus police officer.

Duren said Monday that he joined the UCLA police force after being fired from the Long Beach Police Department in the late 1980s. He said he was a probationary officer at the time and was let go because of poor report-writing skills and geographical knowledge.


In May 1990, he was accused of using his nightstick to choke someone who was hanging out on a Saturday in front of a UCLA fraternity. Kente S. Scott alleged that Duren confronted him while he was walking on the street outside the Theta Xi fraternity house.

Scott sued the university, and according to court records, UCLA officials moved to have Duren dismissed from the police force. But after an independent administrative hearing, officials overturned the dismissal, suspending him for 90 days.

Duren on Monday disputed the allegations made by Scott.

In October 2003, Duren shot and wounded a homeless man he encountered in Kerckhoff Hall. Duren chased the man into a bathroom, where they struggled and he fired two shots.

The homeless man, Willie Davis Frazier, was later convicted of assaulting an officer. Duren said Frasier had tried to grab his gun during the struggle. But Frazier's attorney, John Raphling, said his client was mentally ill and didn't do anything to provoke the shooting.


Court documents and complaints in reference to the case of Willie Davis Frazier, Jr., the homeless man who Duren shot in 2003, outline several other allegations, some of which include altercations with students, the Daily Bruin reported.

According to one court complaint presented in the trial, Duren allegedly woke a student sleeping in the study hall in Kerckhoff in August 1993, escorted him outside, slammed him against a wall, and handcuffed and arrested him.

The complaint also stated that on the way to the police station, Duren told the student, "For a while there I thought I was going to have to 'Rodney King' you."

In 2002, Duren had a verbal confrontation with another student, Kirk Zhong, which resulted in Zhong being arrested, according to an incident report.

Zhong said the confrontation began when he walked by two officers questioning a homeless man and they began yelling at him.

According to the report, Zhong took a combative stance against the officers by clenching his fists.

Zhong maintained the report was unfounded because he was carrying books, so he could not have clenched his fists.

The one point Duren most wanted to make about his work as a police officer is that criticisms can be a result of misunderstanding...


There is definitely several misunderstandings going on here. I'm misunderstanding what level of corruption in the UCLA PD exists to let this guy keep his job and let's his fellow officers feel confident in threatening to tase students who dare question them to identify themselves. I believe that brutal, and probably disturbed, Learning Disabled, and Emotionally Disturbed Duren misunderstands that students who walk, snooze, study in the library at night during midterms, who or carry books in his vicinity are not threats to him or anyone. I think Duren misunderstands that Persians, Asians, and homeless people aren't his punching bags or target practice.

I believe and hope Duren misunderstands (quite confidently from the smug pictures and quotes he gives) that he is going to hang on for another two years to get his pension and retire at the age of forty-five after about a half dozen cases of serious brutality and abuse already in eighteen years at UCLA after failing as a Long Beach cop. From what we already know, this guy pulls off a violent attack on average every three years, starting with his first year on the job at UCLA. By all accounts, this freaky thug should be suspended and on very thin ice.

What Duren incidents are unreported? What Duren incidents have been covered up? UCLA, in respect for rule of law, civilization, tolerance, and academic freedom must come clean on Duren and out with the truth.

Maybe there aren't 'misunderstandings.' Maybe Duren understands something that most of us don't: it seems that police can state they feel or felt threatened and that this means that they can get away with whatever force they use to 'defend' themselves. All they need is cover of darkness, closed doors, or a blue wall of silence and solidarity to cover-up abuses of power.

Duren used this 'threat so self-defense' excuse three times in his career. The first time was with Zhong who 'threatened him' by interacting him while gripping text books with a hand that could become a fist, sort of like unwieldly brass knuckles but made of paper. The second time was with the homeless guy #2 that he chased into a bathroom and shot. Accounts differed, and Duren's is that the homeless guy was going for his gun. In the most recent case last week, Duren thought the threat came about as a result of the student going limp. This guy is over-using the 'threat so self-defense' is justified excuse beyond believability.

I think the 'threat' that Duren misunderstands or misrepresents is the threat to his career for abusing people and power. This mix-up is felicitous for Duren, as it seems that 'self-defense' or even thinking that a policeman is threatened (or testifying to it) gives the police wide latitude for abusing their victims by blaming them. Last year the Supreme Court found in Castle Rock v. Gonzales that the Police can choose to ignore court orders of protection or even cries for help and danger if that is what they feel is the best thing to do their jobs, even if that means that people get kidnapped and killed while they ignore repeated calls for their help, putting off the complaints repeatedly, and then finally going out to dinner instead. Scalia said for the majority decision that "police retain discretion in their crime-fighting methods and tactics..." and certainly self-defense would be the police's prime directive, certainly more than having dinner during an emergency.

There is s fine line between defense and offense, and I'm finding that it is intentionally and increasingly blurred to serve nefarious interests. Lots of nations are developing bioweapons against the Geneva conventions under the self-defense ruse. That is, the new deadly strains are developed (even using recombinant DNA) so we can develop defenses for them!

It is high time that all police officers have portable video recorders on their uniforms recording every moment of their time on the peoples' clock. This should not be edited or editable, and this should be stored in an independent location in an archive as a public record.


What does this repeatedly abusive Duren guy have on UCLA??!! Or is he married or related to someone on the PD or the review board?

The fact that the Taser Cop has kept his job despite several repeated violent abuses over the years, as well as being lauded as officer of the year, sends a scary signal about UCLA's views of policing power. All these threatening cover-up cops and the taser cop should be immediately suspended pending the investigation so that students can be safe on campus from the police squad.

For its own protection, the UCPD should get this cadre off campus. If not, they shouldn't be surprised if students set up defense squads to protect themselves from the UCLA campus police. The police gang is lucky that the students didn't pile on them and pummel them, since they were out-numbered by the students. On the other hand, maybe these campus police goons had guns on them. I wouldn't put it beyond these UCLA Taser and cover up goons to kill or maim in such a situation, especially if they stand to get rewarded for such behavior.

If these officers stay on, then the lesson that UCLA is imparting to its students and the world is that 'might makes right' and that the police have the guns and make the rules and we need to tow their line. Is this the new world order that UCLA is preparing/conditioning students for?

If not, then UCLA should make a much more restrictive and prudent policy about its police carrying weapons, that perhaps only the most circumspect ones will have shocking or lethal weapons. I had no idea that campus security carried Tasers!

But silly me, I didn't realize that the Philadelphia Police (or any police) has bombs, which they used to get rid of Move and their neighborhood in 1985, and I didn't realize that the NYPD has tanks, which they used when they cleared squatters from Alphabet City in 1995.

Ironically, it seems that UCLA brought in the Tasers in 2004 as a reaction to Duren's nearly deadly use of force when he confronted a homeless guy in the bathroom. This was Duren's second rough run-in with the homeless. The first one led to him brutalizing student Zhong, threateningly carrying books, while witnessing Duren and colleague's Rodney-Kinging a homeless man (to paraphrase hearsay of Duren).

Is it really necessary to have firepower to make sure studying students have their IDs with them? Can't the campus police call the base and see if the name matches the database from the registrar's office if a student forgot his ID? Maybe more campus police should have radios, and much fewer of them should have nightsticks, tasers, and guns.

Maybe Duren and his accomplices in uniform should be cleaned out of UCLA and given jobs where they can work off their rage and ganglike thug behavior doing something constructive with their hands and their might, far away from weapons. Our society is far too dependent on services and militaristic 'services.' We need a lot more factory, labor, dock, and farming jobs for guys like this, because our society and economy has changed and left no place for them to be productive, and therefore they will commit crimes as criminals or as criminal police if they are more bureaucratically inclined. Too many machines and computers, and not enough labor anymore. In the old days Duren would be a village idiot, but he'd have a place to fit into the village, rather than riding through some sort of patronage service/military economic mill where he gets away with nearly killing students and homeless people because of his existential frustration.

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