Murder of a California Landowner

Murder of a California Landowner

The law came upon him like a thief in the night.

“We are surely a kinder and gentler nation because of you, and we can’t thank you enough,” President Obama told ex-prez GHW Bush at a July 2013 White House ceremony. What to make of the event depends on how you look at things.

 Crime, especially the violent variety, peaked in the 3rd year of the Bush I the presidency and entered a steady year by year decline. By 2014, rates were down to 1962 per capita levels.

American has cleaned up its act over the last quarter century going by available figures. Unfortunately, the yardstick is only ever exactingly applied to the civilian population. The government, on the other hand, defiantly evades measurement and examination at every opportunity.  Subjects of the realm, meanwhile, are prodded, probed and held under the microscope like rats in a lab. Can any power be called upon to protect Americans from the overwhelming forces saving them from themselves? The FBI is taking names of schoolboys who hold that fantasy.   

Does the government have a role customizing the people’s character?

Gentleness and gentility are not qualities traditionally held dear on this side of the Atlantic. Curtseying experts and masters of the double-air-kiss weren’t the kind likely to stand up to the strongest military in the world in the 18th century. Our country wasn’t invented by courtiers. What should we call the hierarchy busy re-inventing it today?  

While Americans are growing more averse to physical confrontation the trend is not reflected in authoritative institutions. The government, banks, academia and major media come off more headstrong and unaccountable every day.  People in the business of control are naturally keen on a population inclined to back down. Anyone who believes you can kill governmental excesses with kindness is due for a nasty jolt in the REM cycle.

The train gathered a lot of steam under none other the Bush I himself. Attorney General, Richard Thornburgh, made his office cheerleading headquarters for asset forfeiture as a means of financing the “war on drugs.” Law enforcement agencies, at every level, got the nod from Washington to grab their piece of the action out on the street. The fix was in and what could possibly go wrong? Any occasional unwarranted rip-off would easily be set right in a land claiming “liberty and justice for all.” It wasn’t like anybody could get killed. That was the theory at least. Practice doesn’t always end in perfection.

In 1992, Donald Scott was a 61-year-old millionaire living on a 200 acre Malibu, California ranch. It sure sounded juicy when an informant claimed a bumper crop of weed was growing on the spread. Since peace officers are far above petty greed local, state and federal authorities teamed up to split the expected proceeds. Several attempts to gather evidence for a warrant failed. Instead of giving up they lied to a judge.  

On October 2 a 31 man tactical team swarmed the estate at 8:30 in the morning. Scott rose to the sound of his wife screaming, “Don’t shoot me. Don’t kill me,” coming from the living room. He armed himself and was killed in the confusion. An exhaustive search never found a trace of contraband. A later investigation of the incident, on the other hand, turned up a snake’s nest of abnormalities.

Not a single officer of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department or the 4 co-conspiring federal agencies was ever charged. 8 years later a lawsuit was settled for 5 million. The L.A. sheriff continued to maintain none of his men did a thing wrong. Killing an innocent man rushing to the defense of his wife was a price they were willing to pay with a multi-million dollar jackpot at stake. Without consequences, Donald Scott was just one mulligan in an endless round. There’s no par on an LEO course. The government keeps their score and yours.

This incident occurred 32 days before the 1992 presidential election. None of the three candidates focused on it or the Ruby Ridge killings six weeks earlier. It was the economy stupid. 39 days after Clinton was inaugurated the ATF stormed the Branch Davidian compound at Mt. Carmel just outside Waco, Texas.

T-Men had dragged the media along for what they called Operation Showtime. What happened that day, and over the next 50, will remain disputed into eternity. Government investigations, particularly of their armed employees, are inevitably tainted before they begin. Whatever “facts” anyone chooses to believe, disbelieve or ignore one conclusion is inescapable. Staging an armed assault on a building with scores of women and children in it is rarely warranted. A valid exception arises when innocent lives are in imminent danger. That state of affairs was brought on by the raid itself. And the situation was a long way from unforeseeable. The same motives, money and publicity, prevailed in this case as did at the Scott ranch.

Hotdog attacks on dwellings populated with innocent bystanders have been a law enforcement rage for 30 years. Catastrophic results have occurred countless times since the Waco-Ruby Ridge era. So-called “tactical” raids are only strategically sound, at present rates, if the goal is terror and unnecessary casualties. Where valor is concerned Tacitus is now considered an amateur in LEO circles. Our protectors have developed an obsession with spectacular operations. “[K]inder, gentler” is a one-sided presidential quest.

August 19, 2014, LAPD Officer Sunil Dutta posted an Op-Ed on the WP’s PostEverything web page. In it, he states, reasonably for the most part, “if you don’t want to get hurt don’t challenge me.” The piece was a response to events in Ferguson and other locales that had turned ugly between the police and civilians.  Ditta’s rationale falls apart though in the claim:  

“And you don’t have to submit to an illegal stop or search. You can refuse consent to search your car or home if there’s no warrant (though a pat-down is still allowed if there is cause for suspicion). Always ask the officer whether you are under detention or are free to leave. Unless the officer has a legal basis to stop and search you, he or she must let you go. Finally, cops are legally prohibited from using excessive force: The moment a suspect submits and stops resisting, the officers must cease use of force.”

The above conditions might apply when a Ph.D. like Sunil is making the stop. But videos come out everyday evincing that all policemen don’t feel compelled to honor legal formalities. The idea that “he or she must [emphasis added] let you go” is delusional. Expecting courts to right the constabulary’s excesses and illegalities is a longshot. Police mission creep has placed the notion of any civilian’s personal honor or dignity in peril for years. Consider the following case:

Police pull over Kimberlee Carbone in November 2013 near New Castle, Pennsylvania for supposedly not signaling a turn properly. It turns out they had witnessed her passenger go in and back out of an apartment in short order. The only reason anyone would do that, they concluded, was an illegal drug transaction. So if you’ve ever made a quick stop for a check, forgotten phone or keys, your kid’s coat, to drop off a gift, cupcakes, whatever you become a drug suspect. This turned into a 5-hour ordeal including body cavity searches and an MRI. Nothing was found.

 Officer Ditta apparently can’t understand anyone who’d dare to get hot under the collar as his wife, mother or daughter is subjected to this. What can we say to a government that claims possession of American vaginas under such a pretext? Isn’t the word “reasonable” somewhere in the 4th amendment? In any case, the odds are awfully long against any mention of this or other cases like it from a major candidate before, or after, November’s election.

It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to foresee potential fatal consequences if there is a man left in this country on hand in similar circumstances. Authorities have enormous faith in that “gentler” population Obama is so fond of. Thousands of other cases assure them the courts are trustworthy abettors of LEO assaults, kidnappings, and criminally false pretenses.

Law enforcement is the most palpable expression of government. It is the hard edge of policies that, on their surfaces, might appear far removed from their bailiwicks. In April 2016, a policeman in Gallatin, Tennessee, James Spray, killed Lorinda Sweatt who was brandishing an axe during an eviction notice. She suffered bi-polar disorder and it is likely eviction pushed her over the edge. The woman had already wounded a deputy and the shooting appears highly justifiable. But there are other layers here worth exploring.

The US government bailed out hundreds of banks and finance corporations after the 2008 housing crisis. Many of their stockholders were insolvent. It is damned strange that eviction rates are spiking 7 years after these “bridge loans” were handed out. How many players who lost Wall Street’s game still see the Atlantic sunrise from Martha’s Vineyard or a Hampton beachfront property every morning? Whether the government was paid back or not is irrelevant. There’s no telling what any exhausted bankrupt might accomplish once new funds are extended. It is the arms of local cops, the FBI, BLM, ATF etc. that keep the lion’s share of resources in some hands and out of others. A difference of a few hundred dollars may have left Laronda Sweatt above ground.

Government’s relationship to Wall Street, Silicon Valley, Hollywood and other power centers has resulted in a vast arcana of law and regulation no unconnected person can unravel. How much undue privilege lurks beneath these towering tomes of legalese? How many legally entitled superior classes have been created? Answering these questions with precision would take years of painstaking scholarly research. But also among the common masses and answers are the ever lengthening arms of the law.

The word police, from the Latin political, literally means the state. The state grows by force of arms. Bernie Sanders solutions can come to us through no other means. Not one candidate has focused on the unrestrained use of force. Effective action on this problem is the prequel to solutions to any other. People who keep close relations with the state are very rarely its victims.

Donald Scott was a privileged, wealthy man. He had no faith in government and did not contribute to politicians. He might be going on 85 if he had. The law came upon him like a thief in the night. We expect this kind of catastrophic strike from the gods. Whether or not we should continue to expect it from our government won’t be addressed in this election.