Wow!

[badrose]

http://www.timesdispatch.com/opinion/our-opinion/columnists-blogs/bart-hinkle/hinkle-commit-any-felonies-lately/article_58344fc1-7d4f-584a-8d16-36a1b1f2cdc0.html

[CitizenBBN]

Several good points in the story, things to consider:

1) The federal involvement in local law enforcement, primarily by providing funds to state and local governments and directly to LEOs. It gives them great power over how laws are to be enforced.

2) The militarization of law enforcement. IMO a great deal of this comes from the war on drugs, and mirrors the effects we saw on law enforcement during prohibition. The money involved raises the lengths to which criminals will go, the things they will do, and the resources which they have to achieve those things, and law enforcement responds with their own role in the arms race. I don't blame LEOs for that, I'd want the biggest baddest available and want them to have it, but they have to have it b/c we have turned our nation into a war zone in too many ways. the drug war is part of the problem, but part of it is the failure of the criminal system since the liberalization of the 60s to keep evil people from our midst.

It's created this bizarre mix of letting real criminals off on technicalities or letting them back on the streets with nothing but better training received in prison, while non-criminals are being subjected to increasing amounts of government scrutiny and physical force. As LEOs respond to the criminal problem they are catching a lot of innocent dolphins in their tuna nets.

3) The importance of mens rea in the law. This may be the most important of all. It is a foundational premise in western jurisprudence that to commit a crime there must be intent to commit a crime. The state of mind of the person is critical in determining if a crime was committed and the level of crime committed. Murder is broken down into numerous levels of crime from the death penalty to complete innocence, all based on the state of mind at the person. If Bob shoots John, his intent is key. it could be murder one, murder two, manslaughter, involuntarily manslaughter, self defense, not guilty by reason of insanity. It's all about what you were trying to do.

I'd need to see a much more detailed analysis to conclude that principle is being written out of laws, but it's a very interesting and scary point.

4) This isn't explicitly mentioned but it troubles me a great deal and the example they start with shows the issue: the arming of government agents who are not supposed to be armed law enforcement or at least IMO should not be.

Prohibition is another great example here, how a broad self-inflicted wave of crime led to the expansion of armed force among bureaucrats. Treasury/IRS agents with Thompson machine guns? In this example we have ABC officers pointing guns at people over a 12 pack of beer? Why does any ABC agent have a gun? If they need to enter a dangerous situation that's when they work in coordination with the sheriff or police.

[jazyd]

Wow

[KeithKSR]

Our government is out of control, and it isn't going to suddenly come under control on its own anytime soon.

[suncat05]

I agree with your points CBBN, but in defense of our ABT officers, they not only work alcohol/tobacco related offenses, but perform other duties in conjunction with other agencies/entities that take them into places/situations where they definitely need to be armed. I know for a fact that is the case in both Florida & Kentucky, and probably most other states as well.
Not excusing in any way what happened in Virginia, if this is what happened, then the officers were clearly wrong.

[CitizenBBN]

I agree with your points CBBN, but in defense of our ABT officers, they not only work alcohol/tobacco related offenses, but perform other duties in conjunction with other agencies/entities that take them into places/situations where they definitely need to be armed. I know for a fact that is the case in both Florida & Kentucky, and probably most other states as well.
Not excusing in any way what happened in Virginia, if this is what happened, then the officers were clearly wrong.

That's really my concern, that these officers are being used in those situations, and moreover that there are now dozens of agencies with their own armed law enforcement capability. ATF does have agents engaged in undercover work and sting operations, and whoever is in that position does need to be armed no doubt, but should ATF be conducting those operations? Should state ABT officers be conducting raids or should that be the local Sheriff and/or police in conjunction with them?

Do they have the training required of a sheriff's deputy or police officer? Do we want there to be so many agencies with that kind of power of physical force, stretching our oversight so thin that they may start acting with too much autonomy?

There used to be no federal police force at all. Didn't have one. For the federal government to accomplish use of force they had to either send in the military (a very high bar for use of force) or work with a state or local government, which creates an additional layer of checks and balances. We added US Marshals for the territories, later the Secret Service. Then we started arming Treasury agents bc we had to enforce federal alcohol taxes, then created the FBI, now we have probably 2 dozen or more federal agencies that can be issued weapons and have arrest powers. FBI, DEA, ICE, US Marshals, ATF/Treasury/IRS, long list.

For example, the botched ATF sting in Minnesota (maybe Wisconsin, one of them) where they were to try to buy guns and drugs was initially joined by the FBI. they backed out in a week, and refuse to say why. Clearly they thought the operation was doomed or otherwise poorly constructed, but ATF didn't need any interagency cooperation to proceed. People with no LEO experience at ATF were then in charge of a law enforcement operation which ended up a failure. Fast and Furious was a study in inter agency botching as ATF was running an operation targeting "criminals" who were FBI and DEA informants. lol.

I'm sure there are cases where agents of other departments need to be armed, but I approach them with skepticism. I doubt they receive (on average) the same level of training and oversight compared to "real" LEOs, and I have to wonder expansion of police powers isn't just another brick in the big government wall.

Most sheriffs for example have to stand for election. That's good and bad, but on average it's probably better than ABT officers who answer to the Department of Revenue, not even the State Police. (I'm assuming that's who they answer to, it seems to be the general rule) I'd rather ABC have to get you guys when they want to confront someone rather than just go in with their own police powers.

I will say though I'm far more troubled by federal expansion of policing than state expansion. States at least are historically tasked with law enforcement. Most federal law enforcement centers on laws imposed on the states that were probably never envisioned by the Founders as being a federal issue. They have the least oversight, are the hardest to reign in or even punish for wrongdoing. They're so far removed from the People as to be all but immune.

that's easily seen in that those who botched the ATF operation i mentioned above are all still with ATF, most of them apparently promoted to even better jobs with more authority.

[blueboss]

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