These are threads I considered worth saving and I deleted a bunch of chats. Not a bad snapshot of how I’ve been using this tool.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Citizen’s Instructional Academy
Our local sheriffs department has a community outreach program called the Cole County Citizen’s Instructional Academy (CIA). Every Tuesday night for the next seven weeks, we meet for four hours (!).
“The course includes lectures, discussions, and in-person visits to various Sheriff’s Office divisions. Participants have the opportunity to ride-along with patrol officers to see the challenges officers face as they patrol the county. They also get a taste of the training involved in law enforcement to include vehicle stop scenarios and even a (firing) range day.”
First half of tonight’s presentation was a little dry, but probably necessary. The second half was fascinating. It included a very interesting presentation from the “Crisis Negotiator Team” but the highlight of the evening was a tour of the facility. (A few years back, the previous sheriff, Greg White, gave George and I a tour of the old jail)
The next session focuses on the sheriffs patrol division (Investigations/Detectives, Narcotics, SWAT, K-9, Animal Control)
Visiting Day at Fulton County Jail
I’ve long nursed the fantasy of visiting The Orange One in jail. I’m still pretty skeptical he’ll ever be behind bars but it’s fun to imagine so I headed to the Fulton County Jail website to see what I could learn about visiting day.
The Fulton County Jail offers inmates a video conferencing system that will allow residents to speak to an inmate using their computer, phone, or other devices that have internet. The Fulton County Jail also offers a central area where residents without internet access can visit with an inmate using the video conferencing system.
This sounds like visits are online. But the website also has an interesting list of items that are now allowed so maybe we would get to chat through the plexiglass on those old-timey phones.
- See through garments or clothing that shows body parts.
- Tight fitting clothing such as spandex, leggings, yoga pants, etc.
- Clothing that have holes or rips whether man-made or designer
- Shorts that are above the knee
- Miniskirts, short dresses, or sagging pants
- Tank tops, sleeveless shirts, or visible white under garment t-shirts
- Head coverings such as scarves, bandannas, hats, ball caps, etc.
- Sleepwear such as pajama pants, nightgowns, house shoes, etc.
- Sunglasses, shades
- No handbags or purses.
- Clothing or garments with illegal, offensive, or obscene graphics
- Shoes that are determined to be slip hazardous such as flip flops, shoes without a back strap, heels and toes out, etc.
- Outerwear such as jackets, sweaters, coats, hoodies, etc. (These items must be removed before entering the Fulton County Jail)
- Under garments are required, but should not be seen while conducting business at the Fulton County Jail.
Proud Boy “wanted to see what would happen”
(CNN) A leader of the Proud Boys who led the far-right organization’s infamous march to the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, has been sentenced to 17 years in prison – among the longest sentences handed down yet for a convicted rioter. Joe Biggs was convicted by a Washington, DC jury of several charges including seditious conspiracy for attempting to forcibly prevent the peaceful transfer of power from then-President Donald Trump to Joe Biden after the 2020 election.
Was Joe proud and defiant to the end? Did he raise a clinched fist and shout “Live free or die!”
In a passionate appeal to the judge, Biggs, clad in an orange prison jumpsuit, said that “I know that I have to be punished and I understand,” but added “please give me the chance, I beg you, to take my daughter to school and pick her up. I know that I messed up that day, but I am not a terrorist,” he said through tears. Biggs said that he was “seduced” by the mob and “just moved forward.”
I’m picturing Joe explaining to his cellmate how he wound up in a federal prison.
“I wanted to see what would happen. My curiosity got the best of me.”
For all their media attention, I realized I didn’t know much about the Proud Boys so I headed over to Wikipedia where there’s a really long entry. Here’s my favorite part:
The Proud Boys say they have an initiation process that has four stages and includes hazing. The first stage is a loyalty oath, on the order of “I’m a proud Western chauvinist, I refuse to apologize for creating the modern world”; the second is getting punched until the person recites pop culture trivia, such as the names of five breakfast cereals; the third is getting a tattoo and agreeing to not masturbate; and the fourth is getting into a major fight “for the cause”. The masturbation policy was later modified to read: “no heterosexual brother of the Fraternity shall masturbate more than one time in any calendar month” and “all members shall abstain from pornography”.
I assume this means Proud Boys make a calendar entry when they spank the monkey. But it gets better. In 2018 The Daily Beast reported that the Proud Boys amended their rules to prohibit cargo shorts and the use of opioids and crystal meth. However, the same article mentioned that no restrictions were placed on cocaine.
“Detective Agency”
The classified ad below ran in the Daily Dunklin Democrat in 1960. This would be like Mayberry or Petticoat Junction having a detective agency. Kennett would have had a population of about 10,000 and everybody knew everybody’s business. Sure would love to go back in time and meet what had to be the town’s only private dick.
Two Kennett pals have come up with a little more information. The “Detective Agency” was a guy named Dick Graeges. According to long-time Dunklin County Sheriff, Raymond Scott, Graeges was a criminal and con man responsible for a bomb that blew up the sheriff’s car outside the county jail. Sheriff Scott tells the story in this 1989 interview on the local access channel in Kennett. (runs about 12 minutes)
I recall my father telling me a couple of guys were killed while in Sheriff Scott’s custody. The following is from a Facebook book post by Frank Stoner:
“Many of you have heard me mention the connection between Buford (Pusser) and Dunklin County Missouri Sheriff Raymond Scott. Sheriff Scott was the one who notified Buford of the large illegal liquor shipments coming out of Pemiscot County Missouri. He was also the one Buford traveled to see and ask his advice on how to protect himself after the August 12th ambush. Sheriff Scott was the target of several assassination attempts himself. Including a gunfight in the sheriff’s office in the Dunklin County jail and a bomb blowing up his car outside of the jail. Both of which he mentions in this interview. (Part 1 of 2)
Chauvin guilty all counts
Derek Chauvin convicted of the murder of George Floyd. For the first time in Minnesota state history, a white police officer has been held accountable for killing a Black man.
According to the New York Times, Derek Chauvin is being held in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day in Minnesota’s only maximum-security prison after he was convicted of murdering George Floyd and led out of a courtroom in handcuffs, according to authorities.
Earning your “Pedophile Badge”
“The Boy Scouts of America will be facing at least 82,000 claims of abuse as former scouts submit filings against the bankruptcy-bound organization, said a spokeswoman for the legal team representing the alleged survivors.”
“Based on what we are hearing from survivors, sexual abuse was a rite of passage in troops across the country, similar to other tasks where children had to … perform certain duties to earn their coveted merit badges,” he said in a statement.
— CNN
Good news for the Vatican. Wonder if any of the QAnon assholes were scouts.
Kennett’s Flying Bank Robber
Reply
In January of 1976 I was on the air (noon hour?) at KBOA in Kennett, MO, when the police scanner in the studio went nuts. Someone (dispatcher? patrolman?) was yelling that someone had robbed the bank and “took off in an airplane!”
I grabbed a cassette recorder and dashed out of the station, yelling for someone to go up and take over the live studio. I got to the small motor bank before the police and got a few minutes of audio with the teller who had been robbed.
Police showed almost immediately and made me get out. I was pumped because I had some good stuff. When I pulled the cassette from the recorder it was hopelessly wound around the roller and gears and shit. No way to salvage. I nearly wept. Instead, I hung around long enough to get a little more information and then headed back to the station where I did a quick ad lib report live and then started writing up the story.
The satellite image above tells you most of what you need to know. The pilot taxied the small plane out to A where pilots always stopped to let their engines warm up before take off. He slipped out and ran across the highway to the small motor bank (Bank of Kennett). This was a tiny little facility. Room for maybe two tellers and a little lobby (6×10?) separated by glass and a door. The way I remember the story, he asked the teller for a chair and she opened the door to hand him one (he said he was waiting for a friend). He stuck a gun in her face, got the cash ($24K) and boogied back across highway (about 100 yards) and took off into the sunset. He was also charged with “interstate flight.” The FBI arrested 39 year old Dennis R. Holmes a few weeks later in Phoenix.
According to a story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Joseph Appleyard, chief pilot at Dolphin Aviation in Sarasota, taught Holmes to fly a few months earlier. “He didn’t see like my average bank robber,” Appleyard said. Holmes rented the plane (in Sarasota) on the Thursday before the robbery, flew to Kennett on Saturday.
The plane was tracked on radar by the nearby Air Force base in Blytheville, AR, but lost him when it put it on the deck and disappeared. He had a range of about 700 miles.
Mr. Holmes was also arrested for holding up a bank in Arcata, CA in February. He fled in a car but quickly transferred to a small plane. He was also a suspect in a $55K stickup the previous October in Michigan. In that one the robber held up the bank just as the high school homecoming parade was about to begin, and he melted into the crowd.
If you’re out there, Dennis… if you’re reading this… how about an interview to make up for the one that got away?
Wealthy LA convicts can upgrade to nicer jail
Wealthy LA convicts can spend extra to serve their time in fancy jails
If some California inmates are not happy with their jail conditions, those who have money to spare can pay for an upgrade. Two counties in Southern California have at least 26 such “pay-to-stay” jails, a joint collaboration between The Los Angeles Times and The Marshall Project found.
Starting at $25 and going up to $251 a night, the program allows certain inmates to move into a “less intimidating environment,” as one jail in Santa Ana advertises on its website. The conditions differ from an eight-person dorm to one cell with two beds, a television, a phone and a separate refrigerator. The average inmate stayed in one of the rooms for 18 days, the Los Angeles Times and The Marshall Project reported.
Southern California’s “pay-to-stay” jail system, which brought in up to $7 million between 2011 and 2015, started in the 1980s as a way to fight overcrowding in the region’s jails.
Pretty Boy Floyd Wanted Poster
