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Re: Railroad and Passengers Held Hostage,,,,,,again!
Author: OldPoleBurner
Date: 11-28-2012 - 10:15
> Yes indeed, it is a waste. Until it is your family.
I understand the sentiment; but it IS, in cold harsh unyielding reality, still a waste! Even then! No matter how long the police detain all those passengers, and hundreds of others on other blocked trains; no amount of police investigation is going to bring life back to the victim. Nor is it likely to result in conviction for a crime. There simply is no public benefit to it!
Especially when, as is usually the case, there in no rational reason to believe anything more than an accident has happened - and thus no probable cause to detain anybody not directly involved. Accidents are usually NOT a criminal matter. But yet, I have been detained twice by the police for hours, while they treated an accident scene as a crime scene. I was a witness to one, and totally uninvolved with the other.
There is no reasonable cause to detain a witness sitting in a company truck 40' feet away, after the field interview. But they did anyway. Not only that, but both tracks were closed for 3-1/2 hours during the afternoon commute. I had witnessed an Amtrak train hit a pedestrian at a grade crossing. The victim's big Marmaduke looking dog had suddenly lurched (I think after another dog running loose), causing him to fall back into the path of the train.
He had barely gotten back up when he was hit and knocked off to the r.o.w. fence. The body was intact and not even close to the tracks. And it does not require special medical skills to determine that. Just common investigator skills will suffice. But naturally, the whole area, including all tracks and streets for a couple of hundred feet in all directions, were considered part of a crime scene! (What Crime?) Or at least that is what I was told when I was ordered by a deputy to "Shut my mouth - and stay put until I was released!". They never did release me - they just left after 3-1/2 hours. Even though I was the only witness, I was never summoned in a civil or criminal case. There was no crime! And also no one to sue! His dumb dog did it!
The other was even more ridiculous. After chasing a stolen car at 95+ mph, it T.A.ed on a curve hitting a tree, killing all occupants with the police right on their tail. That was reasonably a crime scene. Nevertheless, the area of my town cordoned off included a FOUR BLOCK perimeter that included my house; even though only one of those streets was involved with the chase and the police knew which one. We were not allowed to come or go - anywhere! They even pulled a gun on my neighbor, who was working in his yard at the time. All my neighbor did was to try to ask the police-person what was happening.
Sorry Smitty, but this somewhat conservative guy, who is generally sympathetic to the cause of police work (my son is a deputy); simply doesn't buy the notion that these apparent over-reactions, are justified anywhere near as often as they occur. And I am certainly not inclined to want to "Goose Step" to the orders of an obviously uneducated and over-reacting sheriff deputy. I would have thought such would certainly be an embarrassment to fair minded policemen everywhere.
But even if and when the extent of such police actions are ever justified, the police agency involved certainly owes the public a complete and honest and timely explanation, as to why they felt that uninvolved areas had to be considered part of a crime scene. Same goes for tracks or trains without any still undocumented incident debris on them.
...WoW - what a novel idea - public servants being accountable to those that employ them.
Smitty's idea of writing your town councils and congressman, or whatever; is indeed a good idea whenever a citizen has a peeve. Or so we could hope, anyway!
In this case, I would ask them to quit spending so much of the truly limited resources available to government, on what amounts to personal voter bribes; instead diverting them back to where they belong - the "General Welfare". In other words, putting them back towards the legitimate purposes of government as outlined in the Preamble to the Constitution. Then we might have enough coroners to go around, as well as adequate police protections and public infrastructures.
Sadly however, as long as enough of us keep voting for their own personal benefit and not for the greater good, being so easily bribed with gov't goodies; -- town councils and congresses will have absolutely no need whatever, to actually listen to any citizen; nor will any police dept be able to account to the public for any specific thing they do.
Indeed, as long as this is so; the "many" will continue to be held hostage to the falsely perceived benefit of the few. But Didn't someone once say "The public be damned!". Well - it is being damned - by its own self!
Yes Siree! - "We have met the enemy - And HE IS US!"
OPB
I understand the sentiment; but it IS, in cold harsh unyielding reality, still a waste! Even then! No matter how long the police detain all those passengers, and hundreds of others on other blocked trains; no amount of police investigation is going to bring life back to the victim. Nor is it likely to result in conviction for a crime. There simply is no public benefit to it!
Especially when, as is usually the case, there in no rational reason to believe anything more than an accident has happened - and thus no probable cause to detain anybody not directly involved. Accidents are usually NOT a criminal matter. But yet, I have been detained twice by the police for hours, while they treated an accident scene as a crime scene. I was a witness to one, and totally uninvolved with the other.
There is no reasonable cause to detain a witness sitting in a company truck 40' feet away, after the field interview. But they did anyway. Not only that, but both tracks were closed for 3-1/2 hours during the afternoon commute. I had witnessed an Amtrak train hit a pedestrian at a grade crossing. The victim's big Marmaduke looking dog had suddenly lurched (I think after another dog running loose), causing him to fall back into the path of the train.
He had barely gotten back up when he was hit and knocked off to the r.o.w. fence. The body was intact and not even close to the tracks. And it does not require special medical skills to determine that. Just common investigator skills will suffice. But naturally, the whole area, including all tracks and streets for a couple of hundred feet in all directions, were considered part of a crime scene! (What Crime?) Or at least that is what I was told when I was ordered by a deputy to "Shut my mouth - and stay put until I was released!". They never did release me - they just left after 3-1/2 hours. Even though I was the only witness, I was never summoned in a civil or criminal case. There was no crime! And also no one to sue! His dumb dog did it!
The other was even more ridiculous. After chasing a stolen car at 95+ mph, it T.A.ed on a curve hitting a tree, killing all occupants with the police right on their tail. That was reasonably a crime scene. Nevertheless, the area of my town cordoned off included a FOUR BLOCK perimeter that included my house; even though only one of those streets was involved with the chase and the police knew which one. We were not allowed to come or go - anywhere! They even pulled a gun on my neighbor, who was working in his yard at the time. All my neighbor did was to try to ask the police-person what was happening.
Sorry Smitty, but this somewhat conservative guy, who is generally sympathetic to the cause of police work (my son is a deputy); simply doesn't buy the notion that these apparent over-reactions, are justified anywhere near as often as they occur. And I am certainly not inclined to want to "Goose Step" to the orders of an obviously uneducated and over-reacting sheriff deputy. I would have thought such would certainly be an embarrassment to fair minded policemen everywhere.
But even if and when the extent of such police actions are ever justified, the police agency involved certainly owes the public a complete and honest and timely explanation, as to why they felt that uninvolved areas had to be considered part of a crime scene. Same goes for tracks or trains without any still undocumented incident debris on them.
...WoW - what a novel idea - public servants being accountable to those that employ them.
Smitty's idea of writing your town councils and congressman, or whatever; is indeed a good idea whenever a citizen has a peeve. Or so we could hope, anyway!
In this case, I would ask them to quit spending so much of the truly limited resources available to government, on what amounts to personal voter bribes; instead diverting them back to where they belong - the "General Welfare". In other words, putting them back towards the legitimate purposes of government as outlined in the Preamble to the Constitution. Then we might have enough coroners to go around, as well as adequate police protections and public infrastructures.
Sadly however, as long as enough of us keep voting for their own personal benefit and not for the greater good, being so easily bribed with gov't goodies; -- town councils and congresses will have absolutely no need whatever, to actually listen to any citizen; nor will any police dept be able to account to the public for any specific thing they do.
Indeed, as long as this is so; the "many" will continue to be held hostage to the falsely perceived benefit of the few. But Didn't someone once say "The public be damned!". Well - it is being damned - by its own self!
Yes Siree! - "We have met the enemy - And HE IS US!"
OPB
