Nazi-type police operations?
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15APR2002 Carl Worden THE FURTIVE MOVE: A COP'S LICENSE TO KILL A quick way to die Well it happened again right here in sleepy Southern Oregon, only this time without deadly results. It seems three Hispanic men picked the wrong guy to mess with in a traffic confrontation. The wrong guy was Jackson County Narcotics Enforcement Taskforce commander and Sheriff's Lt. Jim Andersen, who was driving home in his unmarked police vehicle on April 2 when the incident occurred. To make this tale short and to the point, the two vehicles stopped at an intersection in Medford, Oregon. Jorge Cisneros got out of his pickup truck, walked over to the passenger side of Andersen's unmarked vehicle and dumped a Chinese food container through the open window and onto the front passenger seat. Andersen responded by pulling his handgun and firing a shot at Cisneros which missed, and hit the side of a private home downrange. It's a good thing there were no pedestrians out and about that might have interfered with the bullet's path. Yesterday, our district attorney Mark Huddleston convened a Grand Jury to hear the case, and it took this particular Grand Jury only 5 minutes to decide the cop had every right to shoot at someone who dumps a take-out Chinese food container in his car. In two previous cases I reported where unarmed citizens were shot to death by police, the Grand Jury in each case took about 15 minutes to decide the police were justified in killing completely unarmed citizens, but in this case they showed no such indecision. Since this was the third such incident in recent memory where local cops used lethal force against unarmed citizens and got off Scot-free, I just had to drop a dime to the United States Justice Department in Washington D.C. to find out what was going on. I called (202) 514-3204 and spoke to Justice Department Criminal Legal Specialist Kevin Callahan about the three cases, but I mainly focused on this most recent case involving the illegal littering by Jorge Cisneros and the death sentence he nearly received for it. Mostly, I wanted to know if the exact same thing happened to me, and if I shot at a Jorge Cisneros for the same reason, would I get the same 5-minute Grand Jury treatment -- or the chair? Back when I worked closely with police departments all over the United States, the policy for using lethal force required that a weapon be seen and that the person wielding it appeared intent on using it to seriously injure or kill the police officer or another innocent person. But according to Kevin Callahan, all that has changed and cops no longer need to carry an unregistered back-up weapon to plant on the body if they make a boo-boo. Bear in mind, Callahan didn't actually say that, but the apparent change in policy he described said it all in just two words: Furtive Move. Yessiree, you don't need to have and hold a weapon anymore to get your butt shot off by a police officer. No sir, all you have to do now is make a "furtive move" that causes the police officer to "perceive" that you have a weapon and you plan to use it. With that perception and your furtive move, the police officer is trained to aim his pistol at your center mass and keep shooting until the magazine is empty or until you are no longer able to keep moving furtively. Remember Amadou Diallo, the guy who was perforated by New York's finest when he stood in a darkened doorway offering his wallet? Yep, he shouldn't have made that furtive move. It was all his fault, and the police were found innocent. Remember that young lady who was snoozing in her car down L.A. way when she was startled by police officers who perceived she'd made a furtive move and blew her away? Yep, that was her fault too. When our own two fatal police shootings of unarmed citizens occurred here in Southern Oregon, both involved victims who made furtive moves just before the cops killed them, but in one case the cops' actions channeled the victim into making his own furtive move. Specifically, Cole Younger Smith was tucked away in his pickup truck and surrounded by police officers from something like 3 or 4 different and uncoordinated police agencies. He had stopped at the State Police facility in Central Point, Oregon to ask for help, saying he wanted to kill himself and wouldn't exit his truck. The cops were getting tired of waiting for Smith to surrender himself, and the donut shops were closing, so they decided to speed things along by dropping a flash-bang device in the back of Smith's pickup truck. I had never heard of that technique before -- you know, how to calm down a very agitated and mentally disturbed person with a blinding flash and an explosion? I didn't know explosives going off just behind your seat would have such a calming effect, but then, these local cops are such kidders. Needless to say, Smith perceived that the cops were trying to kill him rather than calm him, so he drove at low speed as far as the police barricade would allow, jumped out of his truck to run away while furtively holding a shaving case in his hand, and was shot 21-23 times for his trouble. Okay, time to get real here. We American citizens cannot tolerate police officers in our midst who are trained like attack dogs to empty their magazines into our center masses the moment they perceive we've made a furtive move. This is unacceptable policy, and at one point in our history, such a policy would have been declared unconstitutional. I don't know how this lethal force policy ever came to be observed as a rule of law, but it is clear our local police agencies in Southern Oregon are training and killing by it, knowing the United States Justice Department will back them every time. Finally, a word about the Grand Jury system. According to Mr. Callahan, the only thing expected of Grand Jurors is that they obey their oath to keep the Grand Jury proceedings secret. On Saturday, April 13th, I witnessed a member of the current Grand Jury at a gathering where he was asking opinions and giving them about this instant case where Lt. Andersen shot at Jorge Cisneros for his littering violation -- the case he'd be deliberating in secret Grand Jury proceedings held yesterday, April 18th. The same Grand Jury that came back in 5 minutes and said Andersen's shooting was justified. It is apparently quite legal for a Grand Juror to do that, up to and including allowing a cop friend to tell him Jorge Cisneros and his friends are known scumbags, or bad actors or dirtbags -- I can't remember the exact term used. It wasn't nice. If Grand Jury members are that easy to get to and influence prior to a scheduled Grand Jury proceeding on a well-publicized case, and if it's perfectly legal for a Grand Juror to discuss a matter and ask opinions he will be deliberating later while on Grand Jury duty, then the Grand Jury system also needs to be fixed. Now you know why police all over America are killing unarmed citizens and are not being criminally charged for it. This was a real epiphany for me, and I know that when the general American population finds out about it, they are going to join me in considering the police a foreboding and dangerous threat, rather than the social asset and protectors we would prefer to see them as. As it stands right now, your son, your daughter, your husband or your wife are just one furtive move away from instant death. Carl F. Worden Liaison & Intelligence Officer Southern Oregon Militia 
 
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