Amherst Police Department, 111 Main Street
The war on rowdy (college aged) student behavior continues to show steady gains. A combination of APD community policing and UMass outreach has once again paid off with a decent decline in "noise" complaints all across town.
Perhaps UMass will take a closer look at outlier students who received both a "noise" and "nuisance" ticket and issue stern sanctions that gets their undivided attention. Once and for all.
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UMass Team Positive out in force for Blarney Blowout 3/7/15
19 comments:
Throughout history people have democratically agreed to take rights away from "them" only to subsequently find it come back to bite them. The 14th Amendment is a good example of this:
The 13th, 14th, & 15th Amendments were passed to eliminate slavery and to make the former slaves full citizens equal to all other Americans. The "due process" and "equal protection" clauses granted Federal authority over the States in a way that had been prohibited by portions of the Constitution including Article I, the 10th & 11th Amendments as well as the general nature of this being a Federal Republic.
Remember that the Slave States had raised "State's Rights" issues prior to the Civil War -- essentially the "if you don't like abortion then don't have one" argument writ large -- that the "Free" states could outlaw slavery within their borders, but neither they nor Congress could regulate the internal affairs of the "Slave" states.
No more than the "Free" states could be forced to legalize slavery. (The "Fugitive Slave Act" was a different thing -- the "Full Faith * Credit" clause.)
And as to a citizen suing a state in Federal Court, bypassing the State's Sovereign Immunity in the process, that was so unthinkable that all of the states has passed the 11th Amendment to prohibit any possibility of this from happening. (Someone had used the "Diversity of Citizeship" clause to sue a state -- and all the states freaked out over that.)
So like the Amherst "townies" seeking to stomp on the obnoxious college kids without worrying about the precedents being set, the Radical Republicans sought to stomp on the former Confederacy without ever quite realizing that all of this would apply to them too.
Continued...
Part 2
Never forget that the concept of a "violation of civil rights under color of law" and the ability of a citizen (or "corporate person" such as the NAACP) and the ability of one to bypass State Sovereign Immunity and sue in Federal Court under the auspices of 46 USC 1983 is only because the states never realized that what they were doing to the former Confederacy could also be done to them.
"Section 1983" was initially part of the "Anti Klan Act of 1871", more commonly known as the "Civil Rights Act of 1871" -- something that I doubt Senator Sumner (R-MA) ever expected to shut down the Belchertown State School...
Neither he nor the other Northern "Radical Republicans" would ever have anticipated that the 14th Amendment would enable the Federal lawsuits which forced school desegregation in Boston, Springfield & Hartford -- in states which had granted full citizenship rights (on paper) to Blacks prior to 1787 -- Massachusetts Black voters cast ballots on the ratification of the Constitution.
Amherst residents (like you, Larry) need to understand that empowering the Amherst Police to arrest people for "noise" on the basis of nothing other than the officer's own judgment (no matter how fair the current officers are) is something that could come back to bite THEM in the future.
Imagine, hypothetically, a different ruling cadre hiring a different police chief and an attempt to outlaw the noise of smaller children. (Nothing on God's Green Earth can make more noise than a homeward-bound bus of 4th Graders, and they really aren't trying.)
And Larry, if the "right" people didn't like you, you could be arrested for your girls (whom I have no doubt are well behaved) playing hopscotch in your back yard. If the officer(s) thought that noise was "unreasonable", you would be guilty and have no defense.
Where "Speed Limit 35 MPH" has a specific meaning involving feet traveled per second and the officer having to show how he/she/it measured that, "Excessive Noise" is whatever the officer says it is -- and that is a problem.
Noise is sound energy -- generally defined as sound energy above that sound energy of the "ambient noise" (e.g. birds chirping, wind in trees, etc.) "Noise" is defined as both "peak" and "sustained" and is measured in Decibels (dB) -- with an electronic meter -- and it matters where the reading is taken as well as noise dissipates rapidly over distance.
It would be one thing if the APD had to have a dB reading above (something) as measured from the property line before they could make arrests -- above and beyond the fact that they have no legal right to arrest anyone willing to pay the fine ont he spot -- but they are not doing that..
One other thing: In Germany circa 1932 the Communists were causing lots of problems, street fighting and everything else.
German citizens, including German Jews, wanted this ended. In what was a generally "fair" election, they voted a man named Adolph Hitler into power. If you look at the demographics of who voted and the election results, they are not mathematically possible without German Jews voting for Hitler.
And we all know how that turned out...
Yes, Hitler *did* do what they wanted -- he did end the streetfighting -- essentially by first having all of his SA ("Brownshirts") kill all the Communists and then killing all of the "Brownshirts" in the so-called "Night of Long Knives." Hitler had done what they wanted.
Hitler also addressed the currency crisis caused by hyperinflation and did a lot of economic things quite similar to what FDR did. Hitler public works projects created jobs for young people, and they started with badly-needed public housing and then started the Autobahn. While Germany's auto industry manufactured cars for millionares, Hitler started a program manufacturing cars that the common citizen could afford -- literally called "People's Wagons", which in German is Volkswagen.
Never forget that NAZI was a shortened term of two German words meaning "National Socialism" and that throughout WW-II, we referred to them as the "National Socialists." (See West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943))
To the fair-minded reader: Find any picture of FDR's "National Recovery Act Eagle" and compare it to any picture of Hitler's "Nazi Eagle" -- other than the Swastika in the talons, notice how the two are almost identical. Reality is that the NAZIs were both Fascist *and* Socialist --- and that in seeking to address some issues of concern without worrying that much about how it was done, the German people also empowered a true incarnation of evil.
Be careful what you ask for because you might get it..
All I ask for is common decency and civil behavior. And that's not too much to ask.
Larry, that's all the Germans asked for -- and the "streetfighting" was a hell of a lot worse than anything that has happened in ANY American City in our lifetimes.
Groups of armed thugs were wandering through the streets, fighting with each other, attacking any innocent bystander they encountered in their noisy treks, and truly terrorizing the populace.
"The ends do not justify the means" -- that's what you are missing Larry. No matter how noble your end goal may be, not all means are acceptable in reaching it.
We have a Heroin problem in this country -- and we need to do something about it. China had an Opium problem (same drug) when the ChiComs came to power -- they solved their problem by simply shooting all the drug dealers, all the drug users, and anyone they even suspected of being either.
They accomplished a noble goal -- China no longer had an Opium problem -- but the means by which they accomplished it were totally unacceptable regardless of the nobility of the goal.
We could quite easily end the Heroin problem in this country by doing two simple things:
1: Instead of trying to prevent overdoses from being fatal -- the efforts of AFD and the provision of NARCAN, prohibit all of this.
Make it public policy that they be left in the street to die.
2: Introduce something toxic (e.g. Cyanide) into the supply chain so that some of the Heroin contains a lethal amount of, say, Cyanide.
3: Tell everybody that this is being done and publicize the deaths caused by this practice.
This would (a) encourage a lot of people to stop using Heroin and a lot more to never start and (b) kill and thus eliminate those who did. No more Heroin problem.
But the ends do not justify the means...
What do you mean states rights is like the abortion issue 'writ large?' There is no larger issue than life. There's a helluva lot more to the issue than your fatous slogan "If you don't 'like' abortion, don't have one." Such an utter lack of caring.
Who do you imagine yourself to be that you think anybod-eeeeeee is interested in plowing through you harangues and lectures? Godalmighty. Enough. Give us a break. I'm begging you.
Please, when writing, kindly keep in mind that you're the one who's the most interested in what you have to say.
Dr. Ed needs to realize that was a long time ago, in a far away place. We know better now and we if we say students are low class, the ARE low class and deserve less rights. I say lets make them wear armbands so we can tell students from citizens at all times. Let the police judge the students and leave the justice system for citizens.
Those who fail to learn from history....
I don't think that asking students to not be a drunken mob is in any way equivalent to Nazi Germany. Therefore, you're nuts!
Thank you for keeping that comment brief.
"I don't think that asking students to not be a drunken mob is in any way equivalent to Nazi Germany. Therefore, you're nuts!"
I'm not even sure which is the most egregious logical fallacy in the above gem, nor if one is aware of the significance of the year 1933 in German history, or that prior to this date, it was actually the era of the German Wiemar Republic.
In other words, "Nazi Germany" did not exist yet!!!
My point was that, in the course of attempting to address legitimate issues without worrying about the means by which these ends were accomplished, German voters inadvertently CREATED Nazi Germany.
Maybe a better analogy involves the recent cold-blooded murder of two police officers in Mississippi, with one of the perps leaving the scene in a stolen police cruiser.
Cops knew who did it, little would have been said if they'd simply shot them instead of arresting them. And as Mississippi has a death penalty (which, hopefully, these perps will get), all they'd been doing was saving the state the expense of a trial.
Likewise, I've heard stories of child molesters "falling off a cliff" into the ocean -- somehow winding up in a particularly deep hole a couple miles offshore, seems that they somehow managed to get an old lobster trap tangled around them, one which just happened to be filled with rocks...
The problem with this sort of thing is that it becomes a slippery slope. Not only is there no defense of individual rights but you get what happened in Ferguson.
The same thing is true when you go from an objective to a subjective definition of what constitutes a crime. Furthermore, in a free society, an objective definition of that which is sanctioned is necessary because it also defines that which is not.
As there is no law against Larry flying his drone, he can fly it. As long as you are a certain number of feet from the polling place, you can hold signs on election day -- as the law defines what you can't do, it also defines what you can.
My point was that, in the course of addressing legitimate concerns without bothering to observe the individual rights of those perpetrating these concerns (and a larger group who aren't), you may change your community into a place you neither know nor like.
Three problems with the noise ordinance:
1: There is no objective standard of what constitutes a violation -- other than "someone complaining" and the judgment of the individual officer who responds.
A: There is no way for one to know that one is not in violation of it.
B: Compliance with the law should not be a popularity contest -- some of the high school graduation parties will be every bit as loud but legal because of who is having them.
C: These two things cause UM students to loose respect for both the police and the town itself. The peer pressure and group norm thus becomes to violate as opposed to not.
Instead of saying "don't you dare do it", the cute girl is actually impressed by the drunken schmuck winding a beer bottle at a police officer's head. And as young men will do almost anything to impress an attractive young lady, a fuselage of beer bottles rapidly ensues.
2: An arrest is supposed to only be to (a) identify a perpertrator who otherwise can't be identified, (b) ensure that any jail time (upon conviction) will be served and (c) likewise ensure that any fine (upon conviction) would be paid.
A: The perpetrators are identified -- the APD isn't bringing these cases as "John Doe" to court -- and as they are arresting those named on the lease anyway, it's easy enough to ask the landlord for the names on Monday morning if need be.
B: The noise ordinance has no possible jail sentence (this is intentional to avoid having to provide indigent counsel).
C: "Bailment" is when you pay the maximum possible fine on the spot with it refunded to you if you are found not guilty at trial. If you even bother to go to trial -- for years, speeding tickets in the south were this way.
Why is a Clerk Magistrate's hearing required for bail in these situations -- why is the Clerk Magistrate's judgment even needed here? If the maximum possible punishment is a $300 fine and the kid is willing to pay it as Bailment, what basis is there for arresting him.
My Point: Once you start tossing people in jail, without a legal basis for doing it, it becomes a slippery slope where others can be tossed into jail as well.
"We don't like that pesky Larry Kelly with his damned drone -- let's order the Chief to have him arrested for something [on a specific day] so he's not taking pictures [of something that someone powerful doesn't want pictures taken of]."
Instead of merely calling you a "stalker", what if a certain former Selectboard member could have had you arrested a couple times? Think that would have ended your coverage of where she was and wasn't living?
Speaking of abortion, (see Ed's first comment above), I thought that the best reaction to the moonbats' disdain for the Tsarnaev death penalty was "just tell 'em it's a very late-term abortion."
..."the moonbats' disdain for the Tsarnaev death penalty..."
OK. I know it is tangental but I am going to say this:
A court rules 5-4 in Roe and "it's a woman's right."
A court rules 4-3 in Goodridge and we have gay marriage because "it's the law."
A court rules 5-4 on the NoBama NoCare mandate and "it's a 'tax'" -- notwithstanding the fact that the US Constitution requires all "tax" laws to originate in the House, which ACA did not.
But when a court rules 12-0 that a terrorist who murdered innocent civilians deserves to die for his crime -- well.....
On a more serious note, some very serious questions are going to get asked about Radical Islam and the University of Massachusetts -- all of it and these questions need asking as we are in a war against Radical Islamic Terrorism.
I'm quite serious about members of Hamas doing security in the grad dorm when I lived there -- they were quite assertive in telling me that, adding "we are the people who blew up your embassy in Lebanon" when I didn't immediately make the connection.
There were (and are) a lot of both undergrad and grad student organizations along similar lines. These groups are funded by mandatory student fees and on the grad level, they all have TAs. That means that not only are taxpayers funding their education, but giving them a quite nice stipend as well. This is where "Insane" Hussain Ibish came from...
I am convinced that at least one of the 9-11 hijackers was at least socially acquainted but came to campus at some point before that fateful day. Remember how MassPike transponder records mentioned that the car they had abandoned at Logan had "been in the Springfield Area" on multiple occasions prior to 9-11 but had *not* "been in Springfield"? I'm thinking I-90 West, I-91 North, 9 East to UMass -- it's longer but that is the way people not familiar with Western Mass usually go.
On the evening of September 11th, top level UMass Amherst people were really worried about something -- something specific and worried enough to ask me if I'd heard anything.
Yes, I do believe....
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was not only a UMass Dartmouth student living in a UMD dorm, he was dealing drugs there. When you have a lot of reasonably bright people turning over everything in a desperate search to blame anyone other than him for what he did, I think that UMD is going to be looking at a lot of scrutiny.
Even if those two schmucks thought this all up on their own (and I doubt it), that backpack of evidence that one of his friends was convicted of getting out of his dorm room had been *in* his dorm room. Between that and the drug dealing, had UMD done its job, there well might have been no "bang" that fateful day.
Joe McCarthy went way overboard -- he was also drunk which, while not an excuse, is an explanation. He was considered an alcoholic even then, by the standards of that era, and it would kill him a few years later. And we need to remember that a lot of people have chosen to leave the Arab world for the very same reasons that we have concerns about the countries that they have fled.
BUT we do need to ask some serious questions that folks aren't going to like being asked -- and I think the desperate (and hopefully unsuccessful) attempt to save Dzhokhar Tsarnaev from the fate he deserves will raise them.
But....but... But... He's so Young.
Yeah, but not as young as Martin Richard.
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