Tag Archives: responsibilities

On the Matter of the Capital Police…

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…officer entering a Republican Congressman’s Capital Building offices and photographing his writings on his office white board. There’s this from the Capital Police Department Inspector General:

The officer reported that during a routine patrol he found the door to [Congressman Troy (R, TX] Nehls’ office was wide open and “nothing was being used to prop the door open.” The officer said he entered to ensure there was no danger, then discovered the writings on the white board and photographed them because he considered them suspicious.
But the inspector general reviewed the doors to Nehls’ office and could not replicate keeping any of the congressman’s office doors open without having them propped by an item.
“All three doors only opened inward into the office suite and would close automatically when released,” the IG noted. “All three doors also automatically locked when closed during the examination.
“The only method of keeping one of these doors open on its own would be to prop it open with an object or to set the lock bolt in place when the door was open, in which case the door would only partially close due to the lock bolt preventing the door from fully closing.”

The officer personally considered what was written on the white board—legislative plans, according to Nehls—”suspicious.” And he lied about the door being wide open and unpropped.

Hmm….

Open Season on Women and Children

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The Progressive-Democrats of Seattle have declared one.

The worsening staffing crisis at the Seattle Police Department has forced the defunded force to no longer take on new adult sexual assault cases this year, according to a newly revealed internal memo.
…
In the memo, titled “Staffing Issues,” Sgt. Pamela St. John said she currently is not able to assign new adult sexual assault cases “because of other statutory requirements.”
Just three years ago, the unit had 12 skilled detectives, but at the time the memo was written, there are only four remaining.

And

In the memo, St. John acknowledged that she was aware of 116 CODIS [Combined DNA Index System] hit returns that are outside the Cold Case backlog, which “I am not able to assign currently.”

It’s hard to believe that the Progressive-Democrats running Seattle weren’t aware that this sort of outcome would occur as a result of their determined defunding of the city’s police department. It’s plain that they know now, yet they continue to insist on defunding even further the city’s police.

A Good Beginning

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Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) wants random inspections of Texas’ schools focused on safety checks and protocols. In a letter of instruction, Abbott wrote Texas School Safety Center Director Kathy Martinez-Prather:

Your team should begin conducting in-person, unannounced, random intruder detection audits on school districts. Staff should approach campuses to find weak points and how quickly they can penetrate buildings without being stopped.

The inspections are intended to lead to a series of recommendations for legislation regarding security system improvements.

It’s a good start; although I would have thought such inspections already would have been de rigueur on individual school administrators’ initiative for some years, at least since the Columbine shooting.

Those inspections, though, need to go unpublicized at the individual school level, although results aggregated to the school district level should be readily available to the public.

The goal should be to help individual school administrators and school district administrators identify and correct weaknesses (as well as provide those legislative recommendations, which should center on systemic weaknesses) rather than to embarrass the administrators.

Of course, publicizing district aggregations of findings will tend to contradict that last, but here’s where the parents’ need, and right, to know must take precedence over administrator embarrassment. And parents aren’t stupid; they’ll recognize whether a district administrator takes prompt action to correct weaknesses or weasel words his way around them or otherwise blows them off.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

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Germany and France have two of them. They were mentioned (although not as such) in a Wall Street Journal piece centered on Russia’s slow grind gains in Ukraine’s Donbas.

The first self-fulfilling prophecy:

Germany and France, which have sent limited heavy weapons so far, are skeptical about whether Ukraine can realistically drive the invading Russian army back to its positions when the war began on February 24.

Which Germany and France are making all the more difficult by their decision to withhold serious amounts of weapons and ammunition from Ukraine.

The second self-fulfilling prophecy:

Berlin and Paris are particularly anxious to avoid an accidental escalation into a direct clash with Russia….

Which surrenders the initiative to Russia and guarantees their continued backing down by telling Putin that such threats work.

We really need a mutual defense alliance with the Three Seas Initiative and a redeployment of American forces out of Germany into Poland and the Baltics.

I Have to Ask

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The House of Representatives Sergeant at Arms William Walker wants to bar Congressmen from carrying firearms anywhere in the Capital Complex other than their own office.

It is my view that the Capitol Complex should be a place where no one carries a firearm unless they are actively engaged in law enforcement or the protection work done by, among others, myself, the US Capitol Police (USCP), the US Secret Service, and the protective details of visiting foreign officials[.]

Which raises the question: what about canes? Will they be banned next?

Bonus question: why should foreigners be allowed into the Capital Complex with weapons when our own Congressmen and their staffs are not allowed to be?