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“Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”: The new warrior cop is out of control
Salon ^ | 7-7-2013 | Radley Balko

Posted on 07/09/2013 5:34:35 AM PDT by Renfield

Excerpted from "Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces"

Sal Culosi is dead because he bet on a football game — but it wasn’t a bookie or a loan shark who killed him. His local government killed him, ostensibly to protect him from his gambling habit.

Several months earlier at a local bar, Fairfax County, Virginia, detective David Baucum overheard the thirty-eight-year-old optometrist and some friends wagering on a college football game. “To Sal, betting a few bills on the Redskins was a stress reliever, done among friends,” a friend of Culosi’s told me shortly after his death. “None of us single, successful professionals ever thought that betting fifty bucks or so on the Virginia–Virginia Tech football game was a crime worthy of investigation.” Baucum apparently did. After overhearing the men wagering, Baucum befriended Culosi as a cover to begin investigating him. During the next several months, he talked Culosi into raising the stakes of what Culosi thought were just more fun wagers between friends to make watching sports more interesting. Eventually Culosi and Baucum bet more than $2,000 in a single day. Under Virginia law, that was enough for police to charge Culosi with running a gambling operation. And that’s when they brought in the SWAT team.

On the night of January 24, 2006, Baucum called Culosi and arranged a time to drop by to collect his winnings. When Culosi, barefoot and clad in a T-shirt and jeans, stepped out of his house to meet the man he thought was a friend, the SWAT team began to move in. Seconds later, Det. Deval Bullock, who had been on duty since 4:00 AM and hadn’t slept in seventeen hours, fired a bullet that pierced Culosi’s heart.....

(Excerpt) Read more at salon.com ...


TOPICS: Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: banglist; cw2; fairfaxcounty; gambling; government; guncontrol; libertarian; police; policestate; rights; secondamendment; tyranny; va; virginia
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To: Renfield
Many here don't like SALON, but this article is well worth reading in its entirety and filing. The police in many areas behave much more aggressively than when confronting very large mobs in the 60’s. Bill Ayres types and the various ‘peace’ rioters generally seemed to be a step ahead of the police and at least on equal terms in many riots and street battles. Now average Americans are routinely treated like the subjects of some Third World thug state.
21 posted on 07/09/2013 8:02:42 AM PDT by robowombat
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To: Renfield
After overhearing the men wagering, Baucum befriended Culosi as a cover to begin investigating him. During the next several months, he talked Culosi into raising the stakes of what Culosi thought were just more fun wagers between friends to make watching sports more interesting. Eventually Culosi and Baucum bet more than $2,000 in a single day.

Asshat's never heard of "entrapment". Moron. Create a crime so you can arrest the other guy for it. Wait....I thought LEO's were supposed to be FIGHTING crime, not generating it.

22 posted on 07/09/2013 8:14:16 AM PDT by Still Thinking (Freedom is NOT a loophole!)
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To: spetznaz
I hate big government no matter which innocent citizens big government is targeting at the moment. Twelve years ago on this site, I argued that parts of the Patriot Act gave too much power to the government:

To: Registered

Keep in mind that the new law’s definition of “domestic terrorism” is so broad, as we shall see in future columns, that entirely innocent people can be swept into this surveillance dragnet.

President Hillary would like to know which of you have friends in the NRA, or the pro-life movement, so your communications can be monitored by the CIA, for the children.

I guess we’re all OK with Echelon, Know Your Customer, and National ID cards now as well. If you have nothing to hide...

This Patriot Act stinks to high heaven. If you don’t think this will eventually (if not currently) be used to stifle political dissent in this country, you are mistaken.

15 posted on 11/28/2001 7:05:56 AM by dead

23 posted on 07/09/2013 8:19:15 AM PDT by dead (I've got my eye out for Mullah Omar.)
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To: dead

When I buy a lottery ticket I’ll be sure to ask you which numbers I should pick. That post is eerily accurate.


24 posted on 07/09/2013 8:31:14 AM PDT by spetznaz (Nuclear-tipped Ballistic Missiles: The Ultimate Phallic Symbol)
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To: Renfield

Real heroes.

One sometimes reflects with dismay that the individual sense of shame is dying out in America.


25 posted on 07/09/2013 10:47:13 AM PDT by Jack Hammer (American)
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To: miss marmelstein
A very good friend of mine was swatted because of local politics. He went against the left wing city council, and while it’s too long a story, he ended up with cops on his roof and at his front door, guns drawn. Miracle he wasn’t killed. A perfectly decent man who almost had his life destroyed.

Did the incident even make page 59 in the local rag? Was there any kind of lawsuit afterward? Might this incident have taken place in a town on the outskirts of a major US city?

26 posted on 07/09/2013 10:53:14 AM PDT by USS Johnston (Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be bought at the price of chains & slavery? - Patrick Henry)
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To: USS Johnston

No lawsuit. It happened about 60 miles outside NYC.


27 posted on 07/09/2013 11:09:01 AM PDT by miss marmelstein ( Richard Lives Yet!)
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To: miss marmelstein
No lawsuit. It happened about 60 miles outside NYC.

Wow.

The questions are: "Who exactly encouraged LE to have a chip on their shoulder the size of a sequoia?" The DHS?

Are We The People purposely ordered to be targeted as future exercises? Are incidents created out of trivial matters a matter of spreading the word that random Brownshirt intimidation and abuse of civil rights WILL be conducted often -- with impunity? Is the citizenry purposely being conditioned and/or baited?

28 posted on 07/09/2013 11:31:50 AM PDT by USS Johnston (Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be bought at the price of chains & slavery? - Patrick Henry)
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To: USS Johnston
Is the citizenry purposely being conditioned and/or baited?

Nope. As Mr. Balko put it, "Partisan reaction to aggressive police actions against opponents tends to fall somewhere between indifference and schadenfreude."

29 posted on 07/10/2013 5:05:57 AM PDT by papertyger (Blessed are the flexible for they shall not be broken....)
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To: Strategerist

Bingo.

Everybody is a dirt bag to somebody. When immorality rules, it just depends on who is in charge to determine a target.

Since rule of law doesn’t matter any more, the 4th and the 5th routinely subverted and the 5th laughed at:

Good reason to under-fund and frustrate gubment. No power can be granted to men without that power being used for evil. With tears in their eyes the cops don’t have enough money to buy new boots. Good. Let them eat their boots.


30 posted on 07/12/2013 1:33:41 PM PDT by DariusBane (Liberty and Risk. Flip sides of the same coin. So how much risk will YOU accept?)
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To: Renfield

The ultra liberal Salon is late to the story. Non the less, they are welcome to our side. We can stand their stench if the will help us return our country to where the police protect and serve.


31 posted on 07/12/2013 2:45:24 PM PDT by Drango (A liberal's compassion is limited only by the size of someone else's wallet.)
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To: Renfield

mark


32 posted on 07/13/2013 11:07:16 AM PDT by cyn (Benghazi.)
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