Posted on 08/15/2011 7:31:59 AM PDT by Hojczyk
While you go on ahead thinking that it’s not debatable, I’ll stay in the real world where petty theft does not constitute assault, which is what the other poster said.
Oh, and by the way, let me say that as a cop I would LOVE to get these punks and lock them up for a long time. We just have to work within the framework of the laws as they are written. For better or worse.
First google definition: Robbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take something of value by force or threat of force and/or by putting the victim in fear. ...
Second google definition: Law . the felonious taking of the property of another from his or her person or in his or her immediate presence, against his or her will, by violence or intimidation.
Shoplifter definition: a person who steals goods from the shelves or displays of a retail store while posing as a customer.
Sure does sounds like they committed robbery. Shoplifting requires stealth / deception.
Your mileage may vary of course.
I've arrested guys who commit horribly violent crimes who are walking the streets the next day. This isn't a tv show or the movies. If you could see the legal wrangling that goes on in the criminal arena, you'd never leave your house. So gimme a freakin break.
You people are reacting emotionally to an incident from which you are pretty far removed. Which is fine, but don't fault me for knowing how the system works.
I never said that it does. I said it is fair to use hyperbole to describe it as such in a debate, and that the law itself is no more honestly written or interpreted.
If you wish to continue to assert that this is not the case - you are going to find yourself explaining how a bee-bee gun is an assault weapon and how a cornfield with a couple puddles on it constitutes a navigable waterway.
If you pursue this instead of cutting your losses there will be no way for you to avoid a deluge of crap like that from within the statutes and within the opinions published by the court. Changing tactics and asserting that the citizenry has an obligation in debate that those appointed or elected to government positions isn't going to go well either.
Political speech has always included hyperbole, and the big thing here was never the dollar value of what was taken...it was the implicit threat of injury from so large a mob.
Related to the police aspect:
Mob violence: Greenfield provides an “anatomy of law enforcement impotence”
http://www.examiner.com/jewish-culture-in-philadelphia/mob-violence-greenfield-provides-an-anatomy-of-law-enforcement-impotence
(Note: this (my) article offers a summary of the parts of what Greenfield wrote most relevant to this particular comment/posted article.)
Here is the full, long-but-thorough Greenfield piece: http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2011/08/anatomy-of-law-enforcement-impotence.html
probably more pertinent is the fact that he belongs to a union.
I hear you. Great place to grow up in the 60’s and 70’s. Had a business there in the 80’s. Left in 1992... can’t recognize the place now.
Excellent observation.
Wow... I went to Fairland Elementary (Silver Spring) back in the late 60s. Sad to know the area has gone down so far. I'm also glad we didn't stay.
Don't know about the rest of him, but the stripe up his back was yellow.
LBJ’s great-grandchildren. They produce a new generation every fifteen years. (For the rest of us, the average is every thirty years.)
That's cuz you ain't en-TIE-tulled.
My in-laws lived in Kettering. When Carter was president, he supposedly gave very low-interest home loans to minorities (remember, this was when interest rates were 11% plus). My in-laws were the last family on the block to sell- the entire neighborhood became black.
Then they went to Silver Spring. Their condo decreased in value from $150k plus (in the 90’s) to less than $95k in the time they lived there.
What is happening? All I can go by is familial experience. Classic government malfunction... anything the government subsidizes causes decay.
Yeah, so what if 20 or 30 or 40 or 50 thugs converge all at once to commit crimes in unison? No biggie, minor infraction, so store owners incur some losses, they have insurance anyway plus they probably have more money than these underprivileged underserved unrespected minority youths who’ve never had a break in life.
Did you leave off the sarcasm note?
That's the joy of the past decade. The far left fringe has gone so far off the deep end that even very thick sarcasm sounds like a mild version of what today's socialists say with sincerity.
The local (Philly) NAACP praised Michael Nutter for his balls, too. That was a pleasant surprise.
It happened here, too. When we moved into this then-new development 15 years ago, the neighborhood was mostly white professionals, with about 15% black professionals — doctors, accountants, etc.
Then the helpful Democrats bused kids from poor neighborhoods until the schools were 95% “children of color.” Now, around 70% of homes that sell go to black families.
Who suffered the most? Besides the property values, which dropped almost 35%, it was the black professional families who now have to send their kids to private schools to keep them from associating with (and being stereotyped by) the drug- and knife-wielding kids from the po’ neighborhoods.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.