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Hot pursuit: Dashcam video fuels Rugby Road chase debate
There has been an arrest in the infamous case of a chase that resulted in a stolen car going around 85mph on Rugby Road and causing over $100,000 in damage by scalping an occupied house. About two months after the August 7 incident, which captured widespread attention after the car's driver somehow disappeared from a seemingly fatal wreck, a 17-year-old city student was arrested in mid-October, according to Charlottesville spokesperson Ric Barrick, who–- in response to a reporter's request–- released a tape of the chase, a 112-second video in which even the police car hits 85mph on the residential road.
The video has touched off a whole new controversy because the chase appears to have violated a policy and, contrary to an initial media report, didn't appear to have been called off. And the pursuing officer, according to the police chief, wasn't even aware that he was chasing a stolen car.
"It was just senseless," says former Charlottesville Deputy Sheriff Steven W. Shifflett. "No car is worth a human life."
Informed that the officer wasn't aware he was chasing a stolen car, Shifflett revises his position.
"That's even worse," says Shifflett. "If a car had been coming through that intersection where the suspect crashed, he would have broadsided it and most likely killed one, two, three, four–- everyone in the car."
Noting, however, that the incident occurred late at night in the summer when UVA wasn't in session, the police chief defends the officer's actions. Yet controversy rages over the question of whether police pursuits, which routinely put innocent citizens at risk, should ever occur in such a populated place as Charlottesville.
New guardrail
Friday, October 30, was the day that a work crew installed a new, larger guardrail to cover the spot where the notorious vehicle left the roadway. The longer, triple-ribbed band of steel is designed to prevent such future dangerous aerobatics, but during the installation, the crew cut an underground gas line, causing a road detour lasting much of the morning.
Meanwhile, that same Friday was move-back day for Russell Skinner, an architect, and his wife, Nura Yingling, an English teacher and Tandem School administrator. They're the couple who lost their garage, their roof, and nearly their lives.
"My pregnant daughter could have been here," says Yingling. "That's the kind of thing that keeps you up at night."
The Russell-Yingling house occupies a unique piece of local terrain. Hidden from the road by dense foliage and built into a steep hillside, its roof lies at roughly the same level as the street. Hence the scalping.
State law doesn't forbid police pursuits, nor does it require officers to obey traffic signals when the chase is on; but it does require any pursuing officer to activate lights and sirens, both of which are evident in the Rugby Road video, now posted on YouTube.
Yingling says she was initially told that the chase was curtailed. However, the video shows the police cruiser hitting 74mph at Beta Bridge, 75 at University Circle, and 77 as the officer passes a 25mph speed limit sign on his way to a top speed of 85 near the intersection where the pursuee went airborne.
A Year 2000 study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that police pursuits kill over 100 innocent bystanders every year. In August, a California couple lost all five of their children when a stolen car pursued by police rammed the family pickup truck on its way to a Pee Wee football carnival.
That same month and closer to home, Petersburg police became the target of two lawsuits after a teenage motorist died and another was maimed in a pair of 2008 pursuits at speeds that might have been lower than what happened on Rugby Road.
"A lot of people don't realize how important this issue is until a member of their family is a victim of the police insistence on pursuit," says Charles Cuthbert, the lawyer handling both of the Petersburg cases, which seek a total of $15.7 million in damages.
In 2006, James H. Sears, an off-duty Colonial Heights police lieutenant, was coming home from a gym workout when he was struck head-on by a police car that ran a stop light and hit speeds up to 110mph (in pursuit of Albemarle resident Douglas Michael "Beefy" Brown, now imprisoned in the Buckingham Correctional Center until the year 2050). Sears' widow and three children won a $2.35 million settlement from the pursuing agency, the Chesterfield County police.
No one living in Madison County in the early 1990s can forget the graphic horror after a speeding police vehicle, allegedly without its warning lights on, cut another vehicle in half on Route 29 in front of Madison County High School and killed the father and son riding inside.
Lawyer Cuthbert says that he contacted various Virginia localities to examine their policies for conducting a chase. "The only pattern," says Cuthbert, "was that there was no pattern."
The Charlottesville policy gives the officer latitude to determine whether the pursuit justifies the risk.
"The initial decision to engage in or abandon a pursuit lies with the individual officer," reads part of the policy. Another part, however, forbids officers from running red lights or stop signs "without first stopping and checking traffic in all directions."
Early in the video, both the officer and the fleeing driver appear to run a red light at the corner of University and Rugby.
Charlottesville Police Chief Timothy Longo, addressing the case in a letter accompanied by a copy of CPD pursuit policy, conceded that the chase raised a pair of concerns–- particularly the speed. He also conceded that the officer wasn't aware that he was chasing anything other than a traffic violator.
However, Longo emphasized the dry pavement, the fact that UVA was out for the summer, and that the near-2:30am timing meant an absence of pedestrians.
"I find the officer's actions to have been reasonable based on the totality of the circumstance," Longo wrote. "Had this occurred at 2:30 in the afternoon when traffic conditions were different, I may not have come to the same conclusion."
Yingling however, who serves as the director of Tandem's upper school, considers this chase something of a teaching moment for her students. She finds the pursuit, conducted by Officer Jeremy Carper, unsafe.
"If he's been an officer for more than a few days," says Yingling, "he knows there's a house at the end of the hill."
Carper, through his chief, declined to speak with a reporter about his 60-miles-per-hour-above-the posted limit chase. But his chief, alleging that bystanders "may have well been harmed had the officer done nothing," doesn't seem to accept the notion that chases create their own danger.
In Albemarle, even with population density 31 times lower than Charlottesville's, the County's pursuit policy, more restrictive than Longo's, seems to forbid what happened in Charlottesville.
"Officers responding to property crime calls whether in progress or just occurred, shall be limited to driving no more than 20 mph over the posted speed limit," reads County policy.
"We were never permitted to chase misdemeanor offenders," points out Barbara Jones, police spokesperson in Orlando, Florida, where rules regarding police chases are among the strictest in the nation.
On Rugby Road at 2:26am, the offense radioed to headquarters was a failure to yield, a misdemeanor.
It began on Highland Avenue
The escapade began around 11:30pm August 6 when a perpetrator allegedly burgled a home in the 700 block of Highland Avenue in the Johnson Village neighborhood. The homeowner slept through the incident, unaware that an interloper was traipsing through his home and swiping the keys to his car, says the City's Barrick.
On the video, shot about three hours later, an alert Officer Carper spots a vehicle speeding east on University Avenue– 42 miles per hour according to the police chief. Carper (who'd been traveling 36mph in the 25 zone when he passes the perpetrator) makes a quick U-turn, and follows the car up Carr's Hill near the UVA Rotunda, accelerating to 55 mph.
The two vehicles blow through the red light and zoom past "Mad Bowl." Although the lone bystander vehicle traveling their way on Rugby pulls over to let them pass, both cars cross the center line, as the chase quickly exceeds 70 mph and proceeds through the heart of fraternities, sororities, and other off-campus student housing along Rugby. Curiously, not a single pedestrian is spotted in the video, despite the fact that final exams for UVA's summer school had wrapped just a few hours earlier and bars closed 26 minutes before the chase.
Just after the green light at Grady Avenue, a pair of rightward bends in the road bring the pursuit past the Unitarian church, where Rugby shifts to upscale single-family dwellings. There, the police vehicle hits speeds of 64 to 85 miles per hour, as shown in the video.
At 75mph, the officer passes a taxi traveling in the opposite direction. At 77, he passes one of those radar-equipped "Your speed: ______" signs near tranquil Winston Road, but the flashing display is illegible on the video. What is legible are three 25mph speed limit signs along the way.
Up ahead lies the Rugby Road-Preston Avenue T-intersection, which carries 21,000 cars each day, according to a state report. That's 15 cars, on average, for every minute of the day, one car every four seconds. It's one of the busiest intersections in town.
Mercifully, there are no cars in sight as the stoplight, apparently red in the video, looms. And then the pursued car disappears.
Making sense of it
The August 7 wreck perplexed many. But neighbor Lucky Stone, awakened by what he first thought was thunder, believed he figured it out by daybreak. In a same-day interview, he pieced together what might have happened after the silver Ford Five Hundred sedan narrowly missed the existing guardrail, took out a pedestrian signal, and broke a curb-like concrete barrier.
"He smashed into the roof of the garage, and I guess that gave him some lift," said Stone. "And then he smashed into the roof of the house, which I guess gave him a little more lift. He wound up upside down with the air-bag deployed."
Pointing to a black stripe on the pavement spanning the breadth of the roadway, Stone said the perpetrator probably never applied brakes–- that he tried to negotiate a right turn at a speed that the laws of physics simply wouldn't allow.
"That's a yaw mark," explained Stone, pointing to the stripe.
"I thought a plane had crashed into my house," said Russell Skinner, interviewed later that day. "There was debris everywhere, and I could look up and see the moon, so I thought it was either a plane–- or a meteor."
Skinner says he and his wife were sleeping just 10 feet from the impact zone but that neither were injured. He didn't think he could say the same of the driver, whose landing occurred about 100 yards from the road.
Skinner and his wife were promptly ensconced downtown at the Omni hotel by their insurance company because the ripped-open house was declared unfit for living by the City.
Skinner noted that another car plunged through his property just two months earlier and wound up next door in Stone's yard. Stone says police quickly found that fleeing driver but were initially stumped by this one–- who seemed to have disappeared without a trace.
Given the severity of the wreck and the magnitude of the trajectory, Stone says police were particularly surprised not to find any signs of a driver. Although tree limbs 15 to 20 feet above ground were broken, there was no body dangling from a tree. Infrared devices and dogs failed to locate anyone, dead or alive.
Shortly before dawn, officials turned the mangled car right-side up.
"I've seen people walk from horrendous wrecks," says Stone, "but I was half expecting when they flipped the car over that they'd find his body in there."
The car was empty.
Not only that, but Stone says there was no blood. Still, police were on the lookout for someone badly bruised, or worse.
The Hook has learned the 17-year-old arrested in mid-October is (or was, at least until his arrest) a junior at Charlottesville High School who played for the football team, Tsaye Simpson. A City schools spokesperson would confirm only that he was enrolled at CHS through October 14.
A source says a late-October hearing resulted in the decision to try him as an adult in Charlottesville Circuit Court, where the Hook has petitioned for the records to be unsealed. The source says Simpson was released from custody to a parent after his arrest. Attempts to reach the Simpsons were unsuccessful.
No details on the teen will be released, according to Commonwealth's Attorney Dave Chapman. However, Chapman confirms that the case has been transferred to Circuit Court and slated for the December 21 docket call.
Homeowner Skinner says that he has been told that, as the absence of blood at the scene suggested, the driver was completely uninjured despite hurtling through the air at a height estimated as much as 50 feet above the steeply-sloping land.
"Lucky, lucky, kid," says Skinner, theorizing that, after the car shattered his garage and scalped his roof, the next thing broken by the death-defying sedan was a tree that cushioned the car's return to earth.
'Grace of God'
"By the grace of God no one was injured." So says the chief of police in Charlottesville. Other localities, however, have decided to put their faith in stricter pursuit policies.
Despite fears that crime would explode, Orlando and Orange County, Florida, went ahead in 2004 with what may be the nation's most restrictive ones. They limit pursuits to those involving people suspected of violent crimes.
John Phillips remembers all too well what spurred the policy.
In 2001, when he was 18 years old, his older sister was a college sophomore preparing to enter a nursing program. Sarah Phillips went out one night with three friends to a movie. After dropping off her friends, she unknowingly found herself on the same road as a police pursuit.
"I was in high school and worried about high school things," recalls Phillips. "I went to bed one night and woke up, and life was completely different."
Sarah Phillips was driving a Ford Escort when a fleeing suspect rear-ended it at 70 miles per hour. She died a the scene.
"She was just a bystander," says her brother, now 25.
When the details started emerging, the Phillips family coupled its sadness with anger and launched a lawsuit against Orange County. Part of the settlement was a review of the pursuit policy. Today, John Phillips runs PursuitWatch, the organization his late father founded to call for, among other things, better reporting.
There is no national requirement for reporting police pursuits. What little data exists comes from reports voluntarily submitted by myriad state and local law enforcement bodies. For instance, the latest data for chases conducted by the Virginia State Police is dated 2006–- and compiled only after a request from a Richmond Times-Dispatch reporter.
That year, says spokesperson Corinne Geller, the State Police conducted 350 pursuits, and 89 of them resulted in accidents. That's a 25 percent accident rate, but Geller downplays what might appear a chilling statistic.
"It could be anything the car suffered," she says, "such as a scratch."
Sometimes it's far more than a scratch. Data from FARS, the federal Fatality Analysis Reporting System, found that there were 40 chase-related fatalities in Virginia from 2006 to 2008: 25 pursuees, one police officer, and 14 people like Sarah Phillips, who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"Not everyone is as lucky as Russell Skinner and Nura Yingling," says Candy Priano. "A 59-year-old electrician in a brick house on Long Island was killed in his living room."
Priano directs an organization called PursuitSafety, founded two years ago on behalf of innocent bystanders. Trying to refute some of the alleged myths about pursuits, the group remains particularly skeptical about the allegation that crime will rise if police don't pursue.
"Chasing is not a deterrent," says Priano. "It has neither lessened crime nor stopped the fleeing."
There's little or no scholarship on this specific point. However, journalist and former patrol officer Thomas Lewis, in a 2008 article, likened any quest to ban pursuits as the equivalent of banning medication due to the small percentage of drugs that backfire.
"Criminals have intervened in our lives enough without allowing them the right to escape justice," wrote Lewis. "[Without pursuits], the criminal will win because he will be less likely to get caught after robbing our homes, driving while intoxicated, or whatever criminal activities he decides to be involved in."
Priano agrees there are many justified pursuits (such as chasing a murderer), and she supports mandatory jail time for everyone who attempts to elude capture. That's why she notes an irony about what happened in Charlottesville–- that after a nearly fatal pursuit, the suspect has been deemed harmless enough to be released from custody.
She also notes that since the 17-year-old's arrest took place more than two months after the incident, neither the public–- and certainly not the owner of the car that suddenly went from stolen to totaled on Rugby Road–- received much benefit from the chase.
City spokesperson Barrick wasn't able by presstime to put a complete dollar figure on the City's cost for repairing the curb and replacing the guardrail and signal pole. Homeowner Skinner says that the total tab for putting his house back together was nearly $110,000. But property damage is the least of Priano's concern.
"A human life is not replaceable," says Priano. "It just doesn't make any sense to chase for a stolen car."
So what should police do when someone won't stop?
When it's a property crime, the rules are clear around Orlando. The officer must turn off flashing lights, halt the siren, and then turn around. They have helicopters, spike strips, and other methods.
Priano says that some departments have successfully used "auto trap" to rein in those who flee: An officer calls in a description, and unmarked units quietly stalk and surround the driver.
PursuitSafety says that 40 percent of all pursuits result in collisions, and about three innocent bystanders are killed every week. That's triple the government's death toll, but Priano says the government undercounts.
For instance, she says, chased-and-killed DUI suspects are logged as DUI fatalities, and people who die hours or days after the crash are excluded. And, she notes, babies and young children who die in a fleeing car get cruelly categorized as "occupants of fleeing vehicle."
Why chase?
Virginia State Police spokesperson Geller says troopers receive six months of training, part of it in an effort to chase wisely.
"There's a lot of factors they're weighing," says Geller. "Why is the person running and refusing to stop? What is the intent? If we did not seek out the purpose," says Geller, "who knows who we'd be letting get away?"
The troopers "quite often" cease a pursuit, says Geller. "Safety is the ultimate objective."
And Charlottesville Commonwealth Attorney Chapman vows to strike a blow for safety in prosecuting those who take flight.
"The behavior of eluding police is rampant," says Chapman, "and it's extremely dangerous. Anything can happen, and the consequences can be the highest degree of tragedy."
Parts of this story originally appeared in stories published online August 7 and October 30.
55 comments
Yo I just want to say that that cop can drive his u know what off. I can drive I mean I can really drive, fast. But 85 on Rugby? G dam son thats haulin!
quote: "I don't know what ââ?¬Å?cop shoppe" means either, and apparently there are several of us on here that are similarly in the dark ââ?¬â? so I don't think it a stupid question. So, GSOE, enlighten us, por favor? (That is, of course, unless you'd rather berate me as well.)"
I think you're just pulling my leg. :)
But, just in case there's a slim chaance you aren't....
cop shoppe = police department.
Isn't it funny how were all jumping on the cop's and forgeting the idiot kid that caused this?
I mean the kid could have had a firearm or been on drugs and what else. the cop did not know and was doing his job.
Man, give the police a break they are doing their job and all you liberal cvillians want to do is complain about them.
Yet I bet you'd be complaining if that kid had got away and shot up some place.
The same people complaining about this chase would be saying, "That rookie should have followed him, he could have prevented this and that!"
Give the po po a break I am sure that police man did not think he was gonna kill somebody that night, he was doing his JOB!
I wonder how you folks would feel if a cop didn't chase somebody who ran and it turned out later that it was a missing girl who was kidnapped from a concert hall in the trunk.
I think what bothers me most is the lack of acknowledgement of wrongdoing of any sort by this department. Whenever they are involved in a controversy, you know the answer will be the same--we investigated and the police acted completely appropriately--now leave us alone. Wait until one of these guys improperly uses a taser to kill someone(at least for now---until tasers are banned as the lethal weapons they are)--no matter what the circumstance--Charlottesville cops are in the clear.
Liability or not--this is not how well run police departments handle their communications. There are ways to mitigate liability and still be forthcoming. In some cases, the police SHOULD be exposed to liability for their actions--if those actions do not follow their own policy or recklessly endanger citizens--but that is for the courts to decide. This is not a close call--85 mph chases in a student/residential area without a sense that you have a violent criminal/fugitive is not worth the risk.
Failure to acknowledge ANY hint of wrongdoing or clarification of policy means a loss of credibility in the Chief's statements. After a few of these, you start to lose faith in the leadership of the department and their ability to use sound judgement.
I REALLY want to be able to believe them and support the department---but instances like this make it tough to respect the leadership of our local police department. Maybe it is time for City Council to do a thorough review to see if we are being well served--the citizens here deserve that.
the problem is that public perception becomes the reality.
So if the Police want to have the full suppot of the public then they need to start by being open and honest. In the last couple of years everytime there has been a problem the first thing out of chief longs mouth is "my child would never do that"
The problem is his "children" do screw up.. not by making mistakes.. we can accept that none of us our perfect.. but by trying to cover it up or deny it...
Perhaps it is time for the Hook to do an in depth interview and ask him directly why he seems to jump to denial only to be proven wrong again and again instead of gathering the facts and explaining his postion.
This should be a job for the city council but they are too busy apologising and watering the green roofs.
daren, nobody in city government cares.
I had a former sheriff stand on the front porch of the Circuit Court and ask me to lie to the city manager. (After what I consider to be an invasion of privacy and borderline illegal search, the audio tape of this discussion was, and still is,locked away in a safe deposit box in a fictitious name)
City Council didn't care. The city manager didn't care. Do you think they wanted this discussion and manipulation of the city manager exposed to the public?
You're barking up the wrong tree if you think any branch of city government is going to expose lies and decpetion in the cop shoppe to the public.
I see we have another fine example of a "Public School System" product.
When have the Charlottesville Police EVER admitted one of their officers did something wrong? This was a ridiculous breach of public safety that should be addressed and used as a moment to evaluate and train staff. Instead, the Police Chief is making nonsense statements about how this pursuit of a stolen car was worth risking lives. Senseless. The City Council needs to intervene here. After one of their officers, with tunes cranking, hit a pedestrian and blamed the pedestrian---you would think there would be some change in the level of arrogance--evidently not. Again the police department spreads a false story until they are embarrassed by the facts into having to come up with a ridiculous assertion that the conduct was acceptable. Time for new leadership here--clearly the current leadership is not up to the job.
And thanks to the Hook for allowing comments on this thread--one of the recent stories on this issue was closed to comments.
I would argue in this case that the police and department SHOULD be exposed to some civil liability(for a court to determine, ultimately--if anyone sues) and their statements can be respectful of potential liability while avoiding outright lying or using misleading language, which suggests malfeasance that could further a liability case. One should not protect conduct that is detrimental to public safety--civil liability or not.
One critically important aspect of the Chief of Police's job is to maintain trust with the community and credibility in his statements. If he is perceived as blindly sanctioning any activity taken by his officers--he risks losing credibility in the community(some would say this has already happened)--a far bigger problem than civil liability in a case without death or bodily injury.
Charlottesville was very lucky in the above pursuit.
Others aren't so lucky:
AUGUST 9, 2009 ââ?¬â?? Eight people died, including five siblings, when a compact car ran a stop sign while being pursued by police and crashed into a pickup truck in Dinuba, authorities said. Five children in the pickup were killed when they were thrown from the vehicle upon impact, according to the California Highway Patrol. Three adults in the Dodge Neon that was being chased by Dinuba police also died, authorities said. The collision occurred shortly before 2 p.m. at the intersection of Avenue 424 and Road 120. Dinuba police had attempted to pull the car over for a simple traffic violation, but instead the driver sped off and collided with the GMC Sierra after running a stop sign, the CHP said. Both vehicles came to rest in an orchard. A fifth child and an adult in the pickup were airlifted to Community Regional Medical Center in Fresno with moderate to major injuries, officials said. Another adult in the truck was transported to the same hospital with moderate injuries.
Now, a reader's comment, read it carefully and compare the remarks to the Charlottesville cop shoppe pursuit:
"Four innocent children are dead when police pursued a vehicle for a SIMPLE TRAFFIC VIOLATION. Okay, I read in one report that the vehicle was stolen. SO WHAT? Apparently, the police did not know that when they started the pursuit. And even if they did, this pursuit should never have happened. Was recovering that vehicle worth the lives of four innocent children? And what have they recovered, a pile of junk now?"
Do you have to hijack every single thread that has anything to do with the police? I come on this website to read the news and the comments and you just can't help yourself. I have to wade through all of your bs posts just to get a regular joe-blow citizens opinion about an event.
I have read this story a couple of times and nowhere do I see it mentioned that the officer in question is as you say a "rookie". What is a rookie, in your opinion?
Even though you can no longer wear the badge (the real issue here with your disdain for the police, as others have noted) would you consider yourself a "veteran officer"?
What is your occupation, by the way? Obviously, it is not in public service. Cops and firefighters risk their lives for you and I. Just because you can't be one doesn't mean you should paint them all with the same broad brush.
I would be curious to see Officer Flaherty's video as he went to help. Wonder if there is anything like fiasco downtown!
I am clueless how our Mayor and City Council would stand for this. Isn't this the City so concerned with pedestrian and bicycle safety ?
People use this major city thoroughfare at all times of the day and night, and all days and months of the year. Once this story first came out I would have expected our Mayor to hold a press conference announcing the chase policy would be changed. Who is protecting our citizens ?
Mr/Mrs/Miss ??, if you can't figure out what "Cop Shoppe" references, I have to wonder who helps you get dressed in the morning.
You would have been better off to simply say my posts are pathetic than to add a stupid question into the equation.
Jimi, he wasn't driving like a crazy person until the blue lights went on and the pursuit commenced. And to be quite honest, he was doing nothing more than speeding - and nothing more than the cop himswelf was doing. Ya see, double standards at play once again, cops can speed with immunity, civilians can't. The cop was 11 mph over the posted speed limit, the civilian was 17 mph over the posted speed limit. (City and county cops routinely speed up and down the streets, even when they are not on a call)
The most disturbing fact in this latest story is this --->>> "..final exams for UVA's summer school had wrapped just a few hours earlier and bars closed 26 minutes before the chase..."
The real problem here is that nobody does any research as to how many criminals that run from the police have a HISTORY of being worthless human beings that run from the police because they are serial criminals. If they were dealt with properly the 5th time they commited a crime then they wouldn't have been on the streets to steal a car. The police get these people off the streets only to be released into the "custody of their parents" instead of rotting in a jail cell with nothing but books about how every human being has responsibilities to society to not lie cheat steal etc. Build more jail cells and create work farms. Let this kid spend a year of his life being woken up a 5 am to clean the bathrooms before he goes out and works the fields to grow his own food.
Stop coddling criminals and you will see more people become responsible members of society instead of thugs and lifetime lawbreakers.
If he had come through my house the cop would have had to arrest me for beating some sense into him.
The saddest part is that Obama wants to raise the taxes on the people whos house got demolished to provide this cretin free health care since he obviously will never have a job.
oooooohhhhh... Thank you.
And no, I wasn't just pulling your leg. I was (naively, I suppose) thinking there was some deeper meaning. I spent 20 years around cops & robbers as an employee in the corrections/court system, and it was a new one on me.
I, personally, would have just said 'department' or 'duty' or 'official', but that wouldn't have drawn any attention, eh? (just sayin')
quote: "There is no reason to circle the wagons."
Sure there is! Two words.... civil liability!
A police chief or sheriff would certainly be included in a lawsuit if they publicly admit that one of their employees violated department policy. Failure to properly train, failure to supervise, etc...
Failing to admit a cop did something wrong isn't really dishonest or untrustworthy. It's individual survival. Or CYOA. That's all.
The original press release (or whatever) claiming that the cop shoppe had backed off the pursuit because it had become too dangerous makes somebody look dishonest and untrustworthy. I'm trying to recall who made this statement and when it was made. In all fairness to Longo, I don't think it was him that made the statement.
maybe they should pass a law that says that it is a 10 year mandatory sentence for willifully running from a cop at twice the speed limit. That should at least make a few losers change their mind.
Of course if the guy who owned the house had just come out and shot him we could just debate something else.
Mr/Mrs/Miss Accurate, now that I think about it, you're probably correct. Carper was one of the cops involved in the cop shoppe shooting in Friendship Court back in 2004.
quote: "If citizens get the perception that cops can do whatever they want and they will be supportedââ?¬â??it isn't long before the relationship with the community begins to sour and trust in every officer goes down."
What do you think is happening right now nationwide? The perception is already out there, nationwide! And IMHO it's not just a perception, most cops are backed by their chiefs and sheriffs and commonwealth attorneys no matter what they do!
The only cops that aren't backed is the ones where there clearly exists a video in which the wrongful actions could never be successfully defended.
I have sat in both General District Courts and Circuit Courts and watched a small handful of cops repeatedly lie under oath. All the way from a front line rookie to a chief of police. They felt the judge would believe them because they had badges and guns. (But so did I, BY GOD!) In one particular case, the rookie had no video to support his alleged "truth" even though he had video cameras mounted in the front and rear windshields of his cop shoppe car. Furthermore, before trial, and after a subpoena was issued for the 911 tapes, they were destroyed as well. The destruction was called "accidental" by the 911 director. Yeah, sure, uh huh! Accidental my butt! The 911 tapes were have proved a few cops to be lairs and would have opened the door to extreme civil liability for all involved.
As with the local football team with the GREAT record it seems Cville needs a new leader for it's police force also. The best idea to come out of Longo was red light cameras, and that was just a SUPER idea on his part.
I am a math geek
Using dashboard clock
Time from turning on Rugby Rd to Preston-- 45 seconds
Distance ( google earth)-- .87 miles
AVERAGE SPeed--- 70 mph!!!
While the merits of police chases can be debated, an exculpatory press-release made up out of thin air cannot. Who was it who told the media that this chase had been broken off before things turned from bad to worse? On what day were they fired? We as citizens shouldn't have to FOIA dash-cam video to find out if department spokespeople, who ultimately work for us, are lying to our faces. This should not be brushed under the carpet.
Funny how everyone is all up in arms about Longo and the officer, but only one person has mentioned the dirtbag in a stolen car, failing to obey basic rules of the road, then driving like a crazy person willing to kill innocent people so he can destroy someone else car and someone elses home then runs away.
And if these worthless scumbags know that all they have to do it drive crazy and the police will let them go then what do you think they will do EVERY SINGLE TIME. Right, they will ALL drive crazy every time and more people will get hurt in the long run.
Now that he is caught he should be put to work, earning the money to repay the $100,000 plus damage he has done and not be allowed to spend a cent on anything more than a pair of workboots, a shirt and some jeans.
quote: The troopers ââ?¬Å?quite often" cease a pursuit, says Virginia State Police spokesperson Geller. ââ?¬Å?Safety is the ultimate objective."
Yeah, uh huh. Yet another well trained spokesperson spewing out the same "song and dance" we heard in this Charlottesville pursuit. Until a video surfaces and contradicts the original press release of course. This Charlottesville pursuit didn't end because the cop shoppe thought it had become unsafe, as originally reported. It ended only once the cop shoppe thought they had lost the fleeing suspect.
Before you guys and girls start nailing Longo to the cross, you need to understand liability a little better. OK, let's assume Longo steps forward and says his young inexperienced rookie violated policy and has been suspended for a month without pay. He has just opened the door for every insurance company involved in damages resulting from this pursuit to sue the City of Charlottesville, the Cop Shoppe, and Timothy Longo.
More likely than not, the City Attorney's office coached Longo on exactly what to say and when to say it. And they probably coached him not to say anything if the question(s) isn't asked, as in don't volunteer any information.
Police chiefs and sheriffs shield themselves and their employers from lawsuits every day of the year simply by the actions they take and the remarks made in press releases. It's been going on for years and will never change. To the average citizen, it's better known as CYOA!
WTF is a "cop shoppe" that you keep referring to in your pathetic posts??
quote: "do you think if we stop playing with him, he'll go home? *glaring at you know who*"
So your intent here is "playing"?
Thanks for clearing that up.
Another thing I would like to correct here while we're at it, the author of this story has an obvious typo above when he says 100 innocent civilians are being killed in cop shoppe pursuits each year. The NHTSA actually reports that anywhere from 300 to 400 people are killed in cop shoppe pursuits every year.
because the cop in the pursuit gave me a ticket about 5 years ago.
I agree that it is happening now-this type of incident just brings it out into the light. Once credibility is lost, it is very hard to get back. Once people believe the police are not accountable for their actions, they lose their respect. This community deserves better.
On their worst day I would still rather have a cop answer my 911 call than the criminals they pursue at high speeds.
I will say one thing in the hopes that chief longo reads this... it would be a lot better for you if you said "I am gathering all of the facts TODAY and will issue a statement TOMORROW."
Then just say the truth. There is no reason to circle the wagons. People like me who appreciate the Police will always defend your officers when they are in the right and will show reasonable forgiveness when they are wrong. Your lack of faith in the public makes you look dishonest and untrustworty. I know different as this is a small town. Thank you.
They all just love that "rush" of the hot pursuit.
I'm going to make a suggestion here -- do you think if we stop playing with him, he'll go home? *glaring at you know who*
gassie's post actually makes an excellent point, but I'm curious too
What deeper meaning could "cop shoppe" possibly invoke? If you want a donut, you go to a donut shoppe. If you want your hair done, you go to a hair shoppe. If you want a cop, you would go to a cop shoppe, or dial 911 to have a cop shoppe representative respond.
Plus.... cop shoppe is a lot easier to type too. :)
Mr/Mrs/Miss NewerCviller, this thread is not about me. Do you have anything to add to this story? What's your thoughts on cop shoppe pursuits? What's your opinion on this particular cop shoppe pursuit? Have you ever had a family member, relative or close friend seriously injured or killed in a senseless cop shoppe pursuit? Do you understand why a police chief or sheriff can't do a dayum thing about rookies that engage in senseless high speed pursuits or other wrongful actions in the performance of their cop shoppe duties? What do you think of a rookie losing control of his cop shoppe car and killing a veteran off duty cop shoppe lieutenant? You should be able to offer some type of constructive discussion here. As it has been said in 3,435,234 internet discussions in the past, don't debate the "participants", debate the issues being discussed.
I thought if you wanted a cop you went to a donut shoppe?
Well of course 4 lives are not worth a wreaked car. Its a frivolous and incendiary statement that has little to do with rational discussion. Not 1 life if worth a car. But I still wonder what impact it will have on routine traffic stops if the bad guys know that if they hit the gas, drive like crazy for 2-3 miles while MAKING sure that they are endangering lives. Dirtbags like the guy in the speeding car will just do the same.
Do we really want to encourage someone to drive dangerously?
What is scary is that some here seems to be blaming the officer for the bad guys actions. Ummm....the bad guy is the one who did not stop when the siren and lights went on.
quote: "Do you have to hijack every single thread that has anything to do with the police?"
quote: "Even though you can no longer wear the badge..."
I'm confused. Other than my current age, and not wanting to any longer, why am I not able to?
quote: "I have read this story a couple of times and nowhere do I see it mentioned that the officer in question is as you say a ââ?¬Å?rookie". What is a rookie, in your opinion?"
The kid had two years on the job. Anybody with less than 10 years in a sworn cop shoppe job is a rookie in my opinion.
quote: "Cops and firefighters risk their lives for you and I."
I have nothing but respect for our firemen and rescue squad employees. They are top notch. And I have respect for good decent honest cops. It's been my experience over the last 10 to 15 years that good decert honest cops are getting harder to come by. I think the problem started when cop shoppes nationwide had to lower their hiring standards to attract applicants. And I think the kids being hired nowadays grew up watching the COPS TV show and picked up all the bad habits they show each week. Any law professor can watch COPS and point out dozens of things they do illegally in almost any episode. Search and seizure is right at the top of the list. You don't have any Constitutional rights with this new breed of rookie out here on the streets, IMHO.
quote: "Just because you can't be one doesn't mean you should paint them all with the same broad brush."
There you go with that "can't be" foolishness again. I turned down full time cop shoppe job offers several times, as recently as 2001 I might add. I had already served almost 30 years and simply wasn't interested in moving so as to accept the positions. I consider myself semi-retired now and am happier than I have ever been.
quote: "...would you consider yourself a veteran officer?"
Yes. And having been involved in a 145+ mph high speed pursuit in 1973 (I was not driving the cop shoppe car), I am well qualified to speak of the dangers involved. And of all people, guess who we were chasing on I-64? An auto insurance agent! Needless to say, I am confident his auto policy was cancelled the folowing morning.
I myself, as a cop shoppe driver, was involved in 2 pursuits. One was a slow speed commercial driver who debated whether he wanted to stop or not. The second was a kid who tried to outrun me on his grandfather's farm. He failed.
I don't know what "cop shoppe" means either, and apparently there are several of us on here that are similarly in the dark -- so I don't think it a stupid question. So, GSOE, enlighten us, por favor? (That is, of course, unless you'd rather berate me as well.)
gasbag...its sad that you comment on stories that you are mentioned in...need a life??
poonhound, good point! I stand corrected! :)
"PursuitSafety says that 40 percent of all pursuits result in collisions, and about three innocent bystanders are killed every week."
So that's 150 innocent people killed every year. That is relatively small compared to 14,000 murders, 89,000 rapes, 440,000 robberies, and 950,000 motor vehicular theft each year. Not pursuing suspects will result in criminals escaping and thus, higher crime rates, including more nurders. The dilemma is, innocent people accidentally killed by the police versus innocent people killed by criminals because the police let them get away? The number of innocent people killed by the police is nowhere near the number of people saved by police apprehension of criminals. Thus, based on numbers, police should continue pursuing criminals.
WORST EVER! Wouldn't expect him to show any common sense and at least reprimand the officer for engaging in a dangerous high speed pursuit over a FAILURE TO YIELD violation!!!! Excuses, excuses, excuses. He's a complete joke.
I wonder how you folks would feel if a cop didn't chase somebody who ran and it turned out later that it was a missing girl who was kidnapped from a concert hall in the trunk.
Or if the cop killed the missing girl as she tried to cross Rugby.
Hey, this game is fun!
This "what if" game is actually right much fun.
What if a city cop had just gotten off work and was on the way home in his personal car. And the on duty cop chased this suspect into the off duty cop broadside and killed him? Instead of jumping the curb and sailing through the air, 85 miles per hour right into the driver's door.
shempdaddy, you have to realize it's not totally about deflecting civil liability. The other "cop shoppe employees" are a VERY large factor here too. If the chief does not back this pursuit cop and penalizes pursuit cop for a policy violation, the rest of the cop shoppe gets an instant case of the butt for the chief. This is why former Chief Wolford went away from here, the cop shoppe employees organized a "no confidence" vote against him. They can do the same against Longo. So he has to keep them happy.
I'll never claim to know everything that went on during the "hang Wolford" circus, but I do know his position needed to be vacated because somebody else wanted it so badly.
GSOE--maybe some officers don't deserve the support of the chief, and supporting bad behavior sends an even more destructive message that accountability is not important in the department--do what you want--we will back you up. It sounds like a good way to build morale. In reality, it is the slow road to risking the credibility of the entire department, including officers on the street. If citizens get the perception that cops can do whatever they want and they will be supported--it isn't long before the relationship with the community begins to sour and trust in every officer goes down.
I understand why a Police Chief would support his officers, no matter what they do, to boost morale. I argue that in the long run it does more harm than good by eroding credibility, discouraging accountability, and discouraging the vast majority of officers who use good judgement and realize that their jobs are made alot easier when the citizens respect the police.
If this was an event that would have occurred back 25 years ago, then most persons offering comments would have asked for the perpetrators butt be hauled away for a couple of years to some camp deep in the Virginia woods to teach the moron some understanding of respect for other persons property, respect for endangering lives and to grow up and be a citizen contributing positively to society. Charlottesvillians...you get back what you teach and ask for. Every policeman should quit and go to some self respecting community where law officers are respected and not considered criminals by the populace that speaks out. Oh, and if I was that 17 year old creep...well I'd stay home forever. But you know if he gets away with this one because the goodie goodies in town feel he was forced to run by the police... well he will be back to his no good doings once again. Best to throw him in jail and let him stay there for awhile, let him out and look out again for the creep.
quote: "...and if I was that 17 year old creep"Šwell I'd stay home forever."
Yes, he should stay at home. Because more likely than not, the cop shoppe will be stopping him and harassing him EVERY time they see him in public from now on. That's the way this new breed of rookies operate. Once they get a case of the butt for you, it never goes away.
you know you people just started seeing how some charlottesville pd is. I been dealing with them all my life. no matter if am doing bad or good but in there am always doing bad. so i fell is this you going to bark bout this for awhile and its never going to change. you all you get one like this and go crazy on my side of town we get this everyday. am not making this no white or black thing. but if this would of happen were i live u wouldn't here bout it. so how u like them apples there not to good is they. also for one's who called this kid a creep and wrothless human being think if that was ur child or brother or any one in ur famly. you would respect that would u. i think the one's who said that u the reason y things so hard for crimials now out here. i not surpporting all of them cause are bad but some are not. i been jail myself am out doing for my i got house car money good job and i know more people doing the same. but ones who don't get a break like that of coruse they go back to the same thing cause u downing them not giving them a chance to better there self they going rob and steal sell . so u all think about this i hope u can understand what am saying am not being a butt am speaking my mind thnak you
gasbag u suck grow up u know what he's talking about
Liberal crap is spewed from the kindergardens up to the doctoral levels at the UVA in Charlottesville. We need some bold conservatives to kick some butt around here by gutting up and voting to remove liberal union driven teachers from the schools and get some teachers who teach the golden rule and the great Constitution of these United States. The darn Yankees from up nawth have ruined everything in the city and the county. Time to get bold, support the police and throw out the bums including the new US Rep who sucks up to Pelosi and Obama. Oust them all. Keep Thomas and Snow and the other guy...whoever he is...


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The Next 5 Week Challenge Starts Sunday, October 25th and ends Saturday, November 28th.
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Here we present a profile of the crème de la crème of the Top Wealth Managers—those 10 firms that topped the list in in our 2012 survey.
View the list of all 280 firms in our 2012 Top Wealth Managers survey.
Managing Partner Maria Chrin says that, when the partners of Circle Wealth Management all worked together at Goldman Sachs prior to founding the firm, they were in search of a model that would allow them to manage money well in an independent mode. "After years of doing due diligence," she says, "we decided it didn't exist and we created it ourselves."
Partner Ann Kaplan adds that they did a "tremendous amount of research" on wealth management solutions. While they looked for a "holistic integrated model that took into account people's social and emotional issues regarding money, taxes, and the human elements that go into the equation of how to best manage a portfolio for people," they also wanted to combine that with the best way "to be informed about the market and money managers."
It's All About the Client
With regard to the model, several aspects have to do with understanding the client and addressing not just the client's investment desires, but also the framework of investing.
"Instead of conservative, moderate or aggressive," says Chrin, the model moves toward preservation of capital as one allocation, growing with some liquidity as a second and growing with less liquidity for long periods of time as another. She adds that this changed model is "driven by who the client is, where they are in life, and what goals they have for themselves and future generations."
Clients are educated so that they take an active role in the process. Of course, the clients of Circle Wealth are already pretty well educated—and sophisticated; Kaplan points out that "about half were in the financial industry themselves, and the other half have interesting companies and interact with the business environment and society in general." She adds, "Clients often bring interesting ideas themselves."
In addition, the firm works with multiple custodians, private banks and products, always looking for the best deal for the client, who is its only source of income. And when looking at such investments as hedge funds and private equity, the firm's strategy is to look at them across the asset class, to find the best vehicle providing access to an asset class, rather than as an alternative investment.
2008 'Got us on the map'
While for many financial firms 2008 was a year of difficulty and high stress, the situation was different for Circle Wealth, which launched at the end of 2006. Chrin explains, "One of our other partners had been very thoughtful about understanding the industry and banks in particular. She had really good insight on what was going on" when Bear Stearns fell, the mortgage mess began, and hedge funds were blowing up.
So in the summer of 2007, the firm's first full year, it went out on a limb (at least in the perception of some of its clients) and said that, in order to preserve capital, clients should put 50% of their assets into cash and leave the other 50% invested. "Many said, 'You're crazy, don't do it,'" remembers Chrin, but "others said yes. We were always focused on preserving first and growing second." In 2008 the markets plunged, and that, says Chrin, "is really what got us on the map; for us it was a high point." She explains that "people who were our clients, just a small number, felt really comfortable referring us to others they knew."
Enhancing, Not Changing
So, while many firms may have changed their approach or their methods, Circle Wealth has not. Says Chrin, "We build, preserve and grow the wealth of our clients. We've actually not changed course, but enhanced what we did from day one." She adds, "Ann [Kaplan] developed a macro framework that allows us to be in touch with what's going on in the world to make sure we're not reactive but proactive."
Kaplan says the macro environment in 2008 demonstrated "how important the macro environment is. Fundamental values are being trumped by political decisions made by policymakers." As a result, she continues, "We developed an asset allocation method based on macro views—to what extent do we think there might be a severe dislocation in a market, to where might we see good things."
Personal Touch
Circle Wealth has experienced organic growth since its inception, with every new client coming in as a referral from an existing client. The search for new staff works the same way, says Chrin; "Everyone thus far that has come in here has been either an acquaintance of someone in the firm or was referred highly by someone we knew. Confidentiality is such an important part of what we do," she adds, "we can't afford to bring in just anyone."
And people drive the firm's biggest concerns as well. While at other firms principals might stay up at night worrying about markets and investing, Chrin says, "What keeps us up at night is people—clients and the internal team. Markets? We know how to deal with markets. They're unpredictable, volatile and through many years we've been dealing with them."
She adds, "There's always something that feels new, but we know how to deal with them and create portfolios to deal with market uncertainty. It's part of the process we have in place. But people are our main concern. What else should we be thinking about? … People have the element that cannot be controlled."
For more on the 2012 Top Wealth Managers, please visit our home page.
For information on reprints of this profile and other 2012 Top Wealth Managers content, we invite you to visit our reprints partner, PARS International.


text:
Sid Meier's deeply addictive Civilization series is coming back to the Mac platform later this year, thanks to publisher Aspyr. The company confirmed its plans to bring Civilization V to Apple computers "this holiday season."
Aspyr did not narrow down the release date for the turn-based strategy game any further, only mentioning that the Mac version of Civ V would be a "native experience." Here's to hoping that the developers include these planned bug fixes and get that expansion content in working order soon for us on the Mac side.
Read our review of the Windows version of Civilization V, should your interest be piqued by this announcement.
Thanks, Dane!


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Yankees come up short in loss to Royals
KANSAS CITY, Mo. >> Derek Jeter was asked rather innocently whether he knew the Yankees had just gone 1 for 17 with runners in scoring position in a 2-1 loss to the Royals on Sunday.
"Nope," he replied. "I do now."
Pause for a beat.
"Thanks," Jeter added with a chuckle.
James Shields put most of those runners on base. He also left most of them there, the only run he allowed over six innings unearned. And when his bullpen took over, they allowed two more Yankees to get into scoring position, only to leave them stranded there.
That included Ichiro Suzuki on second with the tying run in the ninth inning.
"It was a game of missed opportunities," Jeter said. "We had a lot of opportunities. Give those guys credit. We've seen Shields for years now and he's as good as they come, especially with guys on base. He bears down."
The Royals have won the last seven games that Shields (7-3) has started, and he's earned the win in four of those. The veteran right-hander may have lasted only six innings in this effort, but he out-dueled Hiroki Kuroda (4-4) while allowing only six hits to the punchless Yankees.
"They're always tough," said Shields, who faced them for the 30th time, more than any other club. "They make good at-bats. It's always a grind whenever you face them."
Lorenzo Cain and Mike Moustakas drove in the runs for Kansas City. Aaron Crow escaped a jam in the seventh inning, and Wade Davis recorded the 500th strikeout of his career in a perfect eighth before Greg Holland survived a shaky ninth for his 18th save.
The All-Star closer gave up a leadoff single to Suzuki and then sent him to second on a wild pitch. Holland kept his cool, retiring Brian Roberts on a fly out, pinch hitter Mark Teixeira on a groundout and then striking out Brett Gardner to end the game.
"Shields battled his butt off," Crow said. "You want to make sure he gets the win."
The Yankees failed to score more than four runs for the 10th consecutive game, though the not-so-aptly-named "Bronx Bombers" certainly had their share of chances.
Not just in the ninth inning, either.
New York stranded runners on first and second in the first inning. It loaded the bases with nobody out in the second and failed to score. Jacoby Ellsbury led off the third with a double and was left on third base. And Roberts was stranded after a fourth-inning double.
In all, 10 of the first 12 outs Shields recorded were with runners in scoring position.
While the Yankees were struggling to find a clutch hit, the Royals managed to string together the only real success they had against Kuroda with two outs in the second inning.
Hot-hitting Salvador Perez, who cracked a three-run homer in an 8-4 win Saturday night, got things going with a single. Cain's base hit drove in the first run and Moustakas, in the throes of another major slump, added another single to make the score 2-0.
That was all the Royals could muster against Kuroda, who had been unbeaten in his last six starts. He allowed five hits and two walks while striking out three in seven innings.
"The biggest thing is the team lost. That's what is disappointing," Kuroda said through a translator, "but I was able to go seven innings and keep the team in the game."
New York finally scored in the sixth, when Yangervis Solarte hit a double and reached third base on a passed ball. Suzuki drove him in with a groundout to shortstop.
But given a chance to tie the game, the Yankees kept coming up empty.
Their failure in the ninth inning came after Gardner sent a triple to the wall with one out in the seventh. Crow rebounded to get Derek Jeter on a ground out, and then struck out Ellsbury with a full-count pitch to leave the tying run 90 feet away.
"The big thing is you can't try to do too much," Girardi said. "That's the big thing for me."
NOTES: Davis has not allowed a hit in 15 appearances. ... The double by Roberts was actually a ground-rule double. A ball boy picked up his fair ball down the right-field line and gave it to a fan. ... Royals 2B Omar Infante ended a 0-for-19 slump with a single in the third. ... LHP Vidal Nuno starts the series finale Monday for New York. LHP Jason Vargas starts for Kansas City.


text:
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SOPA Protests - large parts of the Internet to be shutdown
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[8 Posts]
Joined: 04 Apr 2007
Posts: 6815
Location: Chatham, Kent, UK
Posted: Sun 15 Jan 2012, 22:37
Post subject:
SOPA Protests - large parts of the Internet to be shutdown
Subject description: [Hopefully] Wednesday 18th January is shutdown day
What will you be doing Wednesday 18th January 2012?
Personally, I'm going to be joining millions of others shutting off my computer
A mass switch off/shutdown has been organised by Reddit-ers, and I've just seen support from Raspberry Pi and many games sites are also 'going dark', with wikipedia still rumoured to shutdown
So, will murga puppy linux forum be going dark?
Perhaps many want it, secretly, thinking they'll get more royalties...?
A recent British victim of the intent of the act
The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency has faced criticism for perceived overreach in targeting websites, like TVShack, with no direct US link.
In July the agency's assistant deputy director told the Guardian that ICE would now actively pursue websites similar to TVShack even if their only connection to the US was a website address ending in .com or .net.
Such suffixes are routed through Verisign, an internet infrastructure company based in Virginia, which the agency believes is sufficient to seek a US prosecution
Expect more from other countries....boundary?, what boundary?, they say....
Is there sufficient awareness as to the effect of this passed legislation?
To be honest, I'm quite astounded that far more people and powerful groups aren't publicising this....??
Yes, that's executive power for arrest of American Citizens without trial!
[Please don't tell me I'm being anti-American....! - I'm ALERTING YOU!]
So, no danger then....?
Anyhow, .....see you Thursday...
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Joined: 18 Feb 2008
Posts: 174
Posted: Mon 16 Jan 2012, 03:33
Post subject:
Not to worry, Aitch. American Government is becoming Anti-American in both parties.
Want some real foolishness? The Corporates are going to make a spectacle out of planting a wreath at the Martin Luther King Jr. monument on Monday, which is officially MLK day because we have a Monday Holiday law. His birthday is the 19th. It's also in the southern U.S. "Confederate Heroes Day" where many people will be making memorial speeches to people like Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate war criminal who murdered U.S. POWs because they were black and thus "escaped property". This very pleasant gentleman also was one of the founding fathers of the Ku Klux Klan.
So on the REAL MLK day they'll be celebrating the private ownership of human beings, something Dr King opposed.
What makes this relevant to your post is that one of the sponsors of the bill happens to be a member of the Heritage Foundation... the ones who are making celebrations of last year being the 150th anniversary of the START of the War to Free the Slaves and of course honoring Bedford-Forrest on MLK's birthday.
The Internet was developed with public funding all the way through and now it's to be given over to private owners... and owners who very apparently have a taste for owning human beings.
It just gets uglier and uglier each time you look under the next layer.
He who skydive without parachute, jumps to own conclusion.
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Joined: 04 Apr 2007
Posts: 6815
Location: Chatham, Kent, UK
Posted: Mon 16 Jan 2012, 10:51
Post subject:
The Prophet
Thanks for the additional historical perspective
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Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 459
Posted: Mon 16 Jan 2012, 12:30
Post subject:
Since SOPA can "have" you for even linking to another website that
falls foul of the "puritans" views, I wanna see what sites like Farcebook
are going to do about this.
They are littered with millions of links to all sorts of sites.
I too will not be generating any TCP/IP packets on the 18th.
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Joined: 04 Apr 2007
Posts: 6815
Location: Chatham, Kent, UK
Posted: Mon 16 Jan 2012, 14:25
Post subject:
Well, it now seems The President, Obama, has opposed it...
although since they used an either SOPA or eParasite [PIPA/ProtectIP etc] ii.e. 2 simultaneous alternate pieces of legislation, .... that remains a target!
thanks for small mercies...Mr President!
Say NO to PIPA, also!
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Joined: 04 Apr 2007
Posts: 6815
Location: Chatham, Kent, UK
Posted: Tue 17 Jan 2012, 12:22
Post subject:
more news
wikimedia has a page showing overwhelming support from wikipedia users, so they are apparently still taking action against PIPA
...but twitter bosses says they are silly
Thank You, Jimmy Wales!
and Murdoch slams google as a piracy leader
Interesting piece in the Register touches on/hints at my worst fears...that it's not going away any time soon, and further hints that you'll soon go to google for royalties
Google may slip into the role of the world's de facto royalty collecting society - and creators will have nowhere else to go but Google. Meet the New Boss: he might not look like the Old Boss, but at least you got paid sometimes
The internet has a problem
In the Panglossian worldview of Silicon Valley, everything is perfect on the internet, it's the best of all possible worlds, and any tinkering with this robs humanity of its last Utopian hope. This is a view of the world that actually owes much to religion, or the desire to recreate the certainty of religion. It's faith-based, and isn't a view grounded in reality, especially the reality of doing business. On the internet, fame may arrive quickly, but financial reward doesn't follow. It's the only area of business where this is true.
Whilst the Obama administration may have shelved it, they could make it a pseudo election issue [it's small fry in relation to the key issues which get Presidents voted in/out!]
Remember also, that no President can bind an incoming replacement to a policy he makes, once he's gone....and there is some question as to his re-election, I believe??
free website template
google 'advice' - the right way...
humour perspective
summary from a KLUG member, Peter:
1. The US SOPA/PIPA is doing more to raise the awareness of why Copyright is an issue, and why it does not work. Its doing far more to raise the awareness of the things the FSF have been working for years or could ever hope to manage.
2. As it stands most of those who are against SOPA/PIPA are not actually against what its means to stand for but because its so badly written that it actually can't achieve what it sets out to achieve and does a lot of collateral damage in the mean time. (Like so much modern law of the last 30 years)
3, Anyone who moans that it only effects the US needs to think again. The EU would love to bring in similar regulations and if the US pass this, the EU will only follow. You can't say it does not effect us just because we're not in the US.
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Joined: 04 Apr 2007
Posts: 6815
Location: Chatham, Kent, UK
Posted: Fri 20 Jan 2012, 17:15
Post subject:
January 18 is a date that will live in ignorance.
The blackout movement to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act that began with reddit and Wikipedia… spread to more than 10,000 other websites, many of which are important examples of Web entities that could be shut down without due process by SOPA-like legislation.
Just a few of the early effects....
SOPA and PIPA postponed indefinitely after protests
Looks like 'a 99%' effect to me
....until the Presidential Election, maybe....?
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Joined: 04 Apr 2007
Posts: 6815
Location: Chatham, Kent, UK
Posted: Thu 26 Jan 2012, 14:46
Post subject:
A ray of hope...away from the doom of control-freaks
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text:
University Library Newsletter Issue 14 April 2012
- The intellectual heart of the campus beats strongly…
- The Bridge to McHenry
- A Saga of Persistence: The New McHenry Library
- Back to Basics: Teaching Students What to Look for, and How
- Our 21st Century Learning Environment
- Dead Central, a Gift of the Brittingham Family Foundation, Set to Open
- An Eye to the Future
- A Fond Farewell
The intellectual heart of the campus beats strongly…
The new McHenry Library is hugely popular with students, faculty, and staff
By Ginny Steel, University Librarian
Founding Chancellor Dean McHenry referred to the library as the "intellectual heart" of the campus—a place for learning as well as a place for interaction among the growing numbers of students, faculty, and staff. His vision was realized when McHenry opened in the mid-1960s, but as the decades passed, the centrality of McHenry faded as the building wore out. How wonderful it is now to see McHenry restored to its prime place on campus. The building is a huge hit, and we can now say that McHenry is indeed the intellectual heart of the campus once again.
The construction project didn't happen overnight. Ground was broken in fall 2005, and work on the addition continued through early 2008. A complete renovation effort on the existing building began in 2008 and wasn't finished until summer 2011. Throughout the entire 7 years the library has been fortunate to have benefitted from the hard work, patience, and good humor of the staff. We have also relied heavily on our generous donors for financial and moral support, and their words of encouragement really helped. So many people have contributed so much to this project—it is absolutely true that "it takes a village" to raise a library. Thank you, one and all, for all your support and good wishes!
By Stanley Stevens, Librarian Emeritus
At lunchtime during the summer of 1966, some of us would park ourselves on the hillside next to Central Services Building (now Hahn Student Services) to watch the "bridge to home" take shape.
The bridge builder, balancing himself on the top beam, did his catwalk every day for a month or more as we waited, and waited, for the grand opening of our new home-now McHenry Library.
There weren't many of us on the library staff then, but we all had the same sense of anticipation-anxious to get into a building that was actually designed as a library, one that would be home for the long haul.
On the day when we were finally allowed into the new building, we walked across the bridge, we saw the majestic redwoods in front of the library, the stately cement columns, and the beautiful interior courtyard (now named the Donald T. Clark Courtyard).
The late Don Clark, Founding University Librarian, said in his oral history:
"There are two things that I'm really proud of. One was the staff I built up and the other is the building. . . . Another of my objectives was to make people have pride not only in the job, but pride in the building. . . .
"The external form of the building was created by John Carl Warnecke from the first day he ever saw the site. . . . You'll find sketches, very preliminary sketches of just the outside. I had a feeling that Warnecke wanted to create a Parthenon in the forest. And he did. But it turned out to be a pretty good Parthenon in a sense. . . .
"We had to have a building that would grow as the faculty and student population increased. We were not allowed to plan a building three years beyond the opening date. That is, we could anticipate the size of the campus and the book collection and the staff three years from the opening date, and that was all the state would allow us to do.
"What saved an awful lot of grief was that UC President Clark Kerrhad come up with the notion of the New Campus Program, which was a stroke of genius. The New Campus Program joined the efforts of the San Diego, Irvine, and Santa Cruz campuses in developing a core collection for undergraduates, for college libraries. The Program would do two things. The head of the New Campus Program and the staff would build a bibliography, a selected list of, it turned out to be 50,000 titles and 75,000 volumes. . . . Not only would they develop this list, but they would procure the books. They would go out and buy them for the three campuses, simultaneously. They would catalog them; they would house them. This was all done from 1962 until 1965 when the campus opened."
Clark's hope, that we would "have pride not only in the job, but pride in the building," is as much true today as it was when we crossed that bridge in 1966.
Some of the early library staff included:
Donald T. Clark, University Librarian
Wendell W. Simons, Assistant University Librarian
Aileen Sanders, Administrative Secretary
Carl J. Wensrich, Head of Reader Services
Richard Moore, Acquisitions Librarian
C. H. Lowe, Head of Cataloging
Rolf Augustine, Cataloger
Albert Eickoff, Reference Librarian
Margaret Hermann, Reference Librarian
Elizabeth Calciano, Regional History Editor
Rita Berner Bottoms, Head of Special Collections
Martha Bensusan, Head of Circulation
Elise Hoffman, Head of Lick Observatory Collection
Joan Hodgson, Head of Interlibrary Loan
Brad Posey, Principal Clerk-Receiving-Building Manager
Stanley Stevens, Head of Map Collection
A Saga of Persistence: The New McHenry Library
By Robert White, Assistant University Librarian (1980-2006)
It all began back in 1993, when the lack of space at McHenry Library on the one hand and campus growth projections on the other made it very clear that something had to be done to ensure enough seating for students and shelf space for books.
Shortly thereafter, BOORA Architects of Portland, Oregon, was selected to plan an addition and renovation to the existing John Warnecke-designed university library building.
In the course of the following two years a plan was devised and construction was expected to begin shortly. However—why does this sound so familiar?—a budget crisis intervened and the project was put on hold indefinitely. Almost a decade later the project was revisited and revised and, thanks to the support of then Chancellor M.R.C. Greenwood and relentless effort by University Librarian Allan Dyson, funding for the McHenry Library Addition & Renovation Project was finally secured in 2003.
Teams of people went to work to plan to plan the long-awaited new library space. BOORA Architects, in association with the McHenry Library Addition & Renovation Building Committee, worked on the multiple phases of the project. Campus Capital Planning Director Fran Owens and her successor Robin Draper were instrumental and tireless in preparing and submitting planning documents for approval by UC Capital Planning.
Complex challenges including much higher building costs than anticipated faced the planners. Incredibly, Campus Architect Frank Zwart and his team navigated and managed this difficult process and moved the project forward without ever forgetting how important it was to preserve the functional, architectural, and aesthetic features of the new library.
In December 2008, due to—yes, you guessed it—another budget crisis, all UC building projects were put on hold. At that point the original library building was a hollowed-out shell undergoing seismic retrofitting. Chancellor George Blumenthal made an appeal and convinced the UC Regents that leaving the building in its current state could, in the event of an earthquake, turn out to be truly costly; they granted an exception and lifted the construction moratorium for the McHenry Library project.
We thought we had weathered the worst, but the ultimate library nightmare was still to come. On April 15, 2010, a fire broke out in the section of the library that was under renovation. A wire in a small construction appliance had smoldered and caught fire. The good news within the bad news was that the library collection had been moved to the new wing of the library and so did not go up in the flames. The fire was quickly controlled but massive amounts of soot and smoke meant that the entire library, including every single book on the library addition shelves, all air vents and heat ducts, etc., had to be cleaned.
The Library's Administration and Staff persevered through all of the above, first under the indefatigable leadership of Allan Dyson, and, since 2005, under the ever-positive leadership of University Librarian Ginny Steel. All construction was completed and both wings of the library reopened for use at the beginning of Fall Quarter 2011. Today we all share in the pride of the finished product—a 21st-century academic library and state-of-the-art research facility that can deliver on the instructional and research needs of UCSC students and faculty.
It is nothing short of a miracle that the venerable McHenry Library, named after Founding Chancellor Dean McHenry, has been preserved with its elegant visual and architectural features and is now back as the intellectual heart of the campus. Let us celebrate this accomplishment!
Back to Basics: Teaching Students What to Look for, and How
By Ezra Berger
It's winter quarter of your freshman year and you've just been assigned the first big research paper of your college career.
You can't help but feel a little bit nervous. Sure, you wrote a couple of eight-page essays in your senior year of high school, but most of your citations were either Wikipedia pages or something along the lines of "Hamlet says it on page 62." You definitely never consulted any of these "peer-reviewed journals" your professor keeps mentioning.
A journal? Isn't that what you used to call the little leather notebook where you meticulously recorded your 7th-grade crush of the week? You stiffen. That journal wasn't "peer reviewed," was it?!
And come to think of it, where would you even find one of these "journals?" Well, it turns out that journals today are almost all in databases. While you imagine those databases probably have something somewhere that's related to your paper on the occurrence of rhetorical dissonance in the municipal elections of late-19th-century West Virginia, it occurs to you that it might not be the easiest thing in the world to track down . . .
Enter our fearless protagonist, the teaching librarian!
See, it turns out that newly arrived college students have had difficulty locating and properly citing sources since, well, always. And as the campus institution that houses and locates said sources of arcane knowledge, the library took note of this undergraduate phenomenon and decided to offer some much-needed assistance.
The remedy? Partnerships with faculty to tailor library instruction to match assignments. Conducted in a new, state-of-the-art instruction room on McHenry's second floor, most library instruction classes are coordinated with introductory writing classes. The aim is to make students "research-literate" at the college level.
"Because of tools like Google, students are already fluent with the technology," says Annette Marines, a teaching librarian, in reference to the various online databases that 21st-century undergraduates use for their research. The goal, she says, is not to teach students how to simply use these databases—today's freshmen are almost universally familiar with interfaces and notion of "searching"—but rather how to use them effectively.
Teaching librarians help students learn how to frame questions that will yield relevant and manageable search results. Students learn how to find reliable background material and then apply what they've learned to the current assignment. The result is information-literate students.
The instruction room's interactive environment was significantly enhanced this past year by the replacement of standard desks with 50 "node chairs." Vaguely reminiscent of flying saucers, these Information-Age workstations are comfortable wheeled desks designed specifically to be used with laptops. The desks' wheels make it easy for students to switch between facing the front of the classroom and engaging with their peers in small groups.
This year the library instruction program, which includes writing classes, will educate a total of nearly 3,800 freshmen. In addition, teaching librarians and archivists will provide approximately 1,200 upper-division UCSC students with discipline-specific research instruction.
And just in case you find that good old collegiate skepticism sneaking into your thoughts as you read this, you should know that professors consistently report to Marines that they receive better papers, more questions in class, and better overall student engagement from information-literate undergraduates.
And so, to all you frantic and overwhelmed freshman Banana Slugs, don't panic! Take a deep breath, close that Wikipedia page and pull up a node chair; the teaching librarians are going to take good care of you!
Our 21st-Century Learning Environment
By Ezra Berger
The needs of today's students for collaborative study spaces, electricity, Internet connectivity, and technology are vastly different that were those of students in 1966 when the original McHenry opened. From the basement to the fourth floor, the study spaces at the new McHenry meet the needs of today's UCSC students.
Greg Careaga, who is the University Library's Head of Research, Outreach and Instruction, was responsible for designing the new layout of the library's study areas. According to Careaga, his goal was to create more overall study space and to ensure flexibility in the learning environment. To that end, McHenry now offers nearly 40 group study rooms, 150+ computer workstations, diner-style booths, "laptop bars," and a wide variety of quiet reading areas.
To provide spaces conducive to both quiet and "social" learning, Careaga drew upon research he conducted during a 2009 trip to university libraries in the Pacific Northwest, as well as student surveys and ideas from industry publications. The result is a carefully designed floor plan that uses furniture and "geography" to distinguish between study areas of differing ambience.
Careaga and the library also devoted copious resources to facilitating group study, furnishing a vast suite of specialized group study rooms throughout the library, many of which are equipped with truly awesome, specialized high-tech equipment to meet specific needs. [See sidebar] [Sidebar will appear in all formats of the newsletter]
"People are more productive when they have room to spread out," he explains, "and research shows that students are conditioned to be less active learners in rank and file geometric configurations." The new, 120-degree workstations are more conducive to active thinking and they provide a generous amount of space for students to lay out textbooks, notebooks and other materials, including coffee and snacks.
As the primary academic resource center for UCSC, it is essential for McHenry to house facilities that can accommodate the broad scope of activities that take placeat a major 21st-century research university. Thanks to the renovation, the library is now more prepared than ever to meet these varied educational needs.
An online booking system makes it easy for students to reserve these and the other group study rooms at the University Library:
- Presentation Practice Room: Equipped with a video camera and 42" flat screen TV (for recording and watching oneself perform), an adjustable-height lectern with laptop connection, and a glass "whiteboard," the room is ideal for students who want to fine tune in-class or other presentations with a practice run.
- Eight Video Viewing Rooms: Accommodating a range of occupancies (from ten to twenty students), these ground floor rooms are theater-like spaces equipped with wheeled cushy chairs, surround sound, and 59" HDMI TV screens. Ideal for both educational and recreational movie watching.
- Seven Music Listening Rooms: Meant for solo or small-group listening sessions, many of these rooms include an AppleTV that can play music directly from the library's reserves, as well as a CD player. Two "traditional" listening rooms trade out the AppleTV in exchange for a cassette player and phonograph.
- Keyboard Practice Room: This room houses a MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) keyboard and a connected computer and is ideal for music composition and practice.
- Beverly & Charles Levine Adaptive Technology Room: This room was built to accommodate students with disabilities such as limited sight or hearing. It includes a computer with text-to-speech capability, a scanner, and magnifying station for easy viewing of documents.
Dead Central, a Gift of the Brittingham Family Foundation, Set to Open
By Nicholas Meriwether, Grateful Dead Archivist
Scholars and fans rejoiced when they heard the news that the Grateful Dead had decided to donate their voluminous archive to McHenry Library at UC Santa Cruz in April 2008. While the band had already been the focus of a great deal of academic attention, none of it had been based on the materials in the band's archive—and the success of that early work portended even greater insights for scholars who had access to those files.
Since the donation of the band's archive, a team of people at McHenry Library has worked to process, digitize, and exhibit those materials, all with an eye toward making those treasures accessible to researchers and the community. This spring, Dead Central opens to the public, with our first exhibit, "A Box of Rain: Archiving the Grateful Dead Phenomenon," showcasing the treasures of the Archive. This summer our online portal will launch, providing anyone with an internet connection a way to access digital versions of many of the archive's materials.
Already a number of scholars and writers have contacted the Archive to arrange for access to the materials they need to complete their research. Historians, musicologists, communication theorists, sociologists, and media specialists are all working on projects that draw on the Archive's materials, and scholars from more than a dozen other fields have expressed interest in working with the Archive.
It makes this a heady time for archivists and cultural historians interested in the sixties, the counterculture, and all of the related contexts that inform the Grateful Dead phenomenon. Although work on the archive will continue for years to come, as this marquee collection becomes available, researchers will at last be able to ground their work and insights in what is one of most remarkable and compelling archives documenting a major American cultural movement hosted by a major academic institution today.
An Eye to the Future
By Ezra Berger
The completion of the McHenry building project marks a proud and historic milestone for UCSC and the University Library. But needs keep evolving, and as the Library looks to the future the possibilities for further improvement and expansion of services are many and varied. Thus, with the overarching goal of enhancing the transformative educational experience that alumni and current students share, the Library has identified a new set of priorities for the coming years.
Science and Engineering Library Renovation
While easily one of the campus' most beautiful buildings, the Science & Engineering Library (S&E) needs a few updates to be able to serve the changing needs of students. In the next few years, these improvements are planned:
Create an Information Commons like the one at McHenry Library. This will bring S&E's information infrastructure up to speed with the digital age.
- Expand hours to create a late-night study area for students. While both libraries currently offer long open hours, our students always need more.
- Create a Geographic Information Systems Center that will supply innovative tools to support real-time data collection and comparison for field researchers in all disciplines.
- Expand and renovate the Video Gaming Lab. With a new major in Computer Gaming and a hugely built-out Digital Arts Department, UCSC is a leader in synergies between the arts and computer science.
Digital Asset Management
Broadly conceived, the mission of the University Library is the management of the campus' "intellectual assets." Every year UCSC researchers write scholarly papers, amass data sets, and create the knowledge that fuels inventions and enriches our lives. Leveraging statewide expertise in the UC system, the Library has a plan to provide resources for preserving, curating, and making accessible all the research data and scholarly works created by UCSC faculty. The service, known as Digital Asset Management, will require powerful storage systems and highly sophisticated software, as well as skilled archivists and information-technology professionals.
Digitization of Special Collections
One of the Library's primary objectives is to streamline the process of finding and using the information contained in its collections. By digitizing a collection, the library can make its contents readily available to users wherever those users may be. It's a process that begins with extremely high-resolution photography or scanning of physical items, and is completed by fully describing and cataloging each item so it can be easily found.
UCSC Special Collections is proudly undertaking a long-term project to digitize many of its holdings, which include collections such as the Grateful Dead Archive, the University Archive that documents campus history, archives pertaining to local history like that of the influential Hihn family, and some of the over 500,000 photographs by artists such as Ansel Adams, Wynn Bullock, Edward Weston, and Pirkle Jones.
Are libraries relevant today? The answer is a resounding "Yes!"
Dear Supporters and Friends of the UCSC Library,
With one laughing and one weeping eye I am writing to you today to let you know that I am returning to my home country Germany and that my time at UCSC has come to a close.
It has been a great privilege to serve you all, an amazing experience to listen to your stories, thoughtful advice and high hopes for the UCSC Library.
We also shared some adventures in between. Such as the advent of the Grateful Dead Archive, library exhibits in New York City and in Cleveland, meeting the $3.5 million Kresge challenge, winning a John Cotton Dana Award, and last but absolutely not least the completion of our wonderful McHenry Library and the big celebration last month when after almost two decades of planning and six years of construction we finally rededicated it and put it back to service.
None of this would have happened without you!
As I am leaving the US I am taking with me fond memories and warm thoughts-thank you!
Astrid von Soosten, CFRE
Senior Director of Library Development
Editor: Lettie Bennett
Contributors: Ginny Steel, Stanley D. Stevens, Robert White, Ezra Berger
Design and Art Direction: Jim Mackenzie
Production: Linda Hunt, Vanessa Stevens
Copyediting and Proofreading: Mark Engel


text:
Badges of Honour – Silver War Badge Database now on Ancestry.
Every November, we pay tribute to the millions who have fought and died for Britain over the last century. This ritual began after World War I, where hundreds of thousands of our ancestors were killed, and many more were injured. With the latest military update from Ancestry, you can discover whether your family's WWI heroes were rewarded for their sacrifice.
The Silver War Badge Records, 1914–1920, reveal more than 800,000 servicemen who were entitled to one of the Great War's most distinguished awards. The Badge was given to men who were discharged due to illness or wounds—they wore it at home so they wouldn't be accused of not doing their duty.
Details included in the database include their rank, when they started and finished in the Forces, the unit they were discharged from, and why they were discharged.
visit www.ancestry.co.uk for more information.
If you are successful finding your ancestor on the SWB and want to know more about what was happening on the day he was wounded or made ill, then a search of the relevant battalion war diary around the time of his discharge may unveil more information. The war diaries are held at Kew Gardens and will need a personal visit, but it may well be worth it. If you cannot get down to London for a personal visit, then a researcher such as www.military-research.co.uk may be able to help you search on your behalf.


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