Veteran Murders Continue Under MSM Radar

There's been another surge of veteran shootings, as usual, mostly against other veterans or their own family members. Either that, or this is typical; but a little more attention has been drawn to some of them. It's hard to tell, since the media rarely ever tries to report on just how common this is. There were at least eight suspicious deaths, out of twenty-three this year investigated at Fort Hood in Kileen Texas this year, at least four of them were murders, at least one allegedly by another veteran. There were also well over a dozen relatively high profile veteran murders since the beginning of this year, and probably much more. There were also at least four "Boogaloo Bois" arrested in recent months for trying to incite riots during protests, including one that was charged with murdering two police officers. There have been numerous claims, mostly by right wingers, that the Black Lives Matter movement or Antifa are terrorists, but there's no evidence to back this up; in fact the ones killing cops, near the protests, are either unidentified or they're right wing extremists.

This does not, of course mean that most veterans are damaged, racist or violent; however, a lot of them are; and when they do kill the good veterans are the ones most at risk. One of the highest profile, and perhaps most controversial, veteran murders appears to be of Spc. Vanessa Guillen who was apparently killed in the armory on base. The family doesn't appear convinced the whole story is coming out, and the news stories seems to be changing as details come out, possibly indicating a cover-up, as partly indicated in the following story, shortly after her body was found:

Missing Fort Hood soldier was killed in armory, then hacked to pieces, family’s attorney says 07/02/2020

Spc. Vanessa Guillen was allegedly killed on April 22, the day of her disappearance, by Spc. Aaron David Robinson while she was on duty in an armory room on Fort Hood, Texas, an attorney for the Guillen family said.

Natalie Khawam, the attorney, said the information was provided to her during a four-hour meeting with officials from Army Criminal Investigation Command. Fort Hood officials declined to comment on this narrative of events inside the armory when asked during a press conference Thursday and by Army Times over the telephone.

Robinson, 20, allegedly attacked Guillen, also 20, with a hammer, Khawam told Army Times.

“This heinous act caused her blood to be splashed all over the armory room,” Khawam said in the statement to Army Times.

After Guillen was dead, Robinson allegedly contacted his married girlfriend “to help him bury her bloody body,” Khawam added. “At first they tried to set her on fire, but she wouldn’t burn. Then they dismembered this beautiful U.S. soldier’s body with a machete.” .......

Guillen’s unit, the 3rd Cavalry Regiment, has also opened an investigation into allegations brought forth by her family that she suffered from sexual harassment by a supervisor.

“She was afraid to [report it] because the sexual harassment was coming from her superiors, so her concern was the retaliation, being blackballed,” Khawam explained during the press conference. “We believe the person that killed her is that person that sexually harassed her.”

Phelps said Army CID has found no evidence of those allegations. He called Robinson a “coworker” and not a supervisor to Guillen. Complete article

This article should raise major questions, which the media doesn't seem to be mentioning. For starters, how long have they known “This heinous act caused her blood to be splashed all over the armory room?” I checked the earlier stories, and there was nothing about blood all over the armory after she disappeared. Could Robinson have cleaned it up? How much time could he have had to clean it up and remove the body? How did he get the body past security? This is an armory; there must have been tight security to make sure that no one could leave with a large number of weapons, and this also should have prevented him from leaving with a body as well.

Are there security cameras in the armory or the entrances and exits? According to Army suspects foul play in Texas soldier Vanessa Guillen's disappearance, official says 06/24/2020 the lawyer for the Guillen family said:

"There's something extremely troubling about this case. A military base is probably one of the most secure places you can be. You have ID check-ins. There are security cameras everywhere," Khawam told KHOU-TV on Monday.

Soldier Vanessa Guillen Was Beaten to Death in Fort Hood Armory, Then Dismembered, Family Attorney Says 07/02/2020, "There were no security cameras in the area where Guillen worked, they said;" however, it's unclear whether that's a reference to the armory, where she was allegedly killed. They just installed a new security system that covers their entire airfield a few months before this happened; it's hard to imagine they wouldn't have security cameras covering the armory long before this. A Killeen restaurant released surveillance video of her a week before, which is more disclosure than the military is providing and in the same article claiming there was no video where she worked Vanessa's younger sister said:

"They lied to our faces every single day," Lupe Guillen said. "How can this happen on a military base while she was on duty?" My sister's no joke! My sister was a human being!" she shouted.

Comparing news reports from a week before they discovered her body supports Lupe's claim that they haven't been honest or consistent as the following article shows:

Missing Fort Hood soldier case rises to the Army secretary’s level as family pushes for more transparency 06/24/2020

The Army suspects “foul play” in the disappearance of 20-year-old Pfc. Vanessa Guillen from Fort Hood, Texas, according to an attorney and congresswoman assisting the missing soldier’s family in locating her.

The announcement came as Natalie Khawam, the family’s attorney, said she wanted to see Guillen’s cell phone records that Army CID agents subpoenaed from Sprint. Army officials told her she has to file a Freedom of Information Act request for copies of those documents, the latest in a series of roadblocks the family has hit while seeking answers, she said. .......

"I will say that the colonel and the general were probably as forthcoming as they could be because it still is a criminal investigation,” said Rep. Sylvia García, D-Texas, during a Tuesday press conference. “They have now used the words foul play. They are convinced now that foul play was involved.”

The family has still not received a “tick-tock” of everything that happened on the day Guillen disappeared, said representatives for the family. One lingering question was why Guillen was brought in to work, according to Khawam. The young soldier wasn’t supposed to work that day due to COVID-19 mitigation measures.

“Why was she called in and who was the person who called her in?” Khawam asked. “They didn’t want to say who the person was.”

Guillen’s chain of command had also been conducting check-ins on soldiers as part of the COVID-19 precautions.

"They had to check in four times a day. We didn’t see the third and fourth check-in,” said Khawam. “Then they admitted that they accounted for her, but she wasn’t really there on the 3 p.m. and the 4 p.m. check-in.”

Guillen was last seen sometime around 1 p.m. in the parking lot of her squadron headquarters on post. But the witnesses who allegedly spotted her didn’t interact with her, and there were no cameras that captured her movement, according to Khawam.

Guillen’s mother has said that her daughter experienced sexual harassment from a sergeant who was her supervisor prior to her disappearance. The 3rd Cavalry Regiment opened a separate investigation into those allegations last week.

Khawam said the supervisor who allegedly harassed Guillen was working with her in the armory on the day of her disappearance. But “we are not disclosing [the name] right now,” she added. Complete article

It's hard to imagine why it would take the investigators two months to admit that they suspected “foul play,” even though the family obviously suspected it much sooner. Did it take them two months to find a trace of the blood that was "splashed all over the armory room?” At this point they don't seemed to have suspected Spc. Aaron David Robinson who wasn't her supervisor, yet they still weren't denying that hey might be investigating a possible supervisor. It wasn't until after the body was found and Robinson became a suspect that they claimed they "found no evidence of those allegations," of a supervisor sexually harassing her; however, many female veterans clearly weren't convinced.

Erin Kirk-Cuomo indicated that she doesn't doubt that Vanessa was harassed by a supervisor, possibly in addition to Robinson as she explained in I Am Vanessa Guillen 06/30/2020, which cites at least five stories from Facebook, including one from a man, and two that were apparently retracted after the fact, possibly as a result of intimidation, to show how common sexual harassment is in the military; but there are many more under the hashtag #IAmVanessaGuillen She writes:

We survivors of sexual harassment and assault in the military know that one of the key leads to Guillen’s disappearance is that she was sexually harassed and/or assaulted by a superior non-commissioned officer. We also know that military investigators too often do not take these claims seriously, just as they did not in her case.

This is, of course, an open secret which has been known for years; however, they keep sweeping it under the rug and doing little or nothing to stop it over and over again. If you keep track of sexual harassment scandals in the military you'll find one time after another where there are massive disclosures exposing it followed by reforms that are allegedly fixing the problem, only to see it happen again.

Occasionally some of the women that help intimidate others into silence stick their foot in their mouths and admit it accidentally as reported in Petition started to fire UWM lecturer, Wisconsin Air Guard Colonel Betsy Schoeller for saying 'sexual harassment is the price of admission' to military 07/03/2020, which says:

According to multiple screenshots from a private Facebook group called Veteran Humor, Schoeller responded to an article about Guillen's killing with a comment saying: "You guys are kidding, right? Sexual harassment is the price of admission for women into the good ole boy club. If you're gonna cry like a snowflake about it, you're gonna pay the price."

She quickly rephrased in a manner that would have sounded much better if not for the first comment reported in, Former Wisconsin Air National Guard officer under fire for Vanessa Guillen comments says they were taken out of context 07/04/2020, saying:

"I did not mean to imply that this is how I feel," she said. "I was giving voice to the messaging that women hear in the culture of sexual harassment: The message we receive from the culture is not only will you suffer from sexual harassment, if you squawk about it, you will suffer even more. Because it isn’t just the sexual harassment. That’s just the beginning."

"Then comes the agonizing decision about reporting. Or not reporting. The pressure applied by friends who know about it and only want to help. Having to ultimately stand up to that culture of sexual harassment on your own. Adding suffering on top of suffering."

This is a reasonable description of the position that many women are in, even if she got off to a bad start; and it's unfortunate if many people might be so enraged by her first comments that they might overlook this. Not that I want to excuse her first comment, but it shows that like many other people, of both sexes, she's given in to peer pressure and adopted a common attitude in the military. This woman rose through the ranks, by going along with the program, not by challenging authority. After a career in the military supporting the establishment she was rewarded with a position as a lecturer at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

When she put her foot in her mouth her advisors helped write a statement to repair her reputation, perhaps making her sound like a reformer. If past is prologue, they'll come up with more alleged efforts to reform the system and solve the problem. However, if the grassroots lets the same people who looked the other way previously like Betsy Schoeller or other high ranking officials that were smart enough not to get caught putting their foot in their mouth, then there's little or no chance that the next round of reforms will be more effective than the last.

This is just one of many examples where the military leadership has demonstrated they're far more concerned with control than with protecting the citizens, or their own soldiers. The only rational way to argue that there isn't a cover-up here seems to admit that here's an incredible amount of incompetence, which is quite common in the military, but even that seems unlikely. There simply should have been no way for Robinson to remove that body from the armory and remained undetected for over two months! There's about as much chance that Robinson committed this murder alone and covered it up for two months before being caught as there is that Lee Harvey Oswald was a lone gunman acting on his own!

That doesn't mean there was much if any chance that this was a premeditated first degree murder, which is virtually out of the question. It's hard to imagine Robinson, or anyone else would have planned it in the armory. But there's a strong possibility that a higher ranking supervisor really was sexually harassing her, possibly in addition to Robinson. The fact that she was called into duty when she wasn't scheduled to work supports this, since it's more likely if not guaranteed that a supervisor of a higher rank called her in, yet they still haven't revealed who called her. Before her body was found the family lawyer said she knew who the supervisor that allegedly harassed her was, it's hard to imagine why she hasn't disclosed it since then.

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Edit 07/30/2020: Since Posting this I was informed, on Facebook, that military bases have no security checks for people leaving the base, only when they enter, which allegedly means that it would be easy to remove weapons or a body, part of which was confirmed with news stories, the rest could be either confirmed or refuted by other military personal, preferably from Fort Hood. The fallowing are excerpts from the conversation and the links he provided to back up his claims:

Oatem Noltoc
To be fair there is no security to leave base. Not saying this isn't alarming but anyone with any sense could take whatever they want off a base.

Zachery Taylor
This happened in the armory; you're saying that they could take anything that isn't locked down from there. What about weapons?

Oatem Noltoc
Zachery Taylor yep. Weapons get taken all the time and they don't go noticed until there is an inventory done at which time they lock down the base and say no one goes home until the weapon is recovered. Inventory is done at various times of each day. I've seen a base locked down for a week or more with people unable to even call their families or go home at all until the weapon is found. But with a person the assumption is that they just went AWOL. In Vanessa's case, in my limited opinion, her death and disappearance aren't what is so shocking, it's that they knew fairly well who did it and why and refused to investigate or take action for so long after. Anyone on a military base can take a body out of any place they want and right off base, there are few check points beyond weapons lockers and gear caches. People walk out with equipment all the time and have to turn around and return it. My ex was in the army and a number of times he'd get recalled back to base because someone brought an automatic weapon home with them and everyone had to go back until they found it. Likely they forgot they had it, or wanted to show it to a friend or who knows why but they play it off, it gets returned and 30 mins later they're all released to go home. Complete discussion

Hawaii Army base lockdown ends but missing item not found 02/17/2015

Local soldiers kept from families as search continues for 'sensitive item' 02/13/2014

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As bad as this case is, though, it's a minuscule fraction for the problem they have training people to kill, only to find that they do just that, often not the people they were told to kill. Between 2008 and 2010 there were a couple high profile news articles by the New York Times and the Colorado Gazette, which was partly reported in the Washington Post as well, exploring how common veterans go on shootings sprees, which stirred up a lot of controversy and was refuted with appeals to emotion and self righteous indignation, but not a rational review of the facts. There was also a study from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, claiming there were fewer veterans in prisons than non-veterans, which seemed scientific, but a closer look shows they only reviewed selective facts, and they even admit to some of this in the report.

I went into this more in a previous article about six years ago that covered many more details, Teach a soldier to kill and he just might; This was accompanied by some additional statistics in States with high murder rates have larger veteran populations and a List of Veteran murders often of other veterans and other crimes. This includes links to the studies I mentioned. It's important to look at the details, since partisans from both sides are routinely misrepresenting them; but I have no doubt that after a close look it should be clear that, even though most veterans aren't violent or a threat to the public, as a few claim these reports imply, that there's a significant amount of blow back, including a large number of mass shootings by veterans.

David Swanson, who I've cited in past articles, has been keeping track of how many mass shooters are veterans and his latest update on the subject, Yet Another Mass Shooter Was a Military Veteran 03/04/2020, says, "Among males aged 18-59 in the United States, 15% are veterans. Among male mass-shooters aged 18-59 in the United States, 36% are veterans." He provided additional details in a 2017 review of a list of mass shootings from Mother Jones, and an update in 2019. He has repeatedly said that his estimate is a minimum, since he couldn't get complete data from many other mass shooters, and more of them could be veterans that he isn't aware or, which is true; however, I've done similar searches, and concluded that it's unlikely that many, if any more are veterans. In many cases, by reviewing the history of those not listed as veterans I've found details about them during their prime years for potential military service, that indicates it's virtually guaranteed that most aren't veterans.

Another article showing that 300 Veterans, Some With PTSD, Are on Death Row: Report 11/10/2015 also indicates that veterans may be more likely to be sentenced to death for murder, possibly because of PTSD related to their service. This comes to about one out of eight and a half prisoners on death row, or about 12%. This is slightly higher than the percentage of veterans, so it's not a dramatic difference. However, when reviewing many veteran murders previously, even though they didn't accept PTSD as mitigating circumstances for these three hundred, they did for many others, so this figure might be far higher, if not for that. I also found many cases for lesser crimes where their military service was taken into consideration, which is a major part of the reason why many other veterans are allegedly less likely to go to jail than non-veterans.

Swanson's statistics, and the review from those on death row, are pretty straightforward and hard to refute; however, it's reasonably safe to say the statistics for murders from veterans isn't as bad as mass shooters, even if it's not nearly as good as some of the establishment studies seem to imply or the distortions from propagandists, which are even worse. The headline for Bureau of Justice Statistics study said that veterans were much less likely to be in prison than non-veterans, based on the population in 2004; however, once you read the report, it's clear that veterans are more likely to be there for violent offenses, and have longer prison terms. Furthermore, it doesn't fully cover why the prison population has expanded so much in the first place, which is primarily a massive expansion of non-violent drug offenses, mostly of minorities.

One of the most important details that were not mentioned in the headlines, and only briefly mentioned in the study, was the fact that about 4% of the veterans in prison in 2004, only one year after the invasion of Iraq and three years after the invasion of Afghanistan, served in those wars. Since the war in Afghanistan was mostly aerial bombing there weren't many veterans on the ground so this should be considered an exceptionally high percent, since they must have committed their alleged crimes, either while still serving in the military, or almost immediately after being discharged. The clear implication was that even though most veterans were less likely to be in jail, those just getting back from combat were significantly more likely to be in jail. This assumption was also supported by David Phillips report "Lethal Warriors" which showed that many more veterans in the Colorado Springs area were being charged with violent crimes, including murders of other veterans, which was much worse than the local murder rates. My review of many other veteran murders also found that there was a large number of them at, or near Fort Hood, as well. By the time I did my review, they had two of the biggest mass shootings right on their base; so the current surge in murders in that area isn't unprecedented. Fort Hood and Colorado Springs are a couple of the biggest hot spot for veteran violence, but there's much more all across the country.

Another important conclusion that I came to when I did this review is that, even though I couldn't find reliable enough data to determine for sure whether or not the murder rates were better or worse for veterans, it was clear that if it was lower, it certainly wasn't much lower. But more importantly, the reason our murder rates are so high compared to other wealthy developed countries in Europe who usually have less than half the murder rates, sometimes less than one fifth, is because we have sky high murder rates in abandoned inner cities, often well over twice our murder rates, and sometimes six to ten times our murder rates, yet the recruiting rates are much lower from these abandoned inner cities, so most of veterans are recruited from rural areas with much lower rates of violence or murder. This means that even though the murder rates for veterans isn't nearly as bad as the worst abandoned inner cities and I can't be certain that it's higher than the national rate, it's certainly much higher than the lower rates in most rural or suburban towns where most veterans are recruited from.

There's little reason to believe that this has gotten any better or worse sine these reviews were done six to twelve years ago, and additional reports claimed they had similar problems after the Vietnam War. My past articles on the subject and David Philips articles and accompanying book, "Lethal Warriors" go into some of the reasons for this including abusive boot camp training encouraging prejudicial beliefs, and overly aggressive behavior that's necessary when fighting one war after another based on lies, and earlier child abuse leading to escalating violence later in life, among other causes.

I didn't do nearly as thorough a search for veteran murders as I did in my 2014 review, but still quickly found quite a few high profile veteran murders, often, once again, of other veterans or family members, which is typical, including a home invasion where 'Someone (a 23 year old marine) just shot grandpa, (another veteran),' home invasions are much rarer than domestic murders but they get more attention; A Marine, wanted for killing mother in Fresno who died in shootout with police in Pomona; Ex-Marine Wanted On Murder Charge In Richard’s Bar Stabbing; Former Marine arrested in murder of 16-year-old; A Marine who strangled wife after learning she was pregnant; A Murdered veteran ‘fingered’ two other veterans for a ‘drug incident’ and many more, a few listed below, but they continue happening without much if any effort to find out how common it is, even though some studies have shown there's a major problem that should be looked at closer.

In fact all there problems seem to be swept under the rug when they can get away with it, including looking the other way at domestic violence, racism, and other right wing extremism. When I reviewed them before they had exposed at least a couple militia movements that were mostly veterans, including many active duty ones. One of them based in Georgia, I think, had planned a militia that was going to attack the government, and the leader financed it with life insurance money from his wife, who he had killed without getting caught, they didn't expose this as a murder until he was caught killing one of his own militia members because they thought he was going to report them. This problem is still going on, now with a veterans joining the "Boogaloo Bois" including the following one that allegedly killed two cops:

Alleged 'Boogaloo' extremist charged in killing of federal officer during George Floyd protest 06/16/2020

Steven Carrillo and his alleged accomplice "came to Oakland to kill cops," said John Bennett, special agent in charge of the San Francisco division of the FBI.

An Air Force sergeant who was arrested in the fatal ambush of a Santa Cruz County deputy was charged Tuesday in connection with the killing of a federal security officer during George Floyd protests in Oakland last month, authorities said.

Staff Sgt. Steven Carrillo, 32, was charged with murder and attempted murder in the killing of federal officer Dave Patrick Underwood, 53.

Underwood was one of two officers who were shot May 29 while guarding the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building. The other officer was critically wounded in the drive-by attack. Both were members of Homeland Security's Federal Protective Service.

Authorities said Carrillo and a second man traveled to Oakland with the intent to kill police and believed the large demonstrations spurred by the death of Floyd in Minneapolis — which they were not a part of — would help them get away it.

"They came to Oakland to kill cops," said John Bennett, special agent in charge of the San Francisco division of the FBI. Complete article

According to most sources the Boogaloo bois are a lose organization, including a large percentage of military veterans, often still active duty, like Carrillo, where most of them are hoping for a violent overthrow of the government; and most people on social media also seem to think they're associated with white supremacists groups; however, some of them have claimed they're opposed to racism and support the Black Lives Matter movement. This includes Steven Carrillo who reposted a meme that said, "I'll never let racist white people make me forget about the dope white people I know exist. I love y'all." Carrillo was also an active duty military police officer and had worked as a recruiter.

Whether or not the Boogaloo bois are mostly, if not entirely racists, according to at least a couple somewhat recent articles, The Radical Case Against White Supremacists and Neo-Nazis in the US Military 07/14/2020 by Lindsay Gabow and Ranks of Notorious Hate Group Include Active-Duty Military 05/03/2018, by A.C. Thompson etal. not only are there many more white supremacists in the military but they're not even trying to get them out. According to Lindsay Gabow, an active duty Captain, "just months ago, defense officials testified to the House Armed Services Committee that membership in white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups does not constitute grounds for separation from the military."

A.C. Thompson reported that several "members of Atomwaffen, an extremist group preparing for a race war" are currently serving in the military, and several more previously served, and are training other neo-Nazis for a potential race war; including one former member of Atomwaffen, who left to join another White Supremacist organization that participated in the violent protests at Charlottesville several years ago and bragged about it on line; when that article was published, he was still an active duty soldier, and the military knew, or should have known that he had participated in violent protests.

Not only was Steven Carrillo able to be hired as a military police officer and recruiter, but according to an FBI report fourteen years ago there's also a major problem with white supremacists in police forces around the country, and several articles including FBI warned of white supremacists in law enforcement 10 years ago. Has anything changed? 10/21/2016 have indicated that this hasn't changed. Police departments around the country often recruit military veterans as well, many of them use a point system and give extra points for people with police relatives or from the military. They often also use the same authoritarian boot camp training to teach blind obedience to authority as the military.

CJ Werleman warns that Special Forces Operatives are 'High Functioning Psychopaths' What Happens When they are Deployed to 'Democratic Cities'? 07/23/2020 with a significant amount of justification. He quotes Timothy Snyder, saying, “The people who are getting used to committing violence on the border are then brought in to commit violence against people in the interior.” and reports on more violence and racism from both American and Australian forces with more stories similar to the ones told by David Philips of a culture of impunity. And many of these veterans might be recruited by ICE, CBP, Homeland Security, private contractors, or officers being sent by the federal government to put down the protests against police brutality.

Trump and other right wing extremists often claim that Antifa, which is just an abbreviation for Anti-Fascism, are acting violent, but there's no evidence of that; instead there's one news story after another, often supported by video, showing that it's the police that are acting violently, or occasionally White supremacists or other right wing fanatics, many of whom seem to support the crack down on progressive protesters against police brutality. This is ironic, since these right wing organizations often oppose the government and police, except with they're clamping down on progressives or minorities. Furthermore I can't help but wonder, why anyone would oppose Antifa, unless they supported Fascism?

The following are some additional sources or related articles, including many about the murder of Vanessa Guillen:

3 self-proclaimed members of the far-right 'boogaloo' movement, Stephen Parshall, 35, Andrew Lynam Jr., 23, and William Loomis, 40, were arrested on domestic terrorism charges for trying to spark violence during protests 06/03/2020

What is the Boogaloo movement and who are the Boogaloo bois? 06/27/2020 The Boogaloo movement has no set philosophy and cannot be easily categorized although it does have some ties with white supremacist and Libertarianism ideologies.

I-TEAM: Air Force sergeant arrested on suspicion for killing of deputy in Santa Cruz County 06/08/2020 The I-Team has confirmed Carrillo is an active duty military police officer, a staff sergeant assigned to the 60th Security Forces Squadron out of Travis Air Force Base. Carrillo entered the Air Force in Feb. 2009 after completing basic training and security force training at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. He worked as a recruiter in Brentwood before going to Travis Air Force Base in 2018, according to an Air Force spokesperson. ..... On his Facebook page on May 31, Carrillo reposted a meme that said, "I'll never let racist white people make me forget about the dope white people I know exist. I love y'all."

Boogaloo and BLM activists confront "white supremacy" at Richmond rally 07/04/2020

Wikipedia: Boogaloo movement

The Boogaloo Movement Wants To Be Seen as Anti-Racist, But It Has a White Supremacist Fringe 05/30/2020

The Radical Case Against White Supremacists and Neo-Nazis in the US Military 07/14/2020

Ranks of Notorious Hate Group Include Active-Duty Military 05/03/2018

White Supremacist Infiltration of US Police Forces: Fact-Checking National Security Advisor O’Brien 06/01/2020

FBI warned of white supremacists in law enforcement 10 years ago. Has anything changed? 10/21/2016

St. Louis sergeant says there are white supremacists on police force 08/07/2019

Special Forces Operatives are 'High Functioning Psychopaths' What Happens When they are Deployed to 'Democratic Cities'? 07/23/2020 CJ Werleman

'Someone just shot grandpa': Ex-Marine, Brady Daniel Zipoy, 23, charged with murder of Shakopee man 06/11/2020

Marine, Nick Costales, 34, wanted for killing mother in Fresno dies in shootout with police in Pomona Ca. 06/29/2020

Ex-Marine, Thomas Hugh Tansey, 30, Wanted On Murder Charge In Richard’s Bar Stabbing Has A Criminal Record, Remains At Large 03/02/2020

Former Marine, Codi Slayton, 19, arrested in murder of 16-year-old Josephine Jimenez after investigation 01/17/2020

Marine, Michael Owen, 27, strangled wife after learning she was pregnant with their second child, police say 01/29/2020

Murdered veteran ‘fingered’ two JBLM soldiers, Raylin D. James and Joshua Q. Gerald, both 20-year-old privates, now charged in his death for a ‘drug incident’ last year, affidavit says 05/13/2020

Authorities probe 3rd Fort Hood-linked death in a month 07/22/2020

Here's what we know about eight of the soldiers who have died this year at Fort Hood 07/2/2020

The following are more stories about the killing of Vanessa Guillen at Fort Hood along with more sources:

Who was Aaron Robinson, one of the suspects in the disappearance of Vanessa Guillen in Fort Hood? 07/02/2020

Civilian who ‘helped US Army Specialist Aaron Robinson cut up Vanessa Guillen’s body’ after he ‘bludgeoned her to death’ is charged 07/02/2020

Soldier, a suspect in disappearance of Pfc. Vanessa Guillen, kills self when confronted by police 07/02/2020

Vanessa Guillen: Remains found in shallow grave by Leon River [BREAKING] 06/30/2020

Human remains found during search for missing Fort Hood soldier Vanessa Guillen 06/30/2020

US Army offers $15,000 reward for information leading to the whereabouts of a missing Fort Hood Soldier 04/27/2020 Keys to her car and room were found in the armory where she was working earlier in the day along with her identification card and wallet, the release said.

Family of missing Fort Hood soldier pleads for help after one month with no answers 05/27/2020

Family of missing Ft. Hood soldier believes she's still alive 06/10/2020

Sister of missing Fort Hood soldier from Houston says it's unlike her to disappear 04/30/2020

Army launches civilian review of Fort Hood following Vanessa Guillen's killing 07/10/2020

Guillen family attends Fort Hood memorial, sees the room where Spc. Vanessa Guillen likely died 07/17/2020

Five times troops have mysteriously vanished in recent years 06/24/2020

Sexual assault in the military: The tragedies continue 07/24/2020

Foul play suspected in death of Fort Hood soldier Gregory Wedel Morales 06/21/2020

Mother of Gregory Morales pushing for change in deserter status of her son 07/24/2020

Inconsistencies in account of paratrooper’s disappearance and homicide trouble his family 07/20/2020

Friends Pay Tribute to Cadet Kurita 10/23/2019

West Point Cadet Revealed His Suicide Plan on Snapchat 10/23/2019

MARINE ARRESTED, CHARGED IN DOUBLE FATAL DUI CRASH FROM OCTOBER 06/02/2020

Service member, Ricardo Montesinos, accused of killing toddler in court Monday 01/06/2020

The US Military Is Using Online Gaming to Recruit Teens 07/15/2020

Army veteran, Marcus Bailey, convicted of killing his girlfriend 08/01/2013

Ex-officer gets 12 years for killing naked, unarmed black veteran 11/01/2019

Marine deserter, Michael Alexander Brown, 22, accused of murder is caught at the Virginia home where the victim was killed, authorities say 11/27/2019

MARINE ARRESTED IN SNIPER SLAYING; Accused of Killing Girl, 18, in Parking Lot Next to His West 42d St. Hotel; PORTER DISCOVERS GUN; It Is Then Traced to Owner—Police Term Murder of Last June ‘Senseless’ 11/05/1964

Former Marine, Eddie Lee Anderson, 66, accused of rape and murder 43 years after woman’s death 06/01/2019

Marine, Louis Ray Perez, 45, Arrested in Killgore Murder Investigation 04/24/2012

Southern California Marine, Jerel Boykins, 26, arrested on suspicion of murder 09/15/2017

Fort Hood hosts ribbon cutting ceremony for new visual surveillance system 12/11/2019

Corps finds security cameras installed at the barracks didn’t reduce crime 04/14/2020

Armory Weapons Racks Gun Rack Fort Riley Fort Leavenworth Fort Sill Fort Hood Universal Weapon Rack 01/05/2011

Anti-fascists linked to zero murders in the US in 25 years 07/27/2020

Police: Richmond riots instigated by white supremacists disguised as Black Lives Matter 07/26/2020

Most Corrupt Police Forces Are In Most Violent Cities

Studies that show how corrupt police departments are, and whether or not they're more likely to lead to higher violence in the communities they claim to protect, are extremely hard to find, if they exist, and a lot of the data may be unreliable. One study on law enforcement officers arrested, which doesn't focus on whether or not police corruption contributes to higher violence in their cities, says "Surprisingly little is known about the crimes committed by law enforcement officers, in part because there are virtually no official nationwide data collected, .... or available for research analyses."

Another investigation led to the release of "a list of nearly 12,000 cops and applicants who’d been found guilty of all categories of offenses, ranging from disorderly conduct to sexual assault to manslaughter." Instead of trying to reform the police, the establishment responded by trying to covering it up and implying those exposing it may have committed a crime, saying "The list came from the California Commission on Peace Officers Standards and Training, or POST. In response, California’s top law enforcement officer threatened to take legal action against the reporters if the list wasn’t destroyed. Attorney General Xavier Becerra said it had been released by accident, and he asserted that merely possessing a copy was illegal."

This means that, not only are they avoiding collecting information that could help researchers of police corruption, but they often pass laws to make it illegal to disclose some of the best research information they do have. This means that regardless of how much evidence good researchers have about police corruption, it's almost certainly even worse, perhaps much worse.

However, even without cooperation from many of the most powerful institutions, many researchers have been able to put together a significant amount of information about police corruption, and there's good reason to believe that it's worse in some of the poorest and most violent cities in America. Several organizations have made lists of what they consider the most corrupt police forces, including BET which lists 7 of the Most Corrupt Police Cities in History 01/25/2020; one of these is in Mexico, and little information is available about it; but, the other six are all from the USA and they're all above the national average murder rate, with four of them at least three times the average murder rate. Another one covers the 15 Most Corrupt Cities in America, including corruption from other city officials, in addition to the police, and all of them are also have above average murder rates with ten of them more than triple the national average, one more more than double and another two almost double.

If you look through enough of the highest profile stories about police corruption and check to see if they're in cities with high rates of violence, you'll find that almost all of them are, one collection of stories going back several is Marshall Project latest stories on police corruption, and except for a few stories about corruption in Honolulu and a couple more in small towns few have heard of, they're all in very violent cities, often the ones listed above as the most corrupt cities. Another way to cross check this conclusion is to search for police corruption in less violent cities, like El Paso or Sand Diego, etc., and there's no doubt you'll find corruption there as well, but there doesn't seem to be nearly as many stories about it as in more violent cities. On article that turns up in a search for San Diego police corruption is Dozens of Police Officers Across San Diego County Have Been Convicted of Crimes 11/11/2020, which certainly sounds bad, and is bad; however the article refers to a list of nearly 12,000 cops that were found guilty of crimes. If San Diego had there share based on population, then it would be close to 1,000 police officers convicted of crimes, implying the rest of California is even worse.

If you look at the current murder rates for New York, which is historically considered one of the most corrupt police forces in history, this may seem to be an exception, since they're among the lowest murder rates for big cities in the country; however, consideration of the size and history of it may explain this. Some of NYPD's worst corruption took place before at least two major reform movements, on led by the Knapp Commission, in the early 1970s, and the Mollen Commission, in the early 1990s; it wasn't until after the second one when their murder rates began a steady decline that continued over twenty-five years, before this New York was one of the most violent cities in the country. If you figure the average murder rate for 2002-2016 it's 5.81, which is still above average.

It's only the past eight years that it finally went below average. Also, it's the biggest city in the country so many parts of it, often the poorest are still much higher than average, and that's almost certainly where the most corruption is. The first investigation was headed by Whitman Knapp, a Wall Street lawyer, who was presumably concerned with how epidemic levels of police corruption impacted Wall Street profits. It is widely recognized among the best researchers that those with the least amount of political power are most likely to be targeted by corrupt police. When corruption impacts Wall Street profits the political establishment is much more likely to act. These good researchers also know the most effective solutions to this problem; unfortunately their work is often only distributed in the academic community or on alternative media outlets including Rachel Kleinfeld who describes some of the most effective solutions ignored by traditional media in the following article:

These Countries Reformed Their Brutal, Biased Police. The U.S. Can, Too. 07/02/2020

In Bogotá, the moment for long overdue reforms finally came after police raped and murdered a nine-year-old girl at a police station. In Monterrey, Mexico, it arrived years after locals began calling officers polizetas—a mash-up of policía and Los Zetas, the violent drug cartel with whom they often colluded. In the United States, the moment may have come after the brutal killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.

The United States is far from the only country where police brutality, corruption, or biased treatment of parts of the population have driven demands for reform. Success, however, has been rare—not because reformers don’t know what policies to implement, but because the required reforms were blocked or didn’t stick. To increase the odds of successful police reform, U.S. activists and reformers would be wise to look at lessons from countries and communities where changes succeeded and stuck.

Luckily, what works for fair and effective policing is well known. Decades of research confirm that trust between law enforcement and communities is essential, because controlling crime requires community help. In the United States and Britain, for instance, the vast majority of the crimes that people fear the most, such as homicide and rape, required public tips to solve. Building trust, however, is based less on bringing down crime (the metric many police monitor) than on treating people with respect and fairness. Trust is enhanced by recruiting a force that resembles the community it serves (although sadly, diversity doesn’t necessarily reduce police violence). Finally, hiring more women in law enforcement—a strategy Peru used to break perceptions of widespread corruption—results in more trust and less use of force.

Once officers have gained a community’s trust, they can use public tips to implement policies proven to drastically reduce crime, such as targeting hot spots (the small number of places where most violence happens), and focusing deterrence on the tiny percentage of people responsible for the vast majority of violent crime to prevent them from resorting to violence. Executing both strategies with respect and fairness is, needless to say, essential to their effectiveness.

The problem is getting police—and political leaders—to make these changes and make them stick. In the past few weeks, the United States has taken the first steps. Politicians are on notice from the vocal, voting middle class. That step is crucial—even in Venezuela, one of the world’s most violent countries, it is the most marginalized communities with the least political power that bear the brunt of overly violent and underresponsive policing. In every democracy where systemic police abuse has been tackled, change usually began when the broader public started to care. As a result of this pressure, the U.S. House of Representatives has passed a police reform bill; various U.S. states and communities are making changes as well.

........

One reason for the more extreme strategy of mass firing is that it can be among the few ways for reform-minded politicians to disband police unions that, in their quest for workers’ rights, prevent corrupt and abusive agents from being fired. Unions play an awkward role: While they are essential for democracy, in the area of law enforcement they are often obstacles to policies that enable cultural change—such as promoting best performers or putting new recruits at the cutting edge of reform so that they are immediately acculturated to where the organization wants to go.

The key to accountability is for policymakers grappling with reform to be independent from the police themselves and from ongoing political pressure. The most committed politicians prevent slippage by ensuring that their own fortunes rise and fall with the success of police reform. In Bogotá, former Mayor Antanas Mockus ran on a platform of creating a more civil, less criminal police. He demanded daily briefings from the police force and experimented with policies from mass firing to hiring mimes to regulate traffic. In Medellín, Colombia, former Mayor Sergio Fajardo required police statistics to be maintained by an independent agency and made public monthly. Such pressure kept the reform agenda front and center.

Growing crime, however, can undermine the ability of even the most reform-minded politicians to hold the line. Often, police and politicians erroneously view efforts to improve the treatment of citizens as inherently at odds with police effectiveness. Increased crime leads to public clamor for “toughness”—and tough-on-crime policies nearly always offer greater impunity for the use of force by police. Despite actually causing crime to increase, these tough-sounding policies are election winners in nearly every democracy. If crime rises, reform will backslide, even if reform is the best way to bring crime back down. While labor unions are essential for democracy, in the area of law enforcement they are often obstacles to policies that enable cultural change. Complete article

In all fairness, the reforms she cites haven't been completely successful, but they have taken major steps in the right direction. A major part of the reason why reforms often don't stick, is because it's the corrupt people in power implementing them, and the media doesn't inform the public about the best research teaching how to stop police corruption. In many cases when they do point out some of the biggest problems, they only report in in a low profile manner then forget about it while deceptive propaganda is often repeated over and over again. This is why tough on crime politics sounds very good to many people, even though it doesn't work and leads to increased impunity for use of excessive force, often even for the wrong people.

One clear indication of the corruption of both the police, and the political establishment is the union contracts they negotiate, usually in secret without the knowledge of the public supposedly being protected by police. When Wall Street corporation negotiate a contract with unions their CEOs and stockholders know what's in it; however, citizens don't know what's in the contracts supposedly negotiated on their behalf, as reported in Police contracts can stand in the way of accountability 07/19/2020, which says:

Collective bargaining agreements for officers provide protections that stand in the way of accountability, even when the federal government is overseeing an agency through a consent decree, experts said. The killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis officer ignited protests and calls for change, but experts say police contracts threaten to undermine those efforts.

Contracts designed to ensure officers receive fair wages and benefits have spilled over into public policy.

"We're ignoring the purpose of the bargaining rights and we're allowing them to step outside of what they were originally supposed to cover," said Ayesha Bell Hardaway of the Case Western University School of Law.

"When talk about discipline, accountability and use of force protocols, we should not be talking about collective bargaining rights because those terms have no business inside of the contracts in the first place."

When contracts are written in private negotiations, that means little input from communities. ......

“A substantial number of these agreements limit officer interrogations after alleged misconduct, mandate the destruction of disciplinary records, ban civilian oversight, prevent anonymous civilian complaints, indemnify officers in the event of civil suits, and limit the length of internal investigations,” he said.

Few if any citizens would ever agree to ban accountability for the police to the citizens they're supposed to protect, yet politicians who negotiate on their behalf routinely do just that, in secret! Nor do they know that they're being stuck with the tab for hundreds of millions if not well over a billion dollars in lawsuits against the police every year as I went into in Duopoly Is Trying To Indoctrinate The Public Like A Cult including some cases where tax payers are stuck with lawsuits from both the victims of police brutality, and the police that are responsible for it, including Philly’s police misconduct cases drain taxpayer money, which says, "the city paid 26 officers at least $1.2 million in back pay and other payments. In addition, the city has paid nearly $4 million to settle federal lawsuits involving 15 of these officers." I also found examples in Florida where cities were forced to pay both the victims of police brutality in one lawsuit, and for back pay to the police responsible for it, often allowing them to rejoin the force again, possibly leading to more lawsuits.

If these funds were going into education, child care, or other social programs that address the root causes of violence then there would be far less violence in these cities and the police often do more to make it worse than to protect the public. For example in New Book Explores Rise and Fall of America's Most Corrupt Police Force 07/15/2020 Brandon Soderberg says:

"I think the easiest way to put it is that they created crime. By committing crimes themselves, but also because robbing drug dealers leads to violence (people get shot when the count isn't right) and dealing drugs disrupts the underground economy. .... And divesting from law enforcement and giving more money to groups such as Safe Streets and other community-facing efforts would go a long way."

For some reason, the same authors of that article and accompanying book, which does offer some good solutions also argued that Police 'reform' doesn't work. Baltimore proves it. 06/18/2020; however, this isn't quite true, and some of the reforms that they recommend are similar to the ones that Rachel Kleinfeld cited as being partly successful in other countries. There have also been partially successful reforms in New York, Detroit, Camden, NJ, New Orleans, and Richmond California, have all implemented major reforms that have had success in dramatically reducing the rates of violence, although they all still have more work to do. It would be more accurate to say that reforms don't work, when neither the police or the politicians want them to work.

I went into this more in Politicians increase crime; Grass roots efforts reduce crime; Politicians steal the credit which covers Richmond California, which is probably the city with the biggest drop in crime of them all, and it continued to drop since I first wrote this. A major part of the reason for this seems to be that the people educated themselves at the local level, despite lack of media coverage of the most effective research to reduce violence, and rejected establishment politicians that weren't sincere elect Gayle McLaughlin, of the Green Party, Mayor for a while. Due to term limits she wasn't able to stay on, but establishment politicians learned that they would have to adopt more rational programs, based on good research or lose elections to other progressives.

Not only are police and politicians incredibly corrupt, but there should be no doubt that the media is also incredibly corrupt and incompetent! In a functioning Democracy, we need diverse media coverage, at least some of which covers the best research on any given academic subject, including into most effective ways to reduce violence, and hold police accountable; as well as coverage for all candidates running for political office, including those basing their campaigns on good research, not just the ones that collect enormous donations from corporations. In our country over 95% of the media is controlled b y 6 corporation, and they ignore the best research on any given subject so we base decisions on lies and propaganda; they also refuse to cover the most honest candidates, ensuring they can't get the name recognition to be viable, effectively rigging elections for corrupt candidates that don't address the needs of the people.

The following are some additional sources or related articles:

A Study in Contrasts Between Rialto Police and Albuquerque Police 05/25/2014

California police use of body cameras cuts violence and complaints 11/04/2013

Body-worn camera study by Executive Fellow Chief Tony Farrar is published in scientific journal 12/30/2014

A controversial legal doctrine protects cops from misconduct lawsuits. Here's how 'qualified immunity' works. 06/08/2020

'Now Is Not the Time for More Studies': Sanders Rips Weak GOP Bill and Demands End to Police Immunity 06/18/2020

Senate passes sweeping police reform bill, limits qualified immunity protections 07/14/2020

Wikipedia: Qualified immunity

These Are the 15 Most Corrupt Cities in America 03/03/2018 1. Washington, D.C. average murder rate from 2002-16: 27.07; 2. Chicago average murder rate from 2002-16: 17.85; 3. Philadelphia average murder rate from 2002-16: 21.13 4. Baltimore average murder rate from 2002-16: 40.45; 5. Miami average murder rate from 2002-16: 16.67; 6. Houston average from 2002-16: 12.91; 7. NY City average murder rate from 2002-16: 5.81; 8. Detroit average murder rate from 2002-16: 42.98; 9. New Orleans average murder rate from 2002-16: 54.02; 10. Newark average murder rate from 2002-16: 32.39; 11. Richmond Va. average murder rate from 2002-16: 27.64; 12. Los Angeles average murder rate from 2002-16: 9.86; 13. Wichita average murder rate from 2002-16: 6.78; 14. Cleveland average murder rate from 2002-16: 19.84; 15. Las Vegas average murder rate from 2002-16: 8.92;

7 of the Most Corrupt Police Cities in History 01/25/2020 1. NYPD average murder rate from 2002-16: 5.81; 2. Miami average murder rate from 2002-16: 16.67; 3. Chicago average murder rate from 2002-16: 17.85; 4. Los Angeles average murder rate from 2002-16: 9.86; 5. Ahome Mexico; 6. Philadelphia average murder rate from 2002-16: 21.13; 7. Baltimore average murder rate from 2002-16: 40.45;

The Top 5 Most Corrupt U.S. Police Officers Of All-Time 1. Robert Gisevius, Kenneth Bowen, and Anthony Villavaso, New Orleans; 2. Jon Burge, Chicago; 3. David Mack And Rafael Perez, LAPD Rampart division; 4. Joseph Miedzianowski, Chicago; 5. Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, NYPD;

The Plight of the Police Whistleblower 06/18/2020

10 Most Corrupt Police Force in the World 07/0/2020 1. Kenya; 2. Burma; 3. Iraq; 4. Somalia; 5. Afghanistan; 6. Sudan; 7. Russia; 8. Pakistan; 9. Haiti; 10. Mexico;

6 Corrupt Police Forces That Didn't Even Pretend to Give A F 04/16/2016

Police Integrity Lost: A Study of Law Enforcement Officers Arrested April 2016 Surprisingly little is known about the crimes committed by law enforcement officers, in part because there are virtually no official nationwide data collected, maintained, disseminated, and/or available for research analyses. Researchers have utilized other methodologies to study police misconduct and crime in the absence of any substantive official data, including surveys, field studies, quasi-experiments, internal agency records, and the investigative reports of various independent commissions delegated to report on this phenomenon within particular jurisdictions.

4 US cities among world’s most violent in 2015 01/29/2016

Defund the Police Is a Good Slogan but Bad Policy 06/05/2020 Written by economist, citing two vague studies that don't address other social causes.

USING TERROR ALERT LEVELS TO ESTIMATE THE EFFECT OF POLICE ON CRIME* 02/16/2005 He found that police presence increased in mayoral and gubernatorial election years but not in off-election years.

Using Electoral Cycles in Police Hiring to Estimate the Effects of Police on Crime: Reply 07/0/2020

How New Orleans police went from ‘most corrupt’ to model force 02/26/2019

Marshall Project latest stories on police corruption.

Massachusetts detective fired after post supporting Black Lives Matter 07/02/2020

Springfield police fire detective after pro-Black Lives Matter post 07/01/2020 Earlier this spring, the Springfield Police Department, which was struggled with staffing issues, also faced criticism for reinstating five suspended officers who were criminally charged for an off-duty brawl outside a bar. The department also still employs Anthony Bedinelli, a twice-fired officer — whose terminations were both overturned on appeal — who has been the subject of 18 separate internal investigations during his career, including for alleged physical incidents while on and off duty. But as MassLive reported last month, Bedinelli was recently passed over for a promotion.

Whistleblower Stripped Of Joliet Police Powers: Sources 07/06/2020

In a city known for violence, Detroit protests have not been marred by arson, looting, destruction 07/09/2020

Federal oversight forced reforms on Detroit's often violent police department 07/09/2020

BlueLeaks Hack Exposes Personal Data of 700,000 Cops 07/15/2020

Leaked Documents Show Police Knew Far-Right Extremists Were the Real Threat at Protests, not “Antifa” 07/15/2020

Cop who threatened to kill protesters shoots, kills colleague who knocked on door, affidavit says 07/14/2020

Chilling Video Shows Police Shoot, Kill TV Crewman While Filming Episode of 'COPS' 04/27/2018

Cops Who Laughed as They Killed Handcuffed, Innocent Man Granted Qualified Immunity 07/10/2020

President Obama Signs Indefinite Detention Bill Into Law | American Civil Liberties Union 12/31/2011

Evidence shows Portland police working with federal officers at protests, contradicting city officials 07/18/2020

Obama Signs NDAA Martial Law ∞ Justifying why U have no Rights? 01/02/2012

Dems' Sternly Worded Letter Won't Stop Fascism 07/20/2020

Columbus ‘paramilitary’ police with assault weapons jump out of unmarked vans to abduct protester 06/25/2020

Federal Law Enforcement Use Unmarked Vehicles To Grab Protesters Off Portland Streets 07/16/2020

From ex-cop to exile: Former police officer flees US after exposing crimes in his department 07/18/2018

Jury awards $75K to woman who sued PBSO over excessive force 01/20/2015

Arbitrator orders fired Palm Beach County sheriff’s deputy to be reinstated, possible $150,000 in back pay 04/09/2013

PBC deputy brags about roughing up people on Facebook 08/06/2009

Calls are growing to defund police in the US. Here are some lessons from overseas 06/24/2020 Many of the US police departments facing defunding calls are accused of systemic racism. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) alleges that departments in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston and Detroit reserve their most aggressive enforcement for Black people living in deprived areas.

Here's how much money goes to police departments in largest cities across the U.S. 06/26/2020

Trump’s Justice Department has a powerful tool to fight police abuse. It refuses to use it. 06/30/2020

Study finds police officers arrested 1,100 times per year, or 3 per day, nationwide 06/22/2016

These 35 cops in Wayne County have been deemed untrustworthy to testify in court 07/16/2020

Dozens of Police Officers Across San Diego County Have Been Convicted of Crimes 11/11/2020 By the time sheriff’s deputies arrived at her Imperial Beach home, Deborah Tungcab was lying motionless on the floor. During an argument in 2011, her husband, Roel Tungcab, had broken her cell phone. Through a public records request last year, two reporters from UC Berkeley’s Investigative Reporting Program obtained a list of nearly 12,000 cops and applicants who’d been found guilty of all categories of offenses, ranging from disorderly conduct to sexual assault to manslaughter. The list came from the California Commission on Peace Officers Standards and Training, or POST. In response, California’s top law enforcement officer threatened to take legal action against the reporters if the list wasn’t destroyed. Attorney General Xavier Becerra said it had been released by accident, and he asserted that merely possessing a copy was illegal.

SDPD sergeant accused of soliciting minor for sex found dead from apparent suicide 08/05/2019

Officer accused of DUI apparently kills himself 09/02/2016

Officer Roel Vincente Tungcab, 39, arrested on suspicion of domestic battery 03/29/2011 Tungcab is the second San Diego police officer to be arrested this month. On March 11, traffic officer Anthony Arevalos was taken into custody on suspicion of sexual battery, false imprisonment and assault under the color of authority. ... A San Diego vice detective, Art Perea, 42, resigned from the department March 4 after being placed on unpaid leave after a college student said he raped her at an El Cajon home. Perea has not been charged, and El Cajon police said the incident continues to be investigated.

Wikipedia: Knapp Commission

Wikipedia: Mollen Commission

Check Out Patrolman P, a Tale of Corruption and Murder at the NYPD 11/20/2013

Patrolman P: Film Review 11/16/2013

A Brief History of Cops Convicted of Murder

How a Serial Killer Cop is Still on the Job 07/16/2020 Statistics show white, male officers who politically support gun rights and work in larger cities are more likely to resort to deadly force than their female counterparts, racial and ethnic minorities, and officers who work in smaller communities. Additionally, officers who are military veterans are also more likely to use deadly force as well when compared to non-veterans cops who’ve never fired their gun on duty, according to Pew. Other studies prove that cops shoot people less if they have the right training.

The man believed to have shot the son and husband of New Jersey federal Judge Esther Salas — a lawyer and anti-feminist — has died by suicide 07/20/2020

A controversial legal doctrine protects cops from misconduct lawsuits. Here's how 'qualified immunity' works. 06/08/2020

'Now Is Not the Time for More Studies': Sanders Rips Weak GOP Bill and Demands End to Police Immunity 06/18/2020

Senate passes sweeping police reform bill, limits qualified immunity protections 07/14/2020

Supreme Court Fortifies Qualified Immunity for Law Enforcement Officers in Warrant Cases 2013

Oligarchy Now Worse Than Machiavelli

I'm no fan of Niccolò Machiavelli who was a leading adviser for tyrants writing books that taught them how to control their people long after he was dead; however, even he knew how to handle the recent protests against the police than our leaders, and especially the McCloskeys who pointed guns at protesters in a paranoid effort to allegedly defend their home.

Machiavelli wrote about how to control people, teaching that it's better to be feared than loved, that rulers should keep the citizens poor, that they should use war and fear of the enemy to stir up emotions, and many other indoctrination tactics that politicians continue using today. Machiavelli, may be taught in colleges, where political scientists study how to manipulate the masses for the benefit of campaign contributors, although they wouldn't phrase it that way; but it's rarely taught to working class people who often have no more than a high school education, or if they study a trade afterwards, it wouldn't involve studying political manipulation.

If you Google "Niccolò Machiavelli misunderstood" you'll find plenty of people arguing that Machiavelli wasn't nearly as bad as most people in the academic world think, often claiming that his less famous books, including the "Discourses" show that he supported the people in a fair way. This includes one article which seems to argue that Machiavelli was trying to warn us, not advise the tyrants, which sounds good, but was never implemented in practice.

After reading Machiavelli, there's no doubt that if the masses understood the tactics used to control them they would be far less likely to fall for them and would learn how to overthrow the minority that controls large institutions; however, Machiavelli's work wasn't shared with the masses when he was alive, his most famous book, "The Prince," wasn't published until five years after his death, and even then the vast majority of commoners almost certainly couldn't read. Today, even though it's publicly available to anyone that wants to read it, it's hardly taught at all to the working class, while those studying politics often learn it well, yet they rarely discuss it publicly.

One thing that he did get right, although, possibly for the wrong reasons, was that he argued against the building of fortresses, which could also be applied to modern gated communities, where members of the ruling class often live, so they don't have to deal with high rates of violence at home, that might result from their bad policies. Mayor Lyda Krewson, Mark and Patricia McCloskey, could have learned from this. The McCloskeys go beyond being ignorant of some of Machiavelli's teaching, and appear to be paranoid and delusional, assuming they're not putting on a bizarre act for some reason, as this article shows:

Gun-Toting St. Louis Lawyer Claims He Feared ‘Storming Of The Bastille’-Type Attack From Protesters 06/29/2020

Over the weekend, a St. Louis couple drew national attention after they were captured on video pointing guns at anti-racist protesters marching past their house in the Missouri city’s affluent Central West End neighborhood.

Mark McCloskey, who was armed with an assault rifle in the now-viral video, recently sat down with NBC News affiliate KSDK to share his reasons for pointing the lethal weapon at the protesters.

During the interview, the St. Louis attorney claimed he and his wife feared for their lives.

“We were threatened with our lives, threatened with our house being burned down, my office building being burned down, even our dog’s life being threatened. It was, it was about as bad as it can get.”

“I mean…I really thought it was Storming the Bastille, that we would be dead and the house would be burned and there was nothing we could do about it.”

“It was a huge and frightening crowd.” Complete article

This protest was all caught on video, including the fact that the gate was open, despite claims that the protesters broke it. It was broken later, although it's unclear why, or if it was a bad attempt to support the false claim. Many of these claims were clearly proven false shortly after they made them, raising major credibility problems. according to 'They were going to kill us': Armed St. Louis homeowner claims protesters threatened to take her life and home 07/07/2020 they also made additional claims about another protest five days later that also seem to have major credibility problems:

"We got a tip that the people were coming back, and they were coming back specifically for us and to get us and to burn the house," Mark McCloskey said. "And so we started trying to get private security. We had been told that the city police have been ordered to stand down. We had been told that there was going to be no official help. Our neighborhood association put out a flier saying that, if people broke in, they were just going to let them. And so we started trying to hire private security. Entity after entity said they didn’t want to get involved. Thursday afternoon, we started hiding valuables and securing the house. The last group of security people ... these were special forces guys, told us they couldn’t do it and we should just walk away from the house and abandon it. We just said we weren’t going to do that."

This was nothing like the storming of the Bastille, as he claimed, and he should have known it; furthermore, if it was, I seriously doubt if they would have reacted that way; and if they did, and they were actually up against violent and armed protesters, as they falsely claimed, there's a strong chance that they would have been killed quickly. But of course, the protesters were peaceful, and some of them were demanding that funds be shifted from police to social programs that are far more effective at reducing violence before it escalates, instead of dealing with it when it's too late.

The McCloskeys, on the other hand don't seemed to be interested in the leading causes of violence so they can prevent it at all, instead they're constantly bickering with people and starting arguments, which began long before this incident. According to Police execute search warrant at home of gun-toting couple 07/11/2020 "that public records and interviews show the McCloskeys are almost always in conflict with others, typically over control of private property."

Neither the McCloskeys or Lyda Krewson seem to know much about the leading causes of violence, and how to prevent it, which could make their city much safer, and reduce the need for them to live in gated communities. This shouldn't be too surprising, since the best research on leading causes of violence is almost completely absent from traditional media, and rarely discussed when making political decisions, unless local people do their own research and bring it up despite the negligence of media and politicians. More on that below. Machiavelli wasn't familiar with some of the best modern research on preventing violence either, and his political views are more likely to do the opposite in many cases, like the policies of many modern authoritarian politicians; however, he understood that rulers who lived in fortresses or gated communities were less likely to respect the rights of their own people, as indicated int the following excerpts:

Niccolò Machiavelli "Discourses" That, commonly, Fortresses do much more Harm than Good. 1517

Looking, therefore, to the course followed by the Romans in this particular, and to that adopted by our modern rulers, it seems proper to consider whether or not it is advisable to build fortresses, and whether they are more likely to help or to hurt him who builds them In the first place, then, we are to remember that fortresses are built either as a defense against foreign foes or against subjects.

In the former case, I pronounce them unnecessary, in the latter mischievous. And to state the reasons why in the latter case they are mischievous, I say that when princes or republics are afraid of their subjects and in fear lest they rebel, this must proceed from knowing that their subjects hate them, which hatred in its turn results from their own ill conduct, and that again from their thinking themselves able to rule their subjects by mere force, or from their governing with little prudence.

Now one of the causes which lead them to suppose that they can rule by mere force, is this very circumstance of their people having these fortresses on their backs So that the conduct which breeds hatred is itself mainly occasioned by these princes or republics being possessed of fortresses, which, if this be true, are really far more hurtful than useful First, because, as has been said already, they render a ruler bolder and more violent in his bearing towards his subjects, and, next, because they do not in reality afford him that security which he believes them to give For all those methods of violence and coercion which may be used to keep a people under, resolve themselves into two; since either like the Romans you must always have it in your power to bring a strong army into the field, or else you must dissipate, destroy, and disunite the subject people, and so divide and scatter them that they can never again combine to injure you.

For should you merely strip them of their wealth, spoliatis arma supersunt, arms still remain to them, or if you deprive them of their weapons, furor arma ministrat, rage will supply them, if you put their chiefs to death and continue to maltreat the rest, heads will renew themselves like those Hydra; while, if you build fortresses, these may serve in time of peace to make you bolder in outraging your subjects, but in time of war they will prove wholly useless, since they will be attacked at once by foes both foreign and domestic, whom together it will be impossible for you to resist. ......

But to go deeper into the matter, I say, either you are a prince seeking by means of these fortresses to hold the people of your city in check; or you are a prince, or it may be a republic, desirous to control some city which you have gained in war. To the prince I would say, that, for the reasons already given, nothing can be more unserviceable than a fortress as a restraint upon your subjects, since it only makes you the readier to oppress them, and less scrupulous how you do so; while it is this very oppression which moves them to destroy you, and so kindles their hatred, that the fortress, which is the cause of all the mischief, is powerless to protect you.

A wise and good prince, therefore, that he may continue good, and give no occasion or encouragement to his descendants to become evil, will never build a fortress, to the end that neither he nor they may ever be led to trust to it rather than to the good-will of their subjects. And if Francesco Sforza, who was accounted a wise ruler, on becoming Duke of Milan erected a fortress in that city, I say that herein he was unwise, and that the event has shown the building of this fortress to have been hurtful and not helpful to his heirs.

For thinking that by its aid they could behave as badly as they liked to their citizens and subjects, and yet be secure, they refrained from no sort of violence or oppression, until, becoming beyond measure odious, they lost their State as soon as an enemy attacked it. Nor was this fortress, which in peace had occasioned them much hurt, any defense or of any service them in war. For had they being without it, through thoughtlessness, treated their subjects inhumanely, they must soon have discovered and withdrawn from their danger; and might, thereafter, with no other help than that of attached subjects, have withstood the attacks of the French far more successfully than they could with their fortress, but with subjects whom they had estranged. Complete article

The short version of what Machiavelli was recognizing was that if the rulers lived in fortresses, or gated communities, where they wouldn't be held accountable for the results of their policies. In his time, there were no democracies, but he warned that if they oppressed the people too much, they would revolt. He also cautioned that if the rulers were behind gated communities they would be more likely to encourage their troops, or now police, to be more brutal, and inspire revolt. Furthermore, with politicians, like Lyda Krewson live in gated communities and have police protection when they leave, they're less likely to be concerned about their own safety, possibly ignoring the best research for political reasons, including some encouraged by Machiavelli, like keeping the citizens poor. Not that I, or most peaceful protesters are recommending that Lyda Krewson should be put at risk, but neither should the rest of the community when we have the research to understand how to reduce violence.

Many of the cities that have had the biggest problems with police brutality over the last few years, including St. Louis, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Chicago have seen their homicide rates increase significantly, while most of the country was relatively unchanged hitting an all time low of 4.5 per 100,000 in 2013 and 2014, before climbing back up to 5.4 in 2016, and dropping back to 5.0 again in 2018, but the increases in these four cities were much higher. One city, Richmond, California, which I covered years ago in Politicians increase crime; Grass roots efforts reduce crime; Politicians steal the credit, has seen it's murder rates drop dramatically, perhaps the sharpest drop of any other city, at least that I know of. Part of the reason for this was police reform, but they also dressed many of the leading root causes with lots of activism at the local level, and for a while they had one of the few Green Party Mayors in the country, with much more progressive policies than other cities. They went from being one of the most violent cities in the country, with a rate peaking above 45 per 100,000 to cutting their murder rates by 75%, in 2014 and 2017, although they had a couple bad years in 2016 and 2018, which were still 60% below their peak.

New Orleans La. and Camden NJ also had very high murder rates and responded with major police reform, which helped reduce violence and those cities dramatically. All three of these cities still have serious crime problems, but they've shown that hey can do much better, and if they continue their reforms they can be expected to get even better.

We actually do have good research that shows how to solve this problem without resorting to oppressive police, which has proven to fail.

When it comes to one major contributing cause after another, there's a clear difference between the research showing how to reduce violence, and a rigged economic ideology, designed to benefit the wealthy, that often live in the gated communities, or estates that have as much if not more security, and are out of touch with the working class. One of the most obvious contributing factors to high rates of crime and violence, that opposes fiscal ideology of the wealthy, is poverty and income inequality, which go together. Wealthy people often talk about how they want to reduce poverty and income inequality, but they rarely ever do so, presumably because they're the beneficiaries of it, so they have a financial incentive not to solve it.

Another major contributing factor, possibly the most important one, is early child abuse, including corporal punishment leading to escalating violence later in life. This teaches blind obedience and to resort to violence to solve problems. Wealthy people may often support it, especially for the working class because this is a major part of a punitive process that keeps them in their place. Most major cities, including St. Louis have banned the use of corporal punishment in schools; however, Missouri is one of the 19 remaining states still allowing it, and abandoned inn er cities, like St. Louis have more than their share of other contributing factors, which is why they tend to be so violent.

Improved access to education is also a major part of the solution, but there's little or no effort from the political establishment to solve this problem, including from Mayor Lyda Krewson, and they often do the opposite b y pushing Charter Schools, often for profit, especially in low income areas, even though they've been a proven failure. Her son is apparently pushing them, as a former member of Teach For America, which is actually a propaganda organization attempting to privatize education. Supposedly his support doesn't involve his mother; however, a search of her record certainly doesn't show strong opposition to Charters Schools, if anything her record seems to show subtle support for them, even though those well informed about them know how bad they've failed. There's also evidecne that they're pushing them the most in some of the poorest and most violent cities in the country as I pointed out in Is Push For Charter Schools Increasing Murder Rates? and these Charter Schools aren't doing anything to reduce violence in the sixteen most heavily concentrated cities cited by one source in that article, with some of them getting even worse. The closet thing to an exception is New Orleans, which was on top of the list in 2014, but has gone through some major reforms in the last few years, including police reform, and a growing recognition that Charter Schools have failed miserably. New Orleans was an early leader in Charter Schools and while they were still expanding their violence rate was still on the rise.

According to Lyda Krewson's Wikipedia page she doesn't seem to be a leader in progressive reforms, although in a few cases she may have compromised with her critics who seemed far more familiar with the best research to reduce violence. She tried to reduce panhandling by introducing the "REAL Change Program" but it also criminalized panhandling and there was some doubt as to how effective her social program was. She seemed more concerned, like many other politicians with preventing the annoyance to the public, than to solving the homeless problem. She also increased the number of beds for homeless by 50 but it was in response to the closing of an Evangelistic homeless shelter which previously housed 150. I've written previously about how much higher the rates of murder are in cities with Megachurches in or near them compared to those without them; however, most of these megachurches collect an enormous amount of money from parishioners and use little or none of it for social programs that help the community, often buying mansions, limousines, and even private airplanes, for wealthy pastors. I'm not a fan of religion, but if they do provide social services some of them may help the community.

Krewson was also slow to address the root causes of violence, until pressured by community activists. She hasn't supported nearly as comprehensive reforms as Richmond Ca. Camden NJ, or New Orleans La., which have all proven to have major success and included police reform among other things; however under pressure she did sign a contract with Cure Violence last year, which is just getting started. Based on research from 2000 to 2004 in Chicago they concluded this was very effective and it was also introduced to Baltimore; however they only expanded it to 15 out of 77 Chicago communities, and both Baltimore and Chicago have seen increases in crime in recent years, strongly implying that either it's not as effective as the reforms in Richmond, Camden and New Orleans, or they're not providing enough resources for it. It's too soon to know how effective it will be in St. Louis.

There's good reason to believe that mainstream media and establishment politicians, including Lyda Krewson are far more concerned with the fiscal ideology of the elites than with the most effective research, which is available at libraries, alternative media and academic journals. The evidence for this is incredibly simple; the mainstream media practically never mentions this good research, and establishment politicians are constantly ignoring it as well, unless they face strong opposition at the local level. As I pointed out, in previous articles on the subject, the communities that have strongest grassroots movements pushing good research are the ones that get the most concessions, occasionally, like Richmond California, they even manage to elect progressive politicians like Gayle McLaughlin, who was Mayor during the most important reforms and even help corporations like Chevron accountable, to the best of her ability, and she helped bring about the most effective reforms reducing violence in cities with exceptionally high murder rates. The closest possible exception, that I know of, might be New York, which also had a dramatic drop in murder rates, but that took much longer dropping slowly, but steadily over a period of over 25 years.

When politicians are isolated from their communities, and have little or no contact with the best researchers, they're far more likely to push the fiscal ideology of wealthy elites, who are far more concerned with their own wealth and power than the best interests of the community. these politicians rarely seem to get advice about good research from their political allies, instead getting it from outspoken and well informed community members, and often resist implementing good policies even then. The same goes for wealthy owners, often billionaires, of the media and celebrity pundits, often multi-millionaires, who ignore the best research, and also live apart from the community.

Another problem with gated communities, is although they reduce burglaries within the community, they do nothing to reduce overall crime and they're very inefficient. Studies have shown that in addition to being more expensive, they also cost much more to maintain and pay for high security, so they're only for very wealthy people. Furthermore, other studies have shown that even though they reduce burglaries, they may lead to increases in bullying, domestic violence and other forms of violence, partly because the victims are fenced in with their attackers, and have no where to turn.

And more importantly, when the elites feel they're protected they might feel more comfortable ignoring far more effective ways of reducing all forms of violence and burglaries for everyone, not just those living in the gated communities. If this had been done decades ago the demand for gated communities never would have grown so high; and if we addressed the leading causes of violence then demand for gated communities would steadily drop, as crime rates fall. The McCloskeys clearly demonstrated that some of the people in these gated communities are ideological fanatics, and out of touch with reality. There's no way of knowing how many more residents of these communities are like that, but our political establishment routinely fights tooth and nail against policies that are based on rational research, indicating there are many more.

We could also compare our country to the rest of the world to understand why some countries have much more violence than us, and other countries have much less violence. Compared to other wealthy countries, ours is one of the most violent countries in the world; however if you compare us to all countries including poorer ones, often with extremely dysfunctional governments, many supported by our government, we're moderately below average for murder rates, but much safer than the most dysfunctional countries. In some of these dysfunctional governments, they also rely heavily on gated communities to protect the wealthy that have the most political influence, including Mexico and Argentina:

Research in Urban Sociology 2010 - Page 285

The local Councillor of a municipality in the province of Mendoza, Argentina, explains the local situation: there is not a general norm for gated communities, so there are exception ordinances to build this type of neighborhood … each situation is analyzed and gets a planning permit.’ In the case of Queretaro, some gated communities do not have a municipal permit to be closed off, but there does not seem to be opposition about this because their residents are part of the political or economic elite of the city. As the local deputy planning director explains: People who live there [referring to EC4] are politicians and government people who have managed to keep the development as private, even when we all know that it should work as an open neighborhood.’

In relation to gated community residents, they are not only seen as ’politicians’ as stated in the previous quotation, but also as ’people with money … with large houses of 300 square metres or even 500 square metres and they usually have people who help them with the house cleaning.’ (deputy director of urban development, Queretaro, Mexico) Additional excerpts

Both these countries are more violent and dysfunctional than the United States, especially Mexico; and the problem is the same, the people making the political decisions are isolated from the rest of the community and base their decisions on fiscal ideology, designed to control the masses, not the most effective research to reduce violence or the best interests of the majority of the people.

Switzerland, on the other hand, is one of the countries with much lower murder rates 0.59 compared to 5.0 for the United States, more than eight times as high, and some of the worst abandoned inner cities in the United States are a hundred times more violent than Switzerland.

Paying Our High Public Officials 2013 p.101

The success of Switzerland is based upon the fact that political affairs are run by people who are grounded in reality and know the needs of the people from their own experiences.

Instead of making it possible for ordinary workers to enter politics, the salaries have created an increasing distance between the experiences of ordinary workers and those of successful career politicians.

For if high public officials are paid moderately, they will live under circumstances similar to those that the people they govern live under. Hence they will have similar experiences, and this will ensure that they remain in touch. If, on the other hand, high public officials are paid too well, they will live under conditions that are much more luxurious than those that the people they govern live under, and consequently have no idea what their lives are like. This will make them out of touch. To put it bluntly, high public officials should not live in gated communities, be driven around in chauffeured cars, and never visit a supermarket. They will have no idea what life is like for the common people, and this makes them bad high public officials. Additional excerpts

The living like common people argument for public officials, can be part of the solution, but of course it's also important to share the most effective research about causes of violence with both politicians and the public, which our media doesn't do. I don't know if they do better in Switzerland or over a dozen other wealthy countries with a fifth of the rates of violence we have, and many more countries with less than half our rates of violence. Many of these countries provide better education, child care, social programs that address root causes of violence, universal health care, and many other policies, that our leaders denounce as Socialism, despite the fact that our country is constantly bailing out Wall Street, which is Corporate Socialism, and providing enormous amount of funds for wars based on lies, and a massive prison industrial complex that does little or nothing to rehabilitate people or reduce crime. There's no doubt that if we shifted funds for these wars based on lies, massive prisons, and militarized police to social programs that are far more effective reducing violence, we could reduce our rates of violence as low, or perhaps even lower than many of the European countries that are already responding to the best research on the subject.

Rachel Kleinfeld, author of "A Savage Order" makes a similar argument in her article, Why Are Some Societies So Violent, and Can They Be Made Safe? 11/19/2018, where she writes, "The real question, I realized, wasn’t how to fight violence—it was how to get a corrupt government to want to do so." She writes mostly about governments that are even more dysfunctional than our own, but this also applies to our government. There should be no doubt that if our politicians wanted to fight violence, they would be far more willing to listen to the best researchers on the subject and their own constituents, some of whom are already seeking out these research, which is absent from the media.

She also explores violence in countries which are supposedly democratic pointing out "Some people blame democracy itself for violence. But why wouldn’t governments that supposedly answer to voters do a better job of protecting their citizens? I wanted to understand what was happening." She does point out that many of these so-called democracies are partly corrupted; but I'll go one step further, they often don't have the basic functions of a democracy, and therefore aren't really democratic at all. A democracy is where they are governed with the informed consent of the people, which means that we need access to the educational material to make decisions, which we don't, partly because the media ignores the most effective research to reduce violence, and because working class people don't have nearly as good access to quality schools, as a result of our method of funding them with property taxes.

If we want to become a real democracy, we have to have a far more diverse media that is willing to cover the most important research on many different subjects, including how to reduce violence. This media also has to cover all candidates for political office, not just the ones supported by Wall Street, enabling honest politicians to get name recognition needed to be viable, and explain their positions to the public. As it is now, a fraction of 1% of the wealthiest people, control well over 90% of the media and they only cover candidates they support to get name recognition, ensuring we have politicians that don't respond to the people or the best research. Until we rectify the control of the interview process, this won't change or as Rachel Kleinfeld says, "As long as politicians aren’t giving violent people impunity or encouraging repressive, predatory police, societies that maintain cohesion can stay peaceful even with a weak, poor state."

The following are some related articles or sources:

Ignored evidence linking corporal punishment, poverty and crime grows

How much does Income Inequality Affects Crime Rates?

Does lack of education increase violent crime? Religion?

Research On Preventing Violence Absent From National Media

Politicians increase crime; Grass roots efforts reduce crime; Politicians steal the credit

How New Orleans police went from ‘most corrupt’ to model force 02/26/2019

Murder rate down in New Orleans for third consecutive year 01/01/2020

In New Orleans, a 47-year low in killings -- and that's no accident, police chief says 12/31/2018

Camden's Police Overhaul Offers a Complicated Precedent 06/19/2020

Wealthy St. Louis lawyers point guns at peaceful protesters 06/29/2020

McCloskey Couple Who Pointed Guns at Protesters Release Statement in Support of Protesters 06/29/2020

Mark McCloskey & Patricia McCloskey: St. Louis Couple Pull Guns on Protesters 06/30/2020

Lawyer-couple who pointed guns at protesters are Black Lives Matter backers, Democrats and represent a police brutality victim. 06/29/2020

Lawyers who confronted protestors with guns are being investigated 06/29/2020 Patricia McCloskey’s biography on her website says she is on the Missouri Bar Association’s Ethical Review Board.

St. Louis Cops Seize Gun That Couple Pointed At Black Lives Matter Protesters 07/11/2020

2019 homicide total is second-highest of decade for St. Louis 01/01/2020

Corporal Punishment Eliminated 11/12/1981

Seattle City Council Pledges to Cut Police Budget in Half 07/10/2020

Wikipedia: Lyda Krewson mayor of St. Louis, Missouri.

Central West End couple explains why they pointed guns at protesters who demanded Krewson's resignation 06/29/2020

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Senate busts open gated communities for politicians 02/24/2014

Risk of crime in gated communities 03/20/2013 Crucially, the authors emphasize that people living in gated communities may be at greater risk of other crimes, such as intimate partner violence, bullying, or violent assault in or near the home, because the victim is "locked in" with the offender.

How Fancy 'Gated' Communities Can Make Cities More Violent 01/27/2015

Gated Communities and Crime in the United States 11/30/2017

Gated Communities and Crime in the United States 2017 PDF

Burglary in Gated and Non-Gated Communities 02/04/2013

Lyda Krewson Net Worth: Below $1 million in 2018 above $1 million in 2019 two years after becoming Mayor

Study Shows Homes in Gated Communities Command Higher Prices but Cost of Amenities May Outweigh Their Benefits 06/30/2016

The federal government created inner-city ghettos with racist housing regulations 07/18/2017

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The Evolution of Gated Communities