The Other Internal Revenue Service : Traffic Court

After a while on the police department, I realized the fact that traffic enforcement isn't always about traffic safety.  Sure, DUI, road rage, and some other acts on the road need to be prosecuted, but your average traffic ticket violation is useless in increasing safety.  Its utility, and hence it's heavy enforcement, is in the amount of revenue it generates for the jurisdiction that spends it.

I quit looking for violationis and reacted to dangerous driving actions I witnessed, or that were called in.  The rest of my time I went looking for real criminals.  Today is a time when rethinking law enforcement is valuable activity.  Here's a rather hard-line commentary on one day in traffic court witnessed by a renowned economist.  To read it, click  HERE.

A GREAT WARIOR IS LAYED TO REST: The Phoenix PD Years (part 2 of 4)

                                                                   By A. Rick Dalton

Jack's Phoenix PD Career

After this big gator jumped nearly out of the bathtub toward me, and after Jack had calmed me down, he began to tell me about his love for kids.  And this led to the story of his beginnings on the Phoenix, AZ., Police Department.  The alligator had been part of his equipment used in school in south Phoenix, where he went into classrooms as "Officer Friendly".  Back in about 1978, when the program started, Alley Oop, as Jack called him, was small enough to fit in a briefcase.

The following story is adapted  from an article in the Mesa Tribune which I wrote sometime in about 1984.

Gerald J. "Jack" McLamb joined the Phoenix Police Department in 1976 to help people.  He was awarded the "officer of the year" award twice in his first few years on the department.  He was a good cop, and he was even better at communicating to his community.  His pioneering in the area of police-juvenile relations resulted in the nation-wide Officer Friendly Program, sponsored by the Sears, Roebuck Foundation  things looked good for Jack.

Then something happened.  Jack decided to take his community involvement a step further and  express his religious, moral and political beliefs on his own time.  Off duty.  It might not have gone so badly for him if his opinions were more to the liking of  Phoenix Police Chief Reuben Ortega or some of the other brass on the department.  But Jack McLamb made up his own mind about problems he saw in America and in law enforcement.  For example, he publicly stated that he thought the DWI roadblocks by the Arizona DPS in the Kingman area in 1982 were violating citizens' rights.

The American Citizen and Lawmen Association (ACLA), which he founded, filed a legal brief denouncing them because they violated the Fourth Amendment.  Later, the Arizona Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, ruled them to be unconstitutional.  This didn't sit well with his superiors.

 Then ACLA began conducting firearms training classes to teach people proper and safe handling of the guns they legally owned, including instruction on self protection.  Too many police officers feel citizens should not have guns, that they should leave the dangerous stuff to the cops.  McLamb's response was, "Can you guarantee that there will be a police officer sitting at the curb whenever a rapist, burglar, or any other kind of hoodlum tries to do his thing?  Obviously not.

Next, he took on national issues, and spoke out against the abusive tactics used by the Internal Revenue Service and the BATF, among others.  He warned police officers to be careful when when being "used" by the IRS to do the dirty work of seizing property without giving citizens due process.  These are dangerous situations and some have involved being shot at.  How prophetic.

The Power of the Pen 

The final straw was the creation of Jack's Aid and Abet Police and Military Newsletter, which gained a national following among law enforcement, other public officials and the public.  He was pressured by superiors  to quit writing it as police commanders around the country put pressure on Chief Ortega to shut him up.  Internal Affairs investigators asked him about his religious beliefs, including what church he attended.  They even assigned a supervisor to follow him both on and off duty. Surveillance was on of Jack's fortes. So it was kind of funny, when Jack would make a quick 180go the other way toward his "shadow", and wave at the poor stooge as he went past

 

Still, he kept publishing.  And citizens all over the country were passing out his pamphlet A Lawman Speaks for Liberty and issues of Aid and Abet to police officers on the streets, at the police academies, and in court.  Lawmen and women were joining ACLA rapidly. No doubt, Chief Ortega was getting a lot of grief from police commanders nationwide, telling him he should get this renegade cop under control.

Finally Jack was called in and ordered by Assistant Chief Bennie Click to turn over the mailing list and financial records of Aid and Abet.  He refused, citing his Constitutional rights to freedom of speech and expression.  Click fired him on the spot.  Click told a reporter, "We're not saying he can't write those things, we're saying he can't do that and be a police officer."  Click lost my respect when he failed to practice what he had preached to my academy class about integrity and doing the right thing. (Though I worked for Mesa PD, I attended the Phoenix Regional Police Academy, and there were recruits from six different agencies in my class.)

Fortunately the appeals process allowed Jack's case to be heard by a civilian board that was not controlled by the police department.  When they heard the facts, the board gave him his job back with full back pay.  The decision was unanimous.

They also delivered a scathing rebuke to  Chief Ortega and Click.  "I might not agree with he has to say", said Michael Sophy, a member of the board, "but he has every right in the world to say it.  You don't discipline people for what they believe." 

 This should have been the end of the story, but the HDIC (Head Dude in Charge) couldn't leave it alone.  Jack McLamb had made them look like the sorry egotists they were.  So they put him back to work, as they had been ordered, but they took away his intelligence position, and sent him back to an undesirable patrol position. He promptly was awarded the  officer of the month award, further humiliating them.  As the photo above shows, there are some things even a bullet-proof vest won't stop.

But that didn't even slow Jack down in his mission to reach police, military and other public servants with the message that their oath was a sacred trust, and that freedom slips away when the enforcers aren't vigilant in protecting rights.  Jack was the original oathkeeper. 

FRDMWRX 

[To be continued] 

 

A Great Warrior is Layed to Rest (Part 1 of 4)

By Rick Dalton

 

Jack McLamb has passed away.  11 January 2014 was his last day in this life, and his first day in the next life.  Gerald J. “Jack” Mclamb has been described in various ways by many leaders in the Freedom struggle.  Sheriff Richard Mack, of CSPOA lauded Jack as a longtime mentor and "the original Oathkeeper (see Oathkeepers.org.  See that post here. 

 Pastor Chuck Baldwin calls him “Another Moses”.  His wonderful tribute to Jack can be found here.  

So many people loved and respected Jack McLamb.  This is because he was a man full of love, love for his family, his fellow man, his Savior, his profession as a true peace officer, and his country.  You may ask how I can say that.  It's not from simply reading those tributes of others.  This writer has been blessed to know Jack McLamb in a personal way for over thirty years.  Yes, I am an eye witness to greatness. 

In 1980, with just two years on as a member of the Mesa, Arizona Police Department, I was so excited to be on a team of dedicated people who wanted to serve their community and be peacemakers.  The oath we all took was meaningful to me, and my service style -was going to be just like the words on the doors of every patrol car in the fleet, “To Protect and Serve”.  But I didn’t realize that there was a struggle going on, even back then, to maintain that hallowed philosophy for future generations.                                                                            Jack was a candle in a dark world

The regional police academy in Phoenix was hard and rewarding, and I remember two instructors in particular.  The first, I only remember by his look – tall and thin with curly hair almost in an afro style – and the striking sentence he uttered early in his lecture.  He said distinctly “the Communist/Socialist  conspiracy is alive and well in the United States of America”.  That surprised me.  I'm not surprised any more.

The second was Captain Bennie Click, of Phoenix PD, who later rose to assistant chief, and then chief of the Dallas, Texas  Police Department.  Capt. Click would occasionally accompany us on our seven and a half mile runs, and often gave advice to my class of recruits.  He told us that the most important attributes of a good police officer were character and integrity.  I would soon see those attributes on full display in Jack Mclamb’s professional and personal life.

I first became aware of Jack Mclamb when I turned on a local public affairs television program.  This was in December of 1980.  He was being interviewed about his recently published booklet “A Lawman Speaks for Liberty”.  As you might have noticed, this is the title of the blog you are reading.  I  humbly have borrowed it as a small way to help carry on Jack’s legacy. 

That little tract, eight pages or so in length, was so inspirational and powerful to me, that I had to meet this cop who wrote it.  I called the TV station and demanded to get his address and phone number.  Of course they refused, but they did take my information and gave it to Jack.  When he called I immediately sensed the kindness in his voice.  Here was this imposing figure I had seen on TV with a gentleness that seemed unlike the stereotypical tough-guy police officer.  He invited me to visit him at his home in South Phoenix and I made the trip a day or two later.  As we sat in his living room and talked,  I was impressed by his candor, humility, and direct manner of speaking.  I knew that he meant what he said in the booklet.  After talking a while about the Constitution and the sacred nature of the oath that we took he reminded me about the Law Enforcement Code of Ethics.  This is the original one he and I promised to uphold.  It was a sort of oath of office.  The closing statement says:  "I will constantly strive to achieve these objectives and ideals, dedicating myself before to God to my chosen profession...law enforcement."  And Jack reminded me that as I left the briefing room each day, and headed out to my beat, God was watching me, and every peace officer.  That is the kind of man he was.

This code of ethics has been changed in today's world, and, as you might have guessed, that part that mentions God has been removed.  Instead of an oath, it's now just a statement of "ethics", and in our modern times, we now have "situational ethics".

After a while, he said, "Rick, come with me.  I want to show you something in the bathroom."  Needless to say I was a little surprised and perplexed, but I got up and followed him.  Once in the bathroom, he pointed to the bathtub, with it's closed shower curtain, and said "check this out", whereupon he slid open the screen, and introduced me to Ally Oop, a 5-foot alligator of the live variety.  Just as I gasped to see such an unlikely scene, the monster gave out a loud hiss and heaved himself halfway out of the tub, water spilling all over the floor.  Jack was standing between me and Ally Oop, I'm sure it was intentional, and pushed him back with a broom handle.  [TO BE CONTINUED]

It's Time for Law Enforcement to copy Walmart

By Rick Dalton

Rollback

Yes, just like the famous price "rollback" that has endeared the world's largest retailer to customers nationwide, it's time for America's law enforcement community to take a serious look at the disturbing - and deadly - trend of militarization, and to roll it back.

                                                                Sheriff's or Soldiers?

With an increasingly  frantic pace, the number of paramilitary raids on American citizens by militarized civilian law enforcement personnel has skyrocketed from about 3,000 in 1985 to more than 40,000 annually today. (source: Cato Institute).  Some estimates are as high as 80,000.

http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/balko_whitepaper_2006.pdf

These operations, which have resulted in innocent and unnecessary injuries and deaths to civilians and police as well, increasingly employ what is clearly overkill.  The use of excessive force is becoming more common, and in an alarming number of cases, the wrong suspects are targeted.

Military Hardware

The idea of Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) came about in the 1960s in Los Angeles, and with increasing sophistication of criminal gangs and other like organizations, there is some justification when the suspects of the service of an arrest or search warrant are known known to be violent and to possess weapons.  But is there a need for over $500 million in military equipment - tanks, APCs, etc. -  to be transferred to civilian law enforcement in only one year (2011)?

Violence potential

Many of the raids being conducted, too often with tragic results, are to serve narcotics warrants, and manuy of the suspects are non-violent offenders, living with their families, including children.

                                         Citizens were subjected to military urban warfare tactics

                                         during the hunt for the Boston Bombing suspects.

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