The Texas School Shooting
What an unspeakable tragedy. A few thoughts.
Anyone who publicly responded with anything other than sympathy for the people who lost loved ones should be banned from any further participation in our public life.
It is unimaginable that the local law enforcement either were not trained to immediately intervene or ignored that training. That was the lesson learned from Columbine. Prior to Columbine, the law enforcement procedure book said handle shooting situations like hostage negotiations—secure the perimeter and then establish communication with the shooter(s). Columbine taught that active shooter situations are different, and the proper procedure is to immediately intervene and capture or kill the shooter. There is no excuse for any law enforcement agency in 2022 to not know and execute proper active shooter procedures.
Local schools and law enforcement need to know and execute proper “threat assessment” on kids who get on the risk radar. Threat assessment techniques sort out the kids blowing off steam with dangerous language and the kids who might actually do something dangerous. Threat assessment techniques separate the real risks from kids who mouth off in a text message after getting beat up in the bathroom at school. If both kids are treated the same in a blanket policy that does not employ threat assessment to implement different responses, neither kid is helped and school safety is not enhanced.
As for guns, rifles that hold and fire multiple rounds in rapid succession have their place even outside of the professional military. Try making a dent in a wild pig population with a single shot rifle, and take Ukraine for example: civilians with powerful guns make a great defensive militia. But there needs to be some mechanism (regulation) for keeping those guns out of irresponsible hands.
All that being said, adolescent mass shooters can be all but eliminated by loving, responsible parents. A mother and father who loved that boy, were there to recognize and address his mental problems, and took an active interest in his life would have stopped his evil behavior before it started. The most effective and efficient solution is responsible parents, the first line of defense before schools, regulation, and law enforcement.
Chicken Law
A Chicago judge approved forming three class-action lawsuits by chicken purchasers and consumers who are suing leading food industry companies over claims the companies participated in a years-long conspiracy to reduce chicken meat supply and raise prices.
Let’s go! We cannot have fraud in the chicken industry. My kids’ P-5 at La Perla might be fraudulently overpriced, and I cannot have that.
The allegations are broad but essentially the plaintiffs claim that the major chicken companies worked together to set chicken supply and prices instead of competing against each other which benefits the consumer. Plaintiffs point to consistent supply moves by the major companies over the past decade and a consistent decrease in supply from 2008 to 2019, which stabilized and even increased chicken prices.
Tyson paid off some claims last year for $99,000,000, and Pilgrim’s Pride paid $75,500,000 last year to settle price fraud claims. Colonel Harland Sanders of blessed memory is rolling over in his grave.
Another Bill Cosby Trial
Recap: Bill Cosby, sick bastard, was sued by a lady he drugged and raped. Her lawyers wanted him to testify in this civil lawsuit for money, but Cosby raised the Fifth Amendment to avoid testifying. Cosby said that he could not be forced to give testimony about the rape because that testimony could be used in criminal court to convict him for the rape.
To help the lady suing Cosby for money, Pennsylvania law enforcement promised that Cosby would never be prosecuted for the rape, and, with the threat of prosecution removed, Cosby was forced to testify in the rape lawsuit.
Years later, law enforcement broke the agreement, used the testimony from the civil case and sent Cosby to jail. That conviction was reversed by a Court on the legal theory of “a deal is a deal.”
Cosby will be back in Court next week in a lawsuit by Judy Huth who claims she was 16 years old when she was drugged and raped by Cosby at the Playboy Mansion. Huth is represented by celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred, which raises an interesting issue.
Allred also promotes herself as a “book publisher” and paid Huth a significant amount of money to write a yet-to-be-written book. Lawyers cannot pay clients, and lawyers who pay clients get disbarred. Critics say Allred’s book deal with Huth is just a backhanded way for Allred to pay Huth.
Unethical payment or not, the scheme may have backfired against Allred. Cosby’s lawyers have listed Allred as a potential witness at trial. They say there is no “publisher-client” privilege, that Allred must produce all written versions of the incident provided by Huth and Allred must testify about Huth’s descriptions of the incident.
Further, a lawyer who is a witness cannot be one of the in-court lawyers, and Cosby’s attorneys have asked the Court to ban Allred from appearing in court as a lawyer.
If history is any guide, Cosby raped Huth, and let’s hope Huth’s case is not harmed by an unethical lawyer posing as a publisher to pay clients.
