This is absolutely unbelievable if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes! What in the hell is this country turning in to? I guess some idiot is going to come along now and say, hey, Clinton's the cause of all that, so blame the Democrats for this and everything else going wrong here!!! I am just about full of seeing everything going wrong in this country getting jammed up the Democrat's a$$e$ around here! Wake up people and get a life before it's YOUR turn on the floor!

LottoVantage, thanks for responding. We saw Rodney King get his ass kicked on the roadside for breaking a law and the nation huffed and took offense but for some reason it is less offensive or brutal for a middle-eastern man sitting in a library not breaking any laws to be tasered repeatedly.

It's not as far away as some of us would like to believe. Last April, I was taking my mother to visit my older sister, who lives in Ligonier, IN. We were driving along a county road in rural Noble County when my truck was bumped from behind. I looked in my rear view mirror and saw another pickup behind me and, assuming he had hit me, I began to bring my truck to a stop. Suddenly, the 19-year-old driver slammed into us. I tried to restrain my mother (we were both wearing seat belts), but she hit her head on the dashboard. I asked if she was all right, and she said, "I think so..." The kid who hit us had pulled his truck about a hundred feet into an adjacent field (he was trying to get away, but his truck got stuck in the soft earth of the field).

Now, as I was facing my mother, I could see the other driver bail out of his vehicle as he ran into a nearby woods. I told Ma, "He's taking off!" I released my seatbelt and ran to the back of my truck. From there, I had a clear view of the back end of his truck, and I was surprised when I saw him return to his vehicle. He leaned into the cab, grabbed something off the front seat (it looked like a gallon-sized Ziploc baggie, but I wasn't close enough to see what it contained), and ran back into the woods.

At this point I drew my handgun, fired a single warning shot into the air and yelled, "Stop!" He said, "Okay, dude; Jesus Christ, you have a gun." I said, "That's right, I have a gun; now come back to me and let me see your hands." When he came out of the woods, I made him lie face-down at the edge of the field, and asked a passing motorist to call the police (I no longer carry a cell phone).

The cops showed up about five minutes later, handcuffed me, threw me into the back of a squad car for an hour and took me to jail. The man who cuffed me was in plain clothes and never identified himself as a police officer, but he got out of his car with a Glock 17 in his hand, and with his finger on the trigger, so I had no interest in asking for his credentials at that moment. I was never advised of my Miranda rights and, in fact, was never told that I was under arrest. It wasn't until the following day, when I went to criminal court for my arraignment, that I was told what the charges were (two counts of Felony Pointing A Firearm). Now, here's the kicker: My bond was $4,500, which had to be paid in cash, since the charges involved the use of a firearm. I made the necessary arrangements to have the money paid, but before my sister could get there, the prosecutor added two charges of Felony Criminal Recklessness, in order to keep me in jail overnight. Indiana law states that if a person is charged with four felonies, he cannot post a bond. I'm certain of my assessment here, because the Criminal Recklessness charges were dropped just minutes before my arraignment. Since they hadn't properly arrested me yet, they couldn't let me bond out, lest the idiots who took me into custody look like... well... idiots.

When I got out the next day (I was released on my own recognizance), I went to get my truck from the impound yard. It just so happens that I went to school with the guy who owns the towing service, and he told me that the kid who hit us had no driver's license and no vehicle insurance. The license plates on his truck were expired, and they weren't even his plates. After causing $5,000 in damage to my truck, another $4,000 in medical bills for my mother's injuries and $7,000 (so far) in legal bills, this kid was allowed to go home with mommy and daddy without so much as a ticket.

It's true; he wasn't even cited, and now I'm facing six years in state prison for trying to stop a felony in progress. I've been licensed to carry a handgun here for twenty-eight years, and I even kept my license current during my years in the Navy. I've had extensive small and long arms training, probably more than any of those cops, but the prosecutor is determined to push this case. I've already told my attorney that there will be no plea-bargains; he's going to have to try me before a jury. If I lose, I lose, but I'm not going to bend over and say, "Thank you, sir." The cops tell me that, in Indiana, they don't have to tell you you're under arrest, and that they don't have to read you your Miranda rights when they do arrest you. Indiana, I believe, has seceded from the United States and formed their own sovereign nation, and they just forgot to mention it to anyone.

The cops never asked me what happened or why I had drawn my weapon. In fact, they asked me only two questions: "Is this the key to your house," and "What's the name of your insurance company?" They never asked whether my mother or I needed medical attention (Mom had whiplash and a mild concussion; I wasn't about to ask to go to the hospital). Consequently, I didn't have an opportunity to tell them about the Ziploc baggie the kid grabbed from his truck. They searched my truck, but didn't search his. They gave me a breath test, but didn't subject the other driver to that humiliation. They even told my mother what to write in her statement!

They asked for my statement the following day, before I went to court. By that time, I was so pissed off, I told them they could have my statement when I gave it to my attorney. The judge ordered my immediate release but, before they let me go, they made me sign a paper saying that I had been advised of my Constitutional rights. I signed the paper, but I made sure to date it as well, so the document shows that it wasn't signed until the day AFTER my incarceration.

I don't know how this is going to come out (my trial is scheduled for February), but be very, very careful out there. The people who are charged with protecting us are now the very people we need protection from, and I'm afraid it's going to get much, much worse before it gets any better.

Wish me luck...

Holy crap, Jim. I hope everything turns out OK for you. Anyone reading this, remember you do not have to be guilty of a crime to be harrassed and prosecuted. It is no longer innocent until proven guilty in the US. You could spend years in detention before you even have a chance to prove your innocence and it might be in front of a military tribunal instead of a judge and jury. This is not paranoia it is stark reality.

Man that makes me want to explode! Best of luck to you...

Rick:
Yes, that's true; anyone can be arrested at any time for anything, real or imagined, but it gets worse. The police and prosecutors aren't required to answer for their actions, even when they screw up, as they enjoy broad political immunities from such inconveniences. If you're charged with a felony and ultimately exonerated, it's entirely up to the prosecutor whether you'll have an arrest record or not. He has the power to expunge the arrest from the books but, more often than not, he'll refuse, so even though you're innocent of the charges, you're stuck with an arrest that will haunt you for the rest of your life, and that could keep you from getting a good job or bank credit, EVEN THOUGH YOU DIDN'T DO ANYTHING WRONG.

Any prosecutor has but one interest: convictions. He doesn't care about justice, truth, the Bill of Rights or the U. S. Constitution. He doesn't care how those convictions are obtained. The more convictions he can hang on his belt, the better his chances of being appointed judge or running for another public office. If he should find it necessary to suppress evidence or to otherwise break the law, well, that's just okay, because he has immunity from those laws, whether criminal or civil, so the worst possible scenario he could face would be an apology to the public at large, if he were found out.

If this congress would revoke all legislative immunities across the board, I'm guessing one of two possible outcomes would emerge. Either the national crime rate would drop significantly, and our prisons would be full of politicians, or the national crime rate wouldn't drop at all, and our prisons would be full of politicians.

And that, my friends, is why congress will never revoke legislative immunties...

Jim, my heart goes out to you! I wish you a lot of luck. Although I'm not fond of guns, I certainly understand why someone uses one for personal protection.

Regarding tasers, a little boy in FL was tasered by police officers for having a tantrum in his first grade class after being sent to the principal's office. He had broken a picture frame and cut himself with a piece of glass. According to the police, he still had a piece of sharp glass in his hand when then arrived. 50,000 bolts were shot into his little body to subdue him. I wonder if being a 6 year old Black kid had anything to do with it. In another incident in Florida, an officer chased after a 12 year old girl who was skipping school (I'm not joking) and shocked her with a taser.

I was thinking about this when I was at the supermarket tonight. I realized I was in the express line and saw a cop so I frantically began counting my grocery items. Thank goodness I only had 10.

I just saw this in 3 year old Harper's magazine article and thought of your Blog.

A new program (called the U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology system, or US-VISIT) was launched to photograph and fingerprint every foreigner who needs a visa to enter the United States. "The system," said one expert, "seems to presume that most terrorists are fools."»[NY Daily News]

Well, I don't know if anyone will read this, but I thought I should give everyone who's interested an update on my case.

Last Wednesday, I stood trial on two counts of Felony Pointing A Firearm. My trial began at 7:30am, and, after 8 1/2 hours of hearing testimony and nearly 9 hours of deliberation, the jury returned their verdicts of NOT GUILTY on BOTH counts at 2:05am the following morning.

Now here's the funny part (assuming there is one): I had told my attorney to make it very clear, to all those who would testify, that I would pursue perjury charges against anyone who lied on the witness stand. A couple of witnesses were a little fuzzy on some of the details they remembered (it's been ten months since the crash), but NONE of them actually lied about the events they had seen.
When the state called several of the police officers who had responded to my 911 call, my attorney asked each of them only one question: "When did you take Jim695's statement?"
Every cop who testified stammered a bit, looked at the prosecutor and then met my gaze. Twice, my attorney asked the court to remind the witness of the penalties of lying under oath. Eventually, they all admitted that none of them had bothered to take my statement or even to ask me why I had called them. Under questioning, one of the cops blurted out, "When someone has a gun, nine times out of ten, he's done something wrong, and it's our job to get them off the street!"

Now, all I did was to stop the man who had rear-ended my mother and me, twice, from fleeing the scene. I didn't draw my weapon until AFTER he had returned to his vehicle, grabbed an object from the front seat, and fled BACK into the woods. At that point, since I was unable to identify the CONTENTS of the Ziploc baggie, I MUST assume he has a weapon, if I want to stay alive. Given the kid's erratic behavior, I had no way to assess whether he was drunk or high on something or whether he had stolen the truck he was driving. I thought it best just to hold him there until the police arrived.

The kid lied his ass off on the witness stand, testifying that, as he was coming to see if we were all right, I had come at him with my gun in my hand, and that I had fired a shot directly at him as he was trying to flee for his life (the other witnesses corroborated my version of events, that I had fired only one shot, straight up in the air, while the kid was running through the woods, AWAY from where my truck was parked, with something in his hands).

This was the FIRST jury trial Prosecutor Clouse has ever lost, so I'm very proud to be the one who busted his judicial cherry. My $12,000 attorney deserves the credit for my acquittal, as he told me it would be better not to get too aggressive with the police officers when they testified. I wanted him to expose them for the inept "investigators" they are, but he told me the jury might not like that. We've had our differences, and I've verbally abused and berated him every time I've had the opportunity but, to his credit, he never took it personally. Anyway, I figure that if he can take my abuse and name-calling, he should at least have the common decency to accept my gratitude as well, so I bought him two bottles of Johnnie Walker Blue Label Scotch. This is my way of saying, "Well, maybe you're not such a greasy, bribe-taking, corrupt, money-grubbing shyster after all."

I think he'll appreciate that ...

Jim