re: Twin Peaks Biker Videos Released

quote:

---

Coming Soon: Crushing Debt
As the debt from the biker oppression binge adds up, AR's statements to the media just seem to get more and more brain-dead. McLennan County is wondering whether it elected a fiscal conservative, or a fiasco conservationist. The obstinate stupidity of our elected officials has made its way even to The Atlantic, giving this far-left journal a reason to ridicule our county and state. One of the jailed bikers has even filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Waco PD and AR, no doubt the first of many.
Here's AR on the record with KXXV, admitting to using the high bail amounts to coerce statements out of the accused:
"I've heard enough about my person was a victim and most of the people were victims," he said. "Well, guess what? If they're victims they shouldn't have any problem coming to law enforcement and cooperating to be sure justice is done and the individuals solely responsible are brought to justice - and through the first round of interviews we aren't getting that," Reyna added.
In other words, AR just admitted that exercising your 5th Amendment right to remain silent is a jailable offense in his county, and he's willing to abuse the 8th Amendment to get you to say what he wants to hear.
And in case that wasn't perfectly clear, AR then went full-on Suge Knight, calling himself and his cop buddies a "gang":
"We're gonna get to the bottom of it and law enforcement is all working together as a team, and I'll bet on our own gang before I bet on their gang," Reyna promised.
So, dear citizens, when your county government is bankrupted from the administrative costs of jailing dozens of ordinary people, and the millions in judgments against the county that are sure to follow, just remember the above quotes. And remember the next time you head to the polls and vote straight-ticket: Incompetence has a price.
For some context as to how a federal civil rights lawsuit over a mass-arrest can go, here is a recent case from Houston.
Calling the operation "almost totalitarian," a federal judge says a Houston police plan that led to 278 arrests in a Kmart parking lot almost three years ago was unconstitutional.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Nancy Atlas allows all 10 lawsuits filed in the wake of the Aug. 18, 2002, mass arrest, and a smaller operation the previous night, to proceed.
The "plan to detain all persons ... with no regard for the existence of open businesses and their customers, is facially unconstitutional," Atlas wrote in an opinion made public this week.
Waco officials boasted that even if they run out of the 5.5 million they have budgeted for housing overflow inmates, they have a $700,000 contingency fund from which to draw. Yet the county has already spent over $94,000 housing inmates in the three weeks since the shooting. And that doesn't even begin to show what the final tally could be:
Based on these cases – and there are others that show larger and smaller amounts of compensation – a good rule of thumb is that a false arrest claim may be “worth” between $2500 and $5000 per hour that the plaintiff spends in custody, depending on the facts of the case. (Note: These amounts do not include punitive damages, which the plaintiff sometimes is awarded in false arrest cases.)
Do the math. It has been three weeks since the arrest, or 508 hours. Assume all of the arrested are released today. At $2,500 per hour, even one successful false arrest claim would cost city and county taxpayers over $1 million in damages alone. Over 100 people are still in jail.
Speaking of incompetence, this is the section of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure that non-lawyer and career state trooper W.H. "Pete" Peterson apparently forgot as he set a blanket one million dollar bond amount and drew up identical probable cause affidavits for all of the arrested:
The amount of bail to be required in any case is to be regulated by the court, judge, magistrate or officer taking the bail; they are to be
governed in the exercise of this discretion by the Constitution and by the following rules:
The bail shall be sufficiently high to give reasonable assurance that the undertaking will be complied with.
The power to require bail is not to be so used as to make it an instrument of oppression.
The nature of the offense and the circumstances under which it was committed are to be considered.
The ability to make bail is to be regarded, and proof may be taken upon this point.
The future safety of a victim of the alleged offense and the community shall be considered.
The point here is that bond is supposed to guarantee that the accused will abide by the conditions of release, and that he will show up for court. It can not be used to punish the accused (as all accused are presumed innocent until proven guilty). Here's career lawman Peterson spouting off in ignorance of this concept:
“I think it is important to send a message,” Peterson said. “We had nine people killed in our community.
Again, incompetence has a price: A complaint has now been filed against Peterson.

---