I barely knew Vincent Hodgkiss. The fact that I knew him at all was one of the vagaries of life. The 3rd anniversary of his murder at the hands of the Pembroke Pines police, and the fact that all of people in on the murder were "cleared", has sent me into action.
I am producing a documentary about this killing, and will be airing it out on my blogtalkradio show, The Libertarian Animal.
I spent yesterday and today trying to speak by phone with the Mayor, Frank Ortis; the Chief of Police, Dan Giustino; and, the Administrative Law Judge for Florida's Broward County The Honorable Sharon Zeller. The Judge's administrative assistant has been playing telephone tag with me, but the Chief and the Mayor have yet to call me back.
I hope they will open their doors and answer some questions... I can assure them that I will be showing up, and soon, with a camera crew in tow.
I will be putting up a link shortly to my radio webcast on what I have come to find in the Hodgkiss Killing.
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11 comments:
It looks like that article was mostly reprinted from a genuine newspaper report. As for the rest of that site... Well I'm wearing my aluminum foil hat and gutchies.
Regards,
Coal Guy
That kind of behavior is intolerable. My dad always said that there wasn't much difference between thugs and cops besides the badge.
Regards,
Coal Guy
The other links at the sun-sentinal.com mysteriously disappeared...
Here are the facts:
The police were serving a SEARCH WARRANT, not an arrest warrant. It was a fishing expedition.
They blew his doors down at 5am, he thought he was being broken in on by home invaders... he grabbed his LICENSED weapon, and the police shot him to death.
The police found less than an ounce of Marijuana inside the home. Mr. Hodgkiss' son's girlfriend was charged with possession.
No other evidence of wrong doing was found. Mr Hodgkiss had no previous criminal background. He was an AMerican citizen that was murdered in his own home by the government - EXECUTED for Marijuana.
here is a better link
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2008-06-24/news/0806230341_1_cannabis-search-warrant-shotgun
The he had a license to possess the weapons, and a prescription for the medications - he was DISABLED.
As for the marijuana... OK... you got me there... I guess he did deserve to die after all...
Oh my; they found a “spent casing.” The spent casing is required by some of the northern states and comes in the box from the manufacturer. If you buy a new gun in say Massachusetts, it is delivered to the state police lab by the gun dealer at the time of sale. Otherwise they stick it in the box and you take it home with the gun.
On the other hand murdering people who are self medicating for pain is highly effective at controlling a drug problem. The only country I know of who managed to eradicate a drug problem is China. Around 1950 China rounded up around ten million Opium addicts for mandatory treatment, executed the dealers, and eventually executed most of the ten million patents effectively ending the opium trade in China for a generation.
Best,
Dan
I have been thinking about the quality of our Correctional Officers lately and it seems to me we get the best recruits during recessions, which when you think about it makes perfect sense. Our primary competition for employees is the trades and they tend to take it on the chin during recessions so we get the good picks. What got me started thinking about it is we just had a retirement wave that took all the brains with them when they left and they all hired on during the early 90’s recession. Then looking around we have some good guys that hired on around the 2003 recession that are basically carrying the place under the leadership of a few old hands that are really good at solving problems as long as they don’t involve their personal finances. Thankfully these guys will not be retiring any time soon.
In between these groups we have hired a bunch of dullards because they were the only ones that applied. Don’t get me wrong there are a few good ones that hired on I between recessions, just not very many. Your police and deputy sheriffs hire from the same applicant pool so they will have similar patterns and large holes that got stuffed with dreck during the boom. Unfortunately today it is all but impossible to fire them even when they are unsuited to the job and many of them are. Our applicant quality has gone through the roof lately but we basically aren’t hiring.
Finally, we now have people attending programs at local Jr. Colleges that terminate with an associate degree and licensing in law enforcement. Some administrators like it because it saves on putting people through the academy. sending people to the 160 clock hour course who will eventually dropout or quit shortly after commissioning because they are unsuited to the job gets expensive quick. However when you look at the old hands that are really good at it; none of them hired on looking for a carrier except a handful that started way out in the boonies where we were the only good job for miles and miles. Almost all of them just needed a job. Most of the kids getting the degree have problems that training won’t fix- attitude.
Best,
Dan
Go get em Greg! We need more guys like you.
Amy
Our privatized prison industrial complex needs more prisoners to make more profits for their shareholders. Therefore more things are crimes.
Invest in CXW, Corrections Corporation of America, their 1st quarter profits for this year were up 16%.
Mr. Market knows best, especially when he owns Mr. Government.
Rational Liberal
PS Same logic applies to our privatized war industry.
War Keynesianism is how we keep our economy going.
Hey Rational,
Whom do you vote for in elections? I'm on the conservative/libertarian side, and have a damned hard time picking someone who isn't owned by the big influence guys. From over here, it looks like the Democrats are at least as bad as the Republicans. They just lie better.
Regards,
Coal Guy
State Attorney's office called the witnesses in for an interview 9/2/11. I have no further information from that meeting at this time.
I AM TRYING TO GET IN CONTACT WITH THE MAN PUTTING THIS DOCUMENTARY TOGETHER. IF ANYONE HAS HIS EMAIL OR WEBSITE CAN YOU LET ME KNOW? I am the girlfriend and now mother of Vinnie's grand-daughter. dixiegrace88 at gmail dot com
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