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So, this morning Orange County’s worse-than-no-DA DA Tony Rackauckas, accompanied by prosecutor Ebrahim Baytieh, held a nearly apologetic press conference to a mostly incredulous audience, explaining why they felt they could not file charges against Anaheim-dwelling LA cop Kevin Ferguson for last February’s “Lawngate” incident.
I’m sure you all remember that incident: For a long time, local school kids had been cutting across the corner lawn of this Ferguson and his Duck-Dynasty-looking dad; a little before the incident Ferguson had (allegedly) called one of the schoolgirls a “c**t,” her 13-year old friend Christian Dorscht had stuck up for her telling Ferguson not to call her such nasty names; argument ensued during which Christian told Ferguson that he would SUE him, which Ferguson purported to hear as “SHOOT” him, Ferguson grabbed Christian – on a NEIGHBOR’S property! – tried to drag him back to his own and wouldn’t let him go; friends of Christian’s intervened eventually with pushing and punching, and Ferguson drew a gun and fired a shot, scattering everybody but still hanging on to Christian. When the APD arrived (because the KIDS called them) they reacted by “detaining” Christian and his friends on unknown charges and taking Ferguson’s word as gospel. A small riot erupted in the neighborhood that night.
Back to today’s press conference, where Prosecutor Baytieh admitted that Ferguson’s actions were wrong, irresponsible, and endangered the assembled youth… But they just couldn’t “prove beyond a reasonable doubt” that Ferguson had acted illegally, as they took him at his word that he’d misheard Christian as saying “I’m gonna SHOOT you,” and found him therefore justified in conducting a “citizen’s arrest” in self-defense although I don’t remember anybody ever hearing those words. And they also found him justified in firing a “warning shot” in self-defense since one of the kids defending Christian had put his hand in his back pocket – actually putting away a pencil but paranoid Ferguson reacted in panic and “fired a warning shot” into the ground under a crowd of kids – perfectly justifiable!
Even doddering Tony Rackauckas, taking the podium later, admitted that as far as he could see none of the kids had done anything wrong, and suggested what I myself had suggested last year – if the kids bug you so much cutting across your lawn, put up a goddamned fence! But of course firing a “warning shot” toward a crowd of teenagers based on something you SAW wrong AND something you HEARD wrong – no problem there, move along.
Really. Or, rather,
You think any of us, who were not a white cop, and whose antagonists were not mostly minority youths, would have got away with such a “citizen’s arrest” of a minor, and such a reckless “warning shot?” I could go farther but what’s the point – imagine if the arrester/shooter were Latino or black (and NOT a secret cop), and the kid he was bullying was white and rich? HA!
A lot of us (including yours truly) suspected that Ferguson was drunk – angry on his day off, living with his ancient pops, PROBABLY divorced and troubled and overdue for retirement from the LAPD, and very much overreacting to things – you can even see his dad try to talk him down in one of the videos! But it wasn’t even worth asking if he’d been tested – the brotherly APD who showed up took him at his word and instead scooped up the innocent brown and black youths.
Don’t even glance at the comments section on the Facebook video below if you want to keep down your lunch. Apart from all the racism and classism, one common refrain is “Well, you shouldn’t attack a cop!” Of course, it was he who attacked them, AND nobody knew he was a cop – even when he spat that out late in the game nobody had any reason to believe him. He was a big hulking scary adult manhandling one of their (actually very small) friends, and I think the kids who stepped in to defend Christian deserve some kind of public award for their courage. But last I heard, the black kid was so traumatized by the whole thing that his family moved away from Anaheim, City of Kindness.
I do not know the status of Christian’s family’s civil rights lawsuit, or how this DA non-action impacts it or not. The Orange Juice Blog wishes him luck, and hopes for early retirement for Officer Ferguson.
Don’t for a second think we would have gotten more justice from DA candidate Todd “Armed and Unhinged” Spitzer – Todd says he would have been justified in using “deadly force” against the Christian proselytizer who irritated him at a Wahoo’s while supposedly glancing at a butter knife. And we will be gobsmacked but pleased if we get ANY kind of statement about this case from the third candidate Brett Murdock, who is showing up to my Anaheim Democratic Club March 3 for a long-overdue grilling.
Nelson out. Carry on!
https://www.facebook.com/NBCLA/videos/10155560528846028/?notif_id=1516819613504562&notif_t=live_video_interaction
You do not have a right to physically restrain someone during a citizen’s arrest UNLESS it’s to stop a felony in progress.
Even as accused, the kid did NOT commit a felony and clearly had no means of imminently carrying out his threat.
This guy should be in jail for false imprisonment and a host of other charges related to reckless endangerment of minors.
Moreover, this guy tried to pick a fight with a kid and LOST. Legality aside, what a wank.
Sure looked like an attempted kidnapping. Never heard him identify himself as a cop. The kid had an absolute right to fight off an abduction (with Ferguson going for Dorscht’s private area, he was fighting off a sexual assault). His buddies should be commended for trying to help.
This knucklehead shoved a pistol in his pocket and went outside to confront the kids. Seriously, this cretin needs psych help and a jail stay.
Of course Tony Racetrack couldn’t find a crime. Not looking is the best way of not finding. You are right. Spitzy would have given the jackass one of his special crime victim awards.
The DA would be singing a different tune if it was his kid being kidnapped by some pervert with a gun…
You were removed as an officer from the Anaheim Democratic club due to your alleged sexual assault of Lorri Galloway and your arrest for felony DUI charges. To complain about this officer being drunk is funny
The address checks out, but given the name I suspect that it may be spoofed. I don’t think that I have a way of getting a message to him, but if Chumley takes credit for this message then I think it should stay up.
In rebuttal: Vern’s complaint is not about this officer being drunk, idiot. It’s about all of the other behavior detailed in the article, which the alcohol may have facilitated.
Alcohol and gunpowder don’t mix…if you need beer muscles, a gun, and the blue wall to tell teens to stay off your lawn you’re the definition of a coward!
No, I was never removed from the Democratic Club, for that false allegation or anything else. I am still writing their newsletter, just like I was before.
Chumley on the other hand, I hear is no longer Communications Director for the DPOC (if he ever was, and the position wasn’t just his fantasy.) Good call on the DPOC’s part.
Vern was not removed from his office at Anaheim Democrats. He did not seek re-election while he was in rehab, but had he desired to continue in the office I have no doubt he would have been reelected. He is a valued member of the club.
Chumley denied being the author, Vern, in a spectacularly over-the-top practically bosom-heaving comment to me in which he says that he won’t “sully” himself by posting here, then ruins at the end by spelling the word “you’re” correctly in the phrase “you’re dumb.”
Given that the sentiments expressed above seem to have been taken pretty much verbatim from the sentiments expressed by the anonymous turd-muffins whom he tolerates on his site so long as they serve his purposes, it seems likely to have been one of them. The prospect that one of them stole his nickname and email address to post here must be discomfiting to him, don’t you think? Will they turn on him, or spiral more wildly out of control, posting as him on the Voice of OC, the Register,. etc.?
“If you lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas,” as Zenger reminded us in Latin a few weeks ago. What must happen to a guy who lies down with the fleas themselves?
Anyway, I think we should still leave it up, just in case he’s lying about not having written it, regardless of whether he dispatched someone else to do the actual posting. We wouldn’t want to censor his criticism needlessly, after all, right?
He denies a lot of things.
It’s really not a big deal, our trash folder is bulging with similar comments.
I didn’t think it was him. It’s someone who admires him and knows his email address, but uses YOUR nickname for him.
Wait… What thread are we on again?
“What must happen to a guy who lies down with the fleas themselves?”
In the 14th Century they called it the Black Death.
*Why does all this conversation remind us of the Clint Eastwood movie: “Get off my Lawn!” or was that Ford Fairlane? Confusing!
*OK, OK….everyone including Chairman Vern will tell you it was GRAN TORINO!
Well, then – whatever happened to the famous term: “That is totally beneath our dignity to respond!”? We remember those days….back in 1957 or there abouts…in our recollection.
LA Commission ruled the officer in question violated department policy.
https://www.ocregister.com/2018/02/06/lapd-watchdog-rules-off-duty-cop-violated-policy-when-he-fired-gun-in-scuffle-with-anaheim-boys/
Well, that’s something at least.
Something that’d never happen in T-Rack’s OC.
Those kids were fighting off a kidnapping attempt. Obviously, Ferguson was itching for a fight (why was a gun tucked in his waistband? Why did he chase Dorscht down 3-4 houses?). Once he lost control, Mr. Macho Tough Guy fired his weapon to terrorize a group of kids into submission.