Published: December 18, 2008 05:22 pm            

It couldn't happen here?

Sharon Kulers watched a Mount Olive, N.C., police officer get out of his car and walk up to a neighbor’s yard. Then she noticed the officer point a shotgun at the neighbor’s Labrador retriever. She begged him not to shoot the dog, saying it was harmless. He ignored her, saying nothing, and killed the dog. Then he put the dog in a plastic bag and dragged it to the street. Kulers insists the dog never threatened the officer or anyone else. The dog’s owner, Colby Mangum, wasn’t home when it was shot, but she says the dog was harmless. Even the neighbor who called animal control after it got out says the shooting was unnecessary. But police chief Ralph Schroeder says the officer was justified in shooting the dog.

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The Oakland County, Mich., coroner’s office has canceled public school tours. The parents of a 14-year-old girl who committed suicide complained after high school students in a crime scene investigation class were allowed to see her autopsy. When I was in school we got to go on a field trip to the planetarium in Rock Spring.

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Canada’s Supreme Court has ruled that obese passengers have the right to two adjacent airplane seats for the price of one.

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Speaking of airlines, the federal Transportation Security Administration reports it has subjected more than 160,000 people to intensive searches because airport screeners believed there was something suspicious about them since 2006. Those searches have resulted in just 1,266 arrests. That means that well over 99 percent of those deemed suspicious by the agency have done nothing wrong. Even worse, none of those arrests turned up anyone planning any harm to airplanes or their passengers, and none turned up any weapons or explosives. Will the program be canceled? Not on your life. Remember, in government the important thing is to be seen as doing something to allay people’s fears or needs, even if that something is totally useless.

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Nebraska Gov. David Heineman says he is outraged that employees at the Beatrice State Developmental Center took a developmentally disabled patient to adult bookstores to buy pornography. That patient was later accused of sexually assaulting a female patient at the hospital. A federal investigation of the Beatrice Center uncovered more than 200 cases of alleged abuse and neglect from late 2006 to 2007. The facility houses 252 developmentally disabled people.

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Back in 1992, Congress mandated that federal agencies buy alternative vehicle fuels for their light-duty fleets. So they bought automobiles that ran on propane, natural gas and E85 (a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline). The feds now have 116,000 such vehicles. And according to a new federal study, many of then aren’t running, or aren’t running on alternative fuels. You see Congress forgot that many of these vehicles would be located in places without easy access to alternative fuels. Hawaii, for instance, has no ethanol production facilities. Most of those that are running are “flex fuel” vehicles using plain old gasoline, and they tend to use more gasoline than non-alternative fuel vehicles. In fact, the Postal Service alone estimates it burns an extra 1.5 million gallons of gasoline a year because just 1 percent of its flex fuel fleet is burning ethanol.

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Two years ago, Atlanta police officers lied to obtain a warrant to search 88-year-old Kathryn Johnston’s home for drugs. A judge rubber-stamped their request. When they broke in, Johnston did not realize they were police and began shooting at them. They shot and killed her and wounded each other. When they realized they were no drugs in the home they planted marijuana there. And pressured an informant to lie to cover up their mistake. A subsequent federal investigation found that Atlanta police routinely lied to obtain drug warrants and led to the entire narcotics division being reassigned. It also led Atlanta to set up a citizens’ review panel for the force. Now, just weeks after the last officer involved in the Johnston shooting pleaded guilty on federal civil rights charges, the police department has asked the City Council to neuter the board by stripping it of its access to police documents and records which are not in the public record.

        

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