Red James Cash
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Armed SWAT Teams To Patrol Streets In Arkansas City.
Donna Anderson
Infowars.com
December 17, 2012
Paragould, Arkansas Mayor Mike Gaskill and Police Chief Todd Stovall announced at a December 14 Town Hall meeting that beginning in 2013 the streets of their city were going to be patrolled by police officers bearing SWAT gear and AR-15s. âIf youâre out walking, weâre going to stop you, ask why youâre out walking, and check for your ID.â
The move comes in response to a recent increase in violent crime. In a city with a population of only 26,113, Paragould had 86 rapes, robberies and assaults in 2010 and those numbers are expected to nearly double for 2012. Paragould currently has a City-Data crime index rating of 465.0, well above the national average of 309.3.
Property crime statistics in Paragould are even more alarming. While the national average for burglary, theft and auto theft is at 7 for every 1,000 people, the Paragould average is 20.14.
Police Chief Stovall told citizens attending the Town Hall meeting that he did not consult an attorney before making plans to institute what he considers martial law. He also announced that task force members could stop anyone they wanted to and didnât even need to be looking for a specific suspect on the streets.
According to Stovall, any individual who does not produce identification could be charged with obstructing a governmental operation.
âIâm hoping we donât run across [any] of that,â Stovall said. âWill there be people who buck us? There may be. But we have a right to be doing what weâre doing. We have a zero-tolerance. We are prepared to throw your hind-end in jail, OK? Weâre not going to take a lot of flack.â
Stovall claims itâs not necessary to consult an attorney because the alarming rise in crime meets the requirements of âreasonable suspicion,â enabling him to legally accost citizens.
âTo ask you for your ID, I have to have a reason,â he said. âWell, Iâve got statistical reasons that say Iâve got a lot of crime right now, which gives me probable cause to ask what youâre doing out. Then when I add that people are scaredâŠthen that gives us even more [reason] to ask why are you here and what are you doing in this area.â
Stovall is labeling his initiative âStop-and-IDâ similar to Mayor Michael Bloombergâs âStop-and-Friskâ policy in New York City, a program thatâs had disastrous results and stirred outrage among the African-Americans and Latinos whoâve become targets of racial profiling and police harassment and brutality.
Toni Miquel of MSNBC calls Bloombergâs Stop-and-Frisk policy âracist and ineffective, leaving the city with, in essence, a policy of racial harassment.â
The NYPD is one of the few departments in the city to operate without an oversight committee. Officers are given daily quotas for stops and rewarded for meeting those quotas. If they donât meet those quotas their jobs are in jeopardy.
Obviously, the easiest way to meet those quotas is to go into the poorer neighborhoods, populated by African-Americans and Latinos â where youâre sure to find plenty of people walking on the street. It doesnât matter if theyâve committed a crime or not, the officer just needs to file a report. But if the target resists, so much the better. Then they can tie him up in the court system and add his legal fees to the cityâs coffers.
In response to phone calls the day after the Paragould Town Hall meeting, Mayor Gaskill tried to alleviate fears by stating the he wasnât concerned about the potential for racial profiling by the police department. Officers would only be patrolling the areas with the highest crime rates.
But Mayor Bloomberg said essentially the same thing about his Stop-and-Frisk initiative and weâve all seen the results in the now infamous video where a young African-American man named Alvin was verbally and physically harassed by officers and called a âmuttâ, simply for walking on the street.
And so far, Bloombergâs initiative has had little to no effect whatsoever on New York City crime rates. In 2002 there were 1,892 victims of gunfire in New York City and police officers stopped-and-frisked 97,296 people. In 2011, there were still more than 1,800 victims but stops had increased to almost 686,000. In total, guns have been found in less than 0.2 percent of the more than 4 million stops since 2002.
Paragould Chief Stovall is adamant though. Citizens will be stopped and asked to produce ID and a reason for being on the street. âThey may not be doing anything but walking their dog,â he said. âBut theyâre going to have to prove it.â
Donna Anderson
Infowars.com
December 17, 2012
Paragould, Arkansas Mayor Mike Gaskill and Police Chief Todd Stovall announced at a December 14 Town Hall meeting that beginning in 2013 the streets of their city were going to be patrolled by police officers bearing SWAT gear and AR-15s. âIf youâre out walking, weâre going to stop you, ask why youâre out walking, and check for your ID.â
The move comes in response to a recent increase in violent crime. In a city with a population of only 26,113, Paragould had 86 rapes, robberies and assaults in 2010 and those numbers are expected to nearly double for 2012. Paragould currently has a City-Data crime index rating of 465.0, well above the national average of 309.3.
Property crime statistics in Paragould are even more alarming. While the national average for burglary, theft and auto theft is at 7 for every 1,000 people, the Paragould average is 20.14.
Police Chief Stovall told citizens attending the Town Hall meeting that he did not consult an attorney before making plans to institute what he considers martial law. He also announced that task force members could stop anyone they wanted to and didnât even need to be looking for a specific suspect on the streets.
According to Stovall, any individual who does not produce identification could be charged with obstructing a governmental operation.
âIâm hoping we donât run across [any] of that,â Stovall said. âWill there be people who buck us? There may be. But we have a right to be doing what weâre doing. We have a zero-tolerance. We are prepared to throw your hind-end in jail, OK? Weâre not going to take a lot of flack.â
Stovall claims itâs not necessary to consult an attorney because the alarming rise in crime meets the requirements of âreasonable suspicion,â enabling him to legally accost citizens.
âTo ask you for your ID, I have to have a reason,â he said. âWell, Iâve got statistical reasons that say Iâve got a lot of crime right now, which gives me probable cause to ask what youâre doing out. Then when I add that people are scaredâŠthen that gives us even more [reason] to ask why are you here and what are you doing in this area.â
Stovall is labeling his initiative âStop-and-IDâ similar to Mayor Michael Bloombergâs âStop-and-Friskâ policy in New York City, a program thatâs had disastrous results and stirred outrage among the African-Americans and Latinos whoâve become targets of racial profiling and police harassment and brutality.
Toni Miquel of MSNBC calls Bloombergâs Stop-and-Frisk policy âracist and ineffective, leaving the city with, in essence, a policy of racial harassment.â
The NYPD is one of the few departments in the city to operate without an oversight committee. Officers are given daily quotas for stops and rewarded for meeting those quotas. If they donât meet those quotas their jobs are in jeopardy.
Obviously, the easiest way to meet those quotas is to go into the poorer neighborhoods, populated by African-Americans and Latinos â where youâre sure to find plenty of people walking on the street. It doesnât matter if theyâve committed a crime or not, the officer just needs to file a report. But if the target resists, so much the better. Then they can tie him up in the court system and add his legal fees to the cityâs coffers.
In response to phone calls the day after the Paragould Town Hall meeting, Mayor Gaskill tried to alleviate fears by stating the he wasnât concerned about the potential for racial profiling by the police department. Officers would only be patrolling the areas with the highest crime rates.
But Mayor Bloomberg said essentially the same thing about his Stop-and-Frisk initiative and weâve all seen the results in the now infamous video where a young African-American man named Alvin was verbally and physically harassed by officers and called a âmuttâ, simply for walking on the street.
And so far, Bloombergâs initiative has had little to no effect whatsoever on New York City crime rates. In 2002 there were 1,892 victims of gunfire in New York City and police officers stopped-and-frisked 97,296 people. In 2011, there were still more than 1,800 victims but stops had increased to almost 686,000. In total, guns have been found in less than 0.2 percent of the more than 4 million stops since 2002.
Paragould Chief Stovall is adamant though. Citizens will be stopped and asked to produce ID and a reason for being on the street. âThey may not be doing anything but walking their dog,â he said. âBut theyâre going to have to prove it.â