Thursday, December 1, 2016

50 days in jail for waiting on a ride

"I was really not prostituting, but [Vardman] said I was prostituting," she testified.
That she was arrested regardless "means I can't stand anywhere," Elias complained to the court. "I can't even stand there and wait on a ride. ... I'm trying to change my life and you can't change your life, because you got people who just want to ride around and randomly take people to jail for nothing."

Via Gavin McInnes tweet: http://reason.com/blog/2016/12/01/50-days-in-jail-for-waiting-for-a-ride

14 comments:

Trooper York said...

Wait is that Hillary talking?

Evi L. Bloggerlady said...

Lem, why don't you hyperlink your links?

Evi L. Bloggerlady said...

Here is the Reason article and here is a picture of Ms. Elias

She sort of looks like the Ghostbuster/SNL actor that Milo had his dust up with.

Trooper York said...

I take it back.

It was Moosechelle. Ouch.

Chip Ahoy said...

That's what you get for dressing like a whore with your tits fully exposed luringly and looking like a meth addict.

Or else it's one of those things that's difficult to comprehend. At first.

(jolting o.t. alert)

Like this puzzle I just now finished constructed by Randal Hartman. The puzzle itself is not difficult to solve but it's one of those puzzles that remains a mystery even after it is solved completely and correctly 100% because its title and its key revealing phrase still do not make sense. Like this:

* the title is "Graveyard duty

This makes you think of digging graves, or tending them, mowing, collecting dead flowers, trimming, etc, or administrating, booking, sales, public relations, clients, and so forth.

But it also makes you think o 12:00 A.M to 8:00 AM workshift.

* The clue to the key revealing phrase restates the title and tells us the first portions of the long thematic entries have something common "Graveyard duty (and a hint to the starts of 17-, 23-, 36-, and 46-Across) It's answer confirms the second guess 12:00AM - 8:00AM.

* 17A = TEA LEAVES
* 23A = LEATHER NECK
* 36A = TALE OF TWO CITIES
* 46A = ALTERCATION
* 58A = LATE SHIFT (the key what's going on with the whole thing)

So what do they have in common?

tea
leather
tale
late

Is there a movie called "The Late Shift" that would make all this clear, or what?

A famous poem? Some pop culture thing that I don't know? Something historic? Something cultural?

No. It is not the first words, rather, the first letters regardless of word separation. "Late shift, " It a way of saying in the world of Crosswordlandia that the letters in the word "late" are shifted at the beginning of each phrase, they are anagrams of the word "late."

TEA LEAVES
LEATHER NECK
TALE OF TWO CITIES
ALTERCATION

Awwww, dayum, got me again.

The constructor could have used:

tela ...
teal
alet ...
atel ...
let a ...
etal ...
elat ...

Methadras said...

I doubt this will ever happen, but actually arresting people for actually committing crimes rather than what a police officer perceives to be a crime, should be the training of the day. See something illegal, then you can investigate and/or arrest. Otherwise, mind your own fucking business. I'm about proper policing, not thought/future crimes policing. This needs to end, not just for this woman, but nationwide.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I'm posting from my phone because I can't afford internet yet.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Doing hyperlink via ink via the phone is extremely hard

ndspinelli said...

Meth, Bingo! Cops like the low hanging fruit. Not all, but too many are lazy bureaucrats w/ guns.

ampersand said...

BTW, the libtardtarian tears from many of the Reason/ Hit and Run writers was mighty sweet too, particularly illegal alien fan Shikha Dalmia.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

I'm kind of curious to know what's the difference between "really not prostituting" and "not prostituting."

Leland said...

Meth, as much as I want to agree with you; there's a problem. Criminals are very good at hiding what they are doing. In this case, there were two failures. The cop arresting the woman, and then there is the prosecution. The cop knows she has a history. The cop recognizes a situation, which although it can have multiple meanings; typically has a rather common meaning. The prosecutor should be the one that comes in, says "not enough there, because where's the Jon, where's the trick?". Why did that take 50 days? Then again, it could be because what EtFB noted.

Reason makes a better argument. If we think the law is too strict, we need to change it. Loitering has always been a tough issue. Why is standing around against the law? The common answer is, because few people stand around for no reason, so then what's the reason for standing around. Sometimes the reason is indecision, but most often there is a specific reason, some good, some bad. But I disagree with Reason, its not the cops, but the people writing the laws and asking for enforcement. I'm sure most cops would be fine with letting most prostitution go. Most, because the general concern regarding prostitution is that it can lead to abuse.

Methadras said...

Leland,

I understand what you are saying, but what you are effectively advocating is blame shifting. By writing bad laws, representatives, then concede that it is the fault of the governed. Then are told, as you say, that if the law is bad, then rewrite it. That is blame shifting. It isn't my fault the law was written that way. I have to see the outcome of the law in order to comply with it and I have no choice at that point if I see that it's wrong. I and other are stuck with it until it is changed if ever.

predictive law enforcement is effectively pre-crime enforcement. I'll go right back to my original argument. It is irrelevant that she has a prostitution prior. She was not witnessed prostituting, but simply standing in public, by herself, waiting for someone to come pick her up. The officer deemed she was prostituting. He had no proof that she was, but rather than make the proper discretionary decision to move on. He makes the arrest and lets the system sort it out. This is highly ineffective, inappropriate, and quite damaging to the public as a whole.

It's like hunting for meat to put into the meat grinder. why? Look for an actual crime, not a perceived one, act on the actual crime, not predict or assume one is being made. There are several laws on the books that shouldn't be even regarded as crimes and one of the biggest are implicit criminality. The idea that if I've committed a prior crime, that everything I do at that point is implicitly criminal.

We aren't talking about laws being strict. We are talking about a woman, standing on a sidewalk waiting for a ride being busted for prostitution, when she wasn't and gave no indication she wasn't. The officer clearly knew she wasn't engaging in prostitution, but yet, the system must be fed in order for it to work. She pleads guilty for nothing because the officer put her in it and the biased nature of it once she is in it is a futile effort for her to fight because it is cost prohibitive to do so and she's willing to eat 50 days for it. Your argument, much less Reasons argument are not rooted in reality nor in reason.

Trooper York said...

As much as I hate to disagree with MamaM this is community policing in action.

The cops know the skells. They know the strong arm guys. The muggers. The corner boys. The hos. The only way to stop crime is to tell them to move along. If they don't you arrest them. Sorry but a ho is a ho.

In the 1970's I worked in auto radiator place on the stroll on 32nd Street between 10th and 11th. There were many innocent young women, old women and pretend woman standing around in high heels, hot pants and faux fur coats. They were all waiting for a ride. Or at least they would get in a lot of cars. But they never seemed to get to where they were going because they would be right back in about twenty minutes wiping their mouths and folding a duece into their bras.