Clinton COPS Money Wasted in Low Crime Areas

Oatka

New member
Your tax dollars at work. It seems that nothing this man does works out. Something to bring up (no pun intended) when some idiot starts to brag about Clinton "putting 100,000 cops on the street".
http://www.newsmax.com/showinsidecover.shtml?a=2000/7/9/222556

Clinton COPS Money Wasted in Low Crime Areas
With Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff

It was one of the most highly touted accomplishments of President Clinton's first term.

But now the results are in on the White House's $9 billion program to put 100,000 new cops on America's streets. And it turns out that a substantial chunk of that money has been wasted, a Tennessee newspaper claims.

More than half of the funding, according to federal audits, has gone to small towns and rural communties with fewer than 10,000 residents, reported the Memphis Commercial Appeal on Sunday.

Many of the sparsely populated locales have crime rates so low that they never needed their own police departments. But they have them now, thanks to generous handouts under the Clinton administration's Community Oriented Policing Services program.

"Four Crittenden County (Ark.) towns, for instance, have received a little more than $1 million in COPS funds," reported the Commercial Appeal. "With a combined population of 1,337, they have employed the equivalent of as many as 15 full-time officers, or one officer for every 89 residents, according to federal documents."

The Clinton COPS gravy train even stopped in tiny Jenette, Ark. (pop. 84) where it dropped off $239,066 to fund a completely unnecessary police force.

"That's incredible," said Barry Gildea, research director for the Memphis Shelby Crime Commission. "For lack of a better word, it's overkill."

Major cities like Memphis, Tenn. (pop. 647,000), on the other hand, make due with just 1,806 officers under the Clinton crime program - or one cop for every 358 citizens.

Often it seems the Clinton COPS have so little to do they spend their time making life miserable for law-abiding residents.

"Almost from inception, the small-town forces brought complaints about overeager enforcement, speedtraps ... and 'overbearing and harassing' officers," the paper said.

Worse still, some local officials cut corners on police standards in a rush to spend the COPS make-work money.

"Residents in Olympian Village, Mo. (pop. 751) called in the the FBI for help and eventually disbanded their new police department."

That happened after Olympian Village's police chief kicked a resident during a dispute over his lawn, and was replaced with another lawman whom residents later learned was on probation for criminal destruction of property.

Sometimes the consequences are more dire.

One COPS officer in Edmondson, Ark., has been charged with first-degree felony battery after he beat up a local merchant, who has been in a coma ever since the May 8 assault. The merchant's crime according to several witnesses? He wagged his finger at the Clinton COP.

"One of the most serious deficiencies of the small-town COPS departments," said Terry Bolton, director of the Arkansas Commission on Law Enforcement Standards and Training, "is the failure to do proper background checks."

No wonder. The COPS program is administered by Attorney General Janet Reno.
 
This sounds like a plan with a three-fold purpose:

1. Do little-to-nothing to eliminate crime in high-crime areas.
2. Create crime where it doesn't exist.
3. Create an atmosphere where the public either dislikes or distrusts LEOs.

Then, when the plan works:

1. decry the increased crime in formerly low-crime areas
2. call for more laws and stronger law enforcement (more SWAT and paramilitary police forces)
3. call for more gun control

Thus increasing the power of the government and decreasing the rights of the people. EVIL!

Just a theory...

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." -- Benjamin Franklin
 
just passing this along


Neal Knox Report

Collector Crackdown Coming

By Neal Knox

WASHINGTON, D.C. (June 10)-There are signs that BATF-the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms-is making, and about to make, a
major new assault against gun show sales. And, with steadily
increasing resources combined with steadily declining numbers of
Federally licensed dealers to "inspect" they're moving more into
the realm of dealer harassment than ever before.

Some of this activity is legitimate-if unwelcome-enforcement of
Federal laws that should never have been passed (which is why I
shudder every time NRA says "enforce existing gun laws," without
discriminating between laws targeting criminal misuse and gun
swaps that most states consider lawful).

But, some "dealer oversight" over-steps BATF's lawful
authority-which is anything but a new phenomenon.

For instance, BATF inspectors have no authority to copy sales
records, but licensed dealers seldom object. Few FFL's can afford
the cost-either the legal expenses or the risk of increased trace
requests and additional inspections.

I recently talked with a dealer who is ready to go to court over
unauthorized record-copying - for he wants to protect the privacy
of his customers, and is properly concerned about being subject to
a civil lawsuit from those customers if he doesn't.

In his case, the BATF agent had spent the better part of a month
copying names, addresses and serial numbers into her laptop-which
probably violates the prohibitions against registration in the
amended Gun Control Act and every BATF appropriations law since I
was NRA-ILA director.

Other dealers have told me they've been subjected to great
increases in the number of costly trace requests, including guns
bought and still possessed by law-abiding citizens.

The owner of one long-lived dealership told me he started getting
an unusual number of trace requests on old purchases. His friendly
agent suggested he could avoid digging into ancient files by
getting a new license, and sending all those old purchase records
to BATF-which he did.

The number of trace requests (without regard to sales volume) is
the phony criteria being used to identify "bad apple" dealers now
subjected to "enhanced enforcement." And traces can be used to cut
off sales under the terms of the S&W-Clinton Administration
agreement.

Just as BATF has pushed the envelope on gun law interpretation, so
have gun collectors and traders-either out of ignorance, confusion
or unwillingness to comply with pointless laws they consider
unconstitutional.

For instance, an FFL I've known for years didn't want me to bother
filling out a Form 4473 on a high-grade rifle I purchased at an
out-of-state gun show.

A resident of a northwestern state showed me a fine U.S. Switch &
Signal M1911A1 he had just bought at a Texas show. When I asked
how he had possession, he "explained" that the GCA's prohibitions
against interstate transfers no longer applied to collector
handguns-and even more think they no longer apply to long guns
bought or received as gifts from individuals.

They do.

Just how much confusion reigns among both dealers and BATF agents
is indicated by an article and editorial in the June 5 Denver
Post. It details the indictment last November of "Trader Jim"
Gowda, an Arvada, Colo., FFL accused of selling eight guns without
obtaining names and addresses, including to a felon and a Wyoming
resident.

But BATF told the newspaper he had sold "thousands" of guns
without paperwork at gun shows in various states, "hundreds" to
"suspected criminals," and completed Form 4473's and NICS checks
on only few.

Gowda says he was selling guns from his personal collection at the
shows, and didn't believe federally licensed dealers had to
document all sales.

Gowda and a partner were indicted in 1978 for dealing without a
license and selling to a non-resident. He received pre-trial
diversion after a guilty plea, and the indictment was dropped.

To "get legal" he obtained his FFL in 1980. In 1990 he was
inspected. In 1996, BATF agents raided his home, seized all but
four of 227 guns, claiming they were "improperly acquired." After
three more years selling at shows, he was indicted in November.

His attorney says Gowda is a victim of a "changing climate" since
the Columbine massacre. BATF's Denver enforcement chief says that
the agency is now focussing on gun show dealers-and,
inferentially, their buyers.

And in Illinois, the attorney general says U.S. House Speaker
Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) is backing his $850,000 request for a
Federal grant for a state "special unit" to investigate and
prosecute "internet and gun show sales."

Heads up!
 
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