Just received this in my mailbox from Cheryl Aichele of or on behalf of Friends of Charles C. Lynch

FREE CHARLES LYNCH 8am Court Support 11am PROTEST
Body: Americans for Safe Access (ASA) members and friends will be providing court support and protesting for medical cannabis provider Charles Lynch on Monday, October 6, in Los Angeles. Mr. Lynch was convicted in federal court earlier this month of operating a medical cannabis dispensing collective and faces decades in federal prison. We need to show our support for Charles and his family as his attorneys ask for a new trial. We also need to let federal officials and local representatives know that Californians will not tolerate federal interference or local cooperation with DEA raids.

What: Free Charles Lynch - Court Support & Rally

When: 8:00 AM Courtroom #10, 11:00 AM in front of Courthouse, Monday, October 6, 2008

Where: 312 N. Spring St. (at Temple St.
) in downtown Los Angeles

For public transit information, visit http://www. metro. net/riding_metro/default. htm

Join us on Saturday, August 16, for a the LA-ASA meeting to start planning! The meeting is at 1:00 PM at the patient ID Center, located at 470 S. san Vicente Blvd., in Los Angeles.
Get a map and details at http://www. ASAaction. org

Invite your friends and loved ones to the meeting and protest!
Don Duncan
ASA California Campaign Director
Americans for Safe Access (ASA) is the largest national member-based organization of patients, medical professionals, scientists and concerned citizens promoting safe and legal access to cannabis for therapeutic use and research.

Little early to be advertising the actual rally/protest but it’s good to see them planning. I wish them the best of luck. The Charles Lynch case is horrible and if you can make it out to show your support I urge you to do so.

Update on Berwyn Heights Botched Raid

Things are getting worse for Prince George’s County, Md. police officials, after last week’s botched no-knock raid (previously chronicled on C@L here).

Not only did the police not have a warrant to conduct a no-knock raid, but it now appears they were well-aware that a drug ring was delivering large shipments of marijuana to innocent addressees’ homes in the D.C. suburbs. The packages would then be intercepted by other members of the ring, all without the addressees’ knowledge or involvement. Nonetheless, the cops executed their guns-ablazin’ raid on the home of Berwyn Heights mayor Cheye Calvo and his wife Trinity Tomsic, where the cops shot the couple’s black Labs and detained Calvo and his mother-in-law in handcuffs for hours.

Astoundingly, P.G. County police refuse to admit that they did anything wrong in the raid. As police chief Melvin C. High said in today’s Washington Post:

In some quarters, this has been viewed as a flawed police operation and an attack on the mayor, which it is not. This was about an address, this was about a name on a package . . . and, in fact, our people did not know that this was the home of the mayor and his family until after the fact.

I correct Chief High: When police officers execute a no-knock raid though they have no warrant or cause to do so, when they blast and shoot their way into a home without first learning who lives there, then they’ve carried out a flawed police operation. That’s the case regardless of whether Calvo and Tomsic are guilty of trafficking drugs.

In Prince George’s County, flawed law enforcement isn’t unusual. At least, in this case, the victims of the botched raid may have the social stature to fight back.

Lima, Ohio SWAT Officer Acquitted in the Killing of Tarika Wilson

A Lima, Ohio jury has acquitted police officer Joseph Chavalia of involuntary manslaughter in the death of 26-year-old Tarika Wilson. Chavalia shot and killed Wilson and wounded her infant son during a drug raid last January. Wilson was unarmed.

During the raid, one of Chavalia’s fellow officers shot and killed the two dogs owned by Wilson’s boyfriend and the target of the raid, Anthony Terry. Chavalia testified that he mistook his fellow officer’s shots at the dogs for hostile gunfire coming from the bedroom where Wilson was standing with her child. Chavalia then fired blindly into the bedroom.

The jury concluded that Chavalia reasonably feared for his life when he heard the gunshots. I guess they were then willing to overlook Chavalia’s mistaking an unarmed woman holding a baby for an armed drug dealer, and the fact that he fired blindly into a room without first identifying what he was shooting at. It’s too bad that that same sort of deference isn’t given to the people on the receiving end of these raids when they too understandably confuse the police officers who wake them from sleep and invade their homes for criminal intruders.

California Medical Marijuana Dispensary Owner Charlie Lynch Found Guilty in Grotesque Miscarriage of Justice

Charles Lynch, the owner of a medical marijuana dispensary in Morro Bay, California that was fully compliant with state laws, has been found guilty in federal court of pushing drugs. The grim details, courtesy of The Los Angeles Times:

The owner of a Morro Bay marijuana dispensary was found guilty today in federal court of five counts of distributing drugs.

Charles Lynch, the owner of the dispensary, faces a minimum of five years in prison.

His closely watched trial involved conflicting marijuana laws and went to a federal court jury Monday. Jurors were asked to determine if Lynch was guilty of violating federal drug laws.

During a week-and-a-half-long trial in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, federal prosecutors sought to depict Lynch as a common drug dealer who sold pot to teenagers and carried a backpack stuffed with cash.

Lynch was charged with distributing marijuana, conspiring to distribute marijuana and providing marijuana to people under the age of 21.

Whole news story here.

Lynch is one of the countless casualties of an idiotic and tragically long-running war on drugs. His shop scrupulously followed Golden State laws and when he opened his shop in Morro Bay, local officials attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony. And that kid he provided medical marijuana to? A high school athlete who had lost a leg to cancer and had a prescription from a Stanford-trained doctor (and in any case, Lynch only dealt with the boy’s parents). Yes, a common drug dealer.

http://www.nbc10.com/

For most people, making a mistake on the job is tough enough. But imagine the whole world finding out about it and then judging you on the Internet.

That’s happening to many police officers across the country.Efforts are under way to give people a chance to voice opinions about neighborhood officers.

But there’s concern as to whether it’s free speech or just an opportunity for some to take cheap shots at police, which could get somebody hurt.

From the front lines of fighting crime, to the tougher times of losing a fellow officer, police find themselves under the microscope of scrutiny. But that magnifying glass may be getting bigger.”There’s no avenue for citizens to get feedback on officers. It’s kind of a secrecy out there for officers,” Gino Sesto, of ratemycop.com, said.But Sesto, a Los Angeles resident, said he’s now exposing much of that so-called secrecy.Sesto created and owns ratemycop.com, a Web site designed to allow anyone at any time to post comments about police anonymously.

This isn’t an brand new concept. Years ago, RateMyTeacher.com was released. Intrigued, I gave it a shot and weighed in on a few teachers from my past, praising the ones that did well and criticizing the ones that operated poorly. After college, I discovered RateMyProfessor.com and did much of the same.

There’s RateMDs.com that allows patients to rate and read about their doctors and dentists and LawyerRatingz.com that provides a “scorecard” to help consumers find the best lawyers. You don’t have to look far after that site to find The Ratingz Network, a site where you can anonoymously post, rate, and review places and services in your community: mechanics, realtors, vets and salons. If you can’t find your town or service, you can create it and talk about it.

So with the ability to critique all these other social service professions, why should the police force get a pass? What makes them immune to public opinion? Our tax dollars contribute to their salaries. They are public servants after all. Of course there is truth to the argument that not all cops are “pigs”, not all doctors are “quacks”, and not all chiropractors are “ambulance chasers”, but creating a forum to reveal those that abuse their position is a powerful tool for the public.

These websites are not the solution, they aren’t going to solve all the world’s problems, but they are a start. They provide opportunities to assist society and move public service forward, and maybe in some cases provide a pressure for change. Whether you agree or disagree with the forums, these websites provide information good, bad, or indifferent. Without instigating the topic, there is not dialogue. And what we need now is uncensored conversation.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…

The D.C. police department’s decision to arm patrol officers with semiautomatic rifles is promoted by commanders as a way to stay ahead of criminals. But it is raising concerns among civil rights groups and others, who question whether the weapons are necessary.Hundreds of officers will be issued AR-15 rifles starting this summer, and police say the guns will be a better match for criminals. Although Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier was unable to provide an example of when such firepower would have been needed in the recent past, she said police should not be caught off guard.

Police have about 500 of the weapons, and 352 officers have been trained to use them. Special units have used high-power guns for years, but officials said they wanted more officers to have access to the weapons. This is the first time AR-15s will be available for routine street patrols.

“We want to be prepared,” Lanier said. “I want officers to have what they need to be safe.”

Funny. These officers need bigger guns so as to keep them safer yet DC has what amounts to gun prohibition laws for the general public. There seems to be a bit of a disconnect here. Why is it that Joe Q. Public isn’t allowed “to have what they need to be safe?” And why should the police need to be safer? Wasn’t the point of the gun control legislation to reduce gun crime? If it’s so effective what’s with all the gun crime they need to match? If it’s not working why fight at the Supreme Court to keep it?

Perhaps because what they want is more power? A police state as it were.

The city got the AR-15 rifles from the Department of Defense for free as military surplus items.

Other police departments nationwide equip officers with semiautomatic rifles, including in Dallas, Los Angeles and Miami.

Although the overwhelming majority of D.C. homicides are committed with handguns, criminals have used powerful guns in recent years in some high-profile cases in the Washington area. A team of commando-style robbers carried out a string of bank heists in the District and Maryland in 2004, armed with assault rifles and handguns. At the time, police feared the crimes could be fatal, but the robbers were caught before anyone was seriously hurt.

Lanier referenced a 1997 bank robbery in Los Angeles, in which two men armed with AK-47 assault rifles engaged in a shootout with police. Seventeen officers and civilians were injured in the incident, which was captured on videotape. The case set off a debate about the need to better arm police.

Yes, because that kind of thing happens every day so they need to be carrying these AR-15s on their person during patrol. As for the 1997 robbery I’ve never understood how it is that there was no openings in their body armor. A hunter with a half way decent rifle should have been able to hit them at some junction in the armor. The foot or face/neck.

Assistant Police Chief Patrick Burke, who is in charge of special operations and homeland security, said protocols are being put in place to cover the use of the rifles and promised that officers will be “accountable for every shot.”

Just like they are held accountable now? Tell that to the Bell family,  Mark McCullaugh Jr.’s family, Tracy Ingle, and the hundreds of others who are attacked and fail to find justice.

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http://reason.tv/video/show/60.html

Vikki Reyes has had it with Locke High, the school her daughters attend in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. She walked in on class one day and recalls “the place was just like a zoo!” Students had taken control, while the teacher sat quietly with a book.

Frank Wells has also had it with Locke High. When he became principal he says gangs ruled the campus. He tried to turn things around but ran into a “brick wall” of resistance from the school district and teachers union.

Locke seemed destined to languish in high crime and low test scores until Wells, Reyes, and many reform-minded teachers joined with a maverick named Steve Barr in an attempt to break free from the status quo. Their battle is just one example of the charter school education revolt that’s erupting across the nation.

California:

1. Christine Smith : 25.1%
2. Steve Kubby : 17.0%
3. Wayne A. Root : 13.8%

No one else broke 10%. Phillies got 5.0%. Interestingly according to Eric Garris over at Third Party Watch Ron Paul may have actually won:

[I]t appears that Smith was beaten by “write-in votes.” The 12 ballot candidates received a total of 13,750 votes statewide, out of about 80,000 who are registered statewide.

A check of major counties shows that, in each case, the number of “write-in votes” exceeded Smith’s total. For example, in Los Angeles, the largest county in the state (making up a third of the state’s population) reported 2,157 write-in votes, compared to Smith’s total of 746. Orange County reported 1,279 write-ins compared to Smith’s total of 352. San Francisco County reported 145 write-ins, compared to Smith’s total of 86. Alameda County reported 138 write-ins, compared to Smith’s total of 133.

Unfortunately, the write-in votes will not be counted, since no one filed as an official write-in candidate, but one can make an educated guess as to what candidate LP registrants would write in.

Missouri:

1. UNCOMMITTED : 46.8%
2. Wanye A. Root : 18.1%
3. Steve Kubby : 9.6%
4. George Phillies : 8.0%

Arizona:

1. George Phillies
2. Wayne A. Root
3. Barry Hess