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Thomas Jefferson
Author of American Declaration of Independence
As for 4 the dissenting justices who decried the 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court decision holding gays and lesbians have an inherent right to marry, may I remind the dissenters that gays and lesbians have existed probably since humanity was created, or crawled up out of the slime, or was seeded here by ETS, or however it came about …
And may I also remind the dissenters of this from the Declaration of Independence:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
I ass-u-me even the dissenting justices agree that women, too, are endowed by their Creator with the same unalienable Rights.
Moving laterally …
Arriving at Sippin’ Internet Cafe this morning, to put together today’s bombing run, I saw a homeless man sprawled across the sidewalk, his head on his day pack, sound asleep in front of the Tropic Cinema Marquee. I took that as a solid amen from the angels, that I should report a suggestion given to me in Sippin’ yesterday morning by a fellow I have known for maybe 10 years.
He said he’d just finished reading yesterday’s mirror, mirror on the wall and other reflections reported at goodmorningkeywest.com post at goodmorningkeywest.com, and why didn’t I become a street performer and lie on the sidewalk on Duval Street and sleep for tips amongst all the noise and carrying on and craziness for which Duval Street is famous?
Great idea, I said, if only I had the money to buy the business license and liability insurance street performers on Duval Street are required to carry. Never can know when someone sleeping for tips might cause some drunk local or tourist passing by to trip and fall and crack the old skull wide open and end up in the hospital all lawyered up.
Jerry Weinstock, M.D., Psychiatry, retired, sometimes :-), replied to yesterday’s mirror, mirror on the wall and other reflections reported at goodmorningkeywest.com post at goodmorningkeywest.com:
Sloan: the “law” applies in a multitude
of ways to those that are unfortunate -down and out—
Unless you get a humanitarian cop. -which can happen —
Donna had Shawn in first grade and they have maintained there relationship-
you should mention to him you know Donna Weinstock-(-if it is appropriate-)
they are both “fanatical Gator football fans” -Donna and Shawn -he has most been helpful to her with troublesome renters in the past. good judgement not to pee in a place where there is even a slight risk of infection and spreading microbes on your shoes.-good judgement on your part.
your space -i hope that guy pulls through -do you know the diagnosis -or just alcoholic -malnutrition.
hope Kari is doing OK !!!! Jerry
I replied:
My friend has serious medical troubles, but don’t yet know what they are other than his back and ribs from bicycle accident, and his urinary tract problem. He’s still on ICU ward. I felt too awful today to travel up to the hospital to see him and my other friend there, also on ICU. The infection inside the second fellow’s left leg looks awful, perhaps staph, or MRSA, but no surface eruptions. He’s the guy with the reduce blood flow condition, which can’t be helping his doctors and the antibiotics treat the leg infection.
I think the pee thing got out of hand. How many people walk dogs down here, who pee anywhere they please? How about all the pet cats? How about all the wild chickens and birds, and all the lizards, and all the raccoons, rats and mice? How about people being would up real tight? I’m no scientist. But I didn’t need to need to be one to imagine something up to no good was incubating in that filthy slime on the bathroom floors at KOTS, about which I don’t think they can do anything, as those bathrooms are currently designed, when a lot of people are lined up and using those bathrooms.
I should have included in today’s post that Mike Tolbert, KOTS manager, told me the side of the dorms where I peed in the grass was used by lots of people to pee at one time, and the area stunk of old urine, and he had scrubbed down the outside of the buildings and washed down the grass to get rid of the stench. He said, back when FKOC ran KOTS, the penalty for peeing on the premises was 2 weeks out of KOTS. Mike said he reduced the penalty to 1 week.
They really are running a better operation, in my opinion, than it was being run before Mike went to work there after his BBQ restaurant folded sometime last year, which was heart-wrenching for him and his wife Patti Jo. They are good friends of mine. This ain’t easy on my heart and soul and innards. I hate “doing business” with close relations. It sucks. But in their infinite wisdom, the angels wanted this tango to happen, and here we are.
This morning P.S. to Jerry:
I felt so bad yesterday that I told Brenda in north Georgia, I would not survive 2 days more of it. I went to Harpoon Harry’s yesterday night, and had a good red snapper dinner for $10, and to use their WiFi, and I started feeling better, and by bedtime in the spare room of my friend’s apartment, I felt like I might have a better night than the night before, which I did. But, oh, was my back sore this morning, after sleeping all night on 3 towels over a linoleum floor.
If I had to hazard a wild guess, I’d say I am carrying inside of me my 2 friends in the hospital, KOTS, the stuff going on in Birmingham over my trying to get an advance against my second inheritance from my father’s estate, and Kari - based in various dreams and common sense observations.
Kari is freaked out that I was kicked out of KOTS for a week. She said last night, it had happened to others. I said, yeah, I was taught by a Grand Master, Kari Dangler. Ha, ha.
During my sleep last night, dreams caused me to think I finally understand the dream of a few nights ago about my horse winning the Belmont Stakes. My 2nd wife’s mother, whom I loved dearly, went to Ward-Belmont College in Nashville, where I years later attended Vanderbilt. Under out divorce agreement, her daughter will receive a portion of anything I receive out of a trust my father set up in the latter 1970s, upon the death of my father’s second wife, who currently receives all of the income from that trust. That’s a different inheritance than the advance I requested under my father’s will.
My last dream this morning, my 2nd wife was walking beside me on 2nd Avenue North in Birmingham, near a homeless shelter where I have lived in the past. Back the other way on 2nd Avenue is the building in which my law office was located at one time. Even farther back the other way is the law office of the law firm which represented my father and still looks after his estate.
My 2nd wife told me in the dream, sort of bitchy, that when she married me, she thought she was going to be rich. That pissed me off to hear, given my financial straights right now and she didn’t seem a bit concerned about me. I said, I thought I was going to be rich, too, fuck you. I turned and walked away from her.
All along I have been committed to honoring that part of our divorce decree, and I still intend to honor it, if I outlive my stepmother. Why I would have such a dream as that, given my strained life at this time, I cannot imagine, unless she actually is just concerned about the money. Even so, I still will honor the divorce decree. Keeping my word and being honest and being generous is why I’m in these straights now. No point in changing that.
There also was a sense in last night’s dreams that I should send my father’s lawyer the posts about my tango at KOTS and the aftermath, for him to forward to my father’s widow, men on whom my father relied, and my sister.
I was with my 2nd wife, when I practiced law in Birmingham. Usually when she’s in a dream, it has to do with something legal I need to attend in my waking life.
She’s had a rough go financially; I hated that.
She’s a super talented water color artist. People used to compare her to Andrew Wyeth, and it upset her; she was better.
She moved with me to Santa Fe, New Mexico in early 1986, after I stopped practicing law.
She fell in love with Santa Fe, I did not.
She still lives there. Struggling, starving artist.
She loved Vincent van Gogh. Me, too.
Sloan
Meanwhile,
from the most recent every Friday online edition of Key West the Newspaper (thebluepaper.com):
To Tase or Not To Tase: CRB Exonerates Officer Responsible For Catastrophic Tasing of Matthew Murphy
The controversy over police use of tasers in Key West and Monroe County has recently received a lot of attention. The results of separate investigations in two high-profile taser cases in the Keys have just been announced.
Four months ago we published cellphone video showing an unidentified man who’d been tased on US 1 just north of Key Largo. After the clip went viral, the DMV’s Office of the Inspector General conducted an investigation. A review of footage from two additional video cameras, led the Inspector General’s office to issue a finding that the repeated use of tasers in that case constituted excessive force.
And then there is the case of a catastrophic taser injury in Key West resulting from a 2011 incident on Duval Street. This week The Citizen Review Board discussed whether Officer Mark Siracuse, who had tased Matthew Murphy that night had used excessive force. Matthew’s fiancé Marie Annulese had complained to the CRB that officer Siracuse had not announced himself and had shot Matthew without any warning. Matthew remains in a Jacksonville hospital in a vegetative state after suffering a brain hemorrhage. His family has filed a federal lawsuit against the officer and the City.
After some discussion, and an admonition from KWPD Chief of Internal Affairs, Joe Tripp, who told the Board they had no business deciding cases of excessive force without having intimate knowledge of the case law that applies, the CRB exonerated the officer in a 4 to 2 vote [with board members Tom Milone and Joe Pais dissenting].
For all Blue Paper coverage regarding the tasing of Matthew Murphy click here.
Arnaud and Naja Girard, owners and editors of the new, digital, Key West the Newspaper (The Blue Paper) previously reported for the former Key West The Newspaper, Key West’s longest running independent weekly, published by Dennis Reeves Cooper, Ph.D., from January 1994 until November 2012. The Girards are perhaps best known for their discovery of the US Navy’s 1951 claim of ownership of Wisteria Island but are also responsible for top investigative stories including coverage of the highly controversial in-custody-death of Charles Eimers on Thanksgiving Day 2013, the catastrophic police tasing of Matthew Shawn Murphy, and the property tax scandal involving Balfour Beatty to name a few. Arnaud and Naja have lived in Key West since 1986.
9 Responses to “To Tase or Not To Tase: CRB Exonerates Officer Responsible For Catastrophic Tasing of Matthew Murphy”
I’m a big fan of the karma outcome, which I have experienced up close and personal so many times in my own life, that I know for a fact, sooner or later, everyone gets what’s coming to him, or to her - unalienable Right not specifically enumerated in the Declaration of Independence.
Meanwhile …
When I came into Sippin’ Internet Cafe this morning, David behind the counter asked how I was doing? I said, well, I’m not wearing a toe tag. I said I had heard that for the first time on a city bus not long ago, when a woman passenger I had seen on the bus a few times got into a conversation, and when I asked how she was doing, she said she wasn’t wasn’t wearing a toe tag.
I told David that I might name today’s post, “No Toe Tag”. He laughed, asked me to put him on my daily hit list of people who received by email copies of the daily bombing runs. I said my stuff is a bit different. David said he knew that from sometimes going to goodmorningkeywest.com and reading. Another employee here is on the dailly hit list, and the owner, who told me his mother up north reads me every day.
Recent photo of me in Sippin’, before I started staying at KOTS, not yet knowing, but figuring, the angels had many cute surprises stored up their sleeves.
sloanbashinsky@outlook.com
I have read all of the information on this case and once again the review board has proved they are worthless and will always side with the thug KW police. Once again they will pay out millions to settle the lawsuit and use the excuse that it is cheaper to pay then continue the lawsuit. I just hope the Murphy’s attorney looks beyond the money and forces the defendants to admit they were wrong. This all started because of racial comments and that should have also brought charges. Obviously, there are only 2 of the 6 on the review board that deserve those positions.
And to KWPD Chief of Internal Affairs, Joe Tripp, does case law say an officer can taser someone without announcing their intentions or even announcing their presence? Of course not and you know that. Laws are based on the need and common sense. Perhaps Joe Tripp you did not realize that. I find it unbelievable that people can argue against numerous witnesses and a video. Peoples perception of an event can vary but I thought the majority ruled and an unaltered video spoke the truth. Oh I forgot, Key West is part of the Bizarro World.
Perhaps it is time to get some civilians on the CRB to replace the four police apologists. The evidence showed that Siracuse gave no warning, gave no chance for Murphy to stand down. Below are a few quotes of CRB member, Arthur Dennison.
“Bad decisions often cause bad consequences. Murphy chose to walk about Duval Street at 3:40 a.m. and also chose to remove his shirt and punch a man. “Officer Siracuse acted correctly,” Dennison said.
This is the logic of a rapist…”She chose to wear a short skirt and was asking for it..”
“Siding against the police officer would send a message to the community and could cause officers to second guess themselves in emergency situations, then crime and violence will rise in the city,” Dennison said.
More twisted logic with clairvoyance added to the mix! Dennison can see the future! His “reasoning” was pulled from a dark and smelly place…
According to Dennison we shouldn’t question the decisions that officers make on the street….
WTF is this clown doing on the Citizen’s Review Board then?!!! Dear Mr. Dennison, your sole and entire purpose and reason to exist as a board is to question the police! OMG!
My head just exploded!
yes my head exploded too when I read it the other day in the mullet wrapper.
this dennison needs be removed post haste from the board. its not his job to ‘politically’ redefine their job nor politicize any review that is before the board as he has done!
the other 3 need to take a refresher course in ‘why they are there’ and its sure as hell not to play politics but to simply weigh the facts and conclude.
Malone and pais weighed and measured it would appear but ford states:
““We keep getting stuck on the resistance,” Ford said. “I don’t think he did resist. The officer wasn’t obligated to announce himself if he’s walking in on an act of active violence. He was there to protect the citizen who was being attacked. He took the judgment call.”
great thinking ford and out of it comes brain damage and a coma ongoing for how many years now?
and if I’m not mistaken its in the law or rules of procedure that the officer needs announce himself that you need cease and desist or be tasered etc. if not I stand corrected and if so then ford needs removal too.
It appears there are several in the CRB who are unfit to be there. They are cop apologists and will side with them every time. There was witness testimony and video that officer Siracuse tased Matthew Murphy without warning but that doesn’t matter to Dennison or the others on the CRB who have their heads up Donie Lee’s ass. Taking into account the actions of KWPD cops maybe these thug cops should start “second guessing” themselves before they act.
Ok, so let me vent here a bit please. I’m a cop from out of state, and have been doing this job for the last twenty three years. I do not like tasers, I do not trust tasers, I will not use them. When I came through the academy we relied on defensive tactics rather than electronic gadgetry. Without really knowing it we were being taught the spirit of Bushido, the way of the warrior. Bushido is almost a religion to me. I really came to understand it when I became a Judoka and studied for years under one of the best Judo players in the nation. It is fairness and equality in combat. It is the showing of respect and even admiration to your opponent. It is not taking advantage of those who are weaker than you and using only the skill you need to subdue them. It is taking control with gentleness and kindness and respect.
This new generation of cops is frustrating to me. They have abandoned the way of the Bushido Warrior, who gains the upper hand through training and dedication, and they rely on guns and tasers to win the fight. Quite often with devastating results. It is laziness, pure and simple.
I can sum this difference up in one scenario: A young capable officer and I were recently dispatched to a suicidal, college age, female who had her boyfriend’s folding CQB combat knife and was threatening to cut herself with it. As I’m responding I’m pulling on some kevlar lined leather gloves and going over all of the knife defensive techniques I’ve learned over the years in my head. I’m wondering how bad I’m going to have to get cut to save this girl from harming herself, not really caring about yet another scar on this grizzled old carcass which is full of them anyway.
When I arrive my officer is on scene awaiting backup… and she has her gun out. I ask her why, and her response is “Huh, That crazy bitch isn’t cuttin me!” It’s times like these I think I need to just retire and be done with it. The job has changed, the people doing it have changed. We don’t see ourselves as sheepdogs anymore when we’re perfectly willing to kill the sheep.
Thank you smith727 for your insight. From your description, I think I have figured out the problem! They are being trained in Bullshido instead of Bushido! Just a simple mix-up!
From the Key West Citizen:
“None of the witnesses said they heard Officer Siracuse announce his presence or give any type of a warning,” Milone said, adding that the Taser gun’s video footage backs that up. “The commands should have been uttered before the Taser was employed.”
That doesn’t matter, Ford said.
“We keep getting stuck on the resistance,” Ford said. “I don’t think he did resist. The officer wasn’t obligated to announce himself if he’s walking in on an act of active violence. He was there to protect the citizen who was being attacked. He took the judgment call.”
So, at least for Ford, it was not necessary for Officer Siracuse to identify himself or give a warning before firing his taser. Did Ford create a new policy for KWPD?
That said, I am not of the view that Murphy’s injury was reasonably foreseeable by Siracuse. Nor am of the view that Murphy had a right to hit the racist woman’s boyfriend.
Naja and Arnaud told me after they broke this story, that Matthew had a premonition: if he went to Duval Street at night, he would have trouble with the police. He didn’t want to go because of that premonition, but he went anyway, and when what the premonition was about came up, Matthew chose to go after the racist woman’s boyfriend, whom, I think I recall, was trying to talk Matthew into walking away, letting it go.
There’s plenty of blame to go around in this tragedy.
I personally don’t believe Siracuse identified himself, or gave a warning. I also personally don’t believe KWPD will side against any of its police officers, unless the evidence is so overwhelming against an officer that there is no other choice, and even then, it might be KWPD might not side against the officer.
After what I saw IA and Police Donnie Lee and the Grand Jury do with Gary Lee Lovette’s damning taser recording and statements he made to other people afterward, about how Charles Eimers died, and turned what Lovette said into Lovette making it all up, boasting, so it was not believable, and the mayor and city commissioners and city manager went along with it, I didn’t expect any different in other KWPD conduct unbecoming cases.
Hope I’m proved wrong.
From all the cases we have all seen lately I highly suggest all residents and tourists to get a concealed permit and take a look at all the fine items on Amazon.com. It is very clear that the KWPD cops are not at all concerned with the law and are not brave enough to confront situations with a desire of no harm to anyone. Sad that this once safe party town is no longer safe. If they want to use deadly force then guess we all need to be ready .Is this Key West or Dodge city.
Am I alone in recently viewing GUNSMOKE an seeing police brutality.
It is only a matter of time before KW sees a riot.
The future of KW is not looking bright and it will be seeing financial results soon.