Will Trump Initiate and Escalate Some Military Conflicts Based on an Election Timing Strategy?

Isn't it predictable?

Corruption and Sacramento Sheriff's Deputy Jeffrey Mitchell

[UPDATE: AS OF JANUARY 7, 2020, THE LOCAL MEDIA HAS STILL NEVER MENTIONED MITCHELL'S ARREST OR THE SUICIDE THEORY]

Sacramento Sheriff's Deputy Jeffrey Mitchell was allegedly gunned down October 27, 2006 while on a traffic stop in Sacramento County. Many insiders close to the investigation believe it was a suicide, but they won't say so publicly.

One of the things the Sacramento Sheriff's Department ("SSD") has never told the public--even though the public has the right to know because it's relevant and newsworthy--is that Mitchell was arrested for theft in El Dorado County just 11 days before he died. There's a record of that arrest, and it's been accessible to SSD and the media for more than 10 years; but the mainstream media has still not reported the arrest.

Information about the arrest should be publicized, because it will give the public a more complete version of the events and possibly lead to the truth about what really happened. When SSD asks for the public's help in solving a crime, it's insincere of them to leave out a piece of information as significant as that.

The Investigators' Secret Theory

Senior officers at SSD have told me that many closest to the investigation believe that Mitchell committed suicide but staged his death as a confrontational killing.

The investigators' theory is that Mitchell became despondent after being arrested for theft and later learning that an internal affairs investigation had begun concerning the incident. Investigators speculate that Mitchell likely feared that the media spotlight would soon be on him and that he would ultimately be fired, lose his retirement benefits (including for his son and wife), and never be hired as a cop anywhere after that. It was also a potential source of embarrassment, humiliation and a matter that, once publicized, could have negatively impacted others in his family. As we have seen for many years, Mitchell also had a good reason to believe that the arrest would never have been publicized if he died before a prosecutor took the case to court.

The Arrest Report and Likely Outcome   (see the arrest report here)

The arrest report shows that deputy Mitchell was charged with petty theft after allegedly entering a Raley's store, stealing electric hair clippers and then running away from the store to his truck before being confronted by the store’s security guard. The guard said he chased Mitchell to Mitchell’s truck and that Mitchell then handed the clippers to the guard, said “I’m leaving,” and then fled in the truck. It’s not clear how close the guard was running behind Mitchell during the chase, but it’s legally significant because it raises the possibility that Mitchell could have been charged with robbery after a prosecutor reviewed the report.  

Either way, that incident likely would have ended Mitchell’s career as a peace officer, and a criminal conviction would have sealed that fate. Thefts are “crimes of dishonesty” that can be used to impeach the credibility of a convicted person's testimony. Since deputy sheriffs are expected to testify regularly, Mitchell’s actions at Raley's compromised an essential function of his job. And even with no theft conviction, an administrative hearing could have resulted in a decision that Mitchell's actions were grounds for termination.

Approaching Publicity, Pressure, Embarrassment, End of Career

Mitchell knew that the incident was about to explode for him, and he knew that very soon the criminal proceedings against him were going to get media publicity. After all, when a deputy sheriff anywhere in California is arrested, charged with a crime, and appears at court, the media wants to cover that story, and the public wants to know about it. There was simply no way Mitchell could have avoided that publicity and the fallout, and it’s a sufficient reason to cause the kind of severe depression that could lead someone to take his own life. This is all relevant to the theory that Mitchell committed suicide. It's also possible that Mitchell had kleptomania, and it's notable that studies show that kleptomaniacs have higher than average suicide rates. 

More Than a Decade of Cover-up

For more than a decade, SSD has only offered the public one theory of events--i.e., that Mitchell was killed on duty by someone else. It's not clear what SSD's main goal is for keeping the theft charge and suicide theory hidden from the public. Is it to protect Mitchell's good name? Is it to spare Mitchell's son and widow embarrassment? Has the omission protected some flow of benefits that might not be available if a viable theory held that Mitchell committed suicide? Could the motive for keeping the theft charge and suicide theory secret from the public be that it would cause a blemish on the department to speculate openly that one of its deputies might have perpetrated the theft and dramatic final act of fraud?

Why the Media Says it Won’t Publicize the Arrest

Whenever I’ve spoken with members of the local press about the incident and asked why they don’t report the theft or suicide theory, the common excuses have been:

• we wouldn't report it unless one of the investigators or a sheriff's official were willing to talk to us and agree that one of their theories is suicide--we'd need a verifiable source; and
• the theft arrest isn’t relevant unless a credible law enforcement source tells us it is.  

Possible Reasons Why the Media Really Hasn’t Publicized the Arrest

Although cooperation between the media and law enforcement is essential to each of those entities, a disservice to the public can occur when their relationships get too cozy. Law enforcement’s interest with the media is to be portrayed in a positive light and have its version of events be reported. The media’s interest in staying on good terms with law enforcement officials is to be able to get scoops, interviews, and a routine flow of information from inside sources.

Local law enforcement agencies and major Sacramento media entities have a long history of coziness. That’s not to say the local media won’t occasionally be critical of local law enforcement. For instance, when there’s a significant case of police misconduct that likely couldn’t escape eventual publicity, or when one local news agency takes a risk and is critical first, it would be hard for another agency to ignore the story without appearing biased or uninformed. But when there’s a choice of either publicizing something local law enforcement doesn’t want publicized or doing them a favor and withholding a story that otherwise has a good chance of never coming out, that’s when the cozy relationship makes a difference.

The local media also has incentive not to publicize Deputy Mitchell's arrest because doing so now would raise questions about why they didn't report the arrest a long time ago. They've certainly known about it. Some people would ask, "How could they have missed it back then?" 

Whenever any currently employed full-time peace officer is arrested for theft, that’s always a matter of public concern; and the public expects both law enforcement and the media to publicly report such arrests promptly. It’s the media’s and law enforcement’s business to know when an arrest like Mitchell’s occurs, and their failure to report it in a timely manner--even before Mitchell’s death--was either a case of dropping the ball or collaboration or both. Keeping it from the public for 9 years, however, is a case of corruption

In spite of being made aware of all the things mentioned here many years ago, the corporate media (including the Sacramento Bee) has never reported: 1) Mitchell's arrest, 2) the newsworthy coincidence about the timing of his arrest and death, 3) the internal investigation, 4) the pending prosecution, 5) the idea that Mitchell might have feared publicity, humiliation, the end of his career, and the end of his accrued benefits, 6) the fact that the small amount of DNA found on the trigger (as mentioned in the local stories), which was measurably unhelpful and insignificant, could have simply been from letting someone else handle the gun (such as at the range), 7) the fact that the only evidence that can suggest there was a struggle is also evidence consistent with a theory of suicide, 8) the issue of benefits and how a suicide would have impacted that, or 9) the issue of why the department might have incentive to keep the foregoing quiet. That's a lot of stuff to leave out.

The bottom line is that the case remains as an unsolved death, and it's the most significant unsolved case in Sacramento. It relates to a death of a Sacramento Sheriff's Deputy that occurred while he was on duty. When do cops ever search harder for an answer than when that happens?! In any event, there's clearly much more to the story than the public has been led to believe, and the public has the right to know about the additional facts even if it tarnishes Jeffrey Mitchell's and SSD's reputations.

Resisting Arrest or Resisting Excessive Force?

There are many cases in which people have a right to resist when unlawfully excessive force is used against them. For example, nobody's expected to just sit there and passively allow themselves to be beaten to death by police or subjected to a use of force that would likely cause, or be expected to cause, great bodily injury. The right to resist such force is about protecting one's Due Process right to life.

San Francisco beating: Video shows deputies hitting suspect repeatedly

"Whatever people think of this incident, it does not reflect the daily things we do in our community to make it a better place," according to Sgt. Ray Kelly of the Alameda County Sheriff's Department.

No, but it reflects something that occurs far too often by cops in the US: the use of criminally excessive force demonstrated by a flagrant willingness to disregard the Constitution.

See full story at: http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/21/us/stanislav-petrov-alameda-county-sheriffs-video/index.html

Cop's Staged Suicide Gets News Coverage

See: http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/04/us/fox-lake-illinois-police-officer-joe-gliniewicz/index.html

[Compare that CNN article with the one above involving Sacramento Sheriff's Deputy Jeff Mitchell, which mentions suspicious circumstances very similar to the case involving Joe Gliniewicz.  Will the media eventually dig into the similarities in the Mitchell case?] 

"Stop resisting!" "Why are you trying to take my gun?!"

Here's a YouTube clip that shows a typical corrupt police tactic: yelling out a different version of events than what's actually occurring.   

The tactic is intended to make viewers of audio or audio-video footage believe that a different version of events is happening than what can be seen or what witnesses say they saw.

Shameful Police Conduct in Sacramento

U.S. Supreme Court cases are very clear that in order to stop and detain someone, the 4th Amendment requires that police must have reasonable suspicion to believe that a crime was committed and that the person being detained was involved in the criminal activity.  The suspicion must be more than a hunch: it must be based on particular factors that implicate the specific person being detained.

Ferguson Cops Wear 'Us-Versus-Them' Bracelets and Remove Their Name Tags

http://news.yahoo.com/justice-department-tells-ferguson-police-stop-wearing-bracelets-004135604.html

The Justice Department sent a letter to Ferguson cops this week after federal investigators saw many Ferguson cops wearing 'us-versus-them' bracelets and concealing their identities while on duty and in uniform.  See the article in the link above.  Among other things, the Justice Department said the bracelets had upset and agitated people and reinforce the very 'us versus them' mentality that many residents of Ferguson believe exists.  The Justice Department also said, "The failure to wear name plates conveys a message to community members that, through anonymity, officers may seek to act with impunity."