1432 The Physics of Law

The words in the title are not out of order. Lawyers are among the leading physicists in America.  They take atomic and subatomic particles, rearrange them and turn lead into gold.

Eat your hearts out, alchemists.

Here’s what happens.

“A” is murdered.  “B” is suspected, arrested and charged.  Then the lawyers get to work.

You know how these cases go.  The defense makes a monster of someone who may have been the killer. Man into monster alchemy.

The defense admits “B” is not a saint, but is good to his children or his mother or was almost an Eagle Scout or worked in the soup kitchen and therefore couldn’t possibly have committed murder.

The prosecution will produce a fingerprint.  More magic.  The defense will say it’s only a 70% match.  The magic of diminished science.

The prosecution will use security cam video and the accused will suddenly appear at the crime scene.

The defense will say the videos have been altered.

This magic show will continue until half the jurors believe one side or the other has turned lead into gold.

Like modern day physicists, modern day lawyers work in the world of atomic and subatomic particles.  

Instead of cyclotrons and colliders, they use human powered wind machines, themselves.

Members of the jury are the peer reviewers academics depend on for reputation and confirmation.  Except the jury doesn’t have the credentials of a scholarly journal so they have to go on belief, the most volatile and unstable element on the periodic table.

Maybe the trial judge dozes off for ten seconds every once in awhile or is caught texting while the alchemists are on stage.  Grounds for appeal if “B” is convicted?

After a not guilty verdict, the defense alchemist passes out business cards.  “Hey! Let Whiplash Willie turn your lead rump into gold, too! Call 1800-4 Magic2.

At his sentencing, “B” will invoke the national anthem of the convicted, telling judge Snoozy: “I’m not a bad person.”

Yeah, probably, you are.  Not-bad-persons don’t commit murder.

Okay, alchemists, line up those protons and neutrons.  There’s always room for the wind accelerator at the appeals court.  

Shrapnel:

--Speaking of magic, the NYPD has made thousands of arrests and tickets disappear.  But they’ll soon tire of it.  So don’t try going 90 on 92nd street.

--Turning potential tickets into antimatter is the beat cops’ way of Charlie Hebdo-ing the mayor whom they believe is a key player in the Great Anti Police Conspiracy.  He isn’t.  He’s just taken too many public foot in mouth lessons from Biden or Bush.

--Cop wannabe George Zimmerman has been arrested again, this time for aggravated assault.  Police say he flung a wine bottle at his girlfriend in Seminole County, Florida.  Possibly after draining it mouthward.

Grapeshot:

-Question for Chris Christie: did you think you looked good in that orange sweater at the Cowboys game or are you just picking out a color for your minimum security jump suit.

-Question for the AP writer of this headline SEARCHERS HONE IN ON BLACK BOXES FROM AIRASIA PLANE: will you please learn the difference between “hone” and “home?”

-Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like hone.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2015

835 Cop Killer

835 Cop Killer

This is every cop’s worst nightmare. It is shared by friends, family, his or her fellow officers and the community served. Shot and killed on the job while trying to subdue a madman with a ninja knife.

Even worse when the cop’s brought down by... another cop.

Such is the story of Geoffrey Breitkopf, 40, part of the Nassau County Police Department’s Bureau of Special Operations, an elite squad trained in the art and science of dealing with officers and civilians under fire.

Breitkopf was on the job 12 years. Decorated ten different times. Married. Father of two. Worked in plain clothes. Drove a police issue unmarked, probably one of those battered old Fords that scream “Police.”

He had a rifle. He went to a house on an anonymous street in Massapequa Park, not exactly a high crime area. He was going to try to talk down a guy named Anthony DeGeronimo who was said to be slashing neighborhood tires with that knife.

Backup on the way. One of the backer-uppers was an MTA cop called Glenn Gentile who has spent the last six years patrolling Long Island Railroad Stations in Nassau.

What is it they say about cops? The best join the NYPD or the NCPD or maybe the Suffolk Police. After that, there’s the Postal Police, the various village PDs, the Amtrak cops and finally, the MTA police.

Gentile comes from a family of cops. His brother also is with the MTA police. His father was a Nassau detective who retired and then died.

Glenn Gentile pulled the trigger on the gun that killed Geoff Breitkopf and he is a mental wreck now. He never will be the same. He probably will spend the rest of his years on the buy side of a bar or in a padded room.

A lot of people are pretty angry with this shooter. Some will want blood. Some will understand that things like this happen. An “unfortunate accident.” None will be angrier than the shooter himself. You were a shrink, you’d put him on suicide watch immediately.

What can he say to the widow -- to the fatherless children. Gentile is a ruined man no matter what the authorities do to him. No matter what the priests or ministers or friends or neighbors say to him or about him.

One guy on the job for a real police force runs to help. Another from the Keystone Kops pulls the trigger at what he thinks is a menace of a madman carrying a rifle at a standoff. He kills a real cop.

The madman, DeGeronimo, spotted slashing tires, ran into his house and later re-emerged wearing a black leather outfit and brandishing that ninja knife. The cops shot him dead. But the faux cop who shot the real cop? They’d best keep him off the streets. Because if they don’t, he’s likely to meet with an unfortunate accident. A fatal accident.

But the real culprit here is neither DeGeronimo nor Gentile. It’s whoever is in charge of training the MTA police. And whoever sends out a real cop with a rifle and no obvious signs of his being a cop, like a day-glo vest or a jacket with NCPD in big white letters.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com.
© WJR 2011

826 Lazy Mary

826 Lazy Mary

Anyone remember Lou Monte singing
“Lazy Mary, you better get up.
She answered back ‘I am not able.’
Lazy Mary you better get up
We need the sheets for the table.”

Lazy Mary is working in Wisconsin. At least if you read the publicity from those good folk with their heads firmly implanted... well, you know where.

She’s a municipal employee. Maybe a social worker, a nurse, a teacher, a clerk, a cop, a firefighter, an engineer (either on a rail line or in a planning office.)

And she’s union. And she’s not lazy and neither are her union brothers and sisters in Wisconsin and 37 other states where similar and support demonstrations are taking place. In fact Mary is so un-lazy with her job that the only way she could have found the time to attend a rally was to use some of her vacation time. You know, the time off the union stole from the state? State, federal and municipal workers won the right to organize about 40 years ago, trailing their private sector counter parts by decades. Now, they’re trying to take it away and there are two reasons: (1) Money and (2) the Great De-fanging.

Governor Scott Walker claims a $300-million budget deficit. This is after he awarded a $400-million tax cut to his loyal supporters. So, right, the state is short of bucks, even though Walker inherited a surplus.

More important: Municipal workers are the last man standing to organize voters, educate voters, register voters and make sure those voters get to the polls on election day. Many, if not most of those new recruits are people who are poor or minorities or both. And these groups tend to vote Democratic. This is part of the Republican attack on the two party system.

What’s the alternative for the workers? Fourteen hour days? Fewer holidays, less or no health insurance, an inferior retirement plan? What’s in it for the ordinary people who depend on these workers for health care, transportation, police and fire protection? Resources they need will used instead to further pay off the debt and the governor’s friends.

The police unions backed Walker’s election. They’ve changed their minds and gotten loud about the change.

Oh. Notice something about the Governor’s storm troops assigned to the demonstrations: There’s no storm. While an individual cop is not permitted (by contract!) from expressing political views while on duty, police are treating the demonstrators with kindness and respect uncommon for such a supposed confrontation.

And by the way, where’s Obama? He’s given lip service support but when he was in Milwaukee the other day, he apparently didn’t have the hour or so it would have taken to scoot 75 miles west to Madison and show up in person.

Probably too busy thinking up new ways to give the country to the Republicans and calling it the look for common ground.

Shrapnel:

--Note to Muammar: Time’s up. Forty-two years after his “socialist” coup, America’s newest best friend says he’ll die a martyr after fighting down to his “last drop of blood.” Let us know when the next-to-last comes out, Mu Mu, so we can get there in time to film the last one.


I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2011