Toledo Man’s Death Ruled a Homicide

This story has been covered by AP, Newsday, Reuters etc.. I live nearby and watched it on our local news, I feel that there are conflicts in the versions of each story, stupid responses by officials, inadequate prosecution of the police involved and in the end, another man dead at the hands of law enforcement officers using our old enemy, the Air Taser.

Jeffrey Turner, a “Scott High” graduate was 6′3″, 220 pounds, he was shocked five times with a Taser stun gun by the Toledo cops during his arrest 1/31/05 outside the Toledo Museum of Art. Later they shocked Mr. Turner four more times with a “different” model Taser stun gun by county jail officers. The nine blasts from the Tasers, discharging five-second jolts of 50,000 volts of electricity each, occurred within a three-hour period.

The first five Taser shots were given while being arrested on charges of loitering, resisting arrest and obstructing official business, according to the police. The second 4 Taser shots were to subdue Turner after he repeatedly banged on a security window of a first floor cell Monday night according to Lucas County jail administrator Rick Keller. A nurse was called after Turner received the Taser stuns (supposedly S.O.P.) and found him unresponsive. He died shortly after at St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center.

Originally, one source reported that the county coroners office said an initial autopsy on cause of death was inconclusive. But in breaking news, the Lucas County coroner ruled (a few days before this post), that “multiple Taser shocks contributed to the January death of Jeffrey Turner” and ruled his death a homicide.

According to autopsy results Turner was found to have hypertension, but the coroner Dr. James Patrick, said: “However, since his death closely coincided with the application of multiple Taser shocks, this also contributed to his death.” Since the use of force contributed to his death, the manner of death was ruled a homicide.

Lucas County Prosecutor Julia Bates said her office will conduct a review of the incident before deciding whether to take any action.

to be cont’d…. Part II

IRS Security Flaws Expose Taxpayer Data to Snooping

In a breaking news story by Andy Sullivan and published on Computerworld, it was reported that: “Security flaws in computer systems used by the Internal Revenue Service expose millions of taxpayers to potential identity theft or illegal police snooping”.

Also, the IRS is not likely to know if hackers are browsing through tax returns since it doesn’t properly “police its computer systems for unauthorized use”, according to the GAO – “Government Accountability Office”.

The GAO released this report 3 days after the deadline for filing personal income tax returns, when concerns about identity theft and computer security (insecurity) are running high. “This lack of systems security at the IRS is completely unacceptable and needs to be corrected immediately,” according to Rep. James Sensenbrenner (Republican-Wis.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

“The IRS promised to fix any problems and find out if tax returns had been exposed to outsiders.” In the past several years, the IRS has taken measures to protect the info it collects. The IRS has fixed 32 of the 53 problems that were cited in a 2002 review. But now, the GAO has found 39 new security problems on top of the 21 that are still not fixed.

“Along with tax receipts, the IRS collects information on money laundering and other possible financial crimes for the government’s financial-intelligence office. But barriers between tax returns and money-laundering reports don’t exist, the GAO found. Thus, a police officer checking up on money-laundering reports can also read personal tax returns, in violation of federal law.”

The GAO found that some 7,500 IRS employees, law enforcers and outside contractors can access and modify tax returns and financial-crime reports. The report stated that a master list of passwords and usernames is also widely available.

“Increased risk exists that unauthorized users could claim a user identity, and then use that identity to gain access to sensitive taxpayer or Bank Secrecy Act data,” the report said.

Identity thieves have used stolen passwords to access nearly 500,000 profiles of U.S. citizens stored by data brokers ChoicePoint Inc. & LexisNexis, a division of Reed Elsevier.

Now, this is some troubling information. Please check out the full story via the link provided. I guess “Big Brother” is watching many of us!

eBay to Control World Time!

Marketplace Safety Tip: Protect yourself from fraudulent emails that ask for sensitive personal information like credit card numbers, passwords, etc. Just because an email message looks like it is sent directly from eBay, that isn’t always the case. To learn more about protecting yourself from fake or “spoof” emails, see our online tutorial at the following Web page: bla-bla.

This should be considered a crime!

eBay exchange with disgruntled customer:

Upon questioning eBay (known for it’s elusive “help”..and I do mean HELP ME! system) on how to time auctions within this gentleman’s time zone of residence, this exchange occurred. I have been there many times and I realize his frustration with eBay support.

Dear Moron, (my edit-in)

Thank you for writing to eBay. I understand that you would like to change the timing on the auctions on eBay to suit you preference. I would be happy to assist you further. You can either change the time on your computer to match the eBay timings or you can get a small clock to put near your computer. Please note that there is no way to change the eBay official time. They are all displayed in Pacific time.

Well, you can actually get the time in Eastern if you really need it.
Sign into eBay Canada. It is hosted in Toronto so the time shown there’s is Eastern. The time at eBay is always quoted using a standard 24-hour clock, sometimes known as “military time.” eat idea..my edit-in)

This is the format: hh:mm:ss h=hour m=minute s=second

If the hour is 12 or less, that corresponds to a.m. time. If the hour is 13 or more, that corresponds to p.m. time. For example, 13:00 is 1:00 p.m., 14:00 is 2:00 p.m., 20:00 is 8:00 p.m., and so on. Just subtract 12 from any time over 13:00 to find the more familiar, p.m. time.

The terms “PDT” and “PST” mean “Pacific Daylight Time” and “Pacific Standard Time,” respectively. This corresponds to the local time in California. Pacific time is three hours earlier than Eastern time. For example, if it is 3:00 p.m. Pacific time (in San Francisco), it is 6:00 p.m. Eastern time (in New York).

You can view the official eBay time by clicking on the “site map” link located at the top of most eBay pages. Then, click on the “eBay Official Time” link located on the left side of the page under “Buy.” You can also click on the link: http://cgi3.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?TimeShow

Auctions end exactly at the time shown in the “Date auction ends:” line of an item listing. The end time of an auction is based on the eBay clock. If you load the time from the eBay clock, it will show you the time it was when your request for the time was received. So if you click on the link above at exactly 19:38:00, eBay will display 19:38:00 as the current time when the page is loaded and displayed on your computer screen. Say you wanted to bid on an auction that ended at 19:40:00. The time page is not updated dynamically, so if you received a message saying that the time was 19:38:00 and you then went to bid and found the auction closed, it’s because two minutes or more passed from the time you checked the clock till the time your bid was received. For example the clock might have read 19:38:50 when you bid, which would have left one minute and 10 seconds to get your bid in. Using the eBay clock in this way may allow ample time for last minute bids. However, other factors such as connection speed, server use, interest in the particular item, etc. could still prevent access to auction pages in the closing moments of the auction. It is my pleasure to assist you. Thank you for choosing eBay.

Regards,

Nameless Rep. eBay Customer Support Representative

That is the one of the most “canned responses” I’ve ever read.

Reply:

Ridiculous!

A company the size of ebay certainly has the expertise and resources to offer this very basic convenience to it’s users but simply chooses not to. I assume this is to feed the ego of someone at ebay who feels enriched by making others conform to “ebay time”. Your idea of changing the time on my computer to match a far-away time zone is absurd and the idea of getting a “small clock” to put near my computer is patronizing in it’s obvious simplicity. As are your tutorials on time zones and military time, concepts that my original question should indicate I fully comprehend.
Frankly I would have had more respect for a more truthful answer like, “This way is most convenient for us so you have to deal with it” or “We are ignoring your request by changing the subject and treating you like an idiot”. Thank you for your extensive yet utterly useless reply.

Signed “Li’l Bert”

Tell ‘em Li’l Bert: they still owe me for listing fees on six 500K volt stun batons. They were bought instantaneously at “buy now” prices. eBay closed the auctions, removed them from the files so there were no records of them, and didn’t give me my listing fees back. They instead wrote an encyclopedic email suspending me for selling them, even though they are perfectly legal where they are headquartered. They “fessed up” in the end and said “we prohibit them and that’s it”. You can buy stun guns but not a stun baton?? Yep, that’s sound logic. Not to mention that they put the buyer of the stun gun at greater risk, since they must actually have physical contact rather than using the non-lethal baton style to thwart an attacker from a distance. Another great eBay boner!

Which One Works Best?

Well, there are a lot of stun guns on the market. You can buy them for the design features you prefer – some are thinner others a little stockier, some are very tiny and others can be made on the tool-bench in the basement, (good luck).

I am asked this question all the time. Which stun gun is best? Well like Bob in the enhancement commercials on TV every 15 minutes, bigger is definitely better! (I’d like to hit him in his enhanced balls with a well placed front snap kick).

The two hottest stun guns on the market are definitely the 625,000 volt Stun Master and the brand new 775,000 volt Stun Master stun guns. Both display awesome stopping power and instant pain upon contact. Carrying three nine volt batteries in the 625K model and four in the 775K model, you can be assured of dishing out a lot of punishment in terms of a quick jolt which causes intense pain or dig it in for a couple/three seconds to drop your assailant to the floor like silly putty.

The test fire sound of the Stun Master 625,000 & 775,000 volt stun gun will scare most attackers away. If you have an extremely aggressive attacker then three to five seconds of contact will leave them on the ground, contorted in pain. In fact the intensity of the charge, when doing a test fire before using will result in melting the electrodes if done repeatedly for more than one second in duration!

There you go – a dynamic duo and two top rated stun guns by Stun Master.

World Mourns Death of Pope John Paul II

This weblog is devoted to posts regarding info on crime, self defense, and related material but we will take our time to honor a man who stood for “goodness, morality and love”. His life was spent in the cause of leading men to God and he stood against crime in all of it’s many guises. He was a believer’s Pope a man of God!

The Pope died in his private apartment at the Vatican on Saturday, surrounded by his closest aides. The Catholic denomination and most of the world are mourning his passing. John Paul II was the first non-Italian Pope in over 450 yrs.

Pope John Paul was born named Karol Jozef Wojtyla on May 18, 1920, in Wadowice, Poland. After becoming a priest in November 1946, he rose through the church hierarchy, and became archbishop of Krakow in 1964. He became cardinal in 1968 and formally installed in a Vatican ceremony days later. He was voted Pope of the Roman Catholic Church in 1978.

The international reports coming in, laud John Paul II as a champion of freedom and an intellectual man with a great sense of humor. He was loved world wide and he will be sorely missed. He championed the cause of freedom, not only in communist European countries, but in all the world and was the most traveled Pope in history.

Supporters and critics both agree that his term as Pope had immense significance. John Paul II drew huge crowds in his public appearances and was known for his courage and integrity. His outspoken views on human rights gained him many admirers, but his teaching in such areas as sexual morals, science, and the roles of women in the church alienated some of the liberal Catholics. Say what you will, Pope John Paul II was a man of faith, courage, and dignity. His passing is a bitter pill to swallow, but he has gone to his Lord’s kingdom and there is also room for rejoicing by the faithful who believe he is with Jesus now and in a far better place.

Pope John Paul II was 84 yrs old. May he rest in the peace of our Lord.