Current Events - May 1, 2013

NPR: Nothing ‘newsworthy’ in Obama presser

“A mood of expectation arose in the briefing room,” NPR notes, reflecting on the anticipation of yesterday’s White House press conference. “It felt as though something newsworthy must be happening. But as it turned out, not so much.”

Instead, NPR laments that President Obama “plunged right into the queries” from reporters and took questions on apparently un-”newsworthy” topics such as “Syria, the Boston Marathon bombing, Mexico, the Republicans in Congress and the challenge of administering Obamacare.”

Yep.  Nothing “newsworthy” there, obviously.

http://www.theblaze.com/blog/2013/05/01/npr-nothing-newsworthy-in-obama-presser/

Obama: "Maybe I Should Just Pack Up and Go Home"

Yes, please.  He wasn't serious, of course; he was responding to a question from ABC's Jonathan Karl, who essentially asked him if he still has the political juice to accomplish anything these days.  A few thoughts on the president's performance this morning, issue by issue:
 

Syria - The president was asked about his administration's non-response to Syria's use of chemical weapons -- which was the "red line" standard his administration erected months ago.  They repeated this line often, but reportedly now regret ever establishing it.  Here's Obama "clarifying" what he meant by calling WMD deployment a game-changer: “By game changer I mean that we would have to rethink the range of options that are available to us.”  How that changes the game in any practical sense is a complete mystery.  As I wrote last week, the administration has no good options in Syria, and I'm not convinced that we should intervene militarily.  But "red-line" threats from the Commander-in-Chief of the United States of America must hold substantial weight.  By talking big then backing down, Obama has sent a muddled message to outlaw regimes in Damascus and beyond, while projecting weakness and reluctance to friends and foes alike.
 

Benghazi - Katie's got you covered, but I wanted to add my two cents as well.  The president plead ignorance on the explosive allegations that Benghazi survivors and potential whistle-blowers have been intimidated into silence by his administration.  We can probably go ahead and assume that he is also "not familiar" with the provocative report released by House investigators last week (with more major hearings to come).  But let's focus on what the president did say about Benghazi today:  

“Our job, with respect to Benghazi, has been to find out exactly what happened, to make sure that U.S. embassies – not just in the Middle East but around the world – are safe and secure, and to bring those who carried it out to justice."

We're approaching eight months since dozens of terrorists overran our consulate and murdered four Americans, including our sitting Ambassador, yet the president is recycling his status-quo rhetoric from last September. Obama says it's his "job" to determine what happened and carry out justice.  His administration is working to obstruct testimony to the former end, and has made zero arrests in pursuit of the latter.  

Sequester - To the surprise of nobody, the president attempted to blame his sequester on his political opponents.  Maybe the three-thousandth time is the charm on that approach.  Stephen Hayes offers a quick and dirty history of Obama's nuanced relationship with his own program of cuts:
 

Stephen Hayes tweets: Obama: (1) proposed the sequester, (2) threatened to veto any attempt to avoid it, (3) ignored warnings about its consequences for months, (4) promised it wouldn’t happen, (5) pledged to pay legal fees of federal employees if it did, (6) complained he had too little flexibility, (7) rejected Republican efforts to give him more flexibility, and then, (8) predicted calamity once the cuts he’d championed went through.

 I'd also add stage (9), when people recognized the White House's pain game for what it was, and Democrats lost this battle.  Obama is finally poised to sign the FAA flexibility bill, but he made clear to today that he's not happy about it. The American people remain perfectly comfortable with the sequester's miniscule spending reductions.  Just over one-third believe the "cuts" are harming the economy.

Guantanamo - Again, check out Katie's post on this subject.  The president has been talking about closing the terrorist detention facility for at least six years, and renewed his commitment to shuttering the prison today.  He called it "unsustainable," which isn't true.  It's quite sustainable, actually -- and has been sustained rather well since it opened its doors to hardened jihadists in 2002.  If Obama meant it isn't morally sustainable, that's another argument.  He expressed concern about the ongoing prisoner hunger strike at the facility.  Evidently, he'd rather  see terrorists die pre-interrogation via drone strike than post-interrogation via hunger strike.  A strange calculus.  The president's dreams of closing down Gitmo have been stymied and stifled at every turn by members of both parties; he's far out of the mainstream on this issue.  Indeed, a majority (53 percent) of self-described liberal Democrats support keeping Guantanamo Bay open, alongside 70 percent of the overall public.

Obamacare - This may have been Obama's most fascinating response.  Asked about the negative reviews pouring in from members of his own party, the legislation's key author, and the program's top administrator, the president's effective answer was, "nothing to see here, folks."  He actually argued that the vast majority of Americans are already enjoying Obamacare's wonderful benefits, ahem, "even if they don't know it yet:"

He returned to this refrain several times, basically arguing that most of the law has been implemented, and that the tough part is over for people who currently have insurance.  This claim was too much for even for a New York Times correspondent to stomach:

Jonathan Weisman tweets: Whoa, Obama claim that folks who have insurance now have already gone through the ACA implementation is just not rt. Lots of issues left

"Just not right"  Why not?  Still to come: The Obamacare mandate tax, the IPAB rationing board, major premium spikes, higher deficits, more layoffs, and millions of employees being dropped from of their coverage into government exchanges.  That last point is especially key because those exchanges don't exist yet (and the feds are laboring to get them up and running on time, as costs have doubled).  How can the president say this thing's all but over for people with insurance when the exchanges into which many of them will be dumped aren't yet operational?  He can't.  But aside from all of that, everything will be fine.  Expect to see clips from this rambling answer in 2014 political ads.  Obama also averred that his administration is "hitting all the deadlines and benchmarks" associated with Obamacare.  Click through for two separate examples from the last few weeks alone demonstrating how this claim is utterly false.  A report published last summer concluded that 20 of 42 mandated Obamacare deadlines had been missed.  And if things were proceeding right on track, why would Democrats be using phrases like "huge train wreck"?
 

Immigration - The president talked a lot without saying very much, which was probably politically shrewd.  The more he inserts himself into that legislative effort, the less likely passage becomes. When President Obama doesn't have a filibuster-proof Senate majority and Speaker Pelosi, he's not very good at getting much of anything done.

Jason Collins - In recent weeks, the president has said he doesn't have enough information to comment on the Gosnell trial.  Today, he told Fox News' Ed Henry that he wasn't aware of the latest Benghazi developments.  He also noted that his administration needs to "investigate" further on chemical weapons in Syria and US intelligence failures leading up to the Boston bombings.  But, interestingly, he was deeply informed about NBA center Jason Collins, who just came out as gay.  Obama was so eager to discuss the subject that he actually returned to the podium after wrapping up the press conference.  He just couldn't resist addressing this pressing national matter.  I understand that the the first active "big four" sport athlete to come out is a newsworthy story.  Why we need to hear from the president about it is less understandable.  That Obama was more prepared to talk about this situation than Benghazi or Gosnell is a reflection of his priorities.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2013/04/30/obama-maybe-i--should-just-pack-up-and-go-home-n1583189

He looks like a man who would rather be opening a library than governing a country

President Obama's press conference showed me a man who is either isolated from reality or unfit for the executive position that he ran for.  

To be fair, this "100th day" standard is silly.  I am not really sure why presidents even talk about it but they do. What's the big deal about 100 days in a 1300-plus days term?

President Obama looked so bad today that even Dana Milbank  used the word "moribound" when referring to his presidency.

 This is on top of Maureen Dowd writing that he did not know how "to govern".  

Zeke Miller noticed that he was in charge but not in control.

Ron Fournier even made a comparison to President Clinton in 1995 after he lost the House & Senate.

I just watched a rerun of the news conference and had a simple question:  What was the point of this news conference anyway?

I had to laugh at a couple of his comments.  Wonder how bad this guy would look if he actually had a media that was aggressive and asked tough questions? 

As usual, he blamed Congress.  He forgot to say that it was a Democratic Congress that denied funds to close GITMO.  It was Senate Democrats who killed the gun control bill last week.  

On the problems implementing ObamaCare, he looked so out of touch that Democrats must be banging their fists against the wall.  

On Benghazi, he was unaware of the "whistleblowers" controversy.   Didn't Jay Carney tell him that he might get a question about it?  

On Syria, his explanation was so silly that the world must be wondering about his state of mind.  I am not suggesting that we should send in troops but dancing around "red lines" makes him look so weak.  Are we supposed to have a video of a Syrian opening a can and forcing someone to smell it?  

Last week, President Obama was in Dallas and must have noticed how happy the ex-presidents were.  His predecessors were smiling and giddy. 

It makes me wonder if President Obama wouldn't rather be building a library than governing the country.  

That's the impression that I got from this thing called a news conference today.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/05/he_looks_like_a_man_who_would_rather_be_opening_a_library_than_governing_a_country.html#ixzz2S3GIH9xz 

PK'S NOTE: This is one of the clearest explanations:

The Individual as Property

In 2011 a woman named Sharrie Gavan beat a man with a baseball bat. Now, this is not all that unusual, as domestic disputes, home invasions, and overheated arguments sometimes end with an act of assault, but this particular case is different. In this instance the woman took a baseball bat to the drug pusher who was gleefully destroying her 20-year-old son with heroin. Mrs. Gavan was recently convicted of the assault and faces up to a year in prison.

This story seems destined to die a dull death, although there are locals in the St. Louis area who have cheered the actions of this woman. But when looked at in a larger context this story speaks volumes about the fundamental changes that have occurred in our culture and in our thinking.

What is the nature of the relationship between the citizen and the State? America was founded on principles found in the Bible and in the writings of 17th century philosophers such as John Locke.

John Locke pointed out in his First Treatise on Government:

Though the Earth... be common to all Men, yet every Man has a Property in his own Person. This no Body has any Right to but himself.

So, all men have first and foremost the right to own themselves.

This is of critical importance because it is this most fundamental principle that the modern Left and Right part company over. Liberals do not believe this basic assertion, preferring to believe that we as a collective own each other. This distinction is absolutely critical, because it informs our beliefs in terms of actions.

The English Philosophers Hobbes and Hume argued that property was a creation of the State, and were not held in high regard by the Founders of the United States. If property is a creation of the State, then one can argue that the State has sovereignty over the individual.

And of course later philosophers came to dismiss the view of self-ownership as illusory. Rousseau believed individuals enter voluntarily into a social contract which creates a "sovereign", a sort of group entity, a collective. Rousseau was extraordinarily influential on later leftist thinking, as was Karl Marx who disdained the concept of personal sovereignty, as did Benito Mussolini. As in communism and fascism, the entire undercurrent of modern liberalism is anti-individualism. Even the Anarchists, though they may seem to be radical individualists, ultimately seek the collectivization of property as a means to grant themselves the individualism they seem to believe in -- making them as statist as any other leftist branch. Without property rights one cannot have individual rights.

It is no surprise that the general degradation of property rights should coincide with the rise of statism and the devaluing of the individual. Either we own property -- including ourselves - or we do not.

From such a belief system comes abortion; the right to life is subject to the granting of permission by the collective.

Gun control is another example; the Left hates guns because they empower the individual over the collective. A man with a gun does not need the protection of the State but can deal with violations of his rights by himself. The man with a gun can, if need be, do without the collective. This chafes at liberal sensibilities, as they are absolute in their determination to make us all not just our brother's keeper but his master. There can be no right to self-defense in a world where one does not own even himself. The State is master and it is a usurpation, an act of rebellion, to defend yourself. It is even more an act of treason to defend yourself against the State. This is why there is such anger in the Progressive community against "bitter clingers" holding onto their guns; what right does any individual have to take the power of the State?

It affects religion, too. The Judeo-Christian religions believe in the duty of the individual to govern himself first and foremost. The Progressive thinking is that nobody has a right to govern himself, so Christianity and Judaism are rebels, antithetical to the cause of community and the idea that "it takes a village". Islam, on the other hand, is both a handy tool to use against them and is a system where there is no division between the State and the Faith, and the individual must submit to the larger collective.

Almost any position held by the Progressive Left can be understood if one thinks about it in terms of property rights.

The liberal view has largely emerged triumphant in our modern era. The case of Mrs. Gavan is illustrative of that.

Not sixty years ago Mrs. Gavan would not have been arrested, nor tried, nor convicted. She had gone to the police like any good citizen and was told there was nothing that could be done, so, in desperation, she took very modest steps to protect her family. Please note the pusher was not seriously harmed -- merely warned away with a couple of bruises. The Founders would have shrugged at that.

But not the modern python state; laws have become nooses around the necks of the citizenry while leaving the predators (who follow no law but their own) free rein. Society will not allow a person to defend himself. Now if a crime victim shoots an attacker he is the person in trouble (ask George Zimmerman). Now any action outside of official channels is punished because it is considered an act of rebellion. It is the reason why the Obama administration keeps pushing this "right-wing domestic terrorist" shibboleth; they are frightened of anybody outside of their control, outside of the Borg Collective.

And so a decent woman protecting her family may go to prison for the sake of upholding the right of the State over the individual. This is not just an elitist-Progressive thing, either; ordinary citizens and minor officials in Jefferson County, Missouri pursued, charged, tried, and convicted this woman. This mindset is now a part of the American psyche.

And it won't change, not without enormous social, educational, and informational changes in this country. We have to remember who we once were, and that means the schools need to teach, the arts need to remember, movies and television need to change, an entire culture has to be revamped. The prognosis for a restoration is grim.

But not impossible. As long as there is a spark of liberty in the individual there remains hope. We have to teach our children. We have to remember who we once were.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/05/the_individual_as_property.html#ixzz2S3KBdLJ3

Report: Benghazi Mastermind Identified — But We’re Not Arresting Him

President Obama on Tuesday reiterated his pledge to bring to justice the perpetrators of the September 11 attack on an American outpost in Benghazi, Libya that resulted in the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

“Our job with respect to Benghazi has been to find out exactly what happened, to make sure that U.S. embassies – not just in the Middle East but around the world – are safe and secure, and to bring those who carried it out to justice,” he declared yesterday, nearly 8 months after the attack.

But recent reports have claimed at least four officials with the State Department and CIA have been warned by administration officials against testifying on the attack, and another report claims the State Department is preventing the whistle-blowers from getting legal representation.

Now, Fox News is reporting that multiple sources have said the United States has actually identified the mastermind behind the attack, but has not taken any action.

He is “still in Libya and walks free,” the report claims.

One special operator who was on the ground during the attack and has debriefed those responding told Fox News’ Adam Housley:

“We basically don’t want to upset anybody, and the problem is, if Ambassador Stevens’ family knew that we were sitting on information about the people who killed their son, their brother, and we can look them as a government in the face –?  Then we’re messing up.  We’re messing up.

[...]
We have all the capability, all the training, all the capacity to kill and capture not only terrorists involved with the specific events of [September 11] and Ambassador Stevens’ death, but terrorists who are feeding other regions including Europe, that could eventually affect our national security — in the short term, we’re not talking in mid-term or long-term, we’re talking short-term…

It’s a daily frustration.  [Emphasis added]

 The whistle-blower, who asked to remain anonymous, is speaking out because he’s “frustrated with the excuses, lies, and lack of a military response” from the current administration, according to Fox News.

And in addition to not bringing to justice the perpetrators of past offenses, the whistle-blower claims we are putting ourselves at grave risk in the future.

After noting that “the second highest population of foreign fighters in the war in Iraq came from Benghazi, second to Saudi Arabia,” and that they have a history of killing Americans and coalition forces, the special operator said the weapons trade, in particular, is of concern.

After the fall of longtime leader Moammar Gadhafi, tens of thousands of weapons are unaccounted for, including an estimated 20,000 shoulder-launched missiles.

He says they have actually come across some of the weapons, but they are “not allowed to take or destroy the missiles because they’re not given authority by their chain of command.”

Fox News reached out to the State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon, the Federal Bureau of Investigation regarding the claims that the mastermind has been identified, but says it got no official response.

Watch the entire special report courtesy of Fox News. 

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/01/report-benghazi-mastermind-identified-but-were-not-arresting-him/ 

The Camp Bastion Cover-Up

By Michelle Malkin

Do you remember what happened last year on 9/14? Where are the White House phone calls for the families who continue to grieve? What is being done to prevent another fatal attack like the one on 9/14? And why is the full truth being withheld from the American public?

Benghazi isn’t the only bloody disaster being covered up by the Obama administration. As I reported in a series of columns and blog posts last fall, three days after the deadly siege on our consulate in Libya, the Taliban waged an intricately coordinated, brutal attack on Camp Bastion in Afghanistan. Two heroic U.S. Marines — Lt. Col. Christopher Raible and Sgt. Bradley Atwell — were killed in the battle. Many fallen and surviving Marines have been honored for their brave, quick-thinking actions to save their comrades and civilians caught in the crossfire.

Family members are angry that military brass are still trying to suppress details of the fateful budget and strategic decisions that led to the attack. But they won’t stay silent. “This is political,” one Camp Bastion relative told me this week. “Just like Benghazi, they don’t want people to know.”
In case you were sleeping or had forgotten: The meticulously coordinated siege at Camp Bastion by 15 Taliban infiltrators — dressed in American combat fatigues and armed with assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons — resulted not only in two deaths and nearly a dozen injuries, but also in the most devastating loss of U.S. airpower since Vietnam. Camp Bastion is Britain’s main military base in Afghanistan; it’s adjacent to our Marines’ Camp Leatherneck.

Eight irreplaceable U.S. aircraft were destroyed or put out of action during the raid. A trio of refueling stations was decimated; a half-dozen hangars were damaged. The attack came exactly six months after a failed jihadi suicide attack targeting former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.

Camp Bastion family members are hearing that U.S. and British military leaders left their loved ones vulnerable to attack by outsourcing watchtower security on the base to soldiers from Tonga, who were known to fall asleep on the job. Deborah Hatheway, aunt of Sgt. Atwell and the family’s spokesperson, is naming names and mincing no words. She says Major General Charles “Mark” Gurganus, who recently returned to the U.S. after commanding coalition forces in Afghanistan, was ultimately responsible for skimping on security patrols. “He might as well have made it easier for the Taliban by cutting the perimeter fence himself and putting out the welcome mat,” Hatheway told me.

This is the same Gurganus who ordered Marines to disarm — immediately after the failed jihadi attack on Panetta last year — because he wanted them “to look just like our (unarmed) Afghan partners.”

Hatheway says her family has learned that “it took over an hour before any of the other coalition forces arrived to help the Marines, who were already engaged with the terrorists and had it under control.” In addition, she says, they’ve learned that those on the ground did not have “proper protective gear available … or properly functioning weapons.”

Bastion families have raised questions with politicians and Pentagon officials in Washington, but are being forced to jump through Freedom of Information Act hoops to get to the bottom of the story. If ever.

In the meantime, a few officers in the know have begun leaking to the press. A little-noticed article by Washington Post reporter Rajiv Chandrasekaran two weeks ago reported that “several officials with direct knowledge of the assault said in recent interviews that staffing decisions by U.S. and British commanders weakened the base’s defenses, making it easier for the insurgents to reconnoiter the compound and enter without resistance.”

Cue the stonewalling. According to the Post, “When the House Armed Services Committee asked to see the initial Marine security review earlier this year, senior officers on the Pentagon’s Joint Staff deemed it insufficient for release and ordered the Marines to conduct a fuller review, military officials said. But that examination still fell short of an official investigation.” Neither the Marine Corps nor NATO plans to release the results of their separate investigations — in part, the Post reports, “to avoid embarrassing the British for leaving towers unmanned.”

There’s a whole lotta CYA going on. Sgt. Atwell’s family wants America to know: “This must end.”

***
Related: Former Marine officer Nick Francona blasts Maj. Gen. Gurganus’s glib assessment that the Taliban just got “lucky:”

The attack only occurred because of an egregious failure in basic infantry practices. The enemy may have been lucky to exploit these failures, but neglect was the precondition that set the stages for this attack. Intelligence analysts should not have to issue a warning of an impending frontal assault on a major military base for the base to be prepared.

There is an appalling lack of accountability and introspection that is evident in Maj. Gen. Gurganus’ comments about this incident. It is painfully obvious that this attack would not have been successful, or likely even attempted, if not for multiple security failures at Leatherneck/Bastion. This single episode highlights a much larger problem of accountability in the Marine Corps. It is nearly impossible to get fired for incompetence.

We need to stop treating the Marine Corps like a teachers union and demand excellence and accountability from our officer corps.

 http://michellemalkin.com/2013/05/01/the-camp-bastion-cover-up/

PK'S NOTE: Freedom of speech and religion right there

Pentagon Confirms May Court Martial Soldiers Who Share Christian Faith

The Pentagon has released a statement confirming that soldiers could be prosecuted for promoting their faith: "Religious proselytization is not permitted within the Department of Defense...Court martials and non-judicial punishments are decided on a case-by-case basis...”. 

The statement, released to Fox News, follows a Breitbart News report on Obama administration Pentagon appointees meeting with anti-Christian extremist Mikey Weinstein to develop court-martial procedures to punish Christians in the military who express or share their faith. 

(From our earlier report: Weinstein is the head of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, and says Christians--including chaplains--sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ in the military are guilty of “treason,” and of committing an act of “spiritual rape” as serious a crime as “sexual assault.” He also asserted that Christians sharing their faith in the military are “enemies of the Constitution.”)

Being convicted in a court martial means that a soldier has committed a crime under federal military law. Punishment for a court martial can include imprisonment and being dishonorably discharged from the military. 

So President Barack Obama’s civilian appointees who lead the Pentagon are confirming that the military will make it a crime--possibly resulting in imprisonment--for those in uniform to share their faith. This would include chaplains—military officers who are ordained clergymen of their faith (mostly Christian pastors or priests, or Jewish rabbis)--whose duty since the founding of the U.S. military under George Washington is to teach their faith and minister to the spiritual needs of troops who come to them for counsel, instruction, or comfort.

This regulation would severely limit expressions of faith in the military, even on a one-to-one basis between close friends. It could also effectively abolish the position of chaplain in the military, as it would not allow chaplains (or any service members, for that matter), to say anything about their faith that others say led them to think they were being encouraged to make faith part of their life. It’s difficult to imagine how a member of the clergy could give spiritual counseling without saying anything that might be perceived in that fashion. 

In response to the Pentagon’s plans, retired Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, who is now executive vice president of the Family Research Council (FRC), said on Fox & Friends this morning: 

“It’s a matter of what do they mean by ‘proselytizing.’...I think they’ve got their defintions a little confused. If you’re talking about coercion that’s one thing, but if you’re talking about the free exercise of our faith as individual soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines, especially for the chaplains, they I think the worst thing we can do is stop the ability for a soldier to be able to exercise his faith.”

FRC has launched a petition here which has already collected over 30,000 signatures, calling on Secretary Hagel is stop working with Weinstein and his anti-Christian organization to develop military policy regarding religious faith. 

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2013/05/01/Breaking-Pentagon-Confirms-Will-Court-Martial-Soldiers-Who-Share-Christian-Faith

PK'S NOTE: And of course the media won't cover this because it conflicts with their agenda/narrative of an innocent, young Martin gunned down.

M-DSPD Cover Up – The Curious Case Of Trayvon Martin’s Backpack With Stolen Jewelry and Burglary Tool…

Ironically were it not for Frances Robles writing a Miami Herald article on March 26th 2012 an entire chain of events would not have taken place.

It was that Robles article, and the outlining of the Miami-Dade School Police Department’s report on a Trayvon Martin incident from October 2011, that kicked off an internal investigation by M-DSPD Police Chief Hurley against his own officers to find out who leaked the police report.

[Note: The Miami-Dade Public School System has its own Police force, and Chief, who report to the School Board and Superintendent - Not the Police Dept. The Police Chief is appointed by the School Superintendent, in this example, Alberto Carvalho]


It was that M-DSPD internal affairs investigation which revealed in October 2011 Trayvon Martin was searched by School Resource Officer, Darryl Dunn. The search of Trayvon Martin’s backpack turned up at least 12 pcs of ladies jewelry, and a man’s watch, in addition to a flat head screwdriver described as “a burglary tool”.

When Trayvon was questioned about who owned the jewelry and where it came from, he claimed he was just holding it for a “friend”. A “friend” he would not name.

Later, after the police report was outlined in the Robles article, and despite Trayvon being suspended for the second time in a new school year, Martin family attorney, Benjamin Crump, said Trayvon’s dad, Tracy Martin, and Trayvon’s mom, Sybrina Fulton, did not know anything about the jewelry case.

It was only as a consequence of the M-DSPD internal affairs investigation that “why” they may not have known came to light.



On October 21st 2011 a burglary took place a few blocks from Krop Senior High School where Trayvon Martin attended. The stolen property outlined in the Miami-Dade Police Report (PD111021-422483) matches the descriptive presented by SRO Dunn in his School Police report 2011-11477.

Trayvon Martin

However, there was ONE big issue. SRO Dunn never filed a criminal report, nor opened a criminal investigation, surrounding the stolen jewelry. Instead, and as a result of pressure from M-DSPD Chief Hurley to avoid criminal reports for black male students, Dunn wrote up the jewelry as “found items”, and transferred them, along with the burglary tool, to the Miami-Dade Police property room where they sat on a shelf unassigned to anyone for investigation.

A separate report of “criminal Mischief” (T-08809) was filed for the additional issue of writing “WTF” on a school locker. [It was the search for the marker used to write the graffiti that led to the backpack search].

The school discipline, “suspension”, was attached to the graffiti and not the stolen jewelry.


The connections between the Police Burglary report and the School Report of “found items” were never made because the regular police detective in charge of the Burglary case had no idea the School Police Dept. had filed a “found items” report.

Two differing police departments, and the School Officer, Dunn, intentionally took the criminal element out of the equation – instead preferring “school discipline” and not “criminal adjudication”.

It was only when the M-DSPD Internal Affairs investigation kicked in, and six officers gave sworn affidavits, the manipulative scheme to improve criminal statistics within the School System were identified openly.

School Superintendent Alberto Carvalho gave his hire, Police Chief Hurley, instructions to reduce the criminal behavior of young black males. The chosen strategy between them, to insure optical success, was to stop using the Criminal Justice System to punish black student behavior. Instead they instructed the School Resource Officers to use school discipline in place of criminal justice.

Former M-DSPD Police Chief Hurley with son and wife

Another approach was the use of The Baker Act, to quantify behaviors under health HIPPA law secrecy by assigning the students with psychological problems. This allowed them to again use school discipline and work around criminal reports.

Without the reports, the statistics would improve immensely;  And improve they did.


The final approach, to insure no-one would find out about the manipulation, was to change the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for inter-agency information sharing.

This new SOP was outlined by a communications directive in 2010 forbidding the sharing of Miami-Dade School Police reports to outside agencies without redaction. Officers had to send any and all requests through the public information officer.

Hence, the furor of Chief Hurley when the Robles article hit the press and cited police reports – Hurley smelled a leaker and launched an investigation.

Ultimately the internal affairs investigation initiated by Hurley led to his own firing, because the officers questioned told the internal affairs investigators the truth of what was going on and outed the scheme.

One of the examples of this in action was the jewelry incident and Trayvon Martin – as accidentally outlined in the Herald report. But the Herald never knew their reporting had launched an internal affairs investigation which led to the collapse of the scheme.

Meanwhile the stolen jewelry from the burglary (PD111021-422483) was sitting on a shelf in the Property Room listed as (2011-11477 “found items) gathering dust.

Until we started digging, and the FOIA requests revealed not only the scheme, but the fact a victim was never made whole with the return of their items.

That is, until now.

Yesterday we contacted Detective Manresa, assigned to the burglary case, of the Miami-Dade Police Department to notify him some of his victims’ stolen items were actually in the Miami-Dade property room:

Subject: Attn: Detective Omar Manresa [RE: PD111021-422483 Burglary at XXXX XX XXXXX]

Dear Detective Manresa,

Per phone conversation of 4/30/13 @ 10:20am regarding burglary incident #PD111021-422483

During the course of research surrounding an internal affairs M-DSPD investigation in March/April of 2012 it coincidentally came to our attention that School Resource Officer Darryl Dunn (Dr. Krop Senior High School) filled out a report of items from a student’s backpack without criminal attachment.

The internal documentation used by SRO Dunn only listed the contents of the backpack as “found items” and a burglary tool. He was trying to avoid subjecting the student [Trayvon Martin] to a criminal investigation, therefore no criminal report, nor investigation was initiated.

This action by SRO Dunn was taken at the direction and request of former M-DSPD Police Chief Hurley who had advised his officers to avoid writing criminal reports on student offenders; Apparently in an attempt to artificially improve the recorded criminal student statistics.

The internal report #2011-11477 never attached the stolen property to the student who was carrying it when searched. The property was taken to the custody of Carmen Gonzalez, Property Specialist, where it was held, and still should be located.

The details surrounding this event are outlined in the following sworn affidavits completed by members of the Miami-Dade School Police Department. (they are extensive)

http://www.scribd.com/doc/135564937/Sergeant-William-Tagle-Internal-Affairs-Investigative-Report

http://www.scribd.com/doc/135684004/Steven-N-Hadley-Sr-affidavit-and-investigation

http://www.scribd.com/doc/135692728/Affidavit-From-Commander-Deanna-Fox-Williams

http://www.scribd.com/doc/136164820/sergeant-Lourdes-Hodges-Sworn-Statement-Affidavit

http://www.scribd.com/doc/136392330/Sworn-affidavit-of-Detective-Gylamar-Ochoa-MDSPD

http://www.scribd.com/doc/136642019/Sergeant-Bradley-Rosh-MDSPD-Sworn-Affidavit

As mentioned, if you contact the victim of Miami-Dade burglary #PD111021-422483, and review with them the property confiscated by M-DSPD SRO Dunn listed under #2011-11477, we believe you will be able to return at least a portion of the stolen merchandise.

Perhaps some of the items returned may have sentimental, as well as obvious financial, value.

Right is Right Even If Nobody Does it; and Wrong is Wrong, even if Everybody Does it…