Stupid is therule of the day

Written by Alex Teach
January 20, 2010 – 12:45 pm

Shortly after the close of World War II, the United States government began the practice of adding fluoride to public drinking water in an effort to reduce tooth decay, particularly in young children and the poor in general who experienced agony from such decay frequently and without the means of affording care for the relief of it. Cavities, it turns out, cost society more to treat than any other disease, and scientists globally regarded this practice as “a pretty good move”.

What they never counted on, however, was the adverse reaction fluoride has when put in contact with tinfoil.

Hats, specifically.

There have been conspiracies for as long as there have been stupid, insecure people on this planet (which scientists also concur has been “pretty much forever”), but this one is the Stupid Grandfather of the modern age. Fluoridation has been associated with pacifism, mind control, population control, the abandonment of civil liberties and as an imminent sign of total governmental control of the populace, in lieu of a Democratic “supermajority” in the Senate. (“The 2008 Elections” is a column for another day.)

2008. There are 5.8 million car crashes nationally. That is 5,800,000: A ridiculous number, particularly for those educated in the Hamilton County public school system. Of those, 1.6 million people were injured, and 34,017 were killed. As with the masses with rotted teeth wandering around holding their jaws and making a huge racket 62 years ago, the government again takes notice of this and decides a society cannot remain civilized with 34,017 dead folks scattered all about the place…so again, it acts.

The initial thought is to educate people with positively huge reflective signs directly on the roadsides dictating the recommended limit for speed (or “speed limit”), but for a large number (it took at least 2,900,000 people to hit the other 2,900,000), this proves ineffectual and other ideas are sought.

The second most popular idea is one occupied police car being assigned to each driver in order to monitor and regulate their speed, but this is deemed not just cost prohibitive, at $50,000 a pop with training, salary, and equipment, but with no small amount of irony it is also abandoned for fear of being misconstrued as an infringement of civil liberties.

A compromise was instituted in which one officer would regulate about 10,000 motorists on average, but the ratio of 1:10,000 people being regulated and ticketed was still leading to deaths in the tens of thousands. The government goes back to the drawing board, and this time, finds the answer in every bank, gas station, hotel, airport and cell phone in America: Cameras.

Americans go to hotels, gas stations, banks, airports, and many other places every hour of every day. They also complain to nine in ten officers pulling them over, “What about the real criminals out there? Don’t you have anything better to do?” Turns out, they do. So this marriage of ideas produces the Automated Ticketing System.
Fatalities in one section of Hixson Pike go from dozens to ZERO for more than two years now, addressing the scattered corpse issue directly.

People speeding in excess of 10 mph over the posted limits start receiving tickets by the bucket, with only one officer manning that ubiquitous White Van, and it doesn’t even add points to your driving record.

Costs of the cameras themselves are provided by the private sector, not taxpayers, and taxpayers don’t even have to cover the hideous costs of paying and training more police officers.

Then most unexpectedly (or was it?), the officers once assigned to sitting on the roadsides not catching “real criminals” are present in their communities, and a domino effect occurs in which response times to violent crimes goes down, and the number of property crimes begins falling in double digits in some areas.

Revenue generated from these tickets then goes towards once-abandoned driver-education programs (which, again, reduce crashes) and covers the cost of new police equipment for (you guessed it) further crime reduction actions.

The Government smiles. Then tilts its head in confusion.

The Stupid arrive with their nice teeth, and instead of joy at the wise use of tax dollars and reduction of dead folk, insurance rates, and crime in general…they complain. Automated ticket cameras from speed vans and red lights are associated with pacifism, mind control, population control, the abandonment of civil liberties and an imminent sign of total governmental control of the populace. (See why I told you that whole first story now? Clever, clever Officer Teach.)

Their right to privacy while driving on a public street is being infringed upon by a revenue generation system. (Think on this a second.)

I’m short on space, so I’ll just say this: There IS no privacy in the middle of a one- or six-lane roadway, Nimrod. It’s a ROADWAY. You can’t even drive a car without windows to hide yourself. You even have to have a picture of yourself on a card saying you’re allowed to drive there. Besides, if you said you did have an expectation of privacy in the middle of the street, besides being stupid, where is your moral outrage over the cameras you put yourself in front of in every aforementioned bank, gas station, hotel, and airport? It’s not there, because they are necessary and make sense. The difference is, you are upset on the roadways because you have been caught speeding by an unbiased scientific device.

As for revenue generation? Of course it is! So—what now, when a human catches you and you go to court, you shouldn’t be fined? All fines are wrong now? Or just the ones in which you have been caught? Again, where was the outrage before? Speeding and red light fines going to police equipment? “Duh!”

Your ever-present demands to see the radar gun and certification? They’re right there. The red light cameras? Video is now awaiting you in the courtroom, every time.
When an officer caught you, it was a “trap”. He lied about you running the sign or the light, and the judge took his word over yours. Now you’re on video…so it’s “unconstitutional”.

The Constitution doesn’t give you a right to speed, folks. It doesn’t even give you a reasonable expectation of privacy on the public roadways. I checked.

But, “Stupid” is the rule of the day, so you’ll probably win. We’ll take those officers back out of your neighborhoods, and go back on the side of the roadways. We’ll let the bodies pile up in the S-curves, and property crimes increase like your property taxes to hire more officers to address the rising crime again.

All those government-based shiny teeth, all those savings of money and lives, but no one smiles for the camera.

You win.

Right?

When officer Alexander D. Teach is not patrolling our fair city on the heels of the criminal element, he is an occasional student at UTC, an up and coming carpenter, auto mechanic, prominent boating enthusiast, and spends his spare time volunteering for the Boehm Birth Defects Center.

The difference between guts and balls

Guts - is arriving home late after a night out with the guys, being assaulted by your wife with a broom, and having the guts to ask: "Are you still cleaning, or are you flying somewhere?"

Balls - is coming home late after a night out with the guys, smelling of perfume and beer, lipstick on your collar, slapping your wife on the ass and having the balls to say - "You're next fatty."

Las Vegas

I just returned from a week long business trip to Las Vegas. I stayed in the Stratosphere Hotel, on the 18th floor. Right outside my window was the Stratosphere Tower, all 109 stories of it. It was really cool to go up in it to the top; even the tall Vegas buildings looked short when you get to the top. I played the slots, got up a hundred bucks, and then quit when I started losing my ass and broke even.

But...all things considered, this was a trip the I probably should not have taken.

Police Harassment

Recently, the Chula Vista Police Department ran an e-mail forum (a question and answer exchange) with the topic being, "Community Policing."

One of the civilian email participants posed the following question, "I would like to know how it is possible for police officers to continually harass people and get away with it?"

From the "other side" (the law enforcement side) Sgt. Bennett, obviously a cop with a sense of humor replied:

"First of all, let me tell you this...it's not easy. In Chula Vista, we average one cop for every 600 people. Only about 60% of those cops are on general duty (or what you might refer to as "patrol") where we do most of our harassing.

The rest are in non-harassing departments that do not allow them contact with the day to day innocents. And at any given moment, only one-fifth of the 60% patrollers are on duty and available for harassing people while the rest are off duty. So roughly, one cop is responsible for harassing about 5,000 residents.

When you toss in the commercial business, and tourist locations that attract people from other areas, sometimes you have a situation where a single cop is responsible for harassing 10,000 or more people a day.

Now, your average ten-hour shift runs 36,000 seconds long. This gives a cop one second to harass a person, and then only three-fourths of a second to eat a donut AND then find a new person to harass. This is not an easy task. To be honest, most cops are not up to this challenge day in and day out. It is just too tiring. What we do is utilize some tools to help us narrow down those people which we can realistically harass.

The tools available to us are as follows:

PHONE: People will call us up and point out things that cause us to focus on a person for special harassment. "My neighbor is beating his wife" is a code phrase used often. This means we'll come out and give somebody some special harassment.

Another popular one is, "There's a guy breaking into a house." The harassment team is then put into action.

CARS: We have special cops assigned to harass people who drive. They like to harass the drivers of fast cars, cars with no insurance or no driver's licenses and the like.. It's lots of fun when you pick them out of traffic for nothing more obvious than running a red light. Sometimes you get to really heap the harassment on when you find they have drugs in the car, they are drunk, or have an outstanding warrant on file.

RUNNERS: Some people take off running just at the sight of a police officer. Nothing is quite as satisfying as running after them like a beagle on the scent of a bunny. When you catch them you can harass them for hours.

STATUTES: When we don't have PHONES or CARS and have nothing better to do, there are actually books that give us ideas for reasons to harass folks. They are called "Statutes"; Criminal Codes, Motor Vehicle Codes, etc... They all spell out all sorts of things for which you can really
mess with people.

After you read the statute, you can just drive around for awhile until you find someone violating one of these listed offenses and harass them. Just last week I saw a guy trying to steal a car. Well, there's this book we have that says that's not allowed. That meant I got permission to harass this guy. It is a really cool system that we have set up, and it works pretty well.

We seem to have a never-ending supply of folks to harass. And we get away with it. Why? Because for the good citizens who pay the tab, we try to keep the streets safe for them, and they pay us to "harass" some people.

Next time you are in my town, give me the old "single finger wave." That's another one of those codes. It means, "You can't harass me."

It's one of our favorites.

Wii Wheee

On a whim, I decided to buy a Nintendo Wii, and all I have to say is that the technology involved is absolutely amazing. The motion sensors, detectors, ability to access the internet wirelessly...wow. Of course, the Wii has been out for three years, but it is just fascinating how it works.

What's one of the best things about Thanksgiving? The cold turkey sandwiches the next day! I love a cold turkey sandwich.

The juicer...the juice man...the ayatollah juicerola...

I was looking at my blog and noticed that I'd gotten away from doing posts about normal, everyday life. I had started this blog years ago with posts about goings-on in my everyday life, and it gradually shifted towards a soapbox or just a repeating of neat things I found on the Internet. So...I guess I'm going to try to do more personal posts, providing a nice mixture of things.

I recently purchased a nice juicer from Newegg. It was a refurbished unit, and the cost was 25 bucks with free shipping. I thought I'd give it a shot, and I must say that my first attempt was a pleasant surprise. I juiced some lemons for lemonade. The instructions say to not use the rind because of the potential of adding a bad flavor to the juice, but I found that the rind enhanced the flavor of the lemonade. I then juiced some apples, which tasted as good as any apple juice you can buy in a store. Ditto for the pear that I juiced. I then combined the apple and pear juice and enjoyed a refreshing cocktail. There is one major downside to juicing your own fruit juice: It is actually cheaper to just buy juice than to make your own (it took four apples and one pear to equal one glass of juice). I'm looking forward to trying to juice other stuff, including making my own vegetable juice.

John Allen Muhammad is dead

Rot in hell, you Muslim douchebag. I hope you spend an eternity eating pork rinds and getting buttfucked by Mohammed.

Football Fail

Damn, this is funny...

Our broken government

To all 535 voting members of the Legislature, It is now official you are ALL corrupt morons:


• The U.S. Post Service was established in 1775. You have had 234 years to get it right and it is broke.
•
• Social Security was established in 1935. You have had 74 years to get it right and it is broke.
•
• Fannie Mae was established in 1938. You have had 71 years to get it right and it is broke.
•
• War on Poverty started in 1964. You have had 45 years to get it right; $1 trillion of our money is confiscated each year and transferred to "the poor" and they are still poor.
•
• Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965. You have had 44 years to get it right and they are broke.

• Freddie Mac was established in 1970. You have had 39 years to get it right and it is broke.

• The Department of Energy was created in 1977 to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. It has ballooned to 16,000 employees with a budget of $24 billion a year and we import more oil than ever before. You had 32 years to get it right and it is an abysmal failure.
•

You have FAILED in every "Government Service" you have shoved down our throats

while overspending our tax dollars:

AND YOU WANT AMERICANS TO BELIEVE YOU CAN BE TRUSTED
WITH A GOVERNMENT-RUN HEALTH CARE SYSTEM??

The husband store

A store that sells husbands has opened in New York City , where a woman may go to choose a husband. Among the instructions at the entrance is a description of how the store operates:

You may visit this store ONLY ONCE! There are six floors and the value of the products increase as the shopper ascends the flights. The shopper may choose any item from a particular floor, or may choose to go up to the next floor, but you cannot go back down except to exit the building!

So, a woman goes to the Husband Store to find a husband. On the first floor the sign on the door reads:

Floor 1 - These men Have Jobs.
She is intrigued, but continues to the second floor, where the sign reads:

Floor 2 - These men Have Jobs and Love Kids.
'That's nice,' she thinks, 'but I want more.'

So she continues upward. The third floor sign reads:

Floor 3 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, and are Extremely Good Looking.
'Wow!' she thinks, but feels compelled to keep going.

She goes to the fourth floor and the sign reads:

Floor 4 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Good Looking and Help With Housework.
'Oh, mercy me!' she exclaims, 'I can hardly stand it!'

Still, she goes to the fifth floor and the sign reads:

Floor 5 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Gorgeous , Help with Housework, and Have a Strong Romantic Streak.

She is so tempted to stay, but she goes to the sixth floor, where the sign reads:

Floor 6 - You are visitor 31,456,012 to this floor. There are no men on this floor. This floor exists solely as proof that women are fucking impossible to please. Thank you for shopping at the Husband Store.

Lie Detector

John was a salesman's delight when it came to any kind of unusual gimmicks.

His wife Marsha had long ago given up trying to get him to change.

One day John came home with another one of his unusual purchases. It was a robot that John claimed was actually a lie detector.

It was about 5:30 that afternoon when Tommy, their 11 year old son, returned home from school. Tommy was over 2 hours late.

"Where have you been? Why are you over 2 hours late getting home?" asked John..

"Several of us went to the library to work on an extra credit project," said Tommy.

The robot walked around the table and slapped Tommy, knocking him completely out of his chair.

"Son," said John, "this robot is a lie detector, now tell us
where you really were after school."

"We went to Bobby's house and watched a movie." said Tommy.

"What did you watch?" asked Marsha.

"The Ten Commandments." answered Tommy.

The robot went around to Tommy and once again slapped him, knocking him off his chair.

With his lip quivering, Tommy got up, sat down and said, "I am sorry I lied. We really watched a tape called Sex Queen."

"I am ashamed of you son," said John.. "When I was your age, I never lied to my parents."

The robot walked around to John and delivered a whack that nearly knocked him out of his chair.

Marsha doubled over in laughter, almost in tears and said, "Boy, did you ever ask for that one! You can't be too mad with Tommy. After all, he is your son!"

The robot walked around to Marsha and knocked her out of her chair.

Click the link

Click the above link:

And try to see if you can stare at it for more than 30 seconds without having a seizure or puking.

Your whole life is a test

I was a very happy person. My wonderful girlfriend and I had been dating for over a year, and so we decided to get married. There was only one little thing bothering me ... it was her beautiful younger sister.

My prospective sister-in-law was twenty-two, wore very tight miniskirts, and generally was braless. She would regularly bend down when she was near me, and I always got more than a pleasant view. It had to be deliberate. She never did it when she was near anyone else.

One day "little" sister called and asked me to go over to check the wedding invitations. She was alone when I arrived, and she whispered to me that she had feelings and desires for me that she couldn't overcome. She told me that she wanted to make love to me just once before I got married and committed my life to her sister. Well, I was in total shock, and couldn't say a word. She said, "I'm going upstairs to my bedroom, and if you want one last wild fling, just come up and get me."

I was stunned and frozen in shock as I watched her go up the stairs. When she reached the top she pulled off her panties and threw them down the stairs at me. I stood there for a moment, then turned and made a beeline straight to the front door. I opened the door, and headed straight towards my car.

Lo and behold, my entire future family was standing outside, all clapping! With tears in his eyes, my father-in-law hugged me and said, "We are very happy that you have passed our little test.....we couldn't ask for better man for our daughter. Welcome to our family!!!"

And the moral of this story is :


Always keep your condoms in your car ...

Joining PETA

I found this in a comments section of Fark.com that pretty much explains (to me) what kind of people join PETA.

There's basically four types of people who join PETA:

1. Washed up movies stars and musicians trying desperately to remain relevant (e.g. Pamela Anderson, the GoGo's, etc.)
2. Insecure, socially awkward girls trying desperately to become relevant
3. Overly-sensitive, insecure guys trying to get laid by the insecure, socially awkward girls
4. Otherwise decent, socially responsible people who respond to emotional manipulation with knee-jerk reactions without bothering to first check out the facts

Truth in prayer

A father put his three year old daughter to bed, told her a story and listened to her prayers, which she ended by saying "God bless Mommy, God bless Daddy, God bless Grandma, and good-bye Grandpa." Father asked, "Why did you say good-bye grandpa?". The little girl said "I don't know daddy, it just seemed like the thing to do." The next day Grandpa died. Father thought it was a strange coincidence. A few months later the father put the girl to bed and listened to her prayers, which went like this; "God bless Mommy, God bless Daddy and good-bye Grandma." Next day the grandmother died. My gosh, thought the father, this kid is in contact with the other side. Several weeks later when the girl was going to bed the dad heard her say "God bless Mommy and good-bye Daddy." He practically went into shock. Couldn't sleep all night and got up at the crack of dawn to go to his office. He was nervous as a cat all day, had lunch sent in and watched the clock. He figured if he could get by until midnight he would be OK. He felt safe in the office, so instead of going home at the end of the day he stayed there, drinking coffee, looking at his watch and jumping at every sound. Finally midnight arrived, he breathed a sigh of relief and went home. When he got home his wife said "I've never seen you work so late, what's the matter?" He said, "I don't want to talk about it, I've just spent the worst day of my life." She said "You think you had a bad day, you'll never believe what happened to me. This morning the mailman dropped dead on our porch."

Conservative versus Liberal

If a conservative doesn’t like guns, they don’t buy one. If a liberal doesn’t like guns, then no one should have one.

If a conservative is a vegetarian, they don’t eat meat. If a liberal is, they want to ban all meat products for everyone.

If a conservative sees a foreign threat, he thinks about how to defeat his enemy. A liberal wonders how to surrender gracefully and still look good.

If a conservative is homosexual, they quietly enjoy their life. If a liberal is homosexual, they loudly demand legislated respect.

If a black man or Hispanic is conservative, they see themselves as independently successful. Their liberal counterparts see themselves as victims in need of government protection.

If a conservative is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation. A liberal wonders who is going to take care of him.

If a conservative doesn’t like a talk show host, he switches channels. Liberals demand that those they don’t like be shut down.

If a conservative is a non-believer, he doesn’t go to church. A liberal wants any mention of God or religion silenced.

If a conservative decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it, or may choose a job that provides it. A liberal demands that his neighbors pay for his.

Wouldn't you like to umm...hmmm.....

Guys, admit it. You are most definitely curious.

Joke

Son (S) : Why is making love so enjoyable.
Father (F) : It is just like the sensation when you are digging your nose with your finger !!

S : Why do women enjoy sex more than man
F : It is because when you dig your nose, your nose feels more comfort than your finger.

S: Why do women hate it when they get raped .
F: It is like when you are walking on the street,someone else come over and dig your nose, do you like it ??

S: Why woman cannot have sex when they are having menstruation?
F: If your nose is bleeding, do you still dig it ??

S: Why man do not like to wear condoms when they are making love.
F: Do you like to dig your nose with a glove on your finger.

S: Why are making love carried out in private?
F: Will you dig you nose in front of your class? Stupid!

S: What is an orgasm ?
F:The same as sneezing. but the the other way round

S: Is it true that women love big dicks ?
F: Ever tried picking your nose with your thumb ?

S: What's anal sex?
F: Picking your mouth

Stupid bitch, part II

Her last statement is proof that she is a dumb, ignorant, clueless bitch.


Officer.com News

The Mayor of Wellford, S.C. has agreed to reverse her recent, controversial policy banning police from chasing suspects, according to WTKR-TV3.

Mayor Sallie Peake instituted the policy earlier this month on the grounds that several officers have been injured during chases, driving up insurance costs for the town.

The reversal was made in response to a letter from the town solicitor stating that the policy conflicted with officers' sworn duty to uphold the law by preventing them from pursuing fleeing felons.

Peake told the news station that she is not happy about resuming chases, but now, "Officers can do whatever they want."

Rendezvous

This is worth watching just to hear the engine! The story is that this guy did this one morning in Paris without any permits or blocked roadways.





"The film was done without tricks or speeding-up." On an August morning in 1978, French filmmaker Claude Lelouch ("A Man and a Woman") mounted a gyro-stabilized camera to the bumper of a Mercedes and drove at breakneck speed through the heart of Paris. The film was limited for technical reasons to 10 minutes; the course was from Porte Dauphine, through the Louvre, to the Basilica of Sacre Coeur. No streets were closed, for Lelouch was unable to obtain a permit. The driver completed the course in about 9 minutes, reaching nearly 140 MPH in some stretches. The footage reveals him running real red lights, nearly hitting real pedestrians, and driving the wrong way up real one-way streets. Upon showing the film in public for the first time, Lelouch was arrested. He has never revealed the identity of the driver, and the film went underground until it was released a few years ago. Lelouch explained that he used a Mercedes-Benz 450SEL 6.9 to have enough stability while filming, but used the sound of a Ferrari 275 GTB for the soundtrack.

Ummm...What?!?

Animal-cruelty charges dropped against Burlington County cop

By JASON NARK
Philadelphia Daily News

narkj@phillynews.com 856-779-3231

If animals could talk, a few cows in Burlington County might ask state legislators to hurry up and outlaw bestiality.

During a bizarre hearing there yesterday, a Superior Court judge dismissed animal-cruelty charges against a Moorestown police officer accused of sticking his penis into the mouths of five calves in rural Southampton in 2006, claiming a grand jury couldn't infer whether the cows had been "tormented" or "puzzled" by the situation or even irritated that they'd been duped out of a meal.

"If the cow had the cognitive ability to form thought and speak, would it say, 'Where's the milk? I'm not getting any milk,' " Judge James J. Morley asked.

Children, Morley said, seemed "comforted" when given pacifiers, but there's no way to know what bovine minds thought of Robert Melia Jr. substituting his member for a cow's teat.

"They [children] enjoy the act of suckling," the judge said. "Cows may be of a different disposition."

Burlington County Assistant County Prosecutor Kevin Morgan was certainly irritated by the ruling, claiming the grand jury didn't see the videos of the alleged incident, including one in which one hungry calf allegedly head-butts Melia in the stomach.

"I think any reasonable juror could infer that a man's penis in the mouth of a calf is torment," Morgan argued. "It's a crime against nature."

Although a bill was introduced in 2005 to ban bestiality, New Jersey still has no explicit ban on the sexual penetration of animals, which is why the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office charged Melia with animal cruelty.

Morley said it was questionable whether Melia's alleged crimes against cows, although "disgusting," fit the definitions in the animal-cruelty statute.

"I'm not saying it's OK," Morley said. "This is a legal question for me. It's not a questions of morals. It's not a question of hygiene. It's not a question of how people should conduct themselves."

Sex with cows is the least of Melia's problems, though.

He and former girlfriend, Heather Lewis, of Pemberton Township, are also accused of sexually assaulting three young girls over a five-year period, sometimes in Melia's Cottage Avenue home in Moorestown, where he was a patrolman, authorities said.

Melia has been suspended from the force, said a spokesman with the Prosecutor's Office.

Melia and Lewis were both arrested in April 2008, shortly after one of the girls told her stepfather of the alleged abuse.

During the course of the investigation, authorities also discovered child pornography on Melia's home computer as well as videos of him with the cows.

Morley also ruled yesterday that the prosecution must turn over copies of images and videos from the computer to the defense, including one video that allegedly shows one of the girls being "subjected to sexual activity."

Lewis, who also appeared in court yesterday, is also accused of sexually assaulting a juvenile male. Morley denied a defense motion to have Lewis's individual sexual assaults separated from Melia's case.

Melia, Lewis and their attorneys declined to comment after the hearing.

Morgan, the prosecutor, said in court that the owner of the cows was "very upset" by the incident.

A psychiatrist was conducting a group therapy session with four young mothers and their small children. "You all have obsessions," he observed. To the first mother, he said, "You are obsessed with eating. You've even named your daughter Candy." He turned to the second Mom. "Your obsession is money. Again, it manifests itself in your child's name, Penny." He turned to the third Mom. "Your obsession is alcohol. Again, it manifests itself in your child's name, Brandy." At this point, the fourth mother got up, took her little boy by the hand and whispered, "Come on, Dick, let's go."

Downfall of Grammar

All of these scenes from the movie Downfall are a hoot. Here is another good one:

Mayor Sally Peake: What a Stupid Bitch.

Chris Cato
Published: September 18, 2009

Updated September 18, 2009

(Wellford, SC)—The Mayor of Wellford is defending her policy which bans police officers in that city from chasing suspects. Sallie Peake says the policy also includes vehicle chases along with pursuits on foot.

A memo issued on September 2nd from Peake to all Wellford officers reads:

“As of this date, there are to be no more foot chases when a suspect runs. I do not want anyone chasing after any suspects whatsoever.“

WSPA first reported the mandate on Wednesday after an anonymous citizen faxed a copy of the memo to our newsroom. Peake was out of town and unavailable for comment. On Friday, reporter Chris Cato caught up with her in her office and questioned her about the origin of the policy. Peake says she issued the mandate because several officers have been injured during chases, driving up insurance costs for the town.

“The officers are costing us more money on insurance than most citizens here in the city of Wellford are even earning,“ says Peake.

She says the city is paying out $20,000 annually in workers’ compensation claims, much of it due to the police force. In July, two officers wrecked their cruisers while chasing suspects and had to go to the hospital for minor treatment. The police chief says three officers have been injured during foot chases in the last two years.

Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright says the policy prevents police from upholding the law—a direct violation of their constitutional oath.

“If a bank robber or a drunk driver or a shoplifter or somebody with a warrant runs on foot, it’s our obligation to do what we can do to bring them to justice,“ says Wright.

But when we asked Peake about her order impeding an officer from stopping a crime in progress, she became defensive and irate. The conversation went as follows:

Reporter: “Are you telling your officers if they witness a crime - they witness someone commit a crime on someone else and they’re ten yards away - they can’t go stop that person?“
Peake: “Is that in there?“ (referring to policy)
Reporter: “It says no chases whatsoever.“
Peake: “Well, that’s what I said, no chases, didn’t I? I didn’t say nothing about a crime. If you see a crime, this that and the other -“
Reporter: “Well, that’s what a chase is - “
Peake: “Well, I told them no chase on foot, and (the police chief) know exactly what I mean, so you’re trying to twist what I -“
Reporter: “No, I’m not. You said no chases. No chases means no chases.“
Peake: (claps hands) “You got you a story, thank God! You are so sweet! You got you a story on a woman in Wellford! Hallelujah! I’m so proud of you, Mr. Cato!“

Click here to see the entire interview.

Wellford Police Chief Chris Guy has told his officers to abide by the policy. He says they can still protect the public.

“Just because a suspect may run does not mean we can’t identify them, sign warrants, and catch them later,“ says Guy.

But Sheriff Wright says when a suspect gets away, there is always the chance he could hurt someone before officers catch up with him.

Peake says that won’t happen in Wellford.

Here’s hoping the arm of the law really is long.

Posted September 9, 2009

The mayor of an Upstate city has issued an order that may handcuff her police officers and put citizens at risk, according to some.

News Channel 7 received a fax from an anonymous person identifying themself as “a concerned Wellford citizen”. Included was a memo written by Wellford Mayor Sallie Peake, addressed to all city police officers. Dated September 2, 2009, it reads:

“As of this date, there are to be no more foot chases when a suspect runs. I do not want anyone chasing after any suspects whatsoever.“

We have not been able to reach Peake for comment. The city clerk tells us the Mayor is out of town on vacation and is unreachable.

Wellford Police Chief Chris Guy confirmed the memo was legitimate. He says he has told his officers to abide by the order until he can sit down with Peake and talk about it.

“This came about because an officer twisted his ankle while chasing a suspect a couple of weeks ago,“ said Chief Guy.

He said he could not comment further until he has talked with Peake about how the policy will affect his officers’ abilities to perform their duties.

For an outside opinion, we went to Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright.

“I’ve never seen a memo like that before, telling your police officers not to do their job,“ said Wright. “That’s strange.“

Wright says Peake has essentiall handcuffed her officers.

“If a bank robber or a drunk driver or a shoplifter or somebody with a warrant runs on foot, it’s our obligation to do what we can do to bring them to justice,“ says Wright.

He says the memo may actually be illegal because it directly conflicts with a police officer’s constitutional oath to uphold the law. And he says while it may protect officers from injury, it may also put citizens at risk.

“If you’ve got somebody that’s running from the police, whose to say they won’t break into your home to get away from law enforcement?“ said Wright.

He said he is going to ask State Law Enforcement Division if the memo is legal. In the meantime, he says he will add patrols to the Wellford area in case officers need help catching suspects who decide to run.

We will continue following this story and get answers from Mayor Sallie Peake.