Senseless Murders

Young men are getting shot down in the streets of Santa Maria. This is a tragedy. We hadn't made it two weeks into the month of January when we already had seen two murders. These two most recent victims didn't make it past their early twenties. Another couple of “drive-bys” occurred a few days later.
The murdered young men were walking north on Oakley shortly after 6:30 p.m. when they were shot. Shell casings were strewn across about 20 yards, leading police to suspect the victims were chased prior to the shootings. Detectives are still trying to determine how many shooters were involved.
Last year there were 13 homicides, the last two, just after the Christmas weekend. This is both shameful and tragic. Memorials like the one pictured above are appearing too frequently.
Something needs to be done about these senseless murders. The city needs to get involved. Determining why and then getting into some type of intervention would be a productive way for the city to spend their money, instead of idiotic filing of charges against businesses regarding their landscape.
About half of last year's victims were involved with gangs. Apparently the two most recent murders were gang related.
The answer is not more meetings to discuss the problem, the answer is for these involved people who say they know the “whys” of gang life to get out there into these communities and identify the families, mothers, fathers, grandparents and whoever else is aware of the road the gang member or would-be gang member is taking.

It would be wonderful to see the mayor involved beyond the usually empty platitudes that she seems to enjoy uttering.  Cutting ribbons and hammering her little gavel at meetings isn't enough in the face of so much violence. The leadership of Santa Maria, beginning with her, looks clueless. 

This is a form of domestic terrorism and it must be met head-on, nothing else will make a difference. It's clear that having meetings to “discuss the gang problem” is not working.
The time for talk is over.

Train Wrecks

It has taken me a while to respond to the news that Orly Taitz wants to be California's Attorney General.

My original plan was to write immediately, but I got busy putting my eyeballs back into their proper sockets.

If you haven't yet heard of Orly Taitz, not only have you lived a charmed life, but you are evidently spending just the right amount of time on the Internet. I, on the other hand, am well aware of her. 

I'm evidently drawn to train wrecks.

Orly initially received media attention in 2008 when she questioned the eligibility of Barack Obama to run for president.

Of course those of you who have heard of Orly, know that she's known as the "Queen of the Birthers," having achieved that distinction by being the Birther Loon Movement's most tenacious litigant. Unfortunately for her, she and the rest of her fringe group have repeatedly failed to convince anyone of their far-flung born-in-Kenya conspiracy theories.

For reasons known only to her, this woman continues to file legally dubious courtroom funny papers in different jurisdictions to no avail. 

As a result of these many failures, more than one judge has told her that her filings and arguments make no sense. 

One even went so far as to say, "The Court is not willing to go tilting at windmills with her."

Another judge pointed out that she had urged some of her witnesses to lie. He finally said, "It began to become clearer and clearer to me that Orly Taitz had no understanding of the law."

Despite those slapdowns, as well as being fined for her silliness, she wants to be our Attorney General? Really?

If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, then it's quite possible that Orly is insane.

I hesitate to use the word "crackpot" so I'll just say she's a nut.

Don't take my word for it, just ask Bill O'Reilly. He called her a "nut" first, back in 2009. Orly wasn't too pleased, so she and ersatz pastor James David Manning, another one who's gone off the rails, organized a protest outside Fox News headquarters in New York City, which drew an estimated 15 to 20 attendees.

Before you vote, do yourself a favor and Google the type of people Orly aligns herself with, then Google her. It's as eye opening as it is dismal.

Santa Maria Police Officer Shot

Here's today's lesson boys and girls: When the cops come for you, if you resist arrest, or pull a gun, you will be shot dead, even if you're a cop.
29 year old Albert Covarrubias Jr. was an officer with the Santa Maria Police Department who was the subject of an internal criminal investigation surrounding allegations of sexual misconduct with a 17-year-old girl.

Allegations are not convictions. This is quite scary. If they'll shoot a colleague, where does that leave the rest of us if we become suspects?
Officer Covarrubias was near the end of his shift at a DUI checkpoint when supervisors arrived after 1 a.m. to detain him. There was a struggle, the suspect officer drew his weapon and fired his gun; a fellow officer then shot the suspect in the chest. A four-year veteran of the department, Covarrubias was pronounced dead at Marian Medical Center after undergoing emergency surgery.
At a press conference Police Chief Danny Macagni said developments forced police to take immediate action. According to Macagni, Officer Covarrubias knew that he was under investigation, that witnesses were being intimidated, and that the public would be at risk if authorities did not take him into custody before he left his shift.

What they felt he'd go on a murderous rampage?
Macagni said, "He chose to resist. He drew his weapon. A fight ensued. He fired his weapon. And one of my officers that was there also discharged his weapon and the officer was fatally wounded."
Regarding this evidence that they had Macagni added, "Information unfolded during the time that the officer was on duty and unfolded very rapidly. It was very explicit, very specific, that indicated that the officer was involved in not only an inappropriate sexual relationship, but a very explicit one and it demanded immediate action." He declined to reveal further details about the alleged crimes.
I sincerely hope that the evidence he's referring to includes that he chain-sawed his family, the neighbors and people walking their dogs by his house, because shooting him makes no sense otherwise.
Why didn't anyone think of using a Taser? Surely the officers at the SMPD have them?
Macagni also said, "The information that we had in hand demanded that we not let him leave that scene, get in a car, drive somewhere. It would put the public at risk if he did. We just did not know what was going to happen. And we did not expect him to react the way he did."
Really? Aren't officers trained to anticipate any and all reactions. They're supposed to be able to "cool down" a situation, that's why they get to wear guns.
The police department declined to name him, but the family of Officer Cavarrubias spoke out about their loss.
His father, Albert Covarrubias Sr said, "It's going to be a great loss to me because I love all my children with all my heart and a piece of my heart has been ripped out of me now. They said they had all this information to arrest him. Why on the streets? Why there? Was it to ridicule him? My son was a beautiful person. My son was respected to everybody. My son was a hardworker."
He is demanding answers leading up to his son's death.
I'd like to know as well. I'd also like to know why a Taser wasn't used. Since he can no longer speak, they will never know the entire story. Ever.

Domestic Violence

Domestic violence is a pattern of behavior in a relationship used by ignorant jackasses to gain power and control over a partner. These jackasses usually have nothing substantial to offer to another human being. Abuse can be physical, sexual, emotional, verbal, economic. It can be in the form of threats or other psychological actions to frighten, intimidate, terrorize, manipulate, hurt, humiliate, blame or injure. This occurs within all races, ages, genders, sexual orientation, religion, socioeconomic groups and education levels and at all levels of a relationship.

Emotionally and verbally abusive partners withhold affection, threaten to harm their partner/wife/girlfriend and/or the people and pets important to them; name-call, insult, humiliate, excessively criticize; are possessive, jealous, distrustful, isolate, spy/monitor, exert financial control and force submissiveness such as obedience and obtaining permission.

Physically abusive partners damage property. This can include throwing things, punching or kicking walls and doors; push, slap, bite, kick, choke; will abandon their partner/wife/girlfriend in an unsafe or strange environment; drive recklessly, threaten with a weapon, hold them against their will, prevent them from contacting the police or other emergency services, harm their children or pets and forced sexual activity.

Sexually abusive partners objectify women, enforce strict gender roles, is obsessively jealous, frequently to the point of paranoia, refers to or defines their partner/wife/girlfriend by using sexual language; through manipulation, coercion, verbally demands or physically forces sexual acts.

Now for some sickening statistics to bring the above into sharp perspective:

On average more than three women a day are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends in the United States.

In 2005, 1,181 women were murdered by an intimate partner.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published data collected in 2005 that finds that women experience two million injuries from intimate partner violence each year.

Nearly one in four women in the United States reports experiencing violence by a current or former spouse or boyfriend at some point in her life.

Women are much more likely than men to be victimized by a current or former intimate partner.

Women are 84 percent of spouse abuse victims and 86 percent of victims of abuse at the hands of a boyfriend or partner and 75 percent of the persons who commit family violence are male.

Women were more likely than men to be victims; the rate for rape/sexual assault for persons age 12 or older in 2007 was 1.8 per 1,000 for females and 0.1 per 1,000 for males.

To bring all of this into even sharper perspective, here in Santa Maria, the 35 year old woman pictured above was murdered by her husband a week ago Friday. He shot her three times. He evidently didn't care that his children would be without their mother.

The jackass husband, Isaac Martinez, 32, is the father of the four youngest children, ranging in age from 4 to 14. Immediately after murdering her, the coward fled the scene. Luckily he was arrested the next day near Yuma, Arizona, when his vehicle was spotted matching a description provided by Santa Maria police.

Maria described the years of physical and emotional abuse at the hands of this useless jerkweed. He's a piece of work. In the paperwork filed seeking the restraining order, Maria said she left him on May 27 and was no longer living with him and was planning to divorce him.

She wrote, “He is physically, emotionally and psychologically abusive all of our 15-year relationship. He would slap me, kick me, punch me and choke me unconscious. He has even pulled a rifle out on me in the few years we were together."

She went on to describe several incidences of abuse, including having her face slapped at work in 2002 while she was pregnant, and an altercation in 2006 when he hit her, cracking her nose and making it bleed.

A search of criminal court records in Santa Barbara County revealed that this jerk has been busy.

He has a history of criminal convictions and prison stints: including a false-imprisonment case in 2006, a felony DUI in 2004, fighting in public, robbery, burglary and resisting an officer in the 1990s, suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon in April of 2010, and he's a documented Santa Maria gang member.

Now, the son of a bitch is facing murder charges, using a gun to cause a death, making criminal threats and being a gang member in possession of a firearm.

He is currently being held without bail in Arizona awaiting extradition to California.

 I sincerely hope that other women in this situation will not ignore the signs of domestic violence. I also hope that they have a secure and dependable support system to shield them from the assholes they're running away from.

Apparently some are simply entitled

There's a team of scientists over at Yale University led by evolutionary biologist Stephen Stearns who have suggested that humans are still evolving. I will have to agree. We as a species have clearly not evolved enough. If we had, would there be so much strife? So many murders over picayune reasons? Irrational behavior by people -who by all accounts- should know better?

Bizarre behavior is a given in this society, but when that behavior is a by a former judge who is having a tantrum because he thinks that laws, rules and regulations don't apply to him, then it's clear the knucklehead feature in our species has not been, what's the word... "Deselected"?

Let's face it, society expects a certain modicum of poise, or at the very least, moderately acceptable behavior from a former judge.

However, it appears that this former judge, James Slater, has once again disappointed the casual observer. This man was on the bench for 20 years. 20 years! This man heard both criminal and civil proceedings. Dare I ask what his behavior was during those proceedings? I wonder, since the behavior he exhibited this past Monday was beyond bizarre, it was petty. Perhaps he's entitled? Perhaps he feels that as a former judge he doesn't have to abide by the rules that the rest of us peasants live by?

As a result of his recent antics, he was cited for reckless driving. It seems that Slater doesn't believe that he has to wait, so he didn't. He came close to hitting several adults and children when he drove onto a curb after a concert was being let out at the Santa Barbara Bowl.

The Yamato Wadaiko Drummers of Japan performed for an estimated 5,500 elementary school students at the Bowl that morning. The concert was over and people were exiting the bowl when Slater came driving by at 10:25 that morning.

According to SBPD Lt. Paul McCaffrey, Slater drove on the curb at Milpas Street and Garcia Streets to avoid a barricade preventing him from turning right onto Milpas from Garcia, where he lives. Security officers—one of whom was brushed by the side view mirror of Slater’s Toyota Prius—witnessed Slater maneuver around the barricade at Garcia and Milpas, as well as almost hit someone pushing a stroller.

He proceeded past another barricade, driving into the County Bowl, where an officer had to get out of the way.

McCaffrey said, “He was not going fast but he was not stopping.” Slater parked the car to rest on the lawn of the County Bowl, got out and was angry, demanding to speak with the head of the County Bowl. Instead, he was ticketed for reckless driving.

This isn't the first time Slater has behaved as though he's above the law. Some years ago, while still sitting on the Santa Barbara Superior Court bench, he admitted to deflating the tires of a vehicle with a handicapped card that he found parked in his courthouse parking space.

Word is that this guy now works as a mediator and arbitrator. I hope that his duties are confined to a video game, or in a laboratory working with rats, since clearly, his lack of judgement is not what should be found in someone mediating real life situations where clear thinking, fairness and intelligent decisions are required.