[I]f you advocate for the use of illegal substances in the City of Columbia then it's reasonable to believe that you MIGHT also be involved in that particular activity.
What’s really reasonable is to expect the police to pursue criminal charges against an individual based on something more concrete than a mere statement.
Well, by the chief’s own words they’ve already locked up every single violent offender.
There’s nothing left to police except thought crime now!
Some of this seems like the punchline for all of those bad redneck jokes…if you say blah blah blah, You MIGHT be a criminal. “We will work on finding you” sounds incredibly threatening, and definitely not a joke.
Time to find a new Chief.
“The man who was so-called threatened openly admitted that he was not offended and appreciated the work of CPD.” Was this before or after the police found him?
Later the Chief walked through the jail berating drug offenders and saying “why is it that you people never take responsibility for your actions?”
Why do people think Facebook at work is a good idea?
Time to sit back and drive around town in your BearCat.
There are ads that run in my area (and probably all over the country) in which police officers (or maybe actors pretending to be officers) warn that if you’re speeding, driving without a seat belt, or drinking and driving “we will find you and we will arrest you”.
It makes a nice tag line even though we know the reality is that not all offenders will be found. Hey, I wish the police could have found and arrested a particular drunk driver before he almost hit me. And even if it’s a threat it’s a non-specific one. If the police chief can’t make such subtle distinctions he shouldn’t be in law enforcement.
Why would someone feel threaten if you are not doing anything wrong?
Truly the Sphinx’s Riddle of our times, and what an Oedipus to have solved it! With these immortal words, Clio, the Muse of History, kisses brave Chief Santiago on the brow, claiming him as her own. How lovely, to go down in the annals of iniquity with such dispatch, such conciseness, such agrammatical flourish!
Even by this numbskull sheriff’s policy (i.e.: go after people advocating criminal activity), the critic didn’t advocate criminal activity - he just advocated SETTING PRIORITIES DIFFERENTLY.
Someone should tell this sheriff that in a democratic republic that criticism of government officials is not a crime.
It is not law enforcement’s job to intimidate citizens into compliance with the law.
I’d further add that having a police chief who is caught in a bold, easy lie like this does not speak well of the integrity of the people who work for him.
My guess is that Ruben Santiago smells like doughnuts.
How about if you advocate tracking someone down without probable cause, then it’s reasonable to believe that you are a power-tripping stalker who should be investigated. And don’t be hanging around playgrounds, creep.
I love that he actually used the whole, “if you’ve got nothing to hide…” logical fallacy as the crux of his bemusement. Chief of policy, everybody.
Then again, the TSA screens everybody, using increasingly invasive methods, just in case someone in line is a terrorist. Sounds like the same “guilty until proven innocent” mentality as that police chief has.
Pfft. You’d get locked up, for sure.
Well, there’s a lot of back story that’s relevant here. First of all, he’s only the interim Chief. The search to find a permanent Chief has been postponed, however, pending an investigation into allegations by a fired former Captain in the department that Chief Santiago tried to involve him in a plot to frame the Assistant City Manager for illegal gun and cocaine possession.
At the same time, the Columbia Police Department is under a lot of scrutiny right now over the safety of the popular Five Points district, which is one of the main commercial areas in the city, and is a popular nighttime hangout for students of the University of South Carolina. Crime has been greatly increasing there over the past few years, and a few weeks ago a student was shot by a stray bullet while waiting for a cab. The President of the university declared Five Points unsafe after midnight, and the school has been working with the Police Department and the County Sheriff’s Department to figure out how to deal with the situation in Five Points. So tensions are very high.
You mean that employ him.
