Stupid People of the Week

1957 Pink Cadillac

Democrat state senator handcuffed after refusing to show driver’s license at traffic stop

A longtime state senator in Oklahoma was caught-on-camera going head-to-head with a sheriff deputy after a traffic stop dissolved into a “very verbal” ordeal.

Body camera footage obtained by Fox News Digital showed State Sen. Regina Goodwin, a Democrat from Tulsa, repeatedly arguing with Tulsa County Sheriff’s Deputy Freddie Alaniz shortly after 1 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 11 in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The scene was recorded by Alaniz’s body-worn camera and began with a tense exchange between the deputy and the elected official. Goodwin was pulled over after Alaniz said that he witnessed the official fail to stop at two stop signs.

“Ma’am, I’m not going to ask you again. Can I get your driver’s license, or can I take you to jail on running a stop sign?” Alaniz asked Goodwin shortly after pulling her over and asking repeatedly for her license. “I’m not going to ask you again. It’s not for debate.”

The pair went back and forth, with Goodwin arguing that the officer was “escalating” the traffic stop.

“That is not true. That is not true at all. I was having a conversation, and you just all of a sudden said, ‘I’ll arrest you,'” Goodwin said.

“No, I said, ‘Or, I can arrest you if that’s what you want,'” Alaniz said.

“I think you really escalated something,” she said. “No, sir — that is, why would that even be an option for you?”

Alaniz: “Because you’re refusing to give me your driver’s license.”

Goodwin: “There was no refusal of me to give you my driver’s license.”

“I asked you over five times to give me your driver’s license, and you kept debating your driver’s license,” the officer responded.

“I was not at all debating my driver’s license, sir, that is not correct,” she replied.

After the initial contentious exchange, Alaniz detained Goodwin in handcuffs and placed her in his patrol vehicle. Her attorney, Mike Manning, who witnessed the scene, spoke with the deputy.

“I realize you have a job to do, officer,” Manning said. “I realize Sen. Goodwin can be a little bit strong-headed at times, but don’t you think you can write her a citation or something? She’ll give you her driver’s license.”

“Yeah, yeah, I can absolutely do that,” Alaniz said. “I don’t need to ask her 10 times for her driver’s license.”

Manning replied: “I saw it. I realize.”

“I don’t have an issue writing her a citation or letting her go, but I’m the one that’s in command of the traffic stop, not her,” the officer said. “She blatantly ran two stop signs, and I was just going to give her a verbal warning and tell her not to do that, but her demeanor — the way that she was — I can’t have that.”

The officer also called his superior to the scene, saying he pulled Goodwin over for rolling two stop signs and “hauling butt” down the Tulsa street.

“She ran this stop sign back here and the other one that’s a little further down. Just came up, slowed down, and then [zoom] right through them,” Alaniz said. “She was driving so fast that, when she was hitting the puddles of water, it was just [splash] shooting them out. So that’s why I came up and pulled her over. And as I was getting out, she got out of her car, ‘Why are you stopping me?’ You know, just kind of got very verbal. I asked for her driver’s license numerous, numerous times, and she wouldn’t give it to me.”

Goodwin was eventually released at the scene with a citation for failure to stop at a stop sign. She faces a Feb. 25 court appearance at 9 a.m. unless she pays the ticket beforehand.

Goodwin represents Oklahoma’s 11th District. She was elected to the state Senate in 2024, and previously served in the state’s House of Representatives from 2014-2024.

Fox News Digital has reached out to Goodwin’s office for comment.

Source; Fox News

U.S. Capitol Police suspend officer who let visitor in with a gun

U.S. Capitol Police on Thursday said they suspended an officer who let a man with a gun into the Capitol Visitor Center on Tuesday.

The man, who was arrested Tuesday, was also able to enter the Library of Congress with a firearm.

In a statement, USCP said that they had received a lookout for a man on Tuesday “with reported mental health issues and suicidal thoughts who was believed to be armed and in the area.”

“At approximately 2:15 p.m., the man was found leaving the Library of Congress, after the tour, and walking towards his car. He was stopped, searched, and arrested. A small 9mm handgun was discovered, concealed in his waistband,” the statement said.

USCP added that security video showed the man entering the Capitol Visitor Center earlier in the day.

“After the magnetometers sounded, an officer performed a secondary hand search, and the man was let into the building. The officer is suspended while the USCP’s Office of Professional Responsibility is conducting an administrative investigation into the officer’s performance of that search,” their statement said.

Capitol Police made clear that no one was harmed in the incident and that there “is no indication that the man was coming to harm the Congress.”

Authorities identified the suspect as James Faber, 27 from Massachusetts. His case is in the hands of the U.S. attorney’s office.

The Carlisle, Massachusetts, Police Department said in a statement Thursday that officers “responded to a call for a wellbeing check” for Faber on Monday. The department issued an alert asking multiple states to be on the lookout for the man after “newly discovered concerns” and officers’ determination that he had left the state.

The department noted that police officers suspended Faber’s license to carry in the state “and seized his firearms from his residence to ensure the safety of the individual and the community.”

Information about Faber’s lawyer was not immediately available.

It is the second high-profile incident involving someone trying to bring weapons into the Capitol this month.

In early January, a Washington, D.C., man with a machete and three knives was arrested while trying to enter the Capitol to view former President Jimmy Carter lying in state.

USCP said that it would conduct a “full review” of the incident and would require a “mandatory refresher training on security screening, so this never happens again.”

Source; NBC News

Coyote pulled out of shelves inside Humboldt Park Aldi store

A coyote was removed from a Northwest Side grocery on Monday morning.

There were no reported injuries to the coyote, witnesses, police or Animal Care and Control officials. But it was obviously a big surprise to shoppers.

Police and Animal Care and Control removed the coyote safely around 9:45 a.m. inside the Aldi store at 800 North Kedzie in Humboldt Park. The video has been viewed millions of times on social media.

A witness told ABC7 she saw the animal roaming the parking lot minutes earlier, and somehow, that coyote ended up inside the store’s produce section. It had been hiding in a cooler beneath a selection of fine cheeses.

“It picked an odd location. They do this sometimes. They make a mistake. They’re trying to avoid us. They’re trying to hide from us,” said Stan Gehrt with the Cook County Coyote Project. “Probably trying to find a new area to hide ended up inside the store, and this has happened in the past.”

Officials say the coyote will be transferred to the wildlife group Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation. They are going to confirm that the animal is OK before perhaps releasing it back into the wild.

Officials say this time of year — January through March — is when coyotes are especially active, because this is mating season, so there is often an uptick in sightings.

“Some of these animals, the ones especially that make a mistake, and they find themselves into a building, often are what we call transient animals, so these are animals that actually don’t have a mate yet,” Gehrt said.

Officials say coyotes are generally not a threat to humans, but it is a good idea not to leave any food outside on porches and patios.

Source; ABC7 Chicago

New Sheriff In Major Michigan County Wants To Fight Violent Crime Through ‘Environmental Justice’

There’s a new sheriff in town in Washtenaw County, Michigan, who is pushing for major changes to how the sheriff’s department enforces laws and policies that she says are important to protecting the environment.

Sheriff Alyshia Dyer, a former deputy who became a social worker, is focused on protecting the community “from the negative environmental and human health impacts of pollution and climate change.” Dyer, a Democrat, was sworn in earlier this month, becoming Washtenaw County’s first female sheriff after she pulled out an upset victory in the Democratic Party primary in August and ran unopposed in the general election.

In a phone interview with The Daily Wire, the new sheriff emphasized that under her leadership, the sheriff’s department will drastically change its outlook on environmental issues and said that she wants to implement an “Environmental Crimes Unit” in her first term, which would focus on looking into “air pollution, water contamination, and hazardous waste management.”

“The sheriff’s office historically hasn’t been necessarily a strong champion in this work, but there’s no reason we can’t be,” Dyer said.

Washtenaw County — which encompasses Ann Arbor, where the University of Michigan is located — had the 10th highest crime rate among Michigan counties in 2021, and in each of the following years, the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office reported over 1,000 assault offenses, over 900 larceny/theft offenses, and more than 100 sex offenses.

Dyer told The Daily Wire that bringing down violent crime in Washtenaw County is “connected” to fighting for environmental justice and prioritizing officers’ “mental health and wellness.”

“It’s all connected. Looking at, number one, I talked a lot about officer mental health and wellness. Officers can’t effectively do their jobs if they’re not taking care of themselves. Looking at the environment, looking at corporate polluters, looking at the quality of life for residents, it has a really big impact on wellbeing.”

Dyer argued that it’s important for the sheriff’s department to focus on “creating better environments for the community.”

After publication, the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office sent a statement to The Daily Wire, reiterating its commitment to fighting violent crime and saying that “violent crime specialty units will remain, along with the implementation of investigative units to focus on corporate and environmental crime.”

Instituting environmental policies in the sheriff’s department would begin with reducing vehicle emissions from the department’s patrol car fleet, according to the new sheriff. To accomplish this, Dyer suggested placing new systems in patrol cars that cut back on gas or potentially moving to electric vehicles.

“We have the largest fleet in the county,” Dyer said. “So we’re thinking about moving toward reducing vehicle emissions. There’s another sheriff’s office, I believe it was in Santa Barbara, California, and they put idling reduction systems in their cars, saved 260 gallons of gasoline. Also adding remote starters so deputies aren’t leaving their vehicles running all day, so it’s easy to turn them on and off — things like that.”

Dyer said she plans to cut back on the number of patrol vehicles on the road and put two deputies in a patrol car instead of one, a move the sheriff said will help cut back on emissions. The main reason for pairing up deputies, according to Dyer, however, is to “help reduce vehicle crashes” and “lower stress” on officers who are currently working 16-hour shifts. In a statement to The Daily Wire after publication, the sheriff’s office said that deputies requested to be paired up in patrol vehicles.

“The last thing I want is officers out here sleep-deprived with a gun, angry, driving around. No one wants that,” Dyer added.

Asked if the sheriff’s department has any plan to hire more deputies, Dyer replied, “We do need to fill some spots because we are probably the shortest in road patrol that we have been in a very long time, which has created a lot of forced overtime, which has hurt morale, hurt staff, and in turn, has hurt the community.”

“We’re trying to get hiring up. It has been harder to hire in law enforcement because everyone is hiring,” the sheriff continued. “So that is something we’re definitely focused on.”

Dyer wrote on her campaign website that she will prioritize “diversity” and “inclusivity” in the hiring process. She lamented that “the Sheriff’s Office is predominantly male, white, and not representative of our LGBTQ+ population” and vowed to ensure “that hiring practices are inclusive.”

The new sheriff will partner with a leftist prosecutor, Eli Savit, who was just re-elected after running unopposed, according to a report from Bolts. Savit was first elected to office in 2020 amid the protests and riots that spread across the country after George Floyd’s death in police custody. The leftist prosecutor has taken a soft-on-crime approach to criminal justice and has also pushed “environmental initiatives in Michigan and across the country.”

Dyer also said she’s looking forward to partnering with the Washtenaw County Prosecutor’s Office to go after corporate crimes, such as “wage theft” and “tip theft.”

“Hand-in-hand with the environmental crimes is also the corporate crimes,” she said.

This article has been updated to include an additional comment from the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office.

Source; Daily Wire

Mpls man with 21 DWI convictions arrested on NYE after fleeing, crashing

A man with 21 previous DWI convictions is facing more charges after he allegedly fled deputies and crashed a pickup truck following a traffic stop on New Year’s Eve.

The criminal complaint states that officers stopped a pickup truck they saw driving at least 55 mph in a 35 mph zone in Brooklyn Center on New Year’s Eve.

Officers then stopped the truck near the intersection of Osseo Road and Queen Avenue.

The complaint states the driver, Michael James Bowser, 69, told officers he did not have any proof of insurance but did provide a driver’s license.

Officers say they smelled alcohol on Bowser, but he denied having any that night.

Bowser was told he was under arrest after deputies found his driving privileges were canceled. The complaint states that Bowser then “put his leg back in the car and put his car in drive and drove away.”

Officers say they began to pursue Bowser, but discontinued when they saw him driving between 70 and 80 mph.

Bowser then crashed the pickup truck, according to police, who “observed Defendant crash from a distance”, according to the complaint. Bowser was then arrested after a short foot pursuit.

What we don’t know: The results of Bowser’s toxicology report for the New Year’s Eve arrest are still pending.

Past DWI offenses
The backstory:
Court records show Bowser had 21 other DWI convictions before the incident on New Year’s Eve.

Bowser’s most recent DWI happened in Oct. 2020, which saw him sentenced to 37 months in prison with credit for 151 days served, meaning he spent about 1.75 years in prison because of Minnesota’s rule stating most offenders serve two-thirds of their sentence in prison and one-third on supervised release.

Other convictions include interlock violating restrictions, refusing chemical tests, driving after cancelation and other aggravated violations since 1988.

Source; Fox 9

Category: Crime, Police, Stupid Criminals