Stupid people of the week

Stillwater corrections officer, inmate indicted for meth smuggling operation

A Minnesota corrections officer charged with bringing methamphetamine into prison has now been federally indicted, along with the inmate she conspired with, in connection to the operation.

Faith Rose Gratz, 24, was indicted by a grand jury on charges of conspiracy to distribute meth and possession of meth with intent to distribute. Additionally, 35-year-old Axel Rene Kramer, an inmate at the Oak Park Heights Correctional Facility, was indicted on the charge of conspiracy to distribute meth.

According to the indictment, Gratz worked at the Stillwater Correctional Facility and used her position as a prison guard to smuggle meth into the prison, which she then provided to Kramer.

The indictment states that Gratz smuggled several cellphones into the prison and gave them to Kramer, who then used them to communicate with other inmates inside and outside of the Stillwater prison and facilitate a drug distribution network.

Gratz and Kramer allegedly communicated regularly about the drug distribution conspiracy, upcoming searches of inmates’ cells and possibly getting married when Kramer is released from prison. He’s currently serving a 288-month sentence for murder and could be released in 2024.

Another Stillwater prison inmate, who has not been indicted, is also believed to have worked with several people outside the prison who supplied the drugs that Kramer then had Gratz pick up and bring into the prison.

The documents state Gratz smuggled drugs into the prison on six different occasions before she was caught while trying to smuggle around a half-pound of meth into the prison on April 8.

Gratz was charged a few days later in Washington County court with first-degree drug sale and first-degree drug possession. Her next hearing on the state charges is set for July 21.

Source; KSTP

Falmouth residents oppose AR-15 deal between police and gun store

Residents are concerned that a deal between the Falmouth Police Department and Powderhorn Outfitters in Hyannis may end up placing semi-automatic weapons in the wrong hands.

The deal entails the police department buying 38 semi-automatic weapons from Powderhorn Outfitters, and trading in 21 semi-automatic weapons, 20 of which are AR-15s, to receive credit toward the purchase.

Over 300 Falmouth residents signed a petition for the town to dismantle and destroy the police department’s surplus weapons rather than trade them in, said the Rev. Deborah Warner, who created the petition.

Town Counsel Maura O’Keefe advised the Select Board at a June 6 meeting that the contract, which was signed by the town manager, is legally binding.

The deal was approved by Acting Town Manager Peter Johnson-Staub after Powderhorn Outfitters agreed to only sell the weapons to local law enforcement, he said.

However, Richard Duby, president of the Falmouth Gun Safety Coalition, said despite assurances that only local law enforcement will handle these weapons, they still pose a public risk.

“Unless people are under the delusional belief that these officers are going to keep these weapons for the rest of their lives, they will end up in the public sector,” he said.

Duby, as well as Warner, said local law enforcement officials could purchase the guns legally. They could then re-sell them to people in states where AR-15s are legal, or to a gun dealer who would then sell them out of state. That scenario could potentially put them in the hands of someone dangerous.

Warner said the news about the deal between the Police Department and Powderhorn Outfitters became public around the time of a shooting in Uvalde, Texas which claimed the lives of 19 children and two teachers at the hands of a man with an AR-15 style assault rifle.

The shooting in Texas prompted Warner to act.

“We can’t stand back, everybody has to stand up and make their voices heard, especially around assault rifles,” said Warner.

Source; Cape Cod Times

‘Hypocritical’ defund NYPD advocate moved out of Harlem for ‘safety issues’

A left-wing state lawmaker who has pushed for cutting police funding first moved to the district she is seeking to represent in Congress because “safety issues” near “the projects” in Harlem prompted her to shack up with her tech bro then-fiancé in the Financial District, The Post has learned.

Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou (D-Lower Manhattan) told a local publication in 2016 — when she was campaigning to initially get elected to her current seat — that she headed to the wealthier Manhattan neighborhood because she witnessed a pair of disturbing crimes and fell victim to one.

“I actually was robbed when I was living in Harlem. My boyfriend at the time, my fiancé, didn’t think I was safe up there, so he told me to move in, and so that’s how I moved to the Financial District with him,” she explained in an interview with the Lo-Down NY. “He was already living there.”

Four years later, the since-updated issues section for her most recent Assembly campaign read, “She believes that we are long overdue for police reform in this country and that we need to defund millions from the police in order to put critical funding back into our social services, education, and housing.”

Niou bid to represent the newly configured Lower Manhattan-Brooklyn House seat has earned endorsements from “Sex and the City” star and former gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon, left-wing group New York Communities for Change and state Sen. Julia Salazar (D-Bushwick), among others.

In 2016, while vying to replace disgraced ex-Assemblyman Sheldon Silver, she recalled to the local outlet that two separate frightening “incidents” drove her out of her apartment on 106th Street and 1st Avenue in East Harlem.

In one, she claimed she “watched a girl get raped on a pile of garbage, right across the street from the projects,” where she was living. In the other, the candidate said she witnessed a man “slam a girl’s head … into an ATM machine” and rob her before fleeing.

“We have a lot of safety issues,” Niou reportedly said in April 2016. “Some of the things that happen on the Lower East Side are very parallel, so these are all incidents that kind of led to me moving down to the Financial District and moving in with my partner.”

Must be nice when you can afford to just move out of the crappy neighborhood. Too bad most of her constituents don’t have such luxury.

More at the source; NY Post

Unhappy Arizona Wendy’s customer assaults employee over botched fries and nuggets, police say

Authorities in Arizona are looking for a woman who was apparently upset that the fries she ordered at a Wendy’s restaurant were cold and the chicken nuggets were not spicy before allegedly assaulting an employee.

The Casa Grande Police Department said the unhappy customer took things too far when she notified the fast-food restaurant of the botched order. A surveillance photo released by authorities shows the woman accused of assaulting a worker at a drive-thru window.

“She said that she got spicy nuggets instead of normal ones, saying they were burnt” Varina Hunt, a witness to the alleged attack, told Fox Phoenix as she was in the drive-thru line trying to place her order.

The woman was apparently yelling at the employees to fix the order.

“The lady was being harassed by another woman. She was saying, ‘give me my f’ing food.’ She was calling her names and said, ‘I’m gonna throw it at you, and I’m gonna hit you,” she said. “And I heard something being thrown.”

The suspect allegedly threw the bag with fries and nuggets at the employee as well as a drink.

“The lady was definitely overreacting,” Hunt said. “There’s definitely better ways to handle it. It’s called temperament control – like my 3-year-old knows this.”

Source; Fox News

‘Drunk’ Colorado man, 33, steals officers’ Dodge Durango patrol car and RESPONDS to a domestic violence call before 110mph car chase and shootout

A Colorado man faces a slew of charges after he allegedly stole a patrol car while intoxicated and showed up to a call for domestic violence.

Police say Jeremiah James Taylor broke into an unstaffed Park County Sheriff’s substation early Monday morning and stole a 2013 Dodge Durango.

Taylor, 33, then drove the car to nearby Teller County after officials broadcast a domestic violence incident.

He was arrested more than two hours later after he led police on 110mph chase, crashed the Durango and fled into the woods.

Source; Daily Mail

Happy the elephant is not a ‘person,’ New York’s highest court rules

Just how in the fuck did this need to go to NY’s highest court? What a world we live in. This was a 5-2 decision. There are two Court of Appeals (the same level as a state supreme court in other states) that think an elephant should be considered a person under the law.

New York’s highest court has ruled that Happy the elephant is not a “person” as it tossed a lawsuit seeking to free the animal from the Bronx Zoo.

The 5-2 decision likely marks the end of the line for an animal rights group that since at least 2018 has been seeking to spring the 50-year-old Asian pachyderm through habeas corpus – a legal principle used for challenging wrongful imprisonment.

But the state Court of Appeals on Monday rejected that argument, finding habeas corpus “has no applicability to Happy, a nonhuman animal who is not a ‘person’ subjected to illegal detention.”

“While no one disputes that elephants are intelligent beings deserving of proper care and compassion, the courts below properly granted the motion to dismiss the petition,” reads the majority decision authored by Chief Judge Janet DiFiore.

Still, two of the seven-judge panel disagreed with DiFiore’s opinion, finding that Happy should have the right to petition for her freedom.

“We should recognize Happy’s right to petition for her liberty not just because she is a wild animal who is not meant to be caged and displayed, but because the rights we confer on others define who we are as a society,” Judge Rowan Wilson wrote.

Similarly, Judge Jenny Rivera wrote in her dissenting opinion: “The law has a mechanism to challenge this inherently harmful confinement, and Happy should not be denied the opportunity to pursue and obtain appropriate relief by writ of habeas corpus.”

The NonHuman Rights Project has argued that Happy – as an intelligent creature – should live free from captivity after over 40 years cooped up in the zoo and more than ten years living alone.

But the case has been struck down by lower courts which have ruled that Happy is an elephant and not a human and therefore habeas corpus rights can’t be applied to her.

“We applaud the powerful dissents by the Honorable Judges Jenny Rivera and Rowan D. Wilson, which we see as a tremendous victory in a national and global struggle for nonhuman animal rights which we’ve only just begun,” the NhRP said in a statement.

“At the same time, this is not just a loss for Happy, whose freedom was at stake in this case and who remains imprisoned in a Bronx Zoo exhibit,” the statement continued. “It’s also a loss for everyone who cares about upholding and strengthening our most cherished values and principles of justice–autonomy, liberty, equality, and fairness–and ensuring our legal system is free of arbitrary reasoning and that no one is denied basic rights simply because of who they are.”

A lawyer for the zoo did not immediately return a request for comment.

Source; NY Post

Category: "Teh Stoopid", Crime, Police, Stupid Criminals, WTF?