so the guy who stabbed a student to death-
one of the many speed freak thieving losers the police do as little as possible about, i recognize as one of the idiots often gathered at the young kids speed injection table.
really messed up. saw that guy 2 days ago in the park with the kids, tonight on the news, confessed to murder.
maybe if the cops or city ever bothered to do more than ticket these idiots they wouldn't be out there so high they do things like this.
and i was just thinking how nice last weekend's people's park anniversary celebration was even if there were tons and tons of slime balls around
one of the many speed freak thieving losers the police do as little as possible about, i recognize as one of the idiots often gathered at the young kids speed injection table.
really messed up. saw that guy 2 days ago in the park with the kids, tonight on the news, confessed to murder.
maybe if the cops or city ever bothered to do more than ticket these idiots they wouldn't be out there so high they do things like this.
and i was just thinking how nice last weekend's people's park anniversary celebration was even if there were tons and tons of slime balls around
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Re: People's park anniversary present- murderer
Sun, May 4, 2008 - 11:25 PMyou'd think people would fucking learn about that shit, wouldn't you?
it's a microcosm of the P.R.O.B. - something of great historical significance and deep human value, rendered a mockery of itself by dumbasses. i'm sure there were plenty of tweaked out morons in 68 too, ruining things for everyone else. -
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Re: People's park anniversary present- murderer
Mon, May 5, 2008 - 1:01 AMYeah, plus don't worry about John Yoo teaching all the young legal minds in America about the Constitution... -
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Re: People's park anniversary present- murderer
Mon, May 5, 2008 - 8:05 PMok TMblo we hear you.
not like someone else posted the whole Yoo story a YEAR AGO (duh, me) tribes.tribe.net/376ab122-...64a17fffa8
but do we now need to thread jack every piece of news in the world from now on??
i too am outraged at the Yoo thing. i am extra pissed because of how extra lame it makes the losers code pink and worse council that thinks it speaks for everyone in the city giving those nuts a parking space. I have only found one person in the 50 or so i've asked who are living here a long time that supports code pink, EVERYONE hates the Yoo story and many of us are damn proud of our soldiers
BUT this thread has NOTHING to do with any of that.
should i tell people to forget about the bird flu and worry about John Yoo?
I was hoping to at least stir some resopnse on the fact that our city council, police dept, and merchants see the homeless/ people's park problem as an issue of keep piling tickets onto the homeless until they get fed up and leave (they don't) and forget to investigate or prosecute the endless break ins and minor violent incidents until someone ends up dead.
because i'm sure Yoo is the number one thing on the minds of the family of dead student and people who have to walk past the park daily.
I'm not happy at all about this. i have seen that clown in the park too many times, hanging out with the gang of teens.
really scary to know you were a few feet from a murderer, and worse a totally senseless murder.
I have called the cops on assholes who were being violent- and the police show up and well for example
WASTED loser who i took a giant rock from he had been threatening to beat in a guy's head with- Police tell him to calm down and leave.
don't search him, don't give him 5 hours in the drunk tank, just let him roam.
GREAT sure most of the time nothing will happen but what about the violent jerk who has now been tilted by the cops.
after a similar action with another loser, i am honestly a little worried to be in the top of the park because on guy might actually be pissed and dumb enough to try and "get even" with me. Not that he could, but it would be unpleasant.
he should have been roughed up and thrown in the drunk tank by the damn cops the first time and really banned from the park after maybe his 30th open alcohol in the park so i didn't have to run into this DRUNK loser in the first place???
no, leave the drunks and drug dealers in the park, let them get messed up in public because then we can keep an eye on them.
until one of them wanders up the street and crosses some drunken college ego. oh well.
If any of these clowns had the slightest fear of consequence to illegal action, things would be better than they are now.
as it is , things are a joke. right up until you pull a gun or knife, anything goes, so of course the jerks eventually get bored with stuff you can get away with.
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Re: People's park anniversary present- murderer
Mon, May 5, 2008 - 8:09 PMtony- it didn't happen in the park, up the street outside a frat.
no idea on the in-the-park murder stats.
i associate this with the park because the park is why that idiot murderer was in this town. He hangs out there all day with the other young speedfreaks waiting for their drugs, creating drama amongst each other, etc...
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Re: People's park anniversary present- murderer
Mon, May 5, 2008 - 7:42 PMGrowing up in Berkeley, '61-'92, I was certainly no stranger to trouble or danger. In retrospect I pretty much revelled in it during my postmodern pollyanna phase. Yet I generally steered clear of People's Park. It always struck me as a rather artificial construct, freaky and dark for freaky-darkness' sake. Remants of Gov. Reagan's experiment in mental health decentralization, outsider creeps, and sailors on leave trying to score acid. Basically all the least appealing aspects of the late '60's-early '70's in one square block.
I am sure I missed something cool about the place; I must have. But it wasn't physically appealling like dozens of other really beautiful places in Berkeley, the conversation at Peet's, or Barrington, or the Med, was more stimulating, and buying drugs from strangers in a park wasn't really my thing.
I am curious, was that the first homocide in People's Park? I do not recall any myself... -
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Re: People's park anniversary present- murderer
Tue, May 6, 2008 - 1:30 AM>Gov. Reagan's experiment in mental health decentralization
Yeah, Berkeley wasn't full of homeless folks before that. It's amazing to me about how all the conservatives whine about the homeless...but loosed them on us...cuz the churches or something was supposed to take care of the mentally unstable? Yeah, right. Bozos. -
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Re: People's park anniversary present- murderer
Tue, May 6, 2008 - 6:41 PM>Berkeley wasn't full of homeless folks before that.<
Homeless? What homeless? Oh, you must mean the Urban Outdoor Adventure Enthusist demographic. It isn't a problem if you re-name it something benevolent, right?
I say just treat the Methophiles to a bit of Enhanced Interrogation. -
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Re: People's park anniversary present- murderer
Wed, May 7, 2008 - 2:28 PMyes got to love Reagan -
there is a huge mentally ill element out there, and over the years it becomes incredibly transparent-
certain SEVERELY mentally ill people are being shuffled back and forth from the street to the ward for lack of beds.
i see them every few months for a few days, then they go back to the nuthouse. Some of these people are a real danger to themselves and others, but the system prefers to take its chances
One in particular always goes back to the nuthouse the same way- it takes FOUR cops to restrain him.
(i saw two try it once, pretty funny, guy running down sidewalk with two cops hanging off his arms) guy likes to run in traffic screaming.
Yep, mental health is helping him get better/ be safe/ not.
HOWEVER- the problems in the park are less the mental cases and muvh more the just plain BAD people taking bad drugs/
MEth really made things worse, although crack is about as troublesome, the meth explosion among the young kids in recent years has absolutely been the downfall of what was once a fairly reasonable group of homeless people.
Crap, when i came to Berkeley 15 years ago, i was one of those idiots. And most of us just wanted to be here, just didn't have $$$ to start with, and Berkeley is the ultimate place to start from zero. Most of us saw homeless as a temporary thing until we figured out a way to do better, and 15 years later out of a group of about 20, 18 of us are in housing with good jobs, and most of us have been for years
NOW- these idiots show up and five years later they have no job, no home, less teeth, and their brains are so far gone they aren't even useful to throw garbage into my truck.
it's like the world gave up or something. really sad -
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Re: People's park anniversary present- murderer
Wed, May 7, 2008 - 5:30 PMTurns out the assailant wasn't homeless after all.
www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi -
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Re: People's park anniversary present- murderer
Wed, May 7, 2008 - 9:03 PMIt's a tragedy.
However,
On judgment day please, I hope I do not go before the Thorn.
Lawd knows what he hath seen.
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Re: People's park anniversary present- murderer
Fri, May 9, 2008 - 7:28 AMThanks for the link. If accurate, this article sheds a whole different light on the subject. These two guys, drug users or not, were in a 10:1 situation with a group of frat boys. There but by the grace of God went I..... -
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Re: People's park anniversary present- murderer
Fri, May 9, 2008 - 9:13 AM -
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Re: People's park anniversary present- murderer
Fri, May 9, 2008 - 10:47 AMSounds like a self-defense case if I ever heard one. -
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This is the maximum depth. Additional responses will not be threaded.
Re: self defense?
Sat, May 10, 2008 - 2:12 PMRebecca,
Yes, from that article an affirmative defense in court, ie claiming self-defense, is a possibility. But affirmative defenses (yes I did it, but here is why, I would do it again if I had to, and so would you) can be difficult to mount. The burden of proof shifts from "the people" (the state or county) to the defendant. The defendant is in essence admitting to the deadly conduct (already done). In doing so he voluntarily changes the formula to "guilty until proven innocent," although the standard of proof is generally lightened from "beyond reasonable doubt" to "a preponderance of evidence" or "convincing evidence". And a jury must decide that, quite likely a jury who will hear things like "People's Park Speed Freak Table" , "Meth Head Loser", "Inevitable Consequence" etc. That jury might include....uh....Thorn. So, pleading out to Voluntary Manslaughter (yes, I did it, but however wrong I know it was now, at the time I thought it was my only choice in defending myself) in exchange for a very light sentence (my prediction less than 18 months) with a highly conditional parole structure (chem dependancy treatment, etc.) is probably how this will play out.
Of course the jury could include some like me; a grown-up berkeley kid who has seen up-close-and-personal the friction between locals and the greeks, a berkeley kid with a chip on his shoulder from a long-ago Izod Lacoste stomping after being isolated from his pack, a berkeley kid who befriended two sorority future-pledges who lived for a semester at barrington when he was a sanctioned crasher there and no other barrintonian wanted anything to do with them, who helped them with a stupid pledge project (an egg costume) with one condition...that if the saw me a year later they would not pretend they didn't know me...a berkeley kid who listened to both of the young women as they unloaded the burden of their sorority-sanctioned rape (a little sister has to do anything...ANYTHING...for their Big Brother, they cried to me, 'cause no one else who would give a shit would even talk to them). And, a year later, the pretended not to know me.
The truth be told, if I had had a knife the night six or seven frat "brothers" asserted their social dominance on my nose, testicles, and ribs, I would not have been alone in the Herrick (sp?) ER. And if any one of my fellow berkeley kid street-toughs made it this long, as I managed, without a felony conviction, consider that jury hopelessy hung, even if the kid on trial pulls out a dime bag of meth and slams it right there in court. And, given the highly pursuasive nature of a well educated AND street-savy individual, chances are the kid walks if two berkeley kids from my generation/background are on the jury. -
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WOW
Sun, May 11, 2008 - 2:21 PM
that is pretty wild. these frat guys do get out of hand. i know lots of gangster wannabe mentality exists, but WOW a broken bottle?
STILL- what does jackass do ? not back down, and he is the type of asshole who carries a knife around. Self defense, fine i still think this guy is primarily a piece of shit who is around looking for trouble. He didn't back down, he had to be tough guy.
I've had people attack me and i either disarm and control them or run the fuck away. The mentality that ego is more important than life is the problem here and that is still unacceptable and proliferated. What message will this send to the gang of 26 year old speedfreaks he hangs out with?
The comment .in the article about that guy "not wanting to get into fights" is absolute bullshit.
Berkeley City college student??? if he is then WTF is this guy in the park at the speed table with the needle freaks all the time for??
what the fuck ever. My original point still stands self defense or not. The needle using/ crack smokers of People's Park breed this kind of crap and it is getting worse over the years. Because i am no little guy these type of idiots have to exert ego around me all the time to the point where i am too often afraid to go to the park or end up showing them the difference between a druggie and a working man because if someone says something that is completely wrong and you disagree, you have to fight them. RETARDED. Especially when you are dealing with uneducated morons who learn from comic books, you might end up being hit in the face for not agreeing the world is flat.
but
HAHA- if i was on the jury, honestly this sounds like good case for self defense. I am harsh but honest.
i would want to see a charge of mutual combat or the like made to stick, and some sort of felony to remove his gun rights, but this may not be a murder.
MY SOLUTION- you wouldn't like. get the sheriff to make Alameda a damn shall-issue CCW (easy for good people to carry concealed weapon)
AND implement a NY style (although WEAPONS ONLY) stop and frisk policy in high violence/ crime areas.
of course we can't because cops are dicks and end up using the stop and frisk to bust potheads because pigs are afraid to approach real criminals. funny, really seems like the cops are even more afraid of criminals than they want you to be.
bottom line i've seen illegal (large) knives whipped out in ego-based anger in front of Cafe Med five times in two years. Assholes on drugs that want gangster status have no place in this town, or any town really but this is not the forgotten corner of some ghetto and i am really getting sick of it
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...Aaawww, booo, hoooooOOO....
Sun, May 11, 2008 - 5:18 PMI am a friend to the friend-less. Some times it seems the hopes and dreams of my youth will never be fulfilled. Why, it seems just yesterday I was frolicking, barefoot , in the dewy grass of youth. Today, I find myself hobbling on bunions through the crab grass of middle age. Alas, sweet bird of youth, how hath thou flown...
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Re: WOW...is right
Sun, May 11, 2008 - 8:08 PMThorn,
You and I seem to see eye-to-eye on a number of issues; the need for a well-trained military and respect for those who make the commitment to serve the nation in this fashion, regardless of our feelings or opinions on the justification of the war they have been thrown into; our second ammendment rights (although I suspect our understanding of concealed weapon permits may differ a bit) and our obvious mutual love of Berkeley.
On this issue, or more to the point in this particular thread, I think our sympathys differ. I say "I think" and "seem to" because, frankly, you are all over the map in your argument. I do not intend this as a flame; I am honestly curious about how you can justify or reconcile what seem to me to be very contradictory stances.
For example:
>I have called the cops on assholes who were being violent<
This seems to indicate that you have a reasonable expectation that the police are public servants who are on your side, and better equipted to deal with the situation than you. Then...
>of course we can't because cops are dicks... pigs are afraid to approach real criminals<
and
>seems like the cops are even more afraid of criminals than they want you to be.<
Thorn, if this is your opinion of police, why on earth would you waste their time and yours by calling them? If you have ever had a friend in law enforcement, or ever even taken the time to have a sustained dialogue, you would certainly know that this is the one thing that consistently confounds them and reinforces the Thin Blue Line....civilians who disdain them, until they need them.
You follow a very reasonable
>i too am outraged at the Yoo thing<
with
>he should have been roughed up and thrown in the drunk tank by the damn cops the first time<
So, simulated drowning, stress positioning, psych stressing of national security suspects = bad, but beating local suspects by the "dick...afraid...pigs" = good?
Your line of reasoning that the accused is culpable because he should have swallowed his pride and backed down...
>fine i still think this guy is primarily a piece of shit who is around looking for trouble. He didn't back down, he had to be tough guy...
seems a tad hypocritical when you have seemed to make a point in a number of posting that you are a "tough guy"
>i am honestly a little worried to be in the top of the park because on guy might actually be pissed and dumb enough to try and "get even" with me. Not that he could, but it would be unpleasant.<...
>Because i am no little guy these type of idiots have to exert ego around me all the time to the point where i am too often afraid to go to the park or end up showing them the difference between a druggie and a working man because if someone says something that is completely wrong and you disagree, you have to fight them.<
and
>I've had people attack me and i either disarm and control them.<
And yet you seem to spend enough time at People's Park, and in particular at or around the speed/injection table, to know these people, their habits, their mental and dental status, moral compass, criminal undertakings, etc. If this place is so freaking dispicable and dangerous, why do you spend so much time there? Why not just back down and stay away?
And finally
>MY SOLUTION- you wouldn't like. get the sheriff to make Alameda a damn shall-issue CCW (easy for good people to carry concealed weapon)<
For starters, why do you assume I "wouldn't like" a concealed weapon permit law? Actually, I have one. BTW, these laws do not establish the right to carry a weapon. The Second Amendment does that. All these permits do is establish a defense against proscecution if you ever need to use deadly force (otherwise premeditation can be implied if you walk into a situation with a weapon that you have not demonstrated proficiency with and have not essentially informed the State of your intention to carry.)
Second, but more to the point, just exactly who would you have liked to see armed in this situation? The (probably) drunk frat boy or the (probably) tweaked Jamba Juicer?
BTW a broken bottle is a weapon of opportunity, which definitely argues towards manslaughter rather than murder...a death resulting from "mutual combat" or "provocation" is still classified as Voluntary Manslaughter.
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Re: People's park anniversary present- murderer
Thu, May 8, 2008 - 2:13 PMThis case is a tragedy and may not have anything to do with People's Park. But I do agree that People's Park and the surrounding area is not a place I enjoy at all. I used to go to Telegraph often in the 70's and 80's. I grew up in Berkeley and used to hang out in the area all the time. It was not at all like it is today. Now I completely avoid the whole Telegraph area. Maybe once every two years I might go there to a store. But it is not a pleasant area at all, with the nuts, druggies and alcoholics hanging out. I don't know if the psychiatric situation is all to blame. It's also the free food that is doled out in the area that attracts the bums. These moochers of society probably move here from all over because Berkeley is so lenient, even helpful, to the downtrodden.
I live just a few miles away. But I never go there anymore. It's a totally different vibe there than it used to be. -
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Re: People's park anniversary present- murderer
Thu, May 8, 2008 - 3:54 PM>>>>I don't know if the psychiatric situation is all to blame. It's also the free food that is doled out in the area that attracts the bums. These moochers of society probably move here from all over because Berkeley is so lenient, even helpful, to the downtrodden.<<<<
unfortunately, that is pretty much it. On one hand Berkelely is GREAt for helping the homeless get off the street, and there are many homeless who are just drunks or slightly mental that cant get off the street, and i am glad they get treated much better here than in NYC for example.
If it wasn't for all these services and the good attitude of people in this city, i'd still be homeless, and i don't have a problem with people who live outside and don't mind being broke, ultimately they are helping save the planet by using less junk.
BUT when the police know a group of these kids is simply using the free food and homelessness as a cover for a life of crime and drugs
something needs to be done.
it's pitiful.
I've known for awhile it was only a matter if time before one of the losers from the speed table killed somebody.
It took two years. TWO YEARS of these jerks in the park and someone is dead. Where is this headed? ?
and every day the cops go through, see these idiots waiting for drugs, passing around the clean needles (there are often huge boxes of them left out in the open for the druggies), and even when they get into fights nobody gets arrested.
You'll get a ticket for an open beer or sleeping on th sidewalk, but if the cops show up and you just gave someone a black eye, it won't matter.
I'd say one big problem is that Berkeley's needle exchange although beneficial in many ways, gives out WAY too many needles at a time, and i don't like it at all that where possession of a needle is a crime everywhere else, in Berkeley, they let it go.
DISGUSTING-- the number of girls i have met who LOVE injection drugs, but have never shot themselves up. Their boyfriends turned them on and do the fix for them. Really cool when it's a 16 year old girl with a 27 year old guy.
Oh, and he's in jail now and her mom got to take care of their baby since she tested positive for speed when it was born.
They met and primarily lived in People's park, surviving by breaking into cars until girl had baby and now here mom takes care of her, and she still does speed. Great.
>>>>>>>Many states still make it a misdemeanor to possess needles, and a few states actually direct sanctions at pharmacists who sell needles without a prescription. In contrast, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California courageously signed an important needle-access bill this week, similar to one that was vetoed twice by his predecessor, Gray Davis. The new law will allow pharmacists to sell as many as 10 syringes without a prescription to any adult in participating cities and counties. The law expires in 2010, when state authorities will evaluate its usefulness.<<<<<<<<<<<<
i say let the loser druggies get AIDS myself, but if we are gonna let them have needles, do we really have to give them boxes of 100 so they pass them out and turn each other on to injection when they otherwise would only be snorting or smoking???
in most places needles exchange = less AIDS. here i really think it = more injectors.
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Re: People's park anniversary present- murderer
Wed, May 14, 2008 - 2:58 PMClose the park. As long as the bloody place is open, it gives those assholes somewhere to hang out. -
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Re: People's park anniversary present- murderer
Thu, May 15, 2008 - 12:16 AMYeah, then pave it over so the cool people can park their cars there. Great solution.
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Re: People's park anniversary present- murderer
Fri, May 16, 2008 - 5:30 PMClose the frat houses. As long as those bloody places are open, it gives those assholes somewhere to hang out. -
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Re: People's park anniversary present- murderer
Sat, May 17, 2008 - 1:22 PMok geez that's a lot to respond to buddy ill have to give it a few shots
>>>Thorn, if this is your opinion of police, why on earth would you waste their time and yours by calling them? If you have ever had a friend in law enforcement, or ever even taken the time to have a sustained dialogue, you would certainly know that this is the one thing that consistently confounds them and reinforces the Thin Blue Line....civilians who disdain them, until they need them.<<<<<<
I only need them at these times because if i deal with situation myself i will be the one in jail. Me exact words to police in one incident- i need you to put this guy in drunk tank before i HURT HIM BAD.
in fact i have used those words twice in calling the police.
aside from that, i'm paying for them to do a job, in the rare instances i can get some of my money's worth i get it. We all hate oil compainies, but we all use gas to make another analogy.
>>>>>>he should have been roughed up and thrown in the drunk tank by the damn cops the first time<
So, simulated drowning, stress positioning, psych stressing of national security suspects = bad, but beating local suspects by the "dick...afraid...pigs" = good? <<<<<<<<<
uh that is a FAR CRY from torture. being "roughed up and put in a drunk tank" by cops = handcuffs, pushed into a car, put in a cell for five hours, released.
ALSO= i was referring to someone who took MULTIPLE swings at me. I had every right to remove this guy's teeth and i kept just holding him back, every time he swung, i grabbed his swinging arm with one hand, shoved his chest with the other. I had to decide to either start punching him or leave the park. SORRY but when i am forced to hold back, im gonna clal lthe guys who don;t have to. THE DRUNK= "i am just dying to get into a fight tonight" ....... and you want me to feel like i'm inciting torture on him???
things are a lot deeper than you expect with me.
>>>>>>I've had people attack me and i either disarm and control them.<
And yet you seem to spend enough time at People's Park, and in particular at or around the speed/injection table, to know these people, their habits, their mental and dental status, moral compass, criminal undertakings, etc. If this place is so freaking dispicable and dangerous, why do you spend so much time there? Why not just back down and stay away? <<<<<<<
YOU ARE EXACTLY RIGHT. i used to go and hang out to run into the people i know and like, Hate Man for example. After the last incident in February, I realized on one hand there is no reason for me to go there any more and i only went once since then for the anniversay celebration thing (which worked out well too some girl decided she wellll.... whatever)
SO i stay out of the park but that pisses me off too TYPICAL BERKELY SOLUTION - run away , don't fix the problem, give up your public lands to whatever jerkoff forces you off it.
not really a solution.
JUST let these types take over every park in the world right?
at any rate, until he crowd shifts at the park, i have left.
I realize the problems are - I am big and threatening looking but small enough jerks think they can take me , I am (compared to fools in the park ONLY) successful, and i made it off the street and out of there, I am opposed to needle drugs, and a string of other things get these losers amped up to prove something to me. So i just can;t be around them, and i haven't been/
AND THATS JUSTICE? i worked hard , got off the street, did something with my life
AND i gotta stay outta my favorite park because it has been taken over by losers
OK lastli--
>>>>>For starters, why do you assume I "wouldn't like" a concealed weapon permit law? Actually, I have one<<<<
WAIT - you Tony from the gun tribes ??? EXCEllent! first off that comment is directed at the majority here, most of these people are of the "all guns are evil" set (which is hilarious for so many reasons i'm sure you are used to)
second = how the F did you get CCW in Alameda? you got one in another county or something?
alright never mind that.
>>>>>Second, but more to the point, just exactly who would you have liked to see armed in this situation? The (probably) drunk frat boy or the (probably) tweaked Jamba Juicer? <<<<<<<
HA- neither of those idiots. ME DAMMIT, or ANY SOBER RESPONSIBLE PERSON IN VICINITY.
chick-chick- HOLD IT RIGHT THERE ASSHOLE> and it would have ended, or been a much more clear case of self defense.
come on Tony do i really have to have that discussion with you? we could go on for days an only give ammo to antis.
to be completely honest a big can of pepper spray over the whole melee would have been the best solution
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Re: People's park anniversary present- murderer
Sat, May 17, 2008 - 1:35 PMoh one last thing i should respond to
>>>seems a tad hypocritical when you have seemed to make a point in a number of posting that you are a "tough guy" <<<
i realize i sound a bit hypocritical about this kind of thing and i will try and explain a little something.
i am not a "tough guy"
i am a fairly large WAY-stronger-than-i-look guy (my income is all lifting heaVY STUFF). i am afraid to hit people because they end up in hospitals. i am afraid to fight people because you go to jail for it.
I DONT LIKE BULLYS. i put up with them when i was weak and little, now i don't have to, and occasionally i will stop a bully from doing it to someone else.
BUT i am no tough guy. I will always back away from a fight if i can, I do NOT push people around with my size unless they really force me to.
Like stated= this clown who did the stabbing, when i saw him in the park, i stayed extra far away. Didn't even want to be close enough to accidentally get into conversation with him.
HOWEVER= I am way way stronger and have some good tactics in dealing with people who THINK they are tough and going to bully people around, so i might come off as a "tough guy" to some of them but in reality i'm not.
TOUGH GUY- will fight anyone, any time, crazy.
ME= choose my battles very wisely
no, ultimately i'm more of a wuss with muscles. -
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Re: People's park anniversary present- murderer
Sat, May 17, 2008 - 1:37 PMyou know that bugs me a little - what kind of "tough guy" instead of fighting a drunk, leaves the park and calls the cops.
really, im an angry guy not a tough guy.
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Re: People's park anniversary present- murderer
Sat, May 17, 2008 - 7:12 PMThorn,
I am glad you took my post as I hoped you would....an honest invitation to dialogue. I "get" you a bit better now. Thanks.
A little about me...NOT the Tony in the gun tribe. Now ex-pat Berkeley kid from a decidedly un-berkeley family; checked out on a .22 LR at 5, a .45 ACP at 7. Wasted most of the 80's being "berkeleycool", or trying anyhow. In '92 I sold what I had, bought a Nikon FM2 and a ticket to Split, Croatia, gateway to Bosnia. Flamed out pretty quickly as a free-lance photographer (stringer) for AP but did manage to apply my trade for local military physicians, both Moslem and Croat. Toured most of the hospitals in Bosnia that were not in Serb controlled areas. Became a valuable commodity as an advance scout for NGO relief agencies looking to get info about, and supplies into, Central Bosnia when the 11 Month Moslem-Croat Conflict broke out in '93. Fell in love with my interpreter in the Lasva Valley area (the epicenter of the C/M war). Married her, and against huge odds managed to get her and "our" son out of Bosnia and to the States Berkeley was a.) way to expensive to try to support a family from scratch with no hugely marketable skills and b.) un-equal footing for my wife and child. So we moved to Texas, where we were equally foreign. That is where we live now, quite happily except for the summer heat and occasional religous intolerance. Which is a long way of saying....
I live in Texas. Gun ownership is an absolute non-issue here. No waiting period. Only weapons bought from a dealership are registered. A cursory criminal background check is done, completed in about 20 minutes. Getting a concealed weapon permit does involve a more thorough check and profiency certification.
My totally non-scientific observation: people here are much more civil in the respect that I do not see road-rage, the finger, shouting matches, ect here near as much as when I visit the Bay Area. Pan-handlers are almost never aggresive. (often, Berkeley pan-handlers border on assult in that they put a reasonable person in reasonable fear of harm). I believe that at least some of this is because people know that nearly anyone might be armed, not just those willing to break the law. Strong-armed crime seems pretty rare, and seem to be mostly thug-on-thug, although there was a recent case where a young mgr was strong armed an his way to the bank with his deposit.
But, it absolutely is a trade-off. I do miss many aspects of Berkeley/the Bay Area terribly, which is why I suppose I visit this Tribe...hmmmm...maybe a Berkeley expat tribe is in order so we can all boo-hooo about what we miss (Top Dog). -
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Re: People's park anniversary present- murderer
Sat, May 17, 2008 - 9:06 PMI actually agree with you Tony. Close the Frat houses!
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