OFF THE WIRE
agingrebel.com
Stephen P. “Bowtie” Stubbs yanked Boulder City, Nevada Police Chief Thomas
Finn’s chain again yesterday. Stubbs has accused Finn of unconstitutionally
profiling and harassing members of the Mongols Motorcycle Club during the club’s
national run last June and of destroying evidence that could be used in a
federal civil rights lawsuit filed by Stubbs on behalf of the Southern Nevada
Confederation of Clubs. You can learn more about that suit here.
Stubbs attached a copy of an email Finn wrote June 11, 2012 titled
“Mongols-related emails.” The email stated: “Lieutenant Albowicz made an
excellent suggestion to have all emails related to the preparations we are
making for the Mongols event deleted from our computers. If they submit a
records request for them it would obviously show our hand and divulge the
strategies and staffing levels we need to keep confidential. Therefore please
delete any and all emails related to the event immediately.”
Finn
Stubbs had the complaint hand-delivered directly to Finn and explained: “I am
directing this email to Boulder City Police Chief Thomas Finn and the Boulder
City Police Department, as instructed by the Nevada Attorney General’s office.
Because these alleged crimes were committed in Boulder City the Boulder City
Police Department is the investigative agency with jurisdiction here. However I
believe it would be an improper and unethical conflict of interest for the
Boulder City Police Department to investigate the matter. Therefore, I hereby
request that you submit this complaint to the Boulder City Council for a
conflicts referral to the Investigative Division of the Attorney General for the
state of Nevada.”
The attorney sent copies of the complaint to seven other city officials
including Mayor Roger Tobler and City Manager Vickie Mayes.
There is no boubt that Finn intended to give the Mongols as hard a time as
possible in hopes that they would go away and never come back. He was frank
about it. He was quoted by Ben Frederickson of the Las Vegas
Review-Journal as saying, “They came and they went and good riddance,” Finn
said. “I hope they never come back.” And then, to illustrate more aptly than a
thousand pictures how police think Finn complained, “I get very disheartened by
the naiveté of some people who say, ‘Well there were too many cops in town.
Nothing happened,’ Well of course nothing happened. Because there were so many
cops in town.”
Poster Boy For Police Misconduct
The issue in Boulder City may be bigger than one outlaw motorcycle club run
out of town by a cop who sees Billy Jack when he looks in the mirror.
Finn could be the poster boy for the new, post-nine-one-one, American police
state. Most people don’t care about the lawsuit Stubbs is currently pursuing
because most people don’t care about bikers. But another civil rights law suit
filed against Finn and the Boulder City police may illustrate the point Stubbs
might be trying to make – which is that American police during the War of Global
Terror must create enemies in order to justify the public resources devoted to
them. Last time it was the Mongols Motorcycle Club. The time before that it was
a citizen named Curtis Shafer.
Even little children know that the War on Terror is to police what Hurricane
Katrina was to crooked contractors. Laissez les bon temps rouler. And
as part of this general waste of time and tax dollars Finn submitted an
application in the Spring of 2009 to the Department of Homeland Security for
high-tech surveillance cameras to “assist in combating terrorist and criminal
activities” in Boulder City. Most of the War on Terror is about combating
“criminal activities.”
Surveillance
About the same time Finn applied for his terror toys a dispute developed
between Boulder City resident Shafer and his next door neighbor Mark Fenyves.
Apparently, Fenyves held a grudge because he had wanted to buy the home Shafer
bought. Which led to Fenyves to decide that Shafer was guilty of something –
which is plausible because in Terror War America everyone is. Fenyves called the
Boulder City Police 180 times to complain about Shafer but neither the police
nor Fenyves were able to pin anything on Shafer. So the Boulder City police lent
the four high-tech surveillance cameras to Fenyves. Of course.
One Boulder City cop even gave Fenyves advice on how best to install the
cameras. Fenyves installed one of them on a 30-foot-high pole that overlooked
Shaffer’s “backyard, home and bathroom.”
The neighbor then video-recorded Shaffer, his wife and his three children
playing in the yard and going to the bathroom for more than a month before
turning this “evidence” over to police. There was never a warrant issued or a
written record made of any of this – or if there were written records the
Boulder City Police Department destroyed them. But, the police did watch all of
this freelance, volunteer surveillance. If they took notes they destroyed those
as well. It cannot be determined if they made copies.
After a month Shaffer found out what was happening and complained to Finn.
Finn did nothing.
So Shaffer sued and eventually won. And, Boulder City is now appealing that
decision.
The Aging Rebel cannot show you the video below without the annoying
advertisement upfront, so deal with it.
VIDEO
http://www.mynews3.com/content/video/default.aspx?videoID=3793547
