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Car wash surveillance camera catches kidnapping on tape
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rd



Joined: 13 Sep 2002
Posts: 9273
Location: Jacksonville, FL

PostPosted: Sat Feb 07, 2004 10:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think a little bit of life got sucked out of this country when they saw the evil of a man kidnapping a little girl walking home. I know it did from me. Then they contrast that with what passes as entertainment the whole nation is watching at a football halftime show, and you can't help but compare ourselves to Romans in the colliseum as the walls crumble down around them.

There's a good column by Friedman in the NY Times that makes this point about our lack of sacrifice for the war alone, much less the murder of a little girl, so I'm not posting it here, but the point is the same. We have the time and money to watch bizarre spectacles on tv day after day, night after night, but we don't have the time and money to take criminals off the street and monitor them after they're out on probation. We're like a flock of sheep willing to lose a few stray lambs to the wolves, just so long as we're not too inconvenienced. What's up next in the colliseum? Do you hear something banging on the gates?

rd
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peripeteia



Joined: 22 Sep 2002
Posts: 1173
Location: Nova Scotia

PostPosted: Sat Feb 07, 2004 11:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

rd, I think it is like, Knock, Knock, Knock, Knocking on Devil's Door!"
Like your jokes about the Fall of Rome!


Benn I've read the Bible top and bottom and back,,,,,what I say away from is revelations! Perhaps I should read this again as it seems something unknown is going on........HOW DID WE KNOW IT WOULD COME TO THis!!!
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propria



Joined: 20 Sep 2002
Posts: 630
Location: northern illinois

PostPosted: Sun Feb 08, 2004 2:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

>>> Somehow, I feel like I'm going crazy....I can't understand anything and at every turn there is EVIL... <<<

i don't think you're the one that's crazy, kate ...

in fact, being able to see the evil in a world that really is crazy is actually a mark of your own clear minded view of reality ... since you've read the bible 'top to bottom and back', you have lots of information stored in your head about the nature of good and evil, so it's not too surprising that you have the discernment necessary to recognize evil when it shows up. btw, you might find the book of revelation a really interesting read, especially since there are a lot of places where it sounds more like the daily paper than an ancient scripture ... if you read it as poetry and let your heart respond to the imagery, you'll find you understand the book a lot better than if you read it as some kind of literal prediction of future events. fwiw, i am convinced that john and all the old testament prophets were not predictiing anything at all, they were looking at a future reality through a tear in the fabric of time and doing their best to represent what they saw ... the more the scene they described looks like today's reality, the closer we are getting to the day they were all looking at, and the similarities over the last several years are truly striking.


**********
>>> We're like a flock of sheep willing to lose a few stray lambs to the wolves, just so long as we're not too inconvenienced. What's up next in the colliseum? Do you hear something banging on the gates? <<<


that is marvelously well put, rd ...

a poetic image in the tradition of john the revelator and the ancient prophets, at the very least. you're exactly right, too ... we've already lost our capacity to care for more than an emotional media moment when a little lamb is lost, as long as it's not our own lamb. sadly, when that self-centered perspective on reality is held by the majority of people in a society, that nation is already well down the road to falling in line behind the collapsed roman empire ... that, in fact, is the essence of the difference between a secular and a spiritual society that i referred to earlier.


nanci
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benn



Joined: 19 Sep 2002
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Location: Sacramento, CA

PostPosted: Sun Feb 08, 2004 2:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

About sacrificing, or not sacrificing, the best philosophy of life that I know of comes from a well known Catholic Bishop, now deceased. Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, who had a Ph.D. in Philosophy, said that there were only two philosophies of life.

One philosophy is first the feast, and then the fast. That would coincide with the Prodigal Son in the Bible who spent all of his inheritance. We might say that we are using this philosophy of life today, where fun comes first and anything else comes second.

The second philosophy of life described by Sheen is first the fast and then the feast. This is the logical philosophy. I won't try to go into any details here. The media has mostly bad news of one kind or another. Good news has to come from other sources.

Bishop Sheen was interesting in that he was able to preach live on tv on Saturday nights, coast to coast, in the early 1950s. I don't know what year he started, and what year he stopped. He had many books on the market which were collections of his oral sermons.

benn
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rd



Joined: 13 Sep 2002
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Location: Jacksonville, FL

PostPosted: Sun Feb 08, 2004 3:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Certainly we all agree, and there are good stories, every child that makes it home is a good story, every woman that doesn't get attacked is a good story, and there are a lot of good stories, but also a lot of the good is lost as they lived it in fear. We obviously don't want to be so complacent there is no cause for being safe, but we are living those good stories in fear.

The criminals, drug addicts, sex predators, wolves roaming to strike, have stolen goodness from our live's story and replaced it with fear. We need to drop them in a cage in the desert, and replace our fear with their fear. Maybe this little girl's death caught on tape will do it. Something must move us to act. Surely we cannot wait for the wolves to strike aqain.

rd
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propria



Joined: 20 Sep 2002
Posts: 630
Location: northern illinois

PostPosted: Sun Feb 08, 2004 11:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

amen to that, too, rd ...

once again, your points are exceptionally well taken and marvelously well put ... in fact, i think you've come up with a great slogan for a drive to keep our streets safe: replace our fear with their fear. since the laws that apply to release from prison are state laws, this time we need to land with both feet on our state representatives, who design the laws relied on in releasing prisoners on probation or parole, and our governors, who have control over the parole boards making decisions on prisoner release. perhaps if we set out with a direct frontal assault on our state decision makers ... by way of a steady barrage of letters, faxes, email and phone calls ... we might actually get our states to wake up and smell the coffee. at the very least, we'll know we did our rock-bottom best to light a candle in a world that is already frightfully dark and getting darker with every passing moment.


nanci
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rd



Joined: 13 Sep 2002
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 08, 2004 11:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

thanks nanci, I will be using some of these thoughts soon.

rd
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jane



Joined: 22 Sep 2002
Posts: 3225

PostPosted: Sun Feb 08, 2004 2:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I was thinking about Smith having access to a vehicle. Apparently he couldn't afford to pay his fines, yet he somehow could afford a vehicle.

Since a vehicle is usually essential in kidnapping, should people convicted of attempted kidnapping or kidnapping be allowed access to vehicles and driver's licences at all? Not being allowed to own or drive a vehicle hampers a person's ability to be employed. Smith, although unemployed, was catorgized as a driver (also a mechanic) - certainly it's a hardship for anyone to not to be allowed to drive, especially if driving is their occupation. But driving is a privilege, not a right.
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rd



Joined: 13 Sep 2002
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Location: Jacksonville, FL

PostPosted: Sun Feb 08, 2004 2:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

true jane, but he was employed as a mechanic. If the probation office had followed up on the judge's request to determine if he was capable of paying, they should have determined he was and rejailed him.

The problem with rules is they break them. They will drive illegally if they can't drive legally. Only electronic monitoring allows us to keep tabs on those who would attack us.

rd
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peripeteia



Joined: 22 Sep 2002
Posts: 1173
Location: Nova Scotia

PostPosted: Sun Feb 08, 2004 7:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nanci you have such a way with words a lovely view of things and perceptions and acceptance of what 's happening, I need to recentre myself.....
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A vision sent me on the path of seeking justice for Chandra, nothing I've seen in print to date has diminished the vividness but only served to reaffirm the validity of this vision.
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rd



Joined: 13 Sep 2002
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 08, 2004 9:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

well, they're saying again he was unemployed. I thought running around in that mechanic's uniform that he was currently working. Also, now we get to the charge where he was passed out on drugs while on probation, could have got five years but instead got... probation. Carlie's dead because basically we don't have enough cages for these thugs. Our message to the legal system should be, catch all you want, we'll build more cages.

rd

from www.cnn.com (fair use)

Girl's family wants to know why suspect was free
CNN
February 8, 2004

SARASOTA, Florida (AP) -- For the better part of a decade, the man suspected of killing an 11-year-old girl whose abduction was caught on videotape had been under the supervision of Florida's criminal justice system. But despite his many brushes with the law, Joseph P. Smith never spent long behind bars.

Now, Carlie Brucia's grieving family is demanding to know why Smith -- a drug addict who admitted attacking one woman and was accused of trying to kidnap another -- was a free man.

The longest Smith has ever spent in prison is less than 14 months. He was acquitted of the most serious crime on his rap sheet, an attempted kidnapping, after telling jurors he meant the woman no harm.

Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist said Saturday that his office already was reviewing whether the state's probation laws need to be toughened to deal with offenders like Smith.

"You can't help but think some of the statutes are too permissive," Crist told The Associated Press. "I think it's important we review putting more teeth into our statutes."

Crist said the laws being reviewed deal with probation violators and the options judges are given to punish them.

That review took on new intensity Friday when Joe Brucia, Carlie's father, called on Gov. Jeb Bush for an investigation of why Smith had served relatively little time in prison despite more than a dozen arrests.

"The system failed Joe, and it failed that little girl," Smith's friend and former business partner, Ed Dinyes, told the St. Petersburg Times.

Dinyes, who said he called police after recognizing Smith in video images broadcast soon after the abduction, told the AP that although he's struggling with the idea that Smith could be Carlie's killer, his friend should have been locked up because of his repeated crimes.

"Joe is the one who must pay the price for this, but the state of Florida has to take a good long look at the probation department and find out what went wrong," Dinyes said.

Carlie was abducted February 1 while walking home from a friend's house, and videotape from a security camera at a car wash showed her being led away by a man police say was Smith. The girl's body was found Friday in a church parking lot.

Sarasota Circuit Judge Harry Rapkin, the latest judge to have handled Smith's case, said Friday he was not at fault for not putting Smith in jail when the unemployed mechanic failed to pay court costs and fines in December.

There's no "debtor's prison" in Florida and Smith wouldn't have been held simply for not paying a bill, the judge said.

Rapkin has been receiving threatening telephone calls for his handling of the case, even though he never even saw Smith in his courtroom.

Smith's first brush with Florida's criminal justice system was a 1993 arrest for attacking a woman on a street in Sarasota, breaking her nose with a motorcycle helmet. He plead no contest to aggravated battery and served 60 days in jail followed by two years on probation.

Since then, Smith has been on probation almost continually.

In 1997, he was put on one year's probation on a concealed weapons charge for carrying a five-inch knife hidden in the waistband of his shorts.

In 1999, he was arrested for heroin possession and was put on probation for 18 months. A month later, he was arrested for prescription fraud, but the charge was dropped.

The next year, he was arrested again for prescription fraud and sentenced to six months of house arrest followed by a year on probation.

According to court records, his probation officer said it was impossible to tell if a positive drug test result was from an illegal drug or a legitimate prescription of Oxycontin for severe, chronic back pain.

"Needs long term residential treatment ... prison if necessary," the probation officer wrote in a report that's now a part of Smith's court file.

As the newest judge on Smith's case, Rapkin said he's never seen that report or others on Smith's crimes throughout the years.

In 2001, Smith was arrested for prescription fraud, and that time he did land in prison. He served about 13 months of a 16-month sentence and was released on New Year's Day 2003.

Eight days later, deputies found Smith passed out in his car with drugs on the seat beside him.

He could have gone to prison for five years, but a scoring system that judges use to determine sentencing didn't add up to enough to put Smith in prison, records showed. Instead, he was put on probation for three more years.

State Sen. Victor Crist, chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee and a leading legislator in anti-crime initiatives for the past decade, said it is ultimately the judge's decision when not to use the full measure of punishment allowed by the law.

"The laws are there," Crist said. "We can always tweak them, we can always make tougher penalties, but the bottom line is we have tough penalties, we just don't enforce them."
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jane



Joined: 22 Sep 2002
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 08, 2004 9:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yes, they would try to break the rules, but having the rules in place would be worthwile. It would make it more difficult for them to prey on people, and would give law enforcement more tools to use in dealing with them. It wouldn't preclude having monitoring devices - why not have both monitoring and driving prohibition?
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rd



Joined: 13 Sep 2002
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 08, 2004 10:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

what, just to and from work jane?

rd
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jane



Joined: 22 Sep 2002
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 09, 2004 2:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Just to and from work would be better than nothing, I suppose. But no, I think that a person who has been convicted of attempted kidnapping or kidnapping should have driving privileges permanently taken away. They should not be allowed to have a driver's licence, a motor vehicle, to buy a vehicle licence (tag), or to drive a vehicle.

People who accumulate an attrocious driving record, are caught driving while impaired, who tend to suffer from seizures or who have inadequate vision are subject to having their licences suspended or revoked because they could pose a safety hazard. Somehow, they must find alternate methods of getting to and from work. So I don't think it should be any different for people who could be assisted in their proclivity for kidnapping by the use of a vehicle.

If a person with an attempted kidnapping or kidnapping conviction was caught violating that rule, the law could be written in such a way that immediate imprisonment would result and, if on parole, it would be immediately withdrawn.

I think this and tracking with a bracelet would be a foundation for protecting innocent children and women (or victims of any age or gender).

(I changed my posts to read attempted kidnapping or kidnapping - Smith previously had a conviction for attempted kidnapping rather than actual kidnapping.)
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peripeteia



Joined: 22 Sep 2002
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 09, 2004 8:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Jane in several European countries they have one piece of identification which is also your driver's lic. In Norway, when you are caught drunken driving, I guess they just frank whatever right across the card,,,I think they MIGHT get a second chance, but I'm not sure. I know that impared driving is a serious offense, and once the plug is pulled on your driver's lic. it is usually for good......

Well this could be easily done, certainly for certain offenses pulling the license would be appropriate...it is much better than my ideas for sure!
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