Jason Dickey...
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Warren
Member
It would be worth taking your class just to learn how to do this.
The very first shooting by a concealed permit holder in TX resulted in the death of an unarmed man.
As you might expect, it went to trial and the trial was a pretty big deal. The permit holder was acquitted.
Pretty plain that under the proper circumstances an attacker doesn't have to be armed at ALL to pose enough of a threat to justify the use of deadly force. Having a striking implement (like a bottle) just increases the danger to the defender.
A study on handgun self-defense showed that in the vast majority of cases (over 80%), the attack is stopped without the gun even being fired. This is because normal human beings have a TREMENDOUS aversion to serious injury. A person who does not fear a defender with a firearm is VERY dangerous. He is either impaired to the point that his strongest instinct (self-preservation) is no longer functioning or he is so furious and/or determined that he can not be swayed from his attack even if continuing means death.
Not a person you'd want to turn your back on. Not someone who you would want to let get hold of you. Not someone to be trifled with.
Whether the defender was a doorman, a security guard, a cop, or a bum is totally irrelevant. All that really matters is whether or not he had any other REASONABLE ways to avoid injury.
Turning your back on an attacker 10-15 feet away (actually multiple attackers--it says they both reached this distance) is a recipe for disaster. I don't believe you'll find any reputable firearms trainer who would say it's reasonable.
The drunk sealed his own fate by attacking the defender and by failing to immediately break off the attack when a gun was drawn.
As you might expect, it went to trial and the trial was a pretty big deal. The permit holder was acquitted.
Pretty plain that under the proper circumstances an attacker doesn't have to be armed at ALL to pose enough of a threat to justify the use of deadly force. Having a striking implement (like a bottle) just increases the danger to the defender.
A study on handgun self-defense showed that in the vast majority of cases (over 80%), the attack is stopped without the gun even being fired. This is because normal human beings have a TREMENDOUS aversion to serious injury. A person who does not fear a defender with a firearm is VERY dangerous. He is either impaired to the point that his strongest instinct (self-preservation) is no longer functioning or he is so furious and/or determined that he can not be swayed from his attack even if continuing means death.
Not a person you'd want to turn your back on. Not someone who you would want to let get hold of you. Not someone to be trifled with.
Whether the defender was a doorman, a security guard, a cop, or a bum is totally irrelevant. All that really matters is whether or not he had any other REASONABLE ways to avoid injury.
Turning your back on an attacker 10-15 feet away (actually multiple attackers--it says they both reached this distance) is a recipe for disaster. I don't believe you'll find any reputable firearms trainer who would say it's reasonable.
The drunk sealed his own fate by attacking the defender and by failing to immediately break off the attack when a gun was drawn.
With PEPPER spray?
Nightcrawler
Member
The moment you turn your back on your attackers, you lose the initiative. That means they then have the advantage.
If you're planning on running away, you'd best hope they're not faster than you, or that you don't trip and fall, etc. If your back's to them, and they get within arms reach of you, you're boned. Okay? You're boned.
Say you've still got your gun holstered. Now you're on the ground struggling with two people. Can you still draw it? Can you use it before you get knifed, clubbed, or have your skull kicked in? Since they've now got hands on you, can you even retain control of the weapon? Four hands vs. your one hand trying to hang onto the gun doesn't make for good odds for you.
Of course it's better to avoid confrontation. It's always better to avoid confrontation. But it's not always possible. If it were, no one, including police, would need guns, neh?
If you're planning on running away, you'd best hope they're not faster than you, or that you don't trip and fall, etc. If your back's to them, and they get within arms reach of you, you're boned. Okay? You're boned.
Say you've still got your gun holstered. Now you're on the ground struggling with two people. Can you still draw it? Can you use it before you get knifed, clubbed, or have your skull kicked in? Since they've now got hands on you, can you even retain control of the weapon? Four hands vs. your one hand trying to hang onto the gun doesn't make for good odds for you.
Of course it's better to avoid confrontation. It's always better to avoid confrontation. But it's not always possible. If it were, no one, including police, would need guns, neh?
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thexrayboy
Member
Unfortunately the old saw about getting what you pay for is true, especially when comparing Public Defenders who are usually just learning the trade to
the old warhorses who know the tricks. The problem is the competent old vets in legal defense charge rates measured in the hundreds per hour. Most people cannot afford competent legal defense when charged with a felony, especially a murder/manslaughter type case. I have a six figure income and would almost certainly be bankrupted if forced to pay for my own defense against a murder charge. A disabled vet trying to make ends meet has no chance at affording meaningful representation.
Balance that inequity against the fact the the DA and LEO have essentially a limitless budget compared to the average citizen and justice has no chance. The facts of the matter on this case would make it appear as if the person charged had a reasonable fear. The problem is he most likely had no chance at articulating that in court through competent counsel. What we have in America is a legal system, justice is an accidental byproduct of this money making system and certainly not the primary goal.
Now if the defendant had managed to become LEO and been involved in an identical shooting and been charged you can bet he would have had benefit of the finest council that the unions money could buy. Defend yourself as an ordinary citizen and your on your own to choose between bankruptcy or sacrificing your future as a learning experience for some wet behind the ears
legal beagle.
ArfinGreebly
Moderator Emeritus
"Need Guns"
There's a piece of arrogance I don't get to see very often.
Of course they need guns. For the same reason that everyone does. The gun is the equalizer.
Now, if you have a equalization screening panel out front with six big dudes, a metal scanner, three large dogs, and everything they need to take someone who's too large, too well armed, too athletic, blah blah blah, and too many guys together, and they can take the needed steps, like tie a guy's arm behind his back, add penalty weights, hobble as needed, and basically add handicaps as required to GUARANTEE that no one the "doorman" encounters is a viable threat, then sure: under those circumstances, the "doorman" doesn't need a gun.
When you leave him on his own, without the equalization team there, then you've established a relatively stationary target of essentially known capability. Assessing what's needed to nullify him is cake.
But he doesn't neeeeeeeeed a gun.
That's just asinine.
And a vodka bottle isn't a threat?? Say what? Rubbish!
God. I've watched enough barroom brawls to tell you that a good solid hard liquor bottle makes a mighty fine weapon. One of those will open your scalp right up and lay you out on the floor. One of the guys in our squadron got a medical discharge after being clobbered with a liquor bottle. He was never right after that.
I've never been hit with a bottle. The thing that put my lights out was a plain old fist. Woke up in a puddle of my own blood, while three guys restrained the guy who hit me. Never saw it coming. I thought he was all hot air.
If some guy is coming at you, armed with a very viable weapon, and advises you that he's gonna light you up, I'm sure you'll have all the time you need to make a detailed list of all the tactical options. Not.
Confronted with a threat, a man reverts to his training, not the scenario book used by the Monday morning quarterbacks to ridicule his choices.
In the last three years, as I've put myself through a lot of material and explanations and interviews with experts on my way to gaining some proficiency with a gun, I've heard one thing time and time again: once they're within seven yards, you've waited too long.
The active and in-real-life defense of one's own life is not an academic exercise. Your grade is very "pass/fail" -- there is no curve.
This guy confronted a real threat and passed the "defense of one's own life" test. Unfortunately, once it gets to court, it becomes an academic exercise where a prosecutor can take weeks to do post-mortem analyses of the actions you executed in a two-second period.
That's lunacy.
Some idiot who wasn't there, has never lived through that kind of event, isn't trained in self defense gets to hop gleefully up and down hollering, "MISTAKE! MISTAKE! He made a mistake under pressure and IT WAS INTENTIONAL!"
Yes, of course.
God save us from academics who hold our lives in their hands.
Wow.
There's a piece of arrogance I don't get to see very often.
Of course they need guns. For the same reason that everyone does. The gun is the equalizer.
Now, if you have a equalization screening panel out front with six big dudes, a metal scanner, three large dogs, and everything they need to take someone who's too large, too well armed, too athletic, blah blah blah, and too many guys together, and they can take the needed steps, like tie a guy's arm behind his back, add penalty weights, hobble as needed, and basically add handicaps as required to GUARANTEE that no one the "doorman" encounters is a viable threat, then sure: under those circumstances, the "doorman" doesn't need a gun.
Oh, and his title is Security Guard, not doorman, but we can denigrate him as needed to make it "more obvious" that (as a commoner) he doesn't neeeeeeed a gun.
When you leave him on his own, without the equalization team there, then you've established a relatively stationary target of essentially known capability. Assessing what's needed to nullify him is cake.
But he doesn't neeeeeeeeed a gun.
That's just asinine.
And a vodka bottle isn't a threat?? Say what? Rubbish!
God. I've watched enough barroom brawls to tell you that a good solid hard liquor bottle makes a mighty fine weapon. One of those will open your scalp right up and lay you out on the floor. One of the guys in our squadron got a medical discharge after being clobbered with a liquor bottle. He was never right after that.
I've never been hit with a bottle. The thing that put my lights out was a plain old fist. Woke up in a puddle of my own blood, while three guys restrained the guy who hit me. Never saw it coming. I thought he was all hot air.
If some guy is coming at you, armed with a very viable weapon, and advises you that he's gonna light you up, I'm sure you'll have all the time you need to make a detailed list of all the tactical options. Not.
Confronted with a threat, a man reverts to his training, not the scenario book used by the Monday morning quarterbacks to ridicule his choices.
In the last three years, as I've put myself through a lot of material and explanations and interviews with experts on my way to gaining some proficiency with a gun, I've heard one thing time and time again: once they're within seven yards, you've waited too long.
The active and in-real-life defense of one's own life is not an academic exercise. Your grade is very "pass/fail" -- there is no curve.
This guy confronted a real threat and passed the "defense of one's own life" test. Unfortunately, once it gets to court, it becomes an academic exercise where a prosecutor can take weeks to do post-mortem analyses of the actions you executed in a two-second period.
That's lunacy.
Some idiot who wasn't there, has never lived through that kind of event, isn't trained in self defense gets to hop gleefully up and down hollering, "MISTAKE! MISTAKE! He made a mistake under pressure and IT WAS INTENTIONAL!"
Yes, of course.
God save us from academics who hold our lives in their hands.
@ theblackbra
I'm not going to comment on whether Dickey could have avoided being in the position where he felt the need to use deadly force, because I am not in possession of all the facts in this case. In fact I don't have enough information to come to a conclusion in my own mind either way about whether the incident in its entirety was devoid of any nefariousness or negligence on Dickey's part.
However...(and here I urge you to pay attention), I must advise you of several facts that relate to the use of deadly force and the implements that may be involved.
Observe this photograph:
I took that photograph in 2002 in the resuscitation bay of a level one trauma facility in South Africa. Would you agree with me that the wound is significant? Would you agree that it is a potentially fatal mechanism of injury, reduced in its effectiveness only by the distribution of the insult? In other words sir/madam, if this wound had been in the neck or the groin then the gentleman in the photograph may in fact have shuffled off his mortal coil.
It is my duty to inform you that this injury was caused by a broken beer bottle. A bottle can be broken by various means, usually more foul than fair, when it is subsequently employed as an edged weapon. A vodka bottle can easily be turned into an edged weapon by breaking it over the head of the victim which in itself could be a fatal injury, or could be an incapacitating injury which allows the application of bare-handed lethal force.
Do you follow?
Now in this incident with Dickey, the variables on one hand were a drunk with a vodka bottle, and on the other hand a sober individual with a firearm. You may debate at will the righteousness or lack thereof, relating to how those variables were arrived at, but attempting to incriminate Dickey because the other man had a bottle and not a firearm, is not fair.
I'm not going to comment on whether Dickey could have avoided being in the position where he felt the need to use deadly force, because I am not in possession of all the facts in this case. In fact I don't have enough information to come to a conclusion in my own mind either way about whether the incident in its entirety was devoid of any nefariousness or negligence on Dickey's part.
However...(and here I urge you to pay attention), I must advise you of several facts that relate to the use of deadly force and the implements that may be involved.
Observe this photograph:
I took that photograph in 2002 in the resuscitation bay of a level one trauma facility in South Africa. Would you agree with me that the wound is significant? Would you agree that it is a potentially fatal mechanism of injury, reduced in its effectiveness only by the distribution of the insult? In other words sir/madam, if this wound had been in the neck or the groin then the gentleman in the photograph may in fact have shuffled off his mortal coil.
It is my duty to inform you that this injury was caused by a broken beer bottle. A bottle can be broken by various means, usually more foul than fair, when it is subsequently employed as an edged weapon. A vodka bottle can easily be turned into an edged weapon by breaking it over the head of the victim which in itself could be a fatal injury, or could be an incapacitating injury which allows the application of bare-handed lethal force.
Do you follow?
Now in this incident with Dickey, the variables on one hand were a drunk with a vodka bottle, and on the other hand a sober individual with a firearm. You may debate at will the righteousness or lack thereof, relating to how those variables were arrived at, but attempting to incriminate Dickey because the other man had a bottle and not a firearm, is not fair.
sm
member
Odd Job
Excellent post!
Thank you for the picture.
I used to work in the Main OR at one time. One of the Nastiest wounds I ever saw was that from a busted beer bottle.
1. We did the organ harvest on the person cut.
2. We also did the hand repair on the person using the bottle.
This person will never have 100% function from using the bottle as used.
One should not use a bottle as seen on TV or Movies...
Life does not always do as TV, Movies, or Internet "says".
Excellent post!
Thank you for the picture.
I used to work in the Main OR at one time. One of the Nastiest wounds I ever saw was that from a busted beer bottle.
1. We did the organ harvest on the person cut.
2. We also did the hand repair on the person using the bottle.
This person will never have 100% function from using the bottle as used.
One should not use a bottle as seen on TV or Movies...
Life does not always do as TV, Movies, or Internet "says".
For What it is Worth (Pt. 1)
Due to its enormous length, I am going to have to submit this response in three parts. This is part one:
First, about me and Mr. Dickey:
I was a resident of Cornell Arms at the time of the shooting, and several years previous. Further, I knew Jason Dickey, and we spoke often. At one time, we were friendly acquaintances, but Jason's oppressive actions and general paranoid behavior alienated him from me, and eventually made us enemies when his actions and behavior imposed upon me, my friends, and my family. I want to come out and admit it from the beginning: I have no love for Jason Dickey. Still, that does not necessarily mean I think he should be sitting in prison for defending himself, if, indeed, defending himself was what he did.
Enough personal chatter. To cut to the chase:
I have a document that is worth your consideration. Even if it should not prove instrumental to Dickey's case, it does give some background on Cornell Arms and what was going on there with Dickey before the tragic incident.
And don't get me wrong--I do not think that the points I make in this document should have had bearing on Dickey's case, at least, not any more than any other character witness should. After all, even if Dickey was an oppressive jerk, we should remember that even oppressive jerks have a right to defend their lives from drunken, [apparently] armed assailants who are charging. Dickey's case should have been considered in terms of whether he had cause to do what he did in self defense in that singular incident. Anyone who will raise this protest against my consideration of Dickey's character should note that I already agree with you. Judging Dickey's case is purely a matter of self-defense. Based on the discussion I've seen here, the proverbial jury (not the literal one) is still out on that question. We cannot send a man to live out his life in prison if there is any reasonable doubt as to his guilt. No, I am not a conservative. (I'm quite liberal.) No, I am not with the NRA (To be honest, I don't care for the NRA at all.) But I do agree that in this country, the defendant is innocent until proven guilty. This should be the practice with Dickey, as with any other American. Otherwise, we violate a principle that conservatives and liberals continue to agree upon.
With that in mind, I want you to stop and consider Jason Dickey from another perspective--the way he was viewed before any of this took place. I penned this letter to Cornell Arms almost one full year before the shooting occurred. My complaint stemmed from unfair treatment of residents and the guests of residents, and a failure to comply with Cornell Arms security (or "courtesy") policy.
I am putting this out there to add another twist to this discussion, and to add to the knowledge pool concerning this issue. I feel that providing this is my obligation to this debate, and to justice. Both sides of this debate will find points that support their case. And hey, by all means, go right ahead and use it in your discussion, regardless of your side. I'm all about providing resources to civil debate.
But I guess I'm trying to make a few points by posting this. Just so you know, here are the points I'm trying to make:
1. As you will see after having read my letter, Cornell Arms has some serious responsibility for what happened, yet very few people are discussing this. I think that, even if Jason is responsible for what happened, all of the blame should not be placed on his shoulders. Cornell Arms should share in that responsibility, since they did not provide Jason with the tools to do his job. (See next point.)
2. Jason was not properly equipped with the correct kind of technology to do his job, and, again, this comes down to Cornell Arms' responsibilities. My chief argument regarding equipment is that Jason did not have an adequate phone for security personnel to carry.
3. Cornell Arms did not have very effective doors and other construction materials for the security of apartment residents, guests, and employees. It had quite a bit of breakable glass on the first floor.
4. Jason exhibited a regular pattern of implicit rudeness and oppression of residents and guests. Again, while this is not a deciding factor for self-defense, it does figure into his professional and personal character. And if character does indeed play a role in the case, then the only way we can know about character is through looking at patterns, one of which is patterns involving past behavior in the context of his job.
5. Most important: Jason had a pattern of not complying with Cornell Arms policies--policies that I showed him and his employers in the official Cornell Arms security policy. (By the way, I have a photocopy of that policy filed, for anyone who wants me to answer any questions about its contents.)
6. This comes down to this question: does one's professional (security-related) history have any bearing on a self-defense case? If so, this letter is damning, since it was written well before the incident took place. I expect it came up in the trial, but I have no way to be sure, at least, not at this time. If you think it has no bearing on the case--well, then, I hope you enjoyed reading it, and I hope I contributed in some small way to this fine debate. Many of you talk about that second amendment--and don't get me wrong: it's a good one--but I would like to point out how great that first one is, and how it enables and empowers us to have this excellent discussion. I think both sides of the issue are thoughtful, and should remain careful not to fall into simply taking rhetorical potshots at one another. Also, I think both sides should ever be willing to acknowledge good points made by the other side, instead of refusing to budge in the face of good points. We should use this debate to come to some answers and to gain enlightenment, and not solely to cover our ears and shout at one another.
Anyway, here it is:
Suggestions for Effective Security at Cornell Arms
I, a resident of Cornell Arms Apartments, am concerned about the effectiveness of our security in this fine establishment, and I question not only its effectiveness but the logical validity of the underlying arguments raised in defense of its ineffective practices. It is my understanding that certain security—no, I apologize—courtesy officers are proud of their military and police training. Being myself close friends with a Navy Seal, an Army Ranger, a military police officer, and a man who trains CIA operatives, and having trained with these men myself—Yes, I have some experience in these fields myself, although I do not use it to bully others—I have some knowledge of how to provide tight and effective security. I specialize in hand-to-hand combat and self-defense, having extensively studied several martial arts and also having trained with and under some of the most lethal men our country’s armed forces has to offer. I have also studied women’s self defense and tactical positioning of oneself and one’s posture when in public or in any potentially threatening situation. But first, let me talk about something simple; let’s talk about what I learned in the Boy Scouts.
The Boy Scouts have a nifty little motto—a great motto to practice in one’s adult life: Be prepared. And a certain member of our security, in an attempt to follow policy, or perhaps as a way to use policy to gain an opportunity to impose his will upon others, has become inefficient and ineffective in his duties. This man’s rigid following of some ideal he calls policy has rendered him utterly impotent in his first and foremost duty: to protect the inhabitants of Cornell Arms. He justifies his refusal to make courtesy calls to residents for unexpected guests, saying that he must keep the phone locked away because people will steal it. While this may be true, there is a much better solution, and this is my first suggestion, a suggestion that is good for several reasons: Buy a remote telephone—long range is best—for our security to use. That way they can keep the main recharge unit of the phone system locked away from hands that would steal, and they can keep the remote receiver where it should be anyways: On their persons. Unless some master pickpocket sneaks up behind the officer and swipes the phone off of his person, the phone will not be stolen, and, more importantly, while the guard does his patrol, he will always have his phone on hand so he can immediately call the police. Also, I am aware that some of our officers have cellular phones; it is clearly bad policy and bad business to expect these men to use their own phones—phones that cost them money—for the business for which they work. They work for Cornell Arms, and Cornell Arms should equip them with the tools necessary to effectively perform their job—and the most important piece of equipment is a telephone that is always at hand and virtually unable to be stolen. If, as Rose Marie told me, Cornell Arms is so concerned about security that they spend so much money on it, so many thousands of dollars—then, buying a remote phone, even a special long range one—is minute in comparison. If security is so important, why has Cornell Arms hired these men and then rendered them, through lack of the proper equipment, powerless? As a resident, I request that these men be empowered to do their job, that if I have a security issue in my home that they be able to call the police without any hesitation. Five minutes’ delay can mean a person’s life lost.
Let’s apply what we have discussed above. Our courtesy officer is on patrol. He sees, approximately fifty feet away, a 225-pound man robbing a 120-pound woman at gunpoint, for her purse, or perhaps for something even more dear to her. The man is fifty feet away with a firearm, so the guard cannot hope to approach successfully unless he is able to sneak around from another side, in which case he still risks his own life. The guard does not have a phone on his person and he must not only walk back to the building, unlock the door and go inside—he must then go and unlock the old corded telephone that he has locked up for fear that some resident might steal it and cost the apartment a few dollars for another one—and all the while, this girl has been held at gunpoint, dragged into a car, and taken to some dark backwoods shack where she will be brutally raped and murdered and become, like so many lost young women—yes, many of them lost here in downtown Columbia, a buried bag of bones in the woods. And all because of what?—Because of this guard and his apartment building’s policy, both of which have an obsessive compulsive fixation on an old corded telephone. But, hey, that’s what security is about, right, protecting our telephones while our residents go unprotected; yes, here we take great pride in knowing that our lobby telephone is safe and sound in a place where it becomes very inconvenient to gain access to it—even by the guard! Please provide these men with cordless phones, if you really have our security in mind, keeping in mind the Boy Scout Motto: Be prepared.
In the past, I recall having seen this guard carrying some kind of cordless phone on his person, but I do not see evidence that he has one now. I say that I do not see evidence, but it would be more accurate to say that I do not hear evidence: I have never heard a courtesy call made to my apartment for any of my guests; he bases this failure to perform according to policy on the excuse that he has to keep the corded telephone locked away in case of theft. If it is the case that he has a remote phone on his person or has access to one, there is all the more reason that he should follow policy and make courtesy calls for the unexpected guests of residents, and this leads me to my second point.
My second point for improved security is this: Our guards should protect our guests or potential guests as well as us. This is not to say that everyone should be allowed access past the first floor, but this is to say that guests—some of them lacking cellular phones—should not have to wander around outside in the dark (and in the case of my friend, in the dark and the cold autumn rain) in order to find a pay phone. This guard sat at the desk, refusing to rise out of his seat in order to make a courtesy call for not one, not two, but three of my friends, all on separate occasions. He told the individual, as he has done to so many others, to go somewhere else and call. Let’s stop and consider the guard’s case, and then I will cut the argument that he has made so many times out from under him—but, let’s be fair. My friend, who can give my name, my age, my birthday, and perhaps even my social security number, and—of course—my apartment number, may actually be a stalker, here to stalk out some young woman who he broke up with a few months back. It’s true. It’s possible—But—It is my understanding that, according to American law, citizens and potential violators are innocent until proven guilty. My friend was not treated according to this way of thinking. He was guilty until proven innocent, and, even worse, our guard would not allow him a chance to prove his innocence in a dignified manner. He sent him away when he could have easily made a courtesy call from the lobby up to my apartment. He wouldn’t have even had to look up my number; my friend has it memorized.
But he didn’t. He didn’t do this. Why? To protect us against those who are obviously our friends by not even letting them prove their case? No. He did it to impose his will, to be the bully that perhaps bullied him before he went through physical puberty—I say physical puberty, because his bullying actions and posture that he takes indicate that his mind has not yet gone through the stages of puberty. And he can excuse his emotionally hostile, offensive actions to residents and to his employers by leaning on the solid rock of policy—the same old, moldy rock, in fact, that the Nazi troops leaned upon as they persecuted and murdered the Jews, the same old rock that oppressive people such as our guard here have leaned on throughout history in order to excuse and to justify their bullying. For a moment, forget this issue of personal motivations and insecurity (pardon the pun!), and let’s cut back to the real issue here: Security. What if my friend was robbed at gunpoint while he searched the block in the dark and in the rain for a telephone? What if he was wounded? Is this security? Is this courtesy? Either way we view this man, as a security guard or as a courtesy officer, he is ineffective and does not fulfill the namesake of his employment. So shall we call him an insecurity guard?—Or perhaps a discourtesy officer: for he is, as I have shown—as his actions have shown—these things. Since I am playing with words here, let’s now look at Webster’s Dictionary’s definition for two words: Courtesy and Officer.
[Continued in Pt. 2]
Due to its enormous length, I am going to have to submit this response in three parts. This is part one:
First, about me and Mr. Dickey:
I was a resident of Cornell Arms at the time of the shooting, and several years previous. Further, I knew Jason Dickey, and we spoke often. At one time, we were friendly acquaintances, but Jason's oppressive actions and general paranoid behavior alienated him from me, and eventually made us enemies when his actions and behavior imposed upon me, my friends, and my family. I want to come out and admit it from the beginning: I have no love for Jason Dickey. Still, that does not necessarily mean I think he should be sitting in prison for defending himself, if, indeed, defending himself was what he did.
Enough personal chatter. To cut to the chase:
I have a document that is worth your consideration. Even if it should not prove instrumental to Dickey's case, it does give some background on Cornell Arms and what was going on there with Dickey before the tragic incident.
And don't get me wrong--I do not think that the points I make in this document should have had bearing on Dickey's case, at least, not any more than any other character witness should. After all, even if Dickey was an oppressive jerk, we should remember that even oppressive jerks have a right to defend their lives from drunken, [apparently] armed assailants who are charging. Dickey's case should have been considered in terms of whether he had cause to do what he did in self defense in that singular incident. Anyone who will raise this protest against my consideration of Dickey's character should note that I already agree with you. Judging Dickey's case is purely a matter of self-defense. Based on the discussion I've seen here, the proverbial jury (not the literal one) is still out on that question. We cannot send a man to live out his life in prison if there is any reasonable doubt as to his guilt. No, I am not a conservative. (I'm quite liberal.) No, I am not with the NRA (To be honest, I don't care for the NRA at all.) But I do agree that in this country, the defendant is innocent until proven guilty. This should be the practice with Dickey, as with any other American. Otherwise, we violate a principle that conservatives and liberals continue to agree upon.
With that in mind, I want you to stop and consider Jason Dickey from another perspective--the way he was viewed before any of this took place. I penned this letter to Cornell Arms almost one full year before the shooting occurred. My complaint stemmed from unfair treatment of residents and the guests of residents, and a failure to comply with Cornell Arms security (or "courtesy") policy.
I am putting this out there to add another twist to this discussion, and to add to the knowledge pool concerning this issue. I feel that providing this is my obligation to this debate, and to justice. Both sides of this debate will find points that support their case. And hey, by all means, go right ahead and use it in your discussion, regardless of your side. I'm all about providing resources to civil debate.
But I guess I'm trying to make a few points by posting this. Just so you know, here are the points I'm trying to make:
1. As you will see after having read my letter, Cornell Arms has some serious responsibility for what happened, yet very few people are discussing this. I think that, even if Jason is responsible for what happened, all of the blame should not be placed on his shoulders. Cornell Arms should share in that responsibility, since they did not provide Jason with the tools to do his job. (See next point.)
2. Jason was not properly equipped with the correct kind of technology to do his job, and, again, this comes down to Cornell Arms' responsibilities. My chief argument regarding equipment is that Jason did not have an adequate phone for security personnel to carry.
3. Cornell Arms did not have very effective doors and other construction materials for the security of apartment residents, guests, and employees. It had quite a bit of breakable glass on the first floor.
4. Jason exhibited a regular pattern of implicit rudeness and oppression of residents and guests. Again, while this is not a deciding factor for self-defense, it does figure into his professional and personal character. And if character does indeed play a role in the case, then the only way we can know about character is through looking at patterns, one of which is patterns involving past behavior in the context of his job.
5. Most important: Jason had a pattern of not complying with Cornell Arms policies--policies that I showed him and his employers in the official Cornell Arms security policy. (By the way, I have a photocopy of that policy filed, for anyone who wants me to answer any questions about its contents.)
6. This comes down to this question: does one's professional (security-related) history have any bearing on a self-defense case? If so, this letter is damning, since it was written well before the incident took place. I expect it came up in the trial, but I have no way to be sure, at least, not at this time. If you think it has no bearing on the case--well, then, I hope you enjoyed reading it, and I hope I contributed in some small way to this fine debate. Many of you talk about that second amendment--and don't get me wrong: it's a good one--but I would like to point out how great that first one is, and how it enables and empowers us to have this excellent discussion. I think both sides of the issue are thoughtful, and should remain careful not to fall into simply taking rhetorical potshots at one another. Also, I think both sides should ever be willing to acknowledge good points made by the other side, instead of refusing to budge in the face of good points. We should use this debate to come to some answers and to gain enlightenment, and not solely to cover our ears and shout at one another.
Anyway, here it is:
Suggestions for Effective Security at Cornell Arms
I, a resident of Cornell Arms Apartments, am concerned about the effectiveness of our security in this fine establishment, and I question not only its effectiveness but the logical validity of the underlying arguments raised in defense of its ineffective practices. It is my understanding that certain security—no, I apologize—courtesy officers are proud of their military and police training. Being myself close friends with a Navy Seal, an Army Ranger, a military police officer, and a man who trains CIA operatives, and having trained with these men myself—Yes, I have some experience in these fields myself, although I do not use it to bully others—I have some knowledge of how to provide tight and effective security. I specialize in hand-to-hand combat and self-defense, having extensively studied several martial arts and also having trained with and under some of the most lethal men our country’s armed forces has to offer. I have also studied women’s self defense and tactical positioning of oneself and one’s posture when in public or in any potentially threatening situation. But first, let me talk about something simple; let’s talk about what I learned in the Boy Scouts.
The Boy Scouts have a nifty little motto—a great motto to practice in one’s adult life: Be prepared. And a certain member of our security, in an attempt to follow policy, or perhaps as a way to use policy to gain an opportunity to impose his will upon others, has become inefficient and ineffective in his duties. This man’s rigid following of some ideal he calls policy has rendered him utterly impotent in his first and foremost duty: to protect the inhabitants of Cornell Arms. He justifies his refusal to make courtesy calls to residents for unexpected guests, saying that he must keep the phone locked away because people will steal it. While this may be true, there is a much better solution, and this is my first suggestion, a suggestion that is good for several reasons: Buy a remote telephone—long range is best—for our security to use. That way they can keep the main recharge unit of the phone system locked away from hands that would steal, and they can keep the remote receiver where it should be anyways: On their persons. Unless some master pickpocket sneaks up behind the officer and swipes the phone off of his person, the phone will not be stolen, and, more importantly, while the guard does his patrol, he will always have his phone on hand so he can immediately call the police. Also, I am aware that some of our officers have cellular phones; it is clearly bad policy and bad business to expect these men to use their own phones—phones that cost them money—for the business for which they work. They work for Cornell Arms, and Cornell Arms should equip them with the tools necessary to effectively perform their job—and the most important piece of equipment is a telephone that is always at hand and virtually unable to be stolen. If, as Rose Marie told me, Cornell Arms is so concerned about security that they spend so much money on it, so many thousands of dollars—then, buying a remote phone, even a special long range one—is minute in comparison. If security is so important, why has Cornell Arms hired these men and then rendered them, through lack of the proper equipment, powerless? As a resident, I request that these men be empowered to do their job, that if I have a security issue in my home that they be able to call the police without any hesitation. Five minutes’ delay can mean a person’s life lost.
Let’s apply what we have discussed above. Our courtesy officer is on patrol. He sees, approximately fifty feet away, a 225-pound man robbing a 120-pound woman at gunpoint, for her purse, or perhaps for something even more dear to her. The man is fifty feet away with a firearm, so the guard cannot hope to approach successfully unless he is able to sneak around from another side, in which case he still risks his own life. The guard does not have a phone on his person and he must not only walk back to the building, unlock the door and go inside—he must then go and unlock the old corded telephone that he has locked up for fear that some resident might steal it and cost the apartment a few dollars for another one—and all the while, this girl has been held at gunpoint, dragged into a car, and taken to some dark backwoods shack where she will be brutally raped and murdered and become, like so many lost young women—yes, many of them lost here in downtown Columbia, a buried bag of bones in the woods. And all because of what?—Because of this guard and his apartment building’s policy, both of which have an obsessive compulsive fixation on an old corded telephone. But, hey, that’s what security is about, right, protecting our telephones while our residents go unprotected; yes, here we take great pride in knowing that our lobby telephone is safe and sound in a place where it becomes very inconvenient to gain access to it—even by the guard! Please provide these men with cordless phones, if you really have our security in mind, keeping in mind the Boy Scout Motto: Be prepared.
In the past, I recall having seen this guard carrying some kind of cordless phone on his person, but I do not see evidence that he has one now. I say that I do not see evidence, but it would be more accurate to say that I do not hear evidence: I have never heard a courtesy call made to my apartment for any of my guests; he bases this failure to perform according to policy on the excuse that he has to keep the corded telephone locked away in case of theft. If it is the case that he has a remote phone on his person or has access to one, there is all the more reason that he should follow policy and make courtesy calls for the unexpected guests of residents, and this leads me to my second point.
My second point for improved security is this: Our guards should protect our guests or potential guests as well as us. This is not to say that everyone should be allowed access past the first floor, but this is to say that guests—some of them lacking cellular phones—should not have to wander around outside in the dark (and in the case of my friend, in the dark and the cold autumn rain) in order to find a pay phone. This guard sat at the desk, refusing to rise out of his seat in order to make a courtesy call for not one, not two, but three of my friends, all on separate occasions. He told the individual, as he has done to so many others, to go somewhere else and call. Let’s stop and consider the guard’s case, and then I will cut the argument that he has made so many times out from under him—but, let’s be fair. My friend, who can give my name, my age, my birthday, and perhaps even my social security number, and—of course—my apartment number, may actually be a stalker, here to stalk out some young woman who he broke up with a few months back. It’s true. It’s possible—But—It is my understanding that, according to American law, citizens and potential violators are innocent until proven guilty. My friend was not treated according to this way of thinking. He was guilty until proven innocent, and, even worse, our guard would not allow him a chance to prove his innocence in a dignified manner. He sent him away when he could have easily made a courtesy call from the lobby up to my apartment. He wouldn’t have even had to look up my number; my friend has it memorized.
But he didn’t. He didn’t do this. Why? To protect us against those who are obviously our friends by not even letting them prove their case? No. He did it to impose his will, to be the bully that perhaps bullied him before he went through physical puberty—I say physical puberty, because his bullying actions and posture that he takes indicate that his mind has not yet gone through the stages of puberty. And he can excuse his emotionally hostile, offensive actions to residents and to his employers by leaning on the solid rock of policy—the same old, moldy rock, in fact, that the Nazi troops leaned upon as they persecuted and murdered the Jews, the same old rock that oppressive people such as our guard here have leaned on throughout history in order to excuse and to justify their bullying. For a moment, forget this issue of personal motivations and insecurity (pardon the pun!), and let’s cut back to the real issue here: Security. What if my friend was robbed at gunpoint while he searched the block in the dark and in the rain for a telephone? What if he was wounded? Is this security? Is this courtesy? Either way we view this man, as a security guard or as a courtesy officer, he is ineffective and does not fulfill the namesake of his employment. So shall we call him an insecurity guard?—Or perhaps a discourtesy officer: for he is, as I have shown—as his actions have shown—these things. Since I am playing with words here, let’s now look at Webster’s Dictionary’s definition for two words: Courtesy and Officer.
[Continued in Pt. 2]
For What it is Worth (Pt. 2)
[Continued from Pt. 1]
I do this because our landlady decided to define terms to me and what they mean; correcting me, she said something like, “No, no—We do not have security guards here; they do not carry guns; they are Courtesy Officers, because they do not carry weapons or attack.” With no offense to our landlady and her—for lack of a better word—circumventive title for our guard, let’s look into what Webster’s has to say about these words and what they mean. Webster’s Dictionary defines courtesy as: Urbanity; complaisance; act of kindness or civility. Let’s consider this definition, since it has words that we may not commonly use such as urbanity and complaisance. Because I do not want to tire you with an endless list of definitions, I will paraphrase these as one of them, namely complaisance has gained lately a negative connotation. Webster’s says that complaisance means in a soft or kind manner, which of course, is our correct definition for courtesy. Urbanity, although it contains the word urban, does not mean city-dwelling; in fact, Webster’s defines it as politeness. So, in the definition of our first word, courtesy, we have a word that means soft politeness, having kindness and civility. Now, we turn to our second word: Officer. Webster’s defines officer as “A person invested with an office [office being a special duty]” Now, if we put two and two together, as they say, or in this case—one and one—we have this definition for a Courtesy Officer: A person invested with the special duty of being kind and civil. Now that we have defined a Courtesy Officer as this, not, as our Landlady has defined it—she defines it as a person not carrying or using a deadly firearm—there is a better word for that, and I offer this better term as my research into the complex meanings of words has led me to it: An Unarmed Officer. That is what she defined. Of course, she may have thought to call him an Urbanity Officer and skipped a few words back and wrote down the definition of Unarmed Officer in its place (After all, they do both begin with the letter U.), but I offer a much more plausible explanation: This is the circumventive empty rhetoric that people use in order to avoid the truth of a given situation. A word only has meaning when its meaning is practiced or attributed to it through action or being. This man is not a courtesy officer. It is not courteous to leave friends of residents out in the cold—out in the dark—without making a simple courtesy call for them. It is not courteous to treat someone, without any proof or evidence, that you should serve and assist as a criminal and then to deny them a chance to provide that proof. It is not courteous, not urbane, to breed violence and anger within the people concerning the apartment complex that you protect—And this is exactly what I saw this individual do, a few days prior to the incident above.
Some fellows were visiting, probably to help some friend with a task, perhaps to pick up some friends. The guard (no longer can I call him security or courteous), stood there and watched, waiting, not to assist, but to pounce, to command these young men, to tell them what they can and cannot do. He waited with enthusiasm. It was around nine or ten at night, and, of course, the “future residents” spaces were all empty and useless. These fellows, doing what was expected of them, explained to him that they had to be in and out, asking, indicating that they needed to park there for five to ten minutes. Disregarding the fact that these guys went out of their way to give him information about themselves, to state their purpose, and to assure him that they wouldn’t hold the space long, he said, “You’re not allowed to park there; you’re going to have to move,” taking a tone of command, not of a guard, but of a moody police officer telling a drunk man to put his hands on the wall so he can search him and take him in to the station. These guys could have tried to sneak in, but they did the right thing—and he punished them for it. Why? Because he could—because this fellow is looking for people that he can command and restrict in the name of policy—but, again, that’s not the heart of the matter; the heart of the matter is this: Those guys, rightly so, got angry—But they got too angry. I saw the change come over them in their eyes, and in their posture. I could read them like a book; they wanted to attack the guard. Of course, they have no right to do so; physical violence should only be practiced in defense—but this is my moral, my ethical view. Not everyone is going to resist the urge to be violent against someone who both inconveniences them and does it with an attitude, especially three nineteen year old guys—full of hormonal activity, and already having to come to terms with enough imposing authority figures in their lives. Whether he knows it or not (he apparently does not) these guys were considering jumping him—and they could have. He was outnumbered, except for one thing—I was there. I stood around for a second, pretending to make conversation with the guard to make sure that these guys held their peace. While I have my issues, I do not want to see anyone attacked and harmed, even if they bring it upon themselves because they lack anything resembling common sense in the way they treat others. Those guys had violence on their minds; it pervaded their beings. Why?—Because we have a guard who nurtures that violence, who aggravates people, almost as if he hopes to bring it out of them. This is not security; breeding violence in others, in outsiders, is not security. Having someone else’s angry guests board an elevator with me, looking for a way to lash out does not make me feel any more secure. Again, because of his bullying, our guard acts to accomplish the opposite of his duty.
Of course, you could say, “Come on [Writer], I mean—He was upholding policy, right?” And of course, you would be absolutely right. He was upholding policy, but let me pose this: How was he upholding policy. I’ll tell you how: with an attitude. And innocent people do not deserve to be treated with an attitude, especially when they seek out the guard to explain a special situation.
But policy must always be followed, right? Wrong. There are exceptions to every rule, and the best security guard (or courtesy officer) must be versatile and ready to respond to the unexpected; and that may involve prioritizing common sense over policy. We have a man masquerading as an automaton, who acts as if all he can possibly do is follow policy. We must recognize that no policy made by people can possibly cover every given situation, and more importantly, we must not allow people like this man to use those rigid policies as an excuse to exercise power over anyone else. Let’s break down this situation, and let’s make the argument from the view of one following the policy:
First, why does the policy exist, the policy that individuals cannot park in the future residents’ spaces? It exists because we cannot have everyone parking there without permission; if we let one person do it, others will too, and before you know it, the spaces are filled every night with cars. Ok, that’s valid. Now, let’s break it down to show why it does not apply to this special situation. First, these guys asked permission, explaining why they needed to park there and that it would be temporary. That takes care of the part of the policy where everyone is parking there. If someone parks there without asking permission, they can be towed. When someone asks permission to do something, he does it because he is already aware that it is not following policy, and that his special case may take priority over a certain policy. Also, the policy itself is overly rigid, and therefore oppressive. It serves no purpose at ten o’clock at night. There are no potential residents coming in at ten o’clock at night wanting to discuss moving in to Cornell Arms, and even if there was, our Landlady wouldn’t be there to discuss it with them. The spaces are useless and empty. They just sit there empty—But they could serve a productive purpose at night, and this is another point on improving security: They could be late night guest spaces, only in use from Nine p.m. through Six a.m. mainly for the use of women who are often targeted for rape, robbery, and worse when walking long distances across dark parking lots. Shortening the distance that handicapped people and people who are for any reason vulnerable to attack minimizes the chance that they will be attacked. Cornell Arms’ policy does not provide this when it, in fact, could. After having attended many seminars on women’s self defense, I have learned that one of the most important things that women can do to minimize attack is to avoid walking long distances alone through the dark. On the legal level, this is a bad policy, because if a young woman was attacked trying to enter Cornell Arms because she couldn’t obtain a close, well-lit parking space, then she could have grounds to sue Cornell Arms because it failed to provide any kind of guest parking. Of course, at this point, our guard would argue that there are metered spaces across the street from the front door. While this is true, they are often closed for parking because of meetings held at the State House. Before I was able to rent a parking space in the parking lot, I often could not find a close parking space, and I often found myself walking beneath dark trees, around dark, threatening corners, or through shadowed parking lots, all places where a mugger or a rapist could hide. I was happy for one thing—that I am six feet tall, one hundred and eighty five pounds and well-trained in hand-to-hand combat; but still, I didn’t feel safe, and I never had the impression that Cornell Arms did anything to make me feel safer about the situation. I was happy that I was a male, and that large males are targeted less than females. Of course, I followed all of the rules to make myself more secure, such as constantly surveying my surroundings, walking quickly and confidently, and maintaining straight posture, all things which deter criminals and make you less likely to be attacked unaware. The point is that I had to depend upon my own security; this guard was not always there to look out for me if I needed it. The system that supposedly protects me threatened me as it does not provide close parking spaces for guests or for residents who do not have a parking space; it threatened me because it forced me to walk a long distance, around corners, through the dark. If we had late night parking spaces, just a few, then we could say that Cornell Arms is making some kind of effort at maximizing the security of all of its residents and guests. But of course, we do not; instead, we have an arbitrary, oppressive, and, worst of all, counter-productive policy, which our aggressive guard protects while failing all the while to protect residents and guests. Since I have, out of necessity, turned to attacking the policy that our oppressive anti-door-man stands upon, let us again turn to Webster’s Dictionary to define this word, policy.
Webster’s Dictionary defines policy as “a selected, planned line of conduct in the light of which individual decisions are made and coordination achieved.” Several things about this definition interest me. The first word that strikes my attention is coordination, the state of having brought “the parts or agents of a plan, process etc. into a common whole”. So, what is the “common whole” of a security policy?—Security, of course! So an effective (a word I will insert into our definition) security policy would be one that brings together “the parts or agents of [an effective security] plan, process, etc into a common [and effective] whole.” If this defines good security policy, then all of the rules that compose that policy should unify into one over-arching purpose: to provide the most effective security for residents and their guests. If any part of that policy is counter-productive to that over-arching purpose, then it does not unify with the other measures of the security policy, and the person in charge of deciding policy should remove it; otherwise it is not only bad policy—It is not, according to Webster, policy at all. Our guard must make certain before he spouts rhetoric about following policy, that he knows and understands what his favorite pet word means. I suggest that the policy-makers of this institution—No—of my home, reevaluate their supposed policies, which, in fact, may be non-policies, non-policies that, as I have shown above, not only fail to provide security, but actually make me and my guests less secure and less safe, non-policies that are not only ineffective, but diametrically opposed to the whole of our security policy.
I would like to relate another incident, an incident in which our guard was discourteous to a resident, namely me. When we first moved here about a year ago, we were trying to get our telephone line operational. I had no mobile phone from which I could call, so I assumed that the guard, who I had introduced myself to already, would certainly let me, a paying resident of these apartments, use the lobby phone. I assumed wrong. First he lied, saying that there was no lobby phone—of course, I was always told that “Honesty is the best policy,” which is apparently not in his policy book. I knew that there was a lobby phone, because the other guard the night before (a fine guard and a good man, I might add) allowed me to use the phone regarding the same matter of calling the phone company. I called his lie out, saying, “Oh, really, I used one last night; did you get rid of it between yesterday and today?” He looked at me blankly, not knowing how to respond to me catching him in his lie. Finally, he thought of something to say, “Well, we do have a phone, but it is locked up and I can’t let you use it.” I asked him why I couldn’t use it and he responded, subtly smugly that it is policy. I asked him why he lied to me; I asked him if that was good policy; he didn’t respond to my question, instead going into his stormtrooper mode and proceeding to try to tell me what to do. I told him that I would tell the landlady of his deceit and his lacking common sense in his duties. He decided that some kind of logical explanation was in order at my offer to exercise my consumer rights, so this was his logic: The phone could be stolen. I asked him how I could steal the phone when it was right under his nose and plugged into the wall on his side of the counter. He responded that it was a policy, that he couldn’t watch me talk on the phone while he did his rounds. I asked him why he couldn’t give me five minutes to call before he did his rounds, and he said that it was not his obligation to do so under policy. One interesting thing to note, I might add, is that after I returned to my apartment, I did not see him walk around the building for another thirty minutes. Again, this man lied in order to make an excuse to oppress a resident, to show me, since I had just moved in, that he had authority over me. Oh, and he did tell me, like he told my friend the other day: “There’s a payphone right outside.”
I would pose this question: Why should I, a paying resident of this apartment complex, be forced to spend money on a pay phone while I am in my apartment building?—There is no cogent, logical answer, because the entire situation was ludicrous. The man even offered me the money for the payphone if I didn’t have it, showing me that he could help, but that it would be on his terms and under his control, and not what I requested. For him to maintain psychological control and oppression, he refused to do what I had politely asked him to do—in fact, offering to do something that would even waste more of his time: He offered to look up BellSouth’s quick call number so I wouldn’t have to continue to pour quarters into the payphone while on hold. Now, for him to do that would take more time and more effort than to let me use the phone, and if he let me use the lobby phone, he could have gotten out to his patrol of the grounds in less time. Also, as he did with my friend, he jeopardized my security by telling me to go out and call from a payphone beside the dark, shadowed alley. Again I ask: Is this courtesy? Is this security? No, it’s discourtesy, it’s hindrance of another person because of some insecurity within himself—And worse, it’s endangering the life of a resident.
But I let it go. I did not complain to the landlady. I decided that I was new to the apartments and that it would be better for me to let the matter go. And so I did. But now, after having given this man the benefit of the doubt time and time again, he continues to oppress my fellow residents and my guests. Through oppressing my guests, he insults me and he oppresses me in my own home, and I will not have this continue. I apologize for bringing to your attention the old hatchet that I had tried to bury, but this man has unburied it and used it against all of my guests.
Also, relating to this, this guard once told me, “You cannot impeach my integrity.” He repeated it twice, as if he was trying to brainwash me into belief. I didn’t respond then. I will now. I would say to this man, “Sir, I do impeach your integrity.” Webster’s Dictionary defines integrity as “moral soundness” or “probity,” probity, by the way, being defined in the same dictionary as “scrupulous honesty”. This leads me to pose this question, a question which does successfully impeach this man’s integrity: Is it scrupulously honest to lie? The answer is, of course, no, which leads me to my next question: Aren’t lying and integrity diametrically opposed terms? The answer is yes, they are diametrically opposed. This man lied to me the first time that I ever asked for his help, not once, but twice. He lied—and his own action of lying “impeaches [his] integrity”. He could respond that he didn’t mean integrity in the above sense of the word, for there are two basic definitions of the word. I will “impeach [his] integrity” in this sense as well. The other definition out of the same dictionary is: “Wholeness, completeness; the quality or state of being unimpaired.” This man’s logic for not letting me use the lobby phone is not, for reasons stated above, whole and complete. His own oppressive policy, his solution to my problem as he tried to avoid mine at all costs, would impair him in his patrol duties much more than if he simply allowed me to use the phone. This man wasted ten minutes of his own time arguing a useless point with me, valuable time which he could use to better secure the property and protect its inhabitants. In the second sense of the word, our guard, both incomplete in his argument and impaired in his duty due to his own inefficient methods of serving residents and wasting their time and his as well. Now that I have, indeed, impeached this man’s integrity, let’s look at some other instances of people making poor arguments in defense of ineffective, useless policy and oppressive actions.
[Continued in Pt. 3]
[Continued from Pt. 1]
I do this because our landlady decided to define terms to me and what they mean; correcting me, she said something like, “No, no—We do not have security guards here; they do not carry guns; they are Courtesy Officers, because they do not carry weapons or attack.” With no offense to our landlady and her—for lack of a better word—circumventive title for our guard, let’s look into what Webster’s has to say about these words and what they mean. Webster’s Dictionary defines courtesy as: Urbanity; complaisance; act of kindness or civility. Let’s consider this definition, since it has words that we may not commonly use such as urbanity and complaisance. Because I do not want to tire you with an endless list of definitions, I will paraphrase these as one of them, namely complaisance has gained lately a negative connotation. Webster’s says that complaisance means in a soft or kind manner, which of course, is our correct definition for courtesy. Urbanity, although it contains the word urban, does not mean city-dwelling; in fact, Webster’s defines it as politeness. So, in the definition of our first word, courtesy, we have a word that means soft politeness, having kindness and civility. Now, we turn to our second word: Officer. Webster’s defines officer as “A person invested with an office [office being a special duty]” Now, if we put two and two together, as they say, or in this case—one and one—we have this definition for a Courtesy Officer: A person invested with the special duty of being kind and civil. Now that we have defined a Courtesy Officer as this, not, as our Landlady has defined it—she defines it as a person not carrying or using a deadly firearm—there is a better word for that, and I offer this better term as my research into the complex meanings of words has led me to it: An Unarmed Officer. That is what she defined. Of course, she may have thought to call him an Urbanity Officer and skipped a few words back and wrote down the definition of Unarmed Officer in its place (After all, they do both begin with the letter U.), but I offer a much more plausible explanation: This is the circumventive empty rhetoric that people use in order to avoid the truth of a given situation. A word only has meaning when its meaning is practiced or attributed to it through action or being. This man is not a courtesy officer. It is not courteous to leave friends of residents out in the cold—out in the dark—without making a simple courtesy call for them. It is not courteous to treat someone, without any proof or evidence, that you should serve and assist as a criminal and then to deny them a chance to provide that proof. It is not courteous, not urbane, to breed violence and anger within the people concerning the apartment complex that you protect—And this is exactly what I saw this individual do, a few days prior to the incident above.
Some fellows were visiting, probably to help some friend with a task, perhaps to pick up some friends. The guard (no longer can I call him security or courteous), stood there and watched, waiting, not to assist, but to pounce, to command these young men, to tell them what they can and cannot do. He waited with enthusiasm. It was around nine or ten at night, and, of course, the “future residents” spaces were all empty and useless. These fellows, doing what was expected of them, explained to him that they had to be in and out, asking, indicating that they needed to park there for five to ten minutes. Disregarding the fact that these guys went out of their way to give him information about themselves, to state their purpose, and to assure him that they wouldn’t hold the space long, he said, “You’re not allowed to park there; you’re going to have to move,” taking a tone of command, not of a guard, but of a moody police officer telling a drunk man to put his hands on the wall so he can search him and take him in to the station. These guys could have tried to sneak in, but they did the right thing—and he punished them for it. Why? Because he could—because this fellow is looking for people that he can command and restrict in the name of policy—but, again, that’s not the heart of the matter; the heart of the matter is this: Those guys, rightly so, got angry—But they got too angry. I saw the change come over them in their eyes, and in their posture. I could read them like a book; they wanted to attack the guard. Of course, they have no right to do so; physical violence should only be practiced in defense—but this is my moral, my ethical view. Not everyone is going to resist the urge to be violent against someone who both inconveniences them and does it with an attitude, especially three nineteen year old guys—full of hormonal activity, and already having to come to terms with enough imposing authority figures in their lives. Whether he knows it or not (he apparently does not) these guys were considering jumping him—and they could have. He was outnumbered, except for one thing—I was there. I stood around for a second, pretending to make conversation with the guard to make sure that these guys held their peace. While I have my issues, I do not want to see anyone attacked and harmed, even if they bring it upon themselves because they lack anything resembling common sense in the way they treat others. Those guys had violence on their minds; it pervaded their beings. Why?—Because we have a guard who nurtures that violence, who aggravates people, almost as if he hopes to bring it out of them. This is not security; breeding violence in others, in outsiders, is not security. Having someone else’s angry guests board an elevator with me, looking for a way to lash out does not make me feel any more secure. Again, because of his bullying, our guard acts to accomplish the opposite of his duty.
Of course, you could say, “Come on [Writer], I mean—He was upholding policy, right?” And of course, you would be absolutely right. He was upholding policy, but let me pose this: How was he upholding policy. I’ll tell you how: with an attitude. And innocent people do not deserve to be treated with an attitude, especially when they seek out the guard to explain a special situation.
But policy must always be followed, right? Wrong. There are exceptions to every rule, and the best security guard (or courtesy officer) must be versatile and ready to respond to the unexpected; and that may involve prioritizing common sense over policy. We have a man masquerading as an automaton, who acts as if all he can possibly do is follow policy. We must recognize that no policy made by people can possibly cover every given situation, and more importantly, we must not allow people like this man to use those rigid policies as an excuse to exercise power over anyone else. Let’s break down this situation, and let’s make the argument from the view of one following the policy:
First, why does the policy exist, the policy that individuals cannot park in the future residents’ spaces? It exists because we cannot have everyone parking there without permission; if we let one person do it, others will too, and before you know it, the spaces are filled every night with cars. Ok, that’s valid. Now, let’s break it down to show why it does not apply to this special situation. First, these guys asked permission, explaining why they needed to park there and that it would be temporary. That takes care of the part of the policy where everyone is parking there. If someone parks there without asking permission, they can be towed. When someone asks permission to do something, he does it because he is already aware that it is not following policy, and that his special case may take priority over a certain policy. Also, the policy itself is overly rigid, and therefore oppressive. It serves no purpose at ten o’clock at night. There are no potential residents coming in at ten o’clock at night wanting to discuss moving in to Cornell Arms, and even if there was, our Landlady wouldn’t be there to discuss it with them. The spaces are useless and empty. They just sit there empty—But they could serve a productive purpose at night, and this is another point on improving security: They could be late night guest spaces, only in use from Nine p.m. through Six a.m. mainly for the use of women who are often targeted for rape, robbery, and worse when walking long distances across dark parking lots. Shortening the distance that handicapped people and people who are for any reason vulnerable to attack minimizes the chance that they will be attacked. Cornell Arms’ policy does not provide this when it, in fact, could. After having attended many seminars on women’s self defense, I have learned that one of the most important things that women can do to minimize attack is to avoid walking long distances alone through the dark. On the legal level, this is a bad policy, because if a young woman was attacked trying to enter Cornell Arms because she couldn’t obtain a close, well-lit parking space, then she could have grounds to sue Cornell Arms because it failed to provide any kind of guest parking. Of course, at this point, our guard would argue that there are metered spaces across the street from the front door. While this is true, they are often closed for parking because of meetings held at the State House. Before I was able to rent a parking space in the parking lot, I often could not find a close parking space, and I often found myself walking beneath dark trees, around dark, threatening corners, or through shadowed parking lots, all places where a mugger or a rapist could hide. I was happy for one thing—that I am six feet tall, one hundred and eighty five pounds and well-trained in hand-to-hand combat; but still, I didn’t feel safe, and I never had the impression that Cornell Arms did anything to make me feel safer about the situation. I was happy that I was a male, and that large males are targeted less than females. Of course, I followed all of the rules to make myself more secure, such as constantly surveying my surroundings, walking quickly and confidently, and maintaining straight posture, all things which deter criminals and make you less likely to be attacked unaware. The point is that I had to depend upon my own security; this guard was not always there to look out for me if I needed it. The system that supposedly protects me threatened me as it does not provide close parking spaces for guests or for residents who do not have a parking space; it threatened me because it forced me to walk a long distance, around corners, through the dark. If we had late night parking spaces, just a few, then we could say that Cornell Arms is making some kind of effort at maximizing the security of all of its residents and guests. But of course, we do not; instead, we have an arbitrary, oppressive, and, worst of all, counter-productive policy, which our aggressive guard protects while failing all the while to protect residents and guests. Since I have, out of necessity, turned to attacking the policy that our oppressive anti-door-man stands upon, let us again turn to Webster’s Dictionary to define this word, policy.
Webster’s Dictionary defines policy as “a selected, planned line of conduct in the light of which individual decisions are made and coordination achieved.” Several things about this definition interest me. The first word that strikes my attention is coordination, the state of having brought “the parts or agents of a plan, process etc. into a common whole”. So, what is the “common whole” of a security policy?—Security, of course! So an effective (a word I will insert into our definition) security policy would be one that brings together “the parts or agents of [an effective security] plan, process, etc into a common [and effective] whole.” If this defines good security policy, then all of the rules that compose that policy should unify into one over-arching purpose: to provide the most effective security for residents and their guests. If any part of that policy is counter-productive to that over-arching purpose, then it does not unify with the other measures of the security policy, and the person in charge of deciding policy should remove it; otherwise it is not only bad policy—It is not, according to Webster, policy at all. Our guard must make certain before he spouts rhetoric about following policy, that he knows and understands what his favorite pet word means. I suggest that the policy-makers of this institution—No—of my home, reevaluate their supposed policies, which, in fact, may be non-policies, non-policies that, as I have shown above, not only fail to provide security, but actually make me and my guests less secure and less safe, non-policies that are not only ineffective, but diametrically opposed to the whole of our security policy.
I would like to relate another incident, an incident in which our guard was discourteous to a resident, namely me. When we first moved here about a year ago, we were trying to get our telephone line operational. I had no mobile phone from which I could call, so I assumed that the guard, who I had introduced myself to already, would certainly let me, a paying resident of these apartments, use the lobby phone. I assumed wrong. First he lied, saying that there was no lobby phone—of course, I was always told that “Honesty is the best policy,” which is apparently not in his policy book. I knew that there was a lobby phone, because the other guard the night before (a fine guard and a good man, I might add) allowed me to use the phone regarding the same matter of calling the phone company. I called his lie out, saying, “Oh, really, I used one last night; did you get rid of it between yesterday and today?” He looked at me blankly, not knowing how to respond to me catching him in his lie. Finally, he thought of something to say, “Well, we do have a phone, but it is locked up and I can’t let you use it.” I asked him why I couldn’t use it and he responded, subtly smugly that it is policy. I asked him why he lied to me; I asked him if that was good policy; he didn’t respond to my question, instead going into his stormtrooper mode and proceeding to try to tell me what to do. I told him that I would tell the landlady of his deceit and his lacking common sense in his duties. He decided that some kind of logical explanation was in order at my offer to exercise my consumer rights, so this was his logic: The phone could be stolen. I asked him how I could steal the phone when it was right under his nose and plugged into the wall on his side of the counter. He responded that it was a policy, that he couldn’t watch me talk on the phone while he did his rounds. I asked him why he couldn’t give me five minutes to call before he did his rounds, and he said that it was not his obligation to do so under policy. One interesting thing to note, I might add, is that after I returned to my apartment, I did not see him walk around the building for another thirty minutes. Again, this man lied in order to make an excuse to oppress a resident, to show me, since I had just moved in, that he had authority over me. Oh, and he did tell me, like he told my friend the other day: “There’s a payphone right outside.”
I would pose this question: Why should I, a paying resident of this apartment complex, be forced to spend money on a pay phone while I am in my apartment building?—There is no cogent, logical answer, because the entire situation was ludicrous. The man even offered me the money for the payphone if I didn’t have it, showing me that he could help, but that it would be on his terms and under his control, and not what I requested. For him to maintain psychological control and oppression, he refused to do what I had politely asked him to do—in fact, offering to do something that would even waste more of his time: He offered to look up BellSouth’s quick call number so I wouldn’t have to continue to pour quarters into the payphone while on hold. Now, for him to do that would take more time and more effort than to let me use the phone, and if he let me use the lobby phone, he could have gotten out to his patrol of the grounds in less time. Also, as he did with my friend, he jeopardized my security by telling me to go out and call from a payphone beside the dark, shadowed alley. Again I ask: Is this courtesy? Is this security? No, it’s discourtesy, it’s hindrance of another person because of some insecurity within himself—And worse, it’s endangering the life of a resident.
But I let it go. I did not complain to the landlady. I decided that I was new to the apartments and that it would be better for me to let the matter go. And so I did. But now, after having given this man the benefit of the doubt time and time again, he continues to oppress my fellow residents and my guests. Through oppressing my guests, he insults me and he oppresses me in my own home, and I will not have this continue. I apologize for bringing to your attention the old hatchet that I had tried to bury, but this man has unburied it and used it against all of my guests.
Also, relating to this, this guard once told me, “You cannot impeach my integrity.” He repeated it twice, as if he was trying to brainwash me into belief. I didn’t respond then. I will now. I would say to this man, “Sir, I do impeach your integrity.” Webster’s Dictionary defines integrity as “moral soundness” or “probity,” probity, by the way, being defined in the same dictionary as “scrupulous honesty”. This leads me to pose this question, a question which does successfully impeach this man’s integrity: Is it scrupulously honest to lie? The answer is, of course, no, which leads me to my next question: Aren’t lying and integrity diametrically opposed terms? The answer is yes, they are diametrically opposed. This man lied to me the first time that I ever asked for his help, not once, but twice. He lied—and his own action of lying “impeaches [his] integrity”. He could respond that he didn’t mean integrity in the above sense of the word, for there are two basic definitions of the word. I will “impeach [his] integrity” in this sense as well. The other definition out of the same dictionary is: “Wholeness, completeness; the quality or state of being unimpaired.” This man’s logic for not letting me use the lobby phone is not, for reasons stated above, whole and complete. His own oppressive policy, his solution to my problem as he tried to avoid mine at all costs, would impair him in his patrol duties much more than if he simply allowed me to use the phone. This man wasted ten minutes of his own time arguing a useless point with me, valuable time which he could use to better secure the property and protect its inhabitants. In the second sense of the word, our guard, both incomplete in his argument and impaired in his duty due to his own inefficient methods of serving residents and wasting their time and his as well. Now that I have, indeed, impeached this man’s integrity, let’s look at some other instances of people making poor arguments in defense of ineffective, useless policy and oppressive actions.
[Continued in Pt. 3]
For What it is Worth (Pt. 3: Conclusion)
[Continued from Pt. 2]
This brings me to another issue that I must confront, one that has been tormenting me since our landlady brought it to my attention. She based her defense of these oppressive, counter-productive security non-policies upon the attack of nine-eleven. She said that these oppressive rules act in coordination with the measures taken to secure the homeland after nine-eleven, saying that our building could be the target for a terrorist attack. I have a few problems with this rhetorical nonsense. Number one: If some terrorist wanted to attack our building, if he/she was driven to that extreme—the extreme of killing innocent people—then he/she would probably not care whether the attack was committed during the day or during the night. That being said, let’s consider the fact that virtually anyone can get into the building during the day, when the doors are unlocked and the landlady is out to lunch. While our guard sleeps in his apartment upstairs or attends classes, a terrorist could walk right in and plant a bomb on a middle floor of the apartment building, or worse, a chemical or biological weapon. No one would ever know until it is too late. This renders the argument that we need nighttime security to defend against a terrorist attack empty and, quite frankly, rhetorical garbage, the rhetoric so often used upon the masses in order to strip them of their rights and their civil liberties. My second problem: The nine-eleven attack occurred during the broad daylight, proving my point above that terrorists are not nocturnal creatures that only attack at night. As a matter of fact, it would be interesting to research the statistics to see what percentage of terrorist attacks occur during the day and during the night—But that’s beside the point. She cites Nine-Eleven, and it happened during the daytime—the time when our apartment’s policy drops its guard. My third problem is this, and it seems simple, but it is a significant problem nonetheless: The Nine-Eleven attack involved someone taking a jumbo jet and crashing it into the side of what is perhaps the most important business building in our entire nation, located in the heart of one of our most important cities. Although our guard is, indeed, a large man, I do not think that he could stop a jumbo jet from crashing into our building—but, hey, he is quite large, so it’s possible.
But I’m inclined to doubt the possibility that we can stop men that are so desperate that they will give their lives for their cause. If such a person was to approach our building at night with terrorist intent, he would not ask permission to be allowed entry. He would, without warning, break out the glass, run in, and shoot our security guard, then proceed to do his business. Oh, and for those who think that we have any kind of shatter-proof glass in our so secure building, they are mistaken. Just a few weeks ago, a man accidentally broke the rear swinging door’s glass by accidentally kicking a pebble into it, a pebble that, as I was told by our guard, actually ricocheted off of the pavement before making contact with and breaking the glass. I have seen trained men able to put their fists through layered ply board; I have seen them do it. A terrorist would not even need a gun to take out that glass and enter the building; they would need a pebble. Of course, according to our landlady, our security guard keeps the only phone that he would have immediate access to locked up below the counter (his excuse for not making courtesy calls), and he is not provided with a phone on his person with which he can call the police. He would be dead and gone before he even turned the key to unlock the phone—and even if he had a phone on his person, he would not have the time to make a phone call if a terrorist rushed into the building with a gun, or worse, with dynamite strapped to his back. I’m not trying to go into too much detail here, but I want to show you that we are not safe against a terrorist attack because of some guy downstairs with a list of arbitrary policies, an attitude, and a chip on his shoulder. With all due respect to our landlady, one should not use a defense that does not really apply to the actions or policies that one defends. Her defense, as we have seen, does not apply.
Here’s my fourth problem with her argument: Cornell Arms is not very important. It is not the World Trade Center. It is not the Pentagon. It is not Fort Knox—but our guard seems to think that it is. While it is true that anything can be a target, there are many other buildings in and around the USC campus and the State House that are prime targets for a terrorist attack—where the doors are open! Also, just in case no one had noticed, out of all of the cities in the U.S., Columbia is not the most important. We, the residents of Cornell arms and our guests, must suffer this form of oppression. We must daily watch our friends and families being interrogated in order to visit their loved ones—all because of what?—That there is a chance, a microscopic, one-in-a-million chance, that our building would be the target of a terrorist attack—our building, full of elderly people, low-income families, and poor college students, people all relatively unimportant to a terrorist attack.
Let’s consider the seemingly potent counter argument that a terrorist would attack our building in order to collapse it upon the state offices across the street. While it seems at first potent, if we examine the situation, we can see its utter impotence: The building across the street is virtually empty at night, its employees retired back to their upper-middle class homes in the suburbs of Irmo and Lexington for the night. Also, it would take a huge force to bring down this building, especially from within. Detonation devices would have to be placed strategically in weak places on the building—And this is where the real security of our building comes into the discussion: We the residents provide the real security of this building. If terrorists entered our building, we would be able to notify the police as we are many people behind solid wooden doors, not immediately exposed to the possibility of a one-on-one attack. If I was to hear a gunshot, I would immediately call the police, and take measures to defend my apartment against attack. Not only that, but I would check on my elderly neighbors and my neighbors not confident in defending themselves and bring them into my apartment where I and other able bodies would be present for their protection, and, although I am sure that after having read this article, our early night security guard will not be inclined to like me very much, I would phone him downstairs to check on his safety as well and to inform him of the information for which I am responsible. I, a resident, the one who is currently oppressed by arbitrary rules, would do this because I care about the welfare of others—yes, even the guard downstairs. This is all very hypothetical, but I am a person conscious of the need for my security. I am trained in many security tactics. And, although many of them may lack my training, the other residents here are not completely incapable to take defensive measures when it comes to their security. We make the difference, not some list of useless rules overzealously enforced by a man with an inferiority complex, a man who treats us and especially our guests, the people who could serve to protect him, with indignity and condescension.
Drawing nearer to our conclusion, I would like to tell such a story, a true story that happened here at Cornell Arms that I witnessed last year, a story in which a man, a resident of our building, offered his protection to our over-confident guard when he got himself into a potentially sticky situation. The guard was driving away this homeless man who appeared to be drugged up and having a bad high, telling him to go and warm himself somewhere else. In this case, the guard was completely justified in this firmness with the man, because we do not need beggars and potential muggers standing in the entrance to our home, especially if they show the signs of violent drug abuse. The guard stood his ground, using his large frame and straight posture (as he should) to intimidate the man. He also threatened to call the police—that day he had a cordless phone with him, which was good. The homeless man wouldn’t back down: he moved closer and began to shout threats at the guard. A man walked up from behind the guard, unseen, carrying an umbrella, for it was raining lightly. The man, a resident of the building, surveyed the situation and saw that his guard could be in danger. Standing behind the guard, wielding his umbrella, poised to strike, the man stood behind focusing his attention and his mental energy on the would-be attacker. Of course, when the guard noticed him, he (in his arrogant cop-like fashion) said something along the lines of “I don’t need you—go on in, [silly resident],” but the man refused silently, not drawing his attention for a moment off of the potential assailant, for it only takes a moment to draw out a knife or a gun. The man’s posture and unbroken stare told the angry man, “If your hand goes towards your pocket, or at the guard, this umbrella point goes to your throat.” Faced by two men, both imposing and one armed, the man reluctantly stalked away into the night. The guard showed no sign of appreciation, only the signs of hurt pride, again hiding behind the façade of his position requiring no need for unofficial help. The guard’s words didn’t matter to the man, for he recognized the guard’s insecurity, and recognized that he protected one who, although he didn’t appreciate it, needed a protecting hand. That man who backed him up was me, the same man who pens this argument, and I had only his security in mind.
And I provided that security without ever bullying him or his friends when there was, indeed, a bad guy to contend with. I’m glad I did.
And now, one year later, after having repeatedly had my best friend of fifteen years over to my apartment, our guard having seen him on numerous occasions enter the building with me, still denied my friend access to the front desk and to a courtesy call. Forget the fact that I feel betrayed, as this man who I protected a few months before, now will not protect my friend, committing against me the Dantean sin against hospitality. Not even considering that fact, consider this one: The guard, knowing from personal experience that there are angry, violent men wandering the streets, abandoned my friend to the darkness, the cold, and the rain, telling him to seek out a payphone in the dark. I do not appreciate that, nor will I ever again call this guard my friend—or even a friendly acquaintance. I do not even want to call him my security guard; I do not think that he deserves the position, because he, in fact, does not obey security policy.
The landlady as well as another security guard—a true man of courtesy—told me that it is the policy of Cornell Arms that the guards make courtesy calls for unexpected guests. If this is the case, then why doesn’t this man, who claims that policy drives all of his actions, obey policy?—I’ll tell you why. He obeys only the policies that allow him to be the commander, to tell people what they can and cannot do, and not the policies that state that he should serve the residents and guests of Cornell Arms in a reasonable fashion. I say in a reasonable fashion, because I do not expect the guard to wait on me hand and foot, and because it is not unreasonable to dial a phone number for a resident’s guest, especially when the guest knows by heart the number of the resident! According to the landlady and the other guard, the policy says specifically that the guard is required to make courtesy calls. He made no offer to my friend to do so. Of course, one could say, “Your friend should have asked,” to which I respond that it’s hard and undignified to be forced to shout through a one inch thick locked glass door while the security guard sits behind the counter not even rising to assist. It is his job to offer; after all, he constantly offers commands to people on how they should conduct themselves while at Cornell Arms, treating them like they’re in Kindergarten again. If he can offer to be a bully, then he can offer to be of assistance as well, but of course, that wouldn’t suit his enjoyment of his job, which lies mainly in the fact that it offers him the opportunity to bully others that he assumes he has power over. I would like to state that he has no power over me, but I have power over him as he is employed at my residence, and it is my rent payment, as well as those of the other residents, ultimately that provides his paycheck. I am his customer, and as customer, I request that my friends and family be treated with dignity and respect. If he fails to comply, I will take a survey of the other residents’ opinions of him, I will seek out an attorney, and I will take action for him to be removed from his position, which he abuses day after day.
Let me add this: Although our landlady denies it herself, the majority of people in this building that I have encountered do not like this security guard, and every person that I have spoken to have had friends treated with indignity and unfairness by this man. I do not use some of the more offensive words myself towards this man, as I hope in some way to maintain a professional and objective argument, but these are some of the titles I’ve heard given to him and things said about him:
“Jackass”
“Prick”
“Mother F---er”
“Bastard”
“Son of a Bitch”
“Fatf—k”
“German Shepherd guard dog gone bad”
“Bully”
“One day, he’s gonna get hurt; somebody’s gonna hurt him.”
“Next time he f---s with me or my friends, I’m gonna beat his ass.”
“He treats us like we’re idiots.”
“What goes around comes around.”
“He’s insecure.”
“He’s useless.”
“I hate him, and he can go to hell.”
This is the common consensus that I’ve heard. I have heard nothing from residents praising him for his actions. That is because his actions only oppress the residents and their friends in the place where they live and visit. These statements and titles bother me, especially the violent ones, and I offer this suggestion to his employers for his own security: Tell him that his actions endanger him, because there are many people who have made clear intentions of violence regarding this man, some of which are listed above. We must not have anyone entering our apartment complex threatening violence to our residents or its employees. He may believe himself well-trained and able to protect himself, but he must recognize himself as not being invincible—for he is not. So this is my final point: You have an employee who endangers himself in his workplace. You will be responsible for any injury he incurs while in your employment. Since he is not perceptive enough to realize that he is in danger, you must do what he tries to do to everyone else: you must enforce your rules of conduct upon him that are set in place for his own security. This may come as an insult to his intelligence—but, in fact, his actions have insulted him—and more importantly, endangered him. As your customer, a resident of this fine establishment, I request that you protect your employee by providing him with rules to follow that will protect him from the consequences of his own ignorant actions. If he will not comply with these rules, or if he becomes offended, refusing to change, then you should remove him from his position as he is a liability to your business and to its reputation. Thank you.
Sincerely,
[Writer’s Name]
Please Note:
Thank you very much for reading this most exhaustive and well-intended message. If by any chance I find that it is disregarded or that it is not acted upon or given attention in some way, I will have it printed in The Free Times, and I will attempt to have it printed in The State, even if I must pay money to do so. I will also distribute it to other residents of the apartments in some way, as I have become friends with most of them and am allowed to visit with friends and to show them what I have written. Also, note that if any individual, offended at my exercising my freedom of speech, decides to try to enforce upon me the nuisance clause, which I have read, that the renters’ rights of South Carolina prohibits apartments from enacting a nuisance clause against a resident who raises a complaint or an issue for the purpose of communication or to give suggestions as to how his landlady or landlord can make his home a better and safer place to live. I have spoken to an attorney, and it would be my case if someone was to try that as well. I do not like writing the previous two statements, but I feel my rights being threatened in my own home by people like this guard. Also, note that I do not use this man’s name because I do not want to attack his name, but the way that he conducts himself in his duties; it would be unnecessary and wrong for me to do so. The other reason I do not use his name is because the majority of people in Cornell Arms know good and well who I’m talking about as he is the only guard who conducts himself in this totalitarian, tyrannical fashion. The other guards are wonderful, and the ironic part is…I feel safer when they are on duty than when he is; why?—because I feel that I am being protected by a thinking, reacting human being, not a robot operating upon a program called “policy.”
Thank you for taking the time and the consideration to read this letter, written with only the best intentions. Please, make us safe and free in the place where we sleep, where we share, and where we live—After all, what is home if it is not a place of security and courtesy?
[end]
Thanks for taking the time to read. Sorry for the length. I hope you find it useful.
Yours,
Litfury
[Continued from Pt. 2]
This brings me to another issue that I must confront, one that has been tormenting me since our landlady brought it to my attention. She based her defense of these oppressive, counter-productive security non-policies upon the attack of nine-eleven. She said that these oppressive rules act in coordination with the measures taken to secure the homeland after nine-eleven, saying that our building could be the target for a terrorist attack. I have a few problems with this rhetorical nonsense. Number one: If some terrorist wanted to attack our building, if he/she was driven to that extreme—the extreme of killing innocent people—then he/she would probably not care whether the attack was committed during the day or during the night. That being said, let’s consider the fact that virtually anyone can get into the building during the day, when the doors are unlocked and the landlady is out to lunch. While our guard sleeps in his apartment upstairs or attends classes, a terrorist could walk right in and plant a bomb on a middle floor of the apartment building, or worse, a chemical or biological weapon. No one would ever know until it is too late. This renders the argument that we need nighttime security to defend against a terrorist attack empty and, quite frankly, rhetorical garbage, the rhetoric so often used upon the masses in order to strip them of their rights and their civil liberties. My second problem: The nine-eleven attack occurred during the broad daylight, proving my point above that terrorists are not nocturnal creatures that only attack at night. As a matter of fact, it would be interesting to research the statistics to see what percentage of terrorist attacks occur during the day and during the night—But that’s beside the point. She cites Nine-Eleven, and it happened during the daytime—the time when our apartment’s policy drops its guard. My third problem is this, and it seems simple, but it is a significant problem nonetheless: The Nine-Eleven attack involved someone taking a jumbo jet and crashing it into the side of what is perhaps the most important business building in our entire nation, located in the heart of one of our most important cities. Although our guard is, indeed, a large man, I do not think that he could stop a jumbo jet from crashing into our building—but, hey, he is quite large, so it’s possible.
But I’m inclined to doubt the possibility that we can stop men that are so desperate that they will give their lives for their cause. If such a person was to approach our building at night with terrorist intent, he would not ask permission to be allowed entry. He would, without warning, break out the glass, run in, and shoot our security guard, then proceed to do his business. Oh, and for those who think that we have any kind of shatter-proof glass in our so secure building, they are mistaken. Just a few weeks ago, a man accidentally broke the rear swinging door’s glass by accidentally kicking a pebble into it, a pebble that, as I was told by our guard, actually ricocheted off of the pavement before making contact with and breaking the glass. I have seen trained men able to put their fists through layered ply board; I have seen them do it. A terrorist would not even need a gun to take out that glass and enter the building; they would need a pebble. Of course, according to our landlady, our security guard keeps the only phone that he would have immediate access to locked up below the counter (his excuse for not making courtesy calls), and he is not provided with a phone on his person with which he can call the police. He would be dead and gone before he even turned the key to unlock the phone—and even if he had a phone on his person, he would not have the time to make a phone call if a terrorist rushed into the building with a gun, or worse, with dynamite strapped to his back. I’m not trying to go into too much detail here, but I want to show you that we are not safe against a terrorist attack because of some guy downstairs with a list of arbitrary policies, an attitude, and a chip on his shoulder. With all due respect to our landlady, one should not use a defense that does not really apply to the actions or policies that one defends. Her defense, as we have seen, does not apply.
Here’s my fourth problem with her argument: Cornell Arms is not very important. It is not the World Trade Center. It is not the Pentagon. It is not Fort Knox—but our guard seems to think that it is. While it is true that anything can be a target, there are many other buildings in and around the USC campus and the State House that are prime targets for a terrorist attack—where the doors are open! Also, just in case no one had noticed, out of all of the cities in the U.S., Columbia is not the most important. We, the residents of Cornell arms and our guests, must suffer this form of oppression. We must daily watch our friends and families being interrogated in order to visit their loved ones—all because of what?—That there is a chance, a microscopic, one-in-a-million chance, that our building would be the target of a terrorist attack—our building, full of elderly people, low-income families, and poor college students, people all relatively unimportant to a terrorist attack.
Let’s consider the seemingly potent counter argument that a terrorist would attack our building in order to collapse it upon the state offices across the street. While it seems at first potent, if we examine the situation, we can see its utter impotence: The building across the street is virtually empty at night, its employees retired back to their upper-middle class homes in the suburbs of Irmo and Lexington for the night. Also, it would take a huge force to bring down this building, especially from within. Detonation devices would have to be placed strategically in weak places on the building—And this is where the real security of our building comes into the discussion: We the residents provide the real security of this building. If terrorists entered our building, we would be able to notify the police as we are many people behind solid wooden doors, not immediately exposed to the possibility of a one-on-one attack. If I was to hear a gunshot, I would immediately call the police, and take measures to defend my apartment against attack. Not only that, but I would check on my elderly neighbors and my neighbors not confident in defending themselves and bring them into my apartment where I and other able bodies would be present for their protection, and, although I am sure that after having read this article, our early night security guard will not be inclined to like me very much, I would phone him downstairs to check on his safety as well and to inform him of the information for which I am responsible. I, a resident, the one who is currently oppressed by arbitrary rules, would do this because I care about the welfare of others—yes, even the guard downstairs. This is all very hypothetical, but I am a person conscious of the need for my security. I am trained in many security tactics. And, although many of them may lack my training, the other residents here are not completely incapable to take defensive measures when it comes to their security. We make the difference, not some list of useless rules overzealously enforced by a man with an inferiority complex, a man who treats us and especially our guests, the people who could serve to protect him, with indignity and condescension.
Drawing nearer to our conclusion, I would like to tell such a story, a true story that happened here at Cornell Arms that I witnessed last year, a story in which a man, a resident of our building, offered his protection to our over-confident guard when he got himself into a potentially sticky situation. The guard was driving away this homeless man who appeared to be drugged up and having a bad high, telling him to go and warm himself somewhere else. In this case, the guard was completely justified in this firmness with the man, because we do not need beggars and potential muggers standing in the entrance to our home, especially if they show the signs of violent drug abuse. The guard stood his ground, using his large frame and straight posture (as he should) to intimidate the man. He also threatened to call the police—that day he had a cordless phone with him, which was good. The homeless man wouldn’t back down: he moved closer and began to shout threats at the guard. A man walked up from behind the guard, unseen, carrying an umbrella, for it was raining lightly. The man, a resident of the building, surveyed the situation and saw that his guard could be in danger. Standing behind the guard, wielding his umbrella, poised to strike, the man stood behind focusing his attention and his mental energy on the would-be attacker. Of course, when the guard noticed him, he (in his arrogant cop-like fashion) said something along the lines of “I don’t need you—go on in, [silly resident],” but the man refused silently, not drawing his attention for a moment off of the potential assailant, for it only takes a moment to draw out a knife or a gun. The man’s posture and unbroken stare told the angry man, “If your hand goes towards your pocket, or at the guard, this umbrella point goes to your throat.” Faced by two men, both imposing and one armed, the man reluctantly stalked away into the night. The guard showed no sign of appreciation, only the signs of hurt pride, again hiding behind the façade of his position requiring no need for unofficial help. The guard’s words didn’t matter to the man, for he recognized the guard’s insecurity, and recognized that he protected one who, although he didn’t appreciate it, needed a protecting hand. That man who backed him up was me, the same man who pens this argument, and I had only his security in mind.
And I provided that security without ever bullying him or his friends when there was, indeed, a bad guy to contend with. I’m glad I did.
And now, one year later, after having repeatedly had my best friend of fifteen years over to my apartment, our guard having seen him on numerous occasions enter the building with me, still denied my friend access to the front desk and to a courtesy call. Forget the fact that I feel betrayed, as this man who I protected a few months before, now will not protect my friend, committing against me the Dantean sin against hospitality. Not even considering that fact, consider this one: The guard, knowing from personal experience that there are angry, violent men wandering the streets, abandoned my friend to the darkness, the cold, and the rain, telling him to seek out a payphone in the dark. I do not appreciate that, nor will I ever again call this guard my friend—or even a friendly acquaintance. I do not even want to call him my security guard; I do not think that he deserves the position, because he, in fact, does not obey security policy.
The landlady as well as another security guard—a true man of courtesy—told me that it is the policy of Cornell Arms that the guards make courtesy calls for unexpected guests. If this is the case, then why doesn’t this man, who claims that policy drives all of his actions, obey policy?—I’ll tell you why. He obeys only the policies that allow him to be the commander, to tell people what they can and cannot do, and not the policies that state that he should serve the residents and guests of Cornell Arms in a reasonable fashion. I say in a reasonable fashion, because I do not expect the guard to wait on me hand and foot, and because it is not unreasonable to dial a phone number for a resident’s guest, especially when the guest knows by heart the number of the resident! According to the landlady and the other guard, the policy says specifically that the guard is required to make courtesy calls. He made no offer to my friend to do so. Of course, one could say, “Your friend should have asked,” to which I respond that it’s hard and undignified to be forced to shout through a one inch thick locked glass door while the security guard sits behind the counter not even rising to assist. It is his job to offer; after all, he constantly offers commands to people on how they should conduct themselves while at Cornell Arms, treating them like they’re in Kindergarten again. If he can offer to be a bully, then he can offer to be of assistance as well, but of course, that wouldn’t suit his enjoyment of his job, which lies mainly in the fact that it offers him the opportunity to bully others that he assumes he has power over. I would like to state that he has no power over me, but I have power over him as he is employed at my residence, and it is my rent payment, as well as those of the other residents, ultimately that provides his paycheck. I am his customer, and as customer, I request that my friends and family be treated with dignity and respect. If he fails to comply, I will take a survey of the other residents’ opinions of him, I will seek out an attorney, and I will take action for him to be removed from his position, which he abuses day after day.
Let me add this: Although our landlady denies it herself, the majority of people in this building that I have encountered do not like this security guard, and every person that I have spoken to have had friends treated with indignity and unfairness by this man. I do not use some of the more offensive words myself towards this man, as I hope in some way to maintain a professional and objective argument, but these are some of the titles I’ve heard given to him and things said about him:
“Jackass”
“Prick”
“Mother F---er”
“Bastard”
“Son of a Bitch”
“Fatf—k”
“German Shepherd guard dog gone bad”
“Bully”
“One day, he’s gonna get hurt; somebody’s gonna hurt him.”
“Next time he f---s with me or my friends, I’m gonna beat his ass.”
“He treats us like we’re idiots.”
“What goes around comes around.”
“He’s insecure.”
“He’s useless.”
“I hate him, and he can go to hell.”
This is the common consensus that I’ve heard. I have heard nothing from residents praising him for his actions. That is because his actions only oppress the residents and their friends in the place where they live and visit. These statements and titles bother me, especially the violent ones, and I offer this suggestion to his employers for his own security: Tell him that his actions endanger him, because there are many people who have made clear intentions of violence regarding this man, some of which are listed above. We must not have anyone entering our apartment complex threatening violence to our residents or its employees. He may believe himself well-trained and able to protect himself, but he must recognize himself as not being invincible—for he is not. So this is my final point: You have an employee who endangers himself in his workplace. You will be responsible for any injury he incurs while in your employment. Since he is not perceptive enough to realize that he is in danger, you must do what he tries to do to everyone else: you must enforce your rules of conduct upon him that are set in place for his own security. This may come as an insult to his intelligence—but, in fact, his actions have insulted him—and more importantly, endangered him. As your customer, a resident of this fine establishment, I request that you protect your employee by providing him with rules to follow that will protect him from the consequences of his own ignorant actions. If he will not comply with these rules, or if he becomes offended, refusing to change, then you should remove him from his position as he is a liability to your business and to its reputation. Thank you.
Sincerely,
[Writer’s Name]
Please Note:
Thank you very much for reading this most exhaustive and well-intended message. If by any chance I find that it is disregarded or that it is not acted upon or given attention in some way, I will have it printed in The Free Times, and I will attempt to have it printed in The State, even if I must pay money to do so. I will also distribute it to other residents of the apartments in some way, as I have become friends with most of them and am allowed to visit with friends and to show them what I have written. Also, note that if any individual, offended at my exercising my freedom of speech, decides to try to enforce upon me the nuisance clause, which I have read, that the renters’ rights of South Carolina prohibits apartments from enacting a nuisance clause against a resident who raises a complaint or an issue for the purpose of communication or to give suggestions as to how his landlady or landlord can make his home a better and safer place to live. I have spoken to an attorney, and it would be my case if someone was to try that as well. I do not like writing the previous two statements, but I feel my rights being threatened in my own home by people like this guard. Also, note that I do not use this man’s name because I do not want to attack his name, but the way that he conducts himself in his duties; it would be unnecessary and wrong for me to do so. The other reason I do not use his name is because the majority of people in Cornell Arms know good and well who I’m talking about as he is the only guard who conducts himself in this totalitarian, tyrannical fashion. The other guards are wonderful, and the ironic part is…I feel safer when they are on duty than when he is; why?—because I feel that I am being protected by a thinking, reacting human being, not a robot operating upon a program called “policy.”
Thank you for taking the time and the consideration to read this letter, written with only the best intentions. Please, make us safe and free in the place where we sleep, where we share, and where we live—After all, what is home if it is not a place of security and courtesy?
[end]
Thanks for taking the time to read. Sorry for the length. I hope you find it useful.
Yours,
Litfury
To put it bluntly, it is not useful. In fact that's an understatement.
If you wish to be taken seriously you need to condense your "most exhaustive and well-intended message" down to a summary consisting of a paragraph or two that clearly explains the following.
- Who you are with respect to this topic. Doesn't have to include personal information. This should explain why you are involved and establish why anyone should listen to you. You came close to this with your opening paragraph but you muddied it all up with a lot of extraneous BS. Keep it simple, keep it factual, keep it clear.
- What your standing is with respect to this topic. This should explain how and why you have a stake in this matter. Why it's important to you.
- Why you wrote this. This should explain why you felt it was necessary to put something down in writing as opposed to going to the authorities and providing a statement or as opposed to just letting it drop or as opposed to calling a local news organization, etc.
- What you intend to prove by writing this. This should clearly explain what you believe the contents of your message will set forth--what will be changed/set right/accomplished once a person reads and understands your message.
Then people can decide whether or not it's worth their time to wade through it. And more importantly if they DO decide to wade through it they'll have an idea of WHY they're wading through it.
Robert Hairless
Member
- Joined
- Oct 11, 2003
- Messages
- 3,983
Litfury, I think you started that three part message by saying that your letter was not acted upon.
Did you follow through on your promise to "have it printed in The Free Times, and" ... "attempt to have it printed in The State, even if I must pay money to do so"? If so please provide publication information. If not, why not? It was a strongly stated promise.
I gather that you sent your letter before the incident for which the security guard was arrested. What is the date on that letter?
Did either the defense or the prosecution have your letter by the time of the trial? Was it used in the trial?
What do you hope to accomplish by posting that lengthy message--and the letter--here?
JohnBT
Member
I'm sorry, but you need an editor, or a hobby other than writing. For example...
"So, in the definition of our first word, courtesy, we have a word that means soft politeness, having kindness and civility. Now, we turn to our second word: Officer. Webster’s defines officer as “A person invested with an office [office being a special duty]” Now, if we put two and two together..."
Are you writing simply to amuse yourself? Luckily I'm an extremely fast reader. OTOH, that's 3 minutes of my life I'll never get back.
John
"So, in the definition of our first word, courtesy, we have a word that means soft politeness, having kindness and civility. Now, we turn to our second word: Officer. Webster’s defines officer as “A person invested with an office [office being a special duty]” Now, if we put two and two together..."
Are you writing simply to amuse yourself? Luckily I'm an extremely fast reader. OTOH, that's 3 minutes of my life I'll never get back.
John
To answer some of your questions
Many interesting questions, and quite a malicious lot, some of you, taking potshots at me just for posting an official letter of complaint about Dickey.
I guess I should respond to one insult:
Just so you know, dear John, I am a published writer, an editor, and an English instructor. What I was making there is called a definitional argument, and it was made in order to cut through the bull**** that Cornell Arms was trying to claim. There's nothing like having the word "Security" pushed in your face every day, when you are, in fact, being made less secure and being treated with no courtesy. If you took the time to read my piece--which I admitted from the beginning to be long--you would realize that I explain why I go into these definitions. While I may need an editor, I think, dear sir, that you need a better pair of glasses, and that you may want to read with more attentiveness. While you might be "an extremely fast reader," you may be sacrificing a bit of reading comprehension for speed. Oh, and, John, you may want to hire an editor to teach you how to end your questions in question marks, not periods. Any editor (or writer) worth his salt knows that this is common knowledge to most third graders.
Am I writing to amuse myself? Partially. And I think many of you do the same. All writers do, to some degree. If writing isn't amusing, why do it? Oh, yes, there is the cause of justice. But is writing for a just cause not also an act of pleasure, or at least of personal satisfaction? Just a thought.
About the length:
I hate having to explain such a simple, seemingly evident concept, but I will, since it seems necessary. You do not have to read the letter, if you find it too long to give 30 minutes of your time. (I wonder how much of your time you've given to this discussion, since it began.) I do not have the power (or the concern) to place you under any obligation to read. Read if you want. Breeze past it if you want. It's clear to see how long it is before you ever read it. Your choice. But if you read it, then do so attentively, and don't skim over it and then ask questions that I have already answered in the letter. If you want to read, then read. If not, then don't. But don't be a half-assed reader. And don’t blame your lack of care to the comprehensive nature of my letter.
Why the length? Understand my original context, which I have already stated, or at least implied: this was a formal letter of complaint to Cornell Arms apartments, but it was also a report to the best of my knowledge of what I knew about Dickey's actions and behavior up to that time. So, while I was complaining, I was also reporting incidents that had occurred over the course of three years. (If you are going to ask why I waited three years to complain, that is answered in the letter. Don't admit your inability to read by asking redundant questions.)
If you knew anything about the management at Cornell Arms (I don't expect you to, if you didn't live there at that time), then you would know this: this kind of letter is what it took to get anything done at Cornell Arms. I had to give a full report, and I had to respond to the arguments that management tried to make in order to avoid reprimanding Jason. These people were allergic to work and effort, and in order to convince them that I meant business, a full report was required. (And, by the way, dear John, my letter was effective, and accomplished my goals. So do not lecture me on effective writing, at least, not until you have mastered that ever elusive question mark.)
Did I submit the letter to the newspapers, as allegedly promised? Remember that I placed conditions on that promise. The condition was that if my letter was ignored, I would publish the letter (in abbreviated form, of course) in the local newspapers. Fortunately, it was not ignored. Jason was reprimanded for the mistreatment of my guests, and from that time forward, he treated my guests with courtesy and with the services mandated in the apartment security policy. The case was closed for me, although I still continued to hear of him mistreating others from time to time.
Did I give the letter to the police? Yes, I did--that is, when the shooting occurred nearly one year later. Did they use the letter? I have no idea. I just did my part as a good citizen and made sure they had it, more for the events it reported than the arguments made. Cornell Arms is the type of institution that would have taken my letter and shredded it when the incident occurred, so I wanted to make sure the authorities knew that formal complaints had been raised. Even though my treatment had improved, did Jason continue to mistreat others? Probably. So, this remained an issue of neglect. I did not realize this possibility until the time of the shooting. (Note that I call this a possibility, and not any kind of certainty.)
Who am I? I explained this. I was a resident at Cornell Arms for about three years before the incident occurred, and for a few years afterward. Further, I was the only resident with enough gumption to submit a formal written complaint about Dickey's actions. All other resident complaints with which I was familiar were verbal. Mine were verbal too, up until Jason barred my friend from the building, and forced for nearly an hour to search the dark, dangerous Columbia streets for a payphone in the November rain. Jason had knowingly done this disservice to my friend when Cornell Arms policy clearly and reasonably stated that he was to make a courtesy call. After having my verbal complaints ignored, I wrote the monster of a letter you see here. When my friend (who knew Jason’s name, and with whom Jason was clearly familiar) finally got in touch with me from a payphone a block away in a dark alley, he was drenched from head to foot. Jason was smiling when he saw him in this condition. This is when I complained, and threw everything I could at Cornell Arms regarding this jerk at the desk.
That is all I am willing to tell you. I am sorry if you do not trust me due to my anonymity. I'll leave that judgment call up to you. Frankly, I don't know any of you either, nor do I really care to know you, since my political and social sympathies do not align very much with yours, and since many (not all) of you are insulting and cannot carry on civil discussion. (If you want to win people over to the idea that you should legitimately carry and/or own guns, you need to make sure you come off as people who are not so eager to attack others.) I did care about your discussion, so I gave you what I know. If it has no value for you, then fine. The letter did have value for me, since it forced Jason to treat me and my guests with respect.
I have one closing thought, and then I am done with you, and will cancel my membership with this site, since I only joined to put in my two cents to a discussion that was at one time meaningful, until it disintegrated into squabbling. (When will the name calling begin?) Is there no place for guest comments?--Maybe I couldn't find it, so I did what I had to do in order to submit my piece.
Anyway, here’s that closing thought. I see many NRA members and other gun supporters sporting this slogan, mostly on bumper stickers:
"Guns don't kill people. People kill people."
This is to say that the gun is only the tool of killing. The real killer is human intention--human intention can use a gun (or a pillow, or a baseball bat, or a fist) to kill. And the only way we can gauge human intention is to look at the motives and past behavior.
I agree with this. So, does this mean we should consider Jason's history of conduct in considering if he acted in self-defense? I do not claim to know the answers to this question, because, well, I don't. I don't know if Jason was really defending himself.
I knew Jason. I knew that in the past, his actions brought out the violence in others. While he did have a calm demeanor, he was very good at making people angry and claiming it off as acting according to the books, when he was not, in fact, acting according to the books, but against them. He enjoyed following people around, and he often tried to trap people by climbing the stairs (very quickly) and heading them off at the (rather sluggish) elevator. He smiled about it, and bragged about it. He gained obvious pleasure from it, as he did when he would not let residents use the lobby phone in emergency situations. On the surface, he was calm. No doubt about it. But there was a twinkle in his eyes.
The best analogy is Officer John Ryan, in the film _Crash_, when he molests the producer’s wife. Officer Ryan is calm. And he is playing it off as if he is just going by the books. But he has violence and malice in his heart. This was the nature of Jason's offenses towards residents.
Now, was he acting this way towards these drunken young men? I don't know. I wasn't there. But if you made me guess--if you held a gun to my head, and said, "Answer only with a 'yes' or a 'no' and if you get it wrong, you're dead," I would have to say yes. Jason, as he always had before, probably made these young men angry by going a bit above and beyond the call of duty of a doorman and being the cop he had always wanted to be. I also know that he had a history of lying to cover for his actions--of retelling events to make them look like he was justified. If you read my letter, you will see that I caught him in such a lie.
But I have no such answer for certain. It looks to me like Jason was attacked, and that he was justified in using deadly force against deadly force in that one instant of time. But, knowing Jason, I cannot know for sure how it really happened. And, neither can any of you. You can only base your speculations on contingencies, since self-defense is ultimately a question of intention and motive.
Good luck in your ongoing discussion.
Sincerely,
Litfury
Many interesting questions, and quite a malicious lot, some of you, taking potshots at me just for posting an official letter of complaint about Dickey.
I guess I should respond to one insult:
Just so you know, dear John, I am a published writer, an editor, and an English instructor. What I was making there is called a definitional argument, and it was made in order to cut through the bull**** that Cornell Arms was trying to claim. There's nothing like having the word "Security" pushed in your face every day, when you are, in fact, being made less secure and being treated with no courtesy. If you took the time to read my piece--which I admitted from the beginning to be long--you would realize that I explain why I go into these definitions. While I may need an editor, I think, dear sir, that you need a better pair of glasses, and that you may want to read with more attentiveness. While you might be "an extremely fast reader," you may be sacrificing a bit of reading comprehension for speed. Oh, and, John, you may want to hire an editor to teach you how to end your questions in question marks, not periods. Any editor (or writer) worth his salt knows that this is common knowledge to most third graders.
Am I writing to amuse myself? Partially. And I think many of you do the same. All writers do, to some degree. If writing isn't amusing, why do it? Oh, yes, there is the cause of justice. But is writing for a just cause not also an act of pleasure, or at least of personal satisfaction? Just a thought.
About the length:
I hate having to explain such a simple, seemingly evident concept, but I will, since it seems necessary. You do not have to read the letter, if you find it too long to give 30 minutes of your time. (I wonder how much of your time you've given to this discussion, since it began.) I do not have the power (or the concern) to place you under any obligation to read. Read if you want. Breeze past it if you want. It's clear to see how long it is before you ever read it. Your choice. But if you read it, then do so attentively, and don't skim over it and then ask questions that I have already answered in the letter. If you want to read, then read. If not, then don't. But don't be a half-assed reader. And don’t blame your lack of care to the comprehensive nature of my letter.
Why the length? Understand my original context, which I have already stated, or at least implied: this was a formal letter of complaint to Cornell Arms apartments, but it was also a report to the best of my knowledge of what I knew about Dickey's actions and behavior up to that time. So, while I was complaining, I was also reporting incidents that had occurred over the course of three years. (If you are going to ask why I waited three years to complain, that is answered in the letter. Don't admit your inability to read by asking redundant questions.)
If you knew anything about the management at Cornell Arms (I don't expect you to, if you didn't live there at that time), then you would know this: this kind of letter is what it took to get anything done at Cornell Arms. I had to give a full report, and I had to respond to the arguments that management tried to make in order to avoid reprimanding Jason. These people were allergic to work and effort, and in order to convince them that I meant business, a full report was required. (And, by the way, dear John, my letter was effective, and accomplished my goals. So do not lecture me on effective writing, at least, not until you have mastered that ever elusive question mark.)
Did I submit the letter to the newspapers, as allegedly promised? Remember that I placed conditions on that promise. The condition was that if my letter was ignored, I would publish the letter (in abbreviated form, of course) in the local newspapers. Fortunately, it was not ignored. Jason was reprimanded for the mistreatment of my guests, and from that time forward, he treated my guests with courtesy and with the services mandated in the apartment security policy. The case was closed for me, although I still continued to hear of him mistreating others from time to time.
Did I give the letter to the police? Yes, I did--that is, when the shooting occurred nearly one year later. Did they use the letter? I have no idea. I just did my part as a good citizen and made sure they had it, more for the events it reported than the arguments made. Cornell Arms is the type of institution that would have taken my letter and shredded it when the incident occurred, so I wanted to make sure the authorities knew that formal complaints had been raised. Even though my treatment had improved, did Jason continue to mistreat others? Probably. So, this remained an issue of neglect. I did not realize this possibility until the time of the shooting. (Note that I call this a possibility, and not any kind of certainty.)
Who am I? I explained this. I was a resident at Cornell Arms for about three years before the incident occurred, and for a few years afterward. Further, I was the only resident with enough gumption to submit a formal written complaint about Dickey's actions. All other resident complaints with which I was familiar were verbal. Mine were verbal too, up until Jason barred my friend from the building, and forced for nearly an hour to search the dark, dangerous Columbia streets for a payphone in the November rain. Jason had knowingly done this disservice to my friend when Cornell Arms policy clearly and reasonably stated that he was to make a courtesy call. After having my verbal complaints ignored, I wrote the monster of a letter you see here. When my friend (who knew Jason’s name, and with whom Jason was clearly familiar) finally got in touch with me from a payphone a block away in a dark alley, he was drenched from head to foot. Jason was smiling when he saw him in this condition. This is when I complained, and threw everything I could at Cornell Arms regarding this jerk at the desk.
That is all I am willing to tell you. I am sorry if you do not trust me due to my anonymity. I'll leave that judgment call up to you. Frankly, I don't know any of you either, nor do I really care to know you, since my political and social sympathies do not align very much with yours, and since many (not all) of you are insulting and cannot carry on civil discussion. (If you want to win people over to the idea that you should legitimately carry and/or own guns, you need to make sure you come off as people who are not so eager to attack others.) I did care about your discussion, so I gave you what I know. If it has no value for you, then fine. The letter did have value for me, since it forced Jason to treat me and my guests with respect.
I have one closing thought, and then I am done with you, and will cancel my membership with this site, since I only joined to put in my two cents to a discussion that was at one time meaningful, until it disintegrated into squabbling. (When will the name calling begin?) Is there no place for guest comments?--Maybe I couldn't find it, so I did what I had to do in order to submit my piece.
Anyway, here’s that closing thought. I see many NRA members and other gun supporters sporting this slogan, mostly on bumper stickers:
"Guns don't kill people. People kill people."
This is to say that the gun is only the tool of killing. The real killer is human intention--human intention can use a gun (or a pillow, or a baseball bat, or a fist) to kill. And the only way we can gauge human intention is to look at the motives and past behavior.
I agree with this. So, does this mean we should consider Jason's history of conduct in considering if he acted in self-defense? I do not claim to know the answers to this question, because, well, I don't. I don't know if Jason was really defending himself.
I knew Jason. I knew that in the past, his actions brought out the violence in others. While he did have a calm demeanor, he was very good at making people angry and claiming it off as acting according to the books, when he was not, in fact, acting according to the books, but against them. He enjoyed following people around, and he often tried to trap people by climbing the stairs (very quickly) and heading them off at the (rather sluggish) elevator. He smiled about it, and bragged about it. He gained obvious pleasure from it, as he did when he would not let residents use the lobby phone in emergency situations. On the surface, he was calm. No doubt about it. But there was a twinkle in his eyes.
The best analogy is Officer John Ryan, in the film _Crash_, when he molests the producer’s wife. Officer Ryan is calm. And he is playing it off as if he is just going by the books. But he has violence and malice in his heart. This was the nature of Jason's offenses towards residents.
Now, was he acting this way towards these drunken young men? I don't know. I wasn't there. But if you made me guess--if you held a gun to my head, and said, "Answer only with a 'yes' or a 'no' and if you get it wrong, you're dead," I would have to say yes. Jason, as he always had before, probably made these young men angry by going a bit above and beyond the call of duty of a doorman and being the cop he had always wanted to be. I also know that he had a history of lying to cover for his actions--of retelling events to make them look like he was justified. If you read my letter, you will see that I caught him in such a lie.
But I have no such answer for certain. It looks to me like Jason was attacked, and that he was justified in using deadly force against deadly force in that one instant of time. But, knowing Jason, I cannot know for sure how it really happened. And, neither can any of you. You can only base your speculations on contingencies, since self-defense is ultimately a question of intention and motive.
Good luck in your ongoing discussion.
Sincerely,
Litfury
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Is it really impossible for you to construct an abstract in the form I suggested? HEAVY emphasis on "a paragraph or two"?
I think that if you really feel what you have to say is important you could help your case considerably by doing so. If not, why not? It's certainly not because you don't have the time to type...
By the way, when I wrote "this topic" and "this matter", I'm referring to the shooting case, not your personal issues with Dickey. Those may be relevant to your overall document but not to the shooting. Again, this is a bit blunt, but it is unreasonable of you to assail people with the intricate details of the inner workings of your apartment complex and your interactions with the facility staff unless you can establish some relevance first.
Lastly, this is not a writing contest. You get points for clarity and brevity (especially brevity) and points off for flowery phrasing--especially when it turns a sentence into a paragraph.
I think that if you really feel what you have to say is important you could help your case considerably by doing so. If not, why not? It's certainly not because you don't have the time to type...
By the way, when I wrote "this topic" and "this matter", I'm referring to the shooting case, not your personal issues with Dickey. Those may be relevant to your overall document but not to the shooting. Again, this is a bit blunt, but it is unreasonable of you to assail people with the intricate details of the inner workings of your apartment complex and your interactions with the facility staff unless you can establish some relevance first.
Lastly, this is not a writing contest. You get points for clarity and brevity (especially brevity) and points off for flowery phrasing--especially when it turns a sentence into a paragraph.
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Robert Hairless
Member
- Joined
- Oct 11, 2003
- Messages
- 3,983
I search for phrases
To sing your praises
But there aren't any magic adjectives
To tell you all you are!
You're just too marvelous
Too marvelous for words
Like glorious, glamourous
And that old standby, amorous
It's all too wonderful
I'll never find the words
That say enough, tell enough
I mean, they just aren't swell enough
You're much too much
And just too very, very
To ever be in Webster's Dictionary
And so I'm borrowing
A love song from the birds
To tell you that you're marvelous
Too marvelous for words
To sing your praises
But there aren't any magic adjectives
To tell you all you are!
You're just too marvelous
Too marvelous for words
Like glorious, glamourous
And that old standby, amorous
It's all too wonderful
I'll never find the words
That say enough, tell enough
I mean, they just aren't swell enough
You're much too much
And just too very, very
To ever be in Webster's Dictionary
And so I'm borrowing
A love song from the birds
To tell you that you're marvelous
Too marvelous for words
Lyrics by Johnny Mercer.
On the Cornell Arms Letter (the dance continues).
Robert:
That first one you quote from my letter is a common device called sarcasm, or in some cases, irony. Since you are so adept at using it, I would think you would recognize it. The point is that the meanings of words like "security" are not complex, so I took a condescending (and sarcastic) tone to make our property manager feel stupid for making stupid arguments. The point is that it did not require that level of explanation, and that only an idiot would require such explanation. (And, believe me, our landlady was an idiot—and a corrupt one to boot.) I'm a bit surprised that you did not catch on, since you seem so keen on poetic devices. So much for you, dear Robert, king of all things poetic. Since I am an English instructor (as you reminded our readers), I could teach you all about how to spot irony and sarcasm in a work. You should take my class; you would get a lot out of it.
About your other examples of my bad writing, which you never actually explain: I wrote that letter when I was a sophomore in college. I would like to have seen you do better when you were a sophomore. Would I revise it now? Heck yeah! But I didn't want to alter it, and so I left it, poor usage and all. Wait, where did your unspoken, seemingly self-evident argument go, Robert? That's right: down the tubes. You could have avoided this fate if you had stopped to consider when I wrote this piece, but, then again, I guess you don't know my age. So, when all is said and done, you couldn't have intuited that I was still in the learning process when I penned this letter. You made assumptions, and--well, you know what they say about those. I would say it's more you than me though. (There's sarcasm, again, Robert: take note of it.)
And feel free to quote me any time! And, if you would like, I could start quoting your moments in bad writing. (And I'll bet I could find some real doozies in your sophomore writing.) But wait: why would I go through that much trouble for you? Oh yeah, that's right: I wouldn't.
John:
Yes, I could write an abstract in the form of a few paragraphs. Let me tell you (again, as I did from the start) why I didn't: I didn't do this because I wanted to present the whole original piece, as evidence of a formal written complaint submitted prior to the incident. If you analyze it--not so much for the points I'm making--but for the information that pertains to the issues you're discussing, then you will see that there is some useful information in there for your discussion. (Speed-reading will not allow for much of this analysis, though.) Why don’t I analyze it for you? You seem like intelligent, analytical fellows to me, so I did not want to insult your intelligence by spoon-feeding you.
But I will let the blind lead the blind, so they can fall into their own rhetorical ditch. (Did you catch the allusion, Robert?)
And look, guys: I apologized for the length from the start, so you never had any grounds for criticizing the letter’s length. I made the admission, and I did so before you ever brought up the point. This only shows my ability to read my audience. Now, if only my audience would read my work. Oh well, I guess it’s too long. (I hear there are a lot of interesting studies on how Americans have low attention spans, and how it’s getting worse.)
If you take the letter as a document pertaining to the issue, then consider this:
You will notice that I mention how the landlady told me that Jason was unarmed. This says something about what she thought (or stated) about the guards being armed at Cornell Arms. (The name of the apts. is a bit ironic, isn't it? Don’t you think so, Robert?)
Next: Don't you think you should consider, in deciding the question of self defense, that Jason was not given the necessary equipment to do his job--and that a resident made management formally aware of this issue? Shouldn't he have had a walkie-talkie? Or a decent phone, at least, so he could have gotten in touch with the police faster? Shouldn't Cornell Arms have had two guards on duty at night, instead of just one, in a city with crime rates like Columbia? (I admit that I did not point out this last one in my letter, but my points may lead you to consider other ways in which Cornell Arms did not provide its security with the necessary resources. So, they brought their own resources.)
Nah, that doesn't matter. Forget it. You guys are too smart for that, since you know all about gun laws and all. That makes you judge and jury over the whole situation. Forget the residents and their perspective. Forget that we were the ones who were there, who saw the blood on the sidewalk. Forget that we were the ones who heard the gunshots a few floors below us, and who watched a young man die. Forget that some of us were questioned by the police, and that a good bit of the evidence you have been discussing was provided by us. Nah, the residents don't matter at all. Forget them, since this whole thing happened in a void.
John:
I never thought it was a writing contest (although I have won quite a few in my time, and have no desire to prove myself further). I wrote this letter several years ago, as I believe I indicated in my explanation. I provided it without changing it. I was not trying to win any contests by submitting it the way I did, silly. I was just trying to stay true to the document. But thanks for the compliment! I'll tell you what, though: You seem like an honest guy to me, so I will give you what you want. In a paragraph? Sure! Here you go:
Jason Dickey may have defended himself in the Cornell Arms shooting, but if his past performance is to be considered at all in the self-defense case, then I should inform you that he had a professional record of (1) lying, (2) not following reasonable policies, and (3) of bullying guests to the building. He claimed to do so in the name of some vague concept called "security," when, in action, he put residents and guests in harm's way--the opposite of security. I wrote a formal letter of complaint to Cornell Arms, so they were aware of Jason's actions and attitudes months before the shooting ever occurred. If it is the case that Jason Dickey knowingly provoked violence in Joshua Boot (as he tended to do with residents and guests), then ultimately, Dickey was the cause of the incident, and this weakens his case for self-defense, since he was the original aggressor, especially considering the fact that he had knowledge and training in physical confrontations—the first rule of which is to avoid provoking them. The points in this letter should be considered if this becomes an issue in deciding Jason's case.
There. Are you happy? I hope so. I did that just for you.
And, John:
How did I "assail people" with my discussion of Cornell Arms? I simply put my letter out there so people who want to read it can read it. Why is everything all about attacking with you folks? Why are you beginning to look more and more like the violent people you are stereotyped to be by the so-called liberal media? I was not attacking anyone. And I did not have to type. I copied and pasted the letter. (It's a real time saver, if you've never used it.) (Oh, and, Robert, that's sarcasm again--just in case you’re taking it literally.)
Finally:
I do have a document you may want to know about. I like you guys. You are a spirited bunch, and I enjoy our intellectual sparring. It's good for the mind.
Here is what I have, if you're interested:
I have the security policy for Cornell Arms--the official document. I am the only resident I know of who has it, and I gained it through having the gumption to ask around, and through being friends with the other security guards. Good luck getting it from anyone else.
I know what you're saying at this point. You're saying you don’t care about the g-d---ed apartment complex and its policies. But, I have read past discussions, and I do recall the issue of the apartment's security policy coming up, and how no one seems to have the security policy on them to see if it says Jason was (or was not) to be armed.
I have that policy, if you're interested. If not, well then, fine. I don't really care. Your loss.
I do appreciate the more respectful tone in your second set of responses to me. You are not wise to attack newcomers when they provide any kind of information. That's no way to treat people who attempt to contribute, even if you do not deem their contribution worthy. I did what I did out of a spirit of contribution and helpfulness, and you should be respectful in your responses. Don't make yourselves out to be the crazy gun-nuts that many (mistakenly) think you are. Attacking newcomers does not help fight this stereotype, so it is counter-productive to the aims (pardon the pun) of this website.
Why is this response long? Because it was “flowery”? No. It is long because I am replying to several people. When it’s three-on-one, and you’re on the side of the three, it’s easy to write a short post. But when you’re the one, and you have many questions to answer from three different people, then the responses will be long. If they are not, then it is a disservice to those asking the questions.
Best,
Litfury
Robert:
That first one you quote from my letter is a common device called sarcasm, or in some cases, irony. Since you are so adept at using it, I would think you would recognize it. The point is that the meanings of words like "security" are not complex, so I took a condescending (and sarcastic) tone to make our property manager feel stupid for making stupid arguments. The point is that it did not require that level of explanation, and that only an idiot would require such explanation. (And, believe me, our landlady was an idiot—and a corrupt one to boot.) I'm a bit surprised that you did not catch on, since you seem so keen on poetic devices. So much for you, dear Robert, king of all things poetic. Since I am an English instructor (as you reminded our readers), I could teach you all about how to spot irony and sarcasm in a work. You should take my class; you would get a lot out of it.
About your other examples of my bad writing, which you never actually explain: I wrote that letter when I was a sophomore in college. I would like to have seen you do better when you were a sophomore. Would I revise it now? Heck yeah! But I didn't want to alter it, and so I left it, poor usage and all. Wait, where did your unspoken, seemingly self-evident argument go, Robert? That's right: down the tubes. You could have avoided this fate if you had stopped to consider when I wrote this piece, but, then again, I guess you don't know my age. So, when all is said and done, you couldn't have intuited that I was still in the learning process when I penned this letter. You made assumptions, and--well, you know what they say about those. I would say it's more you than me though. (There's sarcasm, again, Robert: take note of it.)
And feel free to quote me any time! And, if you would like, I could start quoting your moments in bad writing. (And I'll bet I could find some real doozies in your sophomore writing.) But wait: why would I go through that much trouble for you? Oh yeah, that's right: I wouldn't.
John:
Yes, I could write an abstract in the form of a few paragraphs. Let me tell you (again, as I did from the start) why I didn't: I didn't do this because I wanted to present the whole original piece, as evidence of a formal written complaint submitted prior to the incident. If you analyze it--not so much for the points I'm making--but for the information that pertains to the issues you're discussing, then you will see that there is some useful information in there for your discussion. (Speed-reading will not allow for much of this analysis, though.) Why don’t I analyze it for you? You seem like intelligent, analytical fellows to me, so I did not want to insult your intelligence by spoon-feeding you.
But I will let the blind lead the blind, so they can fall into their own rhetorical ditch. (Did you catch the allusion, Robert?)
And look, guys: I apologized for the length from the start, so you never had any grounds for criticizing the letter’s length. I made the admission, and I did so before you ever brought up the point. This only shows my ability to read my audience. Now, if only my audience would read my work. Oh well, I guess it’s too long. (I hear there are a lot of interesting studies on how Americans have low attention spans, and how it’s getting worse.)
If you take the letter as a document pertaining to the issue, then consider this:
You will notice that I mention how the landlady told me that Jason was unarmed. This says something about what she thought (or stated) about the guards being armed at Cornell Arms. (The name of the apts. is a bit ironic, isn't it? Don’t you think so, Robert?)
Next: Don't you think you should consider, in deciding the question of self defense, that Jason was not given the necessary equipment to do his job--and that a resident made management formally aware of this issue? Shouldn't he have had a walkie-talkie? Or a decent phone, at least, so he could have gotten in touch with the police faster? Shouldn't Cornell Arms have had two guards on duty at night, instead of just one, in a city with crime rates like Columbia? (I admit that I did not point out this last one in my letter, but my points may lead you to consider other ways in which Cornell Arms did not provide its security with the necessary resources. So, they brought their own resources.)
Nah, that doesn't matter. Forget it. You guys are too smart for that, since you know all about gun laws and all. That makes you judge and jury over the whole situation. Forget the residents and their perspective. Forget that we were the ones who were there, who saw the blood on the sidewalk. Forget that we were the ones who heard the gunshots a few floors below us, and who watched a young man die. Forget that some of us were questioned by the police, and that a good bit of the evidence you have been discussing was provided by us. Nah, the residents don't matter at all. Forget them, since this whole thing happened in a void.
John:
I never thought it was a writing contest (although I have won quite a few in my time, and have no desire to prove myself further). I wrote this letter several years ago, as I believe I indicated in my explanation. I provided it without changing it. I was not trying to win any contests by submitting it the way I did, silly. I was just trying to stay true to the document. But thanks for the compliment! I'll tell you what, though: You seem like an honest guy to me, so I will give you what you want. In a paragraph? Sure! Here you go:
Jason Dickey may have defended himself in the Cornell Arms shooting, but if his past performance is to be considered at all in the self-defense case, then I should inform you that he had a professional record of (1) lying, (2) not following reasonable policies, and (3) of bullying guests to the building. He claimed to do so in the name of some vague concept called "security," when, in action, he put residents and guests in harm's way--the opposite of security. I wrote a formal letter of complaint to Cornell Arms, so they were aware of Jason's actions and attitudes months before the shooting ever occurred. If it is the case that Jason Dickey knowingly provoked violence in Joshua Boot (as he tended to do with residents and guests), then ultimately, Dickey was the cause of the incident, and this weakens his case for self-defense, since he was the original aggressor, especially considering the fact that he had knowledge and training in physical confrontations—the first rule of which is to avoid provoking them. The points in this letter should be considered if this becomes an issue in deciding Jason's case.
There. Are you happy? I hope so. I did that just for you.
And, John:
How did I "assail people" with my discussion of Cornell Arms? I simply put my letter out there so people who want to read it can read it. Why is everything all about attacking with you folks? Why are you beginning to look more and more like the violent people you are stereotyped to be by the so-called liberal media? I was not attacking anyone. And I did not have to type. I copied and pasted the letter. (It's a real time saver, if you've never used it.) (Oh, and, Robert, that's sarcasm again--just in case you’re taking it literally.)
Finally:
I do have a document you may want to know about. I like you guys. You are a spirited bunch, and I enjoy our intellectual sparring. It's good for the mind.
Here is what I have, if you're interested:
I have the security policy for Cornell Arms--the official document. I am the only resident I know of who has it, and I gained it through having the gumption to ask around, and through being friends with the other security guards. Good luck getting it from anyone else.
I know what you're saying at this point. You're saying you don’t care about the g-d---ed apartment complex and its policies. But, I have read past discussions, and I do recall the issue of the apartment's security policy coming up, and how no one seems to have the security policy on them to see if it says Jason was (or was not) to be armed.
I have that policy, if you're interested. If not, well then, fine. I don't really care. Your loss.
I do appreciate the more respectful tone in your second set of responses to me. You are not wise to attack newcomers when they provide any kind of information. That's no way to treat people who attempt to contribute, even if you do not deem their contribution worthy. I did what I did out of a spirit of contribution and helpfulness, and you should be respectful in your responses. Don't make yourselves out to be the crazy gun-nuts that many (mistakenly) think you are. Attacking newcomers does not help fight this stereotype, so it is counter-productive to the aims (pardon the pun) of this website.
Why is this response long? Because it was “flowery”? No. It is long because I am replying to several people. When it’s three-on-one, and you’re on the side of the three, it’s easy to write a short post. But when you’re the one, and you have many questions to answer from three different people, then the responses will be long. If they are not, then it is a disservice to those asking the questions.
Best,
Litfury
Autolycus
Member
Please close this thread moderators. I believe we have a troll.
scbair
Member
No flaming or disrespect to litfury, but the bottom line is that his extensive verbiage is discounted (and rightly so) in his own opening comments. Not only is it the most agonizing read I've endured lately, it simply is all irrelevant! If I accept all the complaints and comments as accurate, and Jason Dickey acted like scum, so what?!? Even scum has a right to self defense. The only facts that matter are the facts surrounding the event. This has been noted before, in this thread.
As yet another irrelevent aside, I attended the University of SC, and exempted lower level English requirements, by virtue of earning an "A" in a higher-level Honors English course. After 30+ years of business and investigative experience, my writing style has earned commendations from superiors and some governmental agencies. Today, I'd flunk English 101. I've been taught to never use a paragraph when a sentence will suffice, rather than vice versa . . .
As yet another irrelevent aside, I attended the University of SC, and exempted lower level English requirements, by virtue of earning an "A" in a higher-level Honors English course. After 30+ years of business and investigative experience, my writing style has earned commendations from superiors and some governmental agencies. Today, I'd flunk English 101. I've been taught to never use a paragraph when a sentence will suffice, rather than vice versa . . .
Ever heard of admissions
SCBair,
Since you are such a great writer and all, have you ever heard of making admissions. I did admit that the piece was long, and I explained why. Why are you still discussing what I explained from the beginning?
But, to get back to the argument, you say,
it simply is all irrelevant! If I accept all the complaints and comments as accurate, and Jason Dickey acted like scum, so what?!? Even scum has a right to self defense.
I have already agreed with you. I put it this way:
And don't get me wrong--I do not think that the points I make in this document should have had bearing on Dickey's case, at least, not any more than any other character witness should. After all, even if Dickey was an oppressive jerk, we should remember that even oppressive jerks have a right to defend their lives from drunken, [apparently] armed assailants who are charging.
I go on to show that I anticipated your response:
Anyone who will raise this protest against my consideration of Dickey's character should note that I already agree with you. Judging Dickey's case is purely a matter of self-defense. Based on the discussion I've seen here, the proverbial jury (not the literal one) is still out on that question. We cannot send a man to live out his life in prison if there is any reasonable doubt as to his guilt.
But, you know, you're such a good writer (and reader), and all--I'm sure you caught that. Yeah. You just chose to ignore it because, well, that's your style I guess. (And, yeah, with reading skills like that, you probably would fail out of my course.)
So, while being Mr. Brevity is great and all, you may need to lengthen your writing a bit to make sure you include relevant points, since you seem to be lacking them here.
Learn to read before you criticize. Your comments only show how predictable you are.
About me being called a troll on this site, and about closing the discussion:
Fine. You know what: I'm out. I respect your space. You guys are a bunch of asses anyway, and you have only turned your viewers off to your cause, since you are the most unwelcoming group I've ever had the honor of talking to. To think that you guys are gun owners. Wow.
Good luck appealing Dickie's case, guys. If you do not consider the other aspects of the case, you will not win it. You can sit here in your NRA/gun-enthusiast site all day long and intellectually masturbate about the issue together, but that does not mean that the rest of the world cares about only this aspect of the case. In cases of murder, motive and history are always considered. Jason can claim self-defense until the cows come home, but that issue only deals with that instance when he pulled the trigger (several times by the way). The question is: did Jason provoke the attack? How did he carry out his duties? Did he have a pattern of inappropriate conduct? Until you confront these questions, you are only seeing half of the picture. Some of you guys might be cops, but it's a good thing you're not lawyers.
Goodbye. I'm done with your stupid discussion. Again, good luck appealing the case. You're gonna need it.
Litfury
SCBair,
Since you are such a great writer and all, have you ever heard of making admissions. I did admit that the piece was long, and I explained why. Why are you still discussing what I explained from the beginning?
But, to get back to the argument, you say,
it simply is all irrelevant! If I accept all the complaints and comments as accurate, and Jason Dickey acted like scum, so what?!? Even scum has a right to self defense.
I have already agreed with you. I put it this way:
And don't get me wrong--I do not think that the points I make in this document should have had bearing on Dickey's case, at least, not any more than any other character witness should. After all, even if Dickey was an oppressive jerk, we should remember that even oppressive jerks have a right to defend their lives from drunken, [apparently] armed assailants who are charging.
I go on to show that I anticipated your response:
Anyone who will raise this protest against my consideration of Dickey's character should note that I already agree with you. Judging Dickey's case is purely a matter of self-defense. Based on the discussion I've seen here, the proverbial jury (not the literal one) is still out on that question. We cannot send a man to live out his life in prison if there is any reasonable doubt as to his guilt.
But, you know, you're such a good writer (and reader), and all--I'm sure you caught that. Yeah. You just chose to ignore it because, well, that's your style I guess. (And, yeah, with reading skills like that, you probably would fail out of my course.)
So, while being Mr. Brevity is great and all, you may need to lengthen your writing a bit to make sure you include relevant points, since you seem to be lacking them here.
Learn to read before you criticize. Your comments only show how predictable you are.
About me being called a troll on this site, and about closing the discussion:
Fine. You know what: I'm out. I respect your space. You guys are a bunch of asses anyway, and you have only turned your viewers off to your cause, since you are the most unwelcoming group I've ever had the honor of talking to. To think that you guys are gun owners. Wow.
Good luck appealing Dickie's case, guys. If you do not consider the other aspects of the case, you will not win it. You can sit here in your NRA/gun-enthusiast site all day long and intellectually masturbate about the issue together, but that does not mean that the rest of the world cares about only this aspect of the case. In cases of murder, motive and history are always considered. Jason can claim self-defense until the cows come home, but that issue only deals with that instance when he pulled the trigger (several times by the way). The question is: did Jason provoke the attack? How did he carry out his duties? Did he have a pattern of inappropriate conduct? Until you confront these questions, you are only seeing half of the picture. Some of you guys might be cops, but it's a good thing you're not lawyers.
Goodbye. I'm done with your stupid discussion. Again, good luck appealing the case. You're gonna need it.
Litfury
And may God have mercy on your students' souls. I've published a 200,000 word novel, and I had a hard time getting through that. It was like something written by Faulkner, only longer, and not entertaining.
Okay, this thing was done several months ago. If anybody has any new, pertinent, information, please start a new thread.
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