I just read about an interesting case in which a teacher, Amy Bramlett, from San Bernadino, CA was accused of having sexual relations with a pair of her students. Three months into the investigation all charges have now been dropped. The details of the case bother me greatly. Read on.

All the information isn’t in yet but the it looks to me like a rather typical case of overzealous police officers backed up by a prosecutor who saw a high profile case as a way to gain advancement.

The story is relatively straightforward. Two boys broke into their teacher’s home and were caught. One boy panicked and made up a story about having sex with the teacher as being the reason why they were there. The second boy denied this repeatedly but was held in custody by the police and questioned for many hours until he too eventually admitted to doing something that he did not do. It’s impossible to guess what sort of trickery the police used to convince the boy to lie but it’s extremely informative as to the tactics our officers use to coerce admissions of guilt.

We’ve all seen various police dramas where officers lie to suspects and use other psychological tactics to gain an admission of guilt. What’s rather shocking about this one is that the tactics were used to get the criminal to lie about his own activity, not admit the truth. The boy was caught in the middle of a robbery and convinced by the police to lie and blame someone else. If you think this is an isolated case you should spend some time looking up Innocence Project.

The first boy went home and immediately told his father that he had lied. Authorities were informed that the boys recanted their story very early in the case but the zealous prosecutor pursued matters for three more months even going as far as to bring charges against Bramlett. In the meantime Bramlett was removed from the classroom and stigmatized in her community.

I well-understand it is the job of the police to vigorously investigate crime and of prosecutors to seek convictions for said crimes. It just seems to me that in this case the choice between a mundane burglary and a sensationalist teacher/student sex scandal drove the investigation rather than actual evidence. I wonder how often this happens.

Again, there’s a lot of information still out there but my initial reaction is to lay blame largely on the prosecutor for steering the investigation the wrong way. Certainly the police with their aggressive questioning in the wrong direction bear some responsibility but the actual filing of charges and three months of wasted time and surely considerable money falls squarely on the prosecutor. Not to mention the damage done to Bramlett which, despite all apologies, can never be undone.

Follow the evidence, I say. Even if you don’t like where it’s going. It makes us all safer.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Ideology
Current Release: The Black Sphere
Next Release: The Girl in Glass I: Apparition

The Ferguson situation here in my hometown of St. Louis has been making headlines for quite a while although I’ve refrained from posting on it largely because I don’t have much to add to the dialog. But things got weird during the St. Louis Rams football game this past weekend against the Oakland Raiders.

I have season tickets to the Rams and was at the game. My seats give me a good view of the player entrances and I saw the Rams receivers gather and raise their arms before they came onto the field. At the time it didn’t occur to me that they were showing support for the protesters in Ferguson and no one around me seemed to note it either. It quickly became a big story.

I don’t want to lure you into my blog today thinking it will draw conclusions from the tragic events in which Officer Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown. Nor will I be talking about the despicable people who burned and looted during the riots. I won’t be talking about the peaceful protesters. What I will be talking about is the St. Louis Police Department’s reaction to the Rams receivers pregame jaunt onto the field.

What the police force did was demand an apology. Really? Your job is to protect and to serve. Not get bent out of shape because someone disagrees with you. Your job it to protect the rights of the people not to whine like a little baby when someone dares take a stance against you. Your job is quite the opposite. It is to protect those who take such unpopular stances. If a man calls you a pig on the street while peacefully protesting something, your job is to protect that man from anyone who tries to assault him. That’s your job. That’s the oath you swore.

Is it fun to protect people who disagree with you? No. It’s your job.

Do you swear to only protect and serve people who like you? No. You swear to protect and serve us all. No matter our opinion of you.

Stop crying for apologies because your panties are in a twist because someone insulted you.

A Rams official tried to reach out and they threw him immediately under the bus claiming he apologized. They sent out memos embarrassing the official. They tweeted the definition of an apology. Essentially they tried to bully both the NFL and the St. Louis Rams into doing what they wanted. So here we have a police agency’s top officials acting to bully and intimidate anyone who dares disagree with them. Sound familiar?

The police are saying, in no uncertain terms, don’t cross us. We’ll hit you, we’ll hit you hard, and make you regret it. Sound familiar? Top-down leadership makes its way directly to the ranks.

Oh, and by the way, Officer Wilson was attacked and had every right to defend himself. Could he have handled the entire situation better, probably, but when you’ve got a giant man beating on you, you have every right to defend yourself.

Demand an apology? Give me a break.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Ideology
Current Release: The Black Sphere
Next Release: The Girl in Glass I: Apparition