Jim Bovard is back with an update in the Duncan Lemp case. Lemp was killed in a pre-dawn no-knock SWAT raid on his home last month, during which police allegedly fired directly into his bedroom window, where he slept beside his pregnant girlfriend. The police have changed their official story three times already, apparently trying to cover up what is almost certainly a wrongful killing. They claim that they received an anonymous tip regarding firearms offenses, which in their eyes evidently justifies a deadly nighttime SWAT raid. Bovard and Scott fear that because of the special legal protections afforded to the police in this country, the officers responsible will face few consequences and the department will not be held to account. People who care about this case, however, must be sure not to let it fade from the public eye.
Discussed on the show:
- “Did Maryland Police Shoot and Kill a Sleeping Man?” (The American Conservative)
- “The Mystery Deepens Over the Pre-Dawn Police Killing of Duncan Lemp” (The American Conservative)
- “Duncan Lemp’s Parents Threatened With Jail For Protesting His Killing” (The American Conservative)
- “Tamir Rice’s Basically Reasonable Murder” (Simple Justice)
Jim Bovard is a columnist for USA Today and the author of Public Policy Hooligan: Rollicking and Wrangling from Helltown to Washington. Find all of his books and read his work on his website and follow him on Twitter @JimBovard.
This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; Listen and Think Audio; TheBumperSticker.com; and LibertyStickers.com.
Donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal, or Bitcoin: 1KGye7S3pk7XXJT6TzrbFephGDbdhYznTa.
The following is an automatically generated transcript.
All right, y’all welcome it’s Scott Horton Show. I am the director of the Libertarian Institute editorial director of antiwar.com, author of the book Fool’s Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan. And I’ve recorded more than 5000 interviews going back to 2003, all of which are available at ScottHorton.org. You can also sign up to the podcast feed. The full archive is also available at youtube.com/ScottHortonShow. All right, you guys on the line. I’ve got the great Jim Bovard, author of public policy hooligan and attention deficit democracy in a bunch of great books like that. And he is writing at the American Conservative magazine. Duncan lambs parents threatened with jail for protesting his killing the third In a series over there, welcome back to the show. How you doing, Jim?
Jim Bovard 1:03
Hey Scott, thanks for having me back.
Scott Horton 1:05
Really happy to have you on the show here. And people should know that. The first one here at TAC is called didn’t Maryland police shoot and kill a sleeping man, followed by the mystery deepens over the pre dawn police killing of Duncan limp and then now the latest hear about his parents being threatened with jail for protesting the killing. But if you could for people not familiar, can we go back to the night of was it March 12th. And the raid on this guy’s house?
Jim Bovard 1:38
Yeah, it was. It was the morning of March 12 at 4:30am and Duncan lab was living in with his family in a very affluent part of montgomery county in Potomac quiet neighborhood. the montgomery county police said they had got an anonymous tip two months earlier that he had a a firearm and he was, according to that place he’s prohibited from having firearms due to a juvenile conviction. The family’s lawyers say that’s not true. But the cops went and built a case up, I guess over the next two months. My impression is that there was an informant who was key to the case. And the cops went to a judge on March 11, got a no knock search warrant and then basically went and attack the house the next morning it started out, according to the family by the police shooting into limps bedroom window, and he was apparently fatally wounded in bed and then the police through flashbangs and then stormed into the house. They basically drag folks around they handcuffed the family members and his pregnant girlfriend who was in bed with him, and so they were all handcuffed and being harangue by the cops while he was bleeding to death.
Scott Horton 3:02
man. So I know it’s too early to say for sure. But does it look like they just went there with the intent to murder him or one of these cops is just, you know, goofing around with his finger on the trigger and premature ejaculate it all over the place here. What happened?
Jim Bovard 3:18
Well, you know, that’s a good question because there are some folks who, who think that the that the place intended to kill him all along. And if you start out the start out of search, by firing into the bedroom window, as the family says it started, that does seem more like an execution in a search. But, you know, I don’t know what what the intent was, but montgomery county did turn a search warrant into a death warrant. And, you know, there are some folks who said, Well, I was this just as a single SWAT, you know, team member who was jumpy or shouldn’t be hard, whatever. If that was true, then why is the county basically covering it up Lately, and the the county’s put out three different versions of why why limp was killed and the third one really was almost comically in bad grammar as far as twisting and turning sentences and you can read it three times and you don’t and it doesn’t mention that oh by the way, we shot this dude and he died It was more like well he was there and there was a rifle in the bedroom and then there was a shotgun shell and the door is like you know, okay so when did you kill him? You know this is this is someone to remain I mean they the cops made a big deal out of a plate putting online photos of five guns that they seize at limbs house, but they haven’t put out any photos of his bullet written corpse which I think might people might be interested in.
Scott Horton 4:46
Yeah, well, and you would think that if there was a gun near the outstretched right hand of his bullet written corpse they just showed us that
Jim Bovard 4:54
yeah, I mean, the the cops have said there was a rifle. They’ve kind of implied you You know, again, it’s very strange wording how they did it, and they’re a third version of the fatal raid. But you would think that they, you know, you would think that that lamp was on the property line waiting to start shooting at them as soon as they pulled up in the driveway at 4:30am. So, but no, I mean, apparently how this went down as a cops fired in the window. There were four different windows on Duncan lamps, bedroom, and the cops may have known which one to shoot through, I don’t know, or I don’t know what kind of, you know, lighting they had, what kind of night vision material they might have had night vision equipment. So, but the cops have said almost nothing for over a month. And their story doesn’t pass the smell test. And they’re, you know, montgomery county police say well, they’re so overwhelmed with the pandemic of They can’t really respond to requests on this. You know, however, three days ago, the county police posted a video online there were 30 police cars who did a parade by a local hospital to show that they were supporting the healthcare workers. Okay, if y’all got time for a parade, you got time to answer some questions about how you killed a County resident, and apparently completely unjustified raid at 4:30am. I mean, okay, if the cops want to search this guy’s house, knock on the door at 9am say, Hey, here’s our warrant, you know, open up. This is this is how it’s done in civilized societies. This is how it was established in England, I think in 1603 or 1604. But the sheriff had to knock and announce and declare his intent and so a warrant. So we’re going back 400 years, but here we are in Maryland and 400 years we’ve gone the wrong direction.
Scott Horton 6:58
Yeah, man. Hey guys, Scott Horton here from my Swanson scrape book, The War state. It’s about the rise of the military industrial complex and the power elite after World War Two, during the administration’s of Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower and jack kennedy. It’s a very enlightening take on this definitive era on America’s road to world Empire. The war state by Mike Swanson, find it in the right hand margin at Scott horton.org. Hey, yo, Mike Swanson is a successful Wall Street trader with an Austrian School understanding of the markets and therefore he has great advice to share with you check out Mike’s work and sign up for his list at Wall Street window.com and that’s what you’ll get a window into all of Mike’s trades. He’ll explain what he’s buying and selling and expecting and why. I know you’ll learn and earn a lot. Wall Street window comm that’s Wall Street window.com. So now when it comes to this tip, informant? Well, I guess they claim they had gotten an anonymous tip, but you’re saying it sounds to you like they had an informant that turned the guy into them. We’re gonna get that from,
Jim Bovard 8:11
um, several different insights on that. Part of one of which is the there is a pattern in these kinds of cases. These, you know, the duck lamp was tied to a number of groups, I guess Boogaloo groups. He was helping them set up websites. He was helping folks. You know, he was he was outspoken online on this. And, you know, there’s nothing wrong with that. I mean, you know, I’ve been a big supporter of gun rights for my entire adult life. But there are a lot of there have been a lot of cases in the past where people in some of these groups, we’re actually you know, basically double agents working for the government. There. A number of libertarians who have been taken down on this stuff. There was a group back in 1996. I believe that in Arizona that got basically leveled by a government foreman who encouraged him to do things that were not legal. And this is this is the same pattern you have with the anti war groups going back to the Vietnam War, the 1960s. yet you’ve seen this a lot with Muslims. After 911. A lot of government informants will go into a mosque and basically encourage people to well, you know, you know, let’s do this, or let’s make a pipe bomb, or let’s do that. So, you know, it’s, I don’t have specifics, and it’s possible, I’m wrong on this. But it’s striking to me that the SWAT team was so frightened of Duncan lab, that they felt they had to go and shooting. And this, you know, if something like half something like this happened in Baltimore, people will say, well, it was a Thursday. You know, this is very unused. And montgomery county, it’s and this is also a very unusual for the montgomery county police, which does not have a record of doing these kind of SWAT killings in affluent neighborhoods. Hmm.
Scott Horton 10:14
Well, and you know if they’re so concerned about that this guy was a member of some patriot groups are this and that kind of thing. It goes to show their ignorance, you know, I mean, the reality is these guys the Boogaloo or whatever, that’s not going to happen until they really try to go around confiscating guns, you know, and mass door to door with the National Guard, or the Army or some kind of thing where that day never comes. But these guys aren’t going to go out in a this guy lamp, for example, wasn’t going to go out in a hail of bullets in glory just because they came to his house with a warrant where he was assured that he would see a black robe judge and be arraigned and and go through the regular process. You don’t I mean, the
Jim Bovard 10:59
Yeah, but yeah.
Scott Horton 11:00
I can see them convincing themselves looking at his Facebook page if he was part of some, you know, had a Boogaloo meme up there something that Oh, no, it’s Randy Weaver we have to go, you know, which they built up Randy waiver that same way this guy’s Special Forces, so he’s gonna go all Rambo on us but it was all in their own imagination. Same thing kind of deal, right?
Jim Bovard 11:22
Yeah. And as far as I know, Duncan limp had no history of violence. He was not making threats. I mean, there are some of these Boogaloo type some of these folks, you know, some of the things that they say online is like, Whoa, you know, I’m, um, as someone who has dealt with a lot of federal agencies over the years and been very critical, they’ve had been criticized by them. It’s like, there’s, there’s a certain standard standard that you need to use if you’re speaking in public or online. And a lot of folks don’t seem to be aware of that. So
Scott Horton 11:56
you’re saying there’s no indication that this guy was threatening to kill anybody. No Civil War, maybe just show up for one laughter and start?
Jim Bovard 12:04
No, no but the, from what I’ve heard, from what I’ve seen, he was helping gun rights groups set up secure platforms on the internet. Dr. Lappe was very savvy software guy and he was a he was doing pro bono work for some of the gun rights and hardline groups that may have put him more in the crosshairs as far as concern, but that still wouldn’t explain why the SWAT team felt like they had to go in at 4:30am in the morning and perhaps start out by shooting and then throwing in flashbangs. There’s a search warrant that the the police had sealed for 30 days it should have been opened, I guess a week or so 10 days ago, but the courts are closed down here because of the pandemic. However, the the you know they have time for please raise But not bad. But the lawyers. The the lent family has two excellent lawyers, Randy Sandler and Jonathan Felder. They are pushing to get that those warrants and the affidavits publicly released or at least released to the family and the lawyers. And in maybe in the affidavits that we’ll be able to see what the police were told, or at least we’ll see what the police told the judge. I would think that the judge, the judge who signed off on a no knock warrant, at 4:30am in the morning for someone who did not have a history of violence, you know, people need to answer some questions on this.
Scott Horton 13:39
Yeah. Well, I mean, they’re not going to the judge certainly isn’t going to answer it anyone. But now, is it the law in Maryland, that if and I guess I think you already said that his lawyers dispute this. But if it were the case that he had a felony, not necessarily a violent one, but a felony as a juvenile that he would be banned. from owning a gun as an adult, so how it works? Do you know,
Jim Bovard 14:02
um, what the, what the police have said, If I recall exactly was that he had a juvenile offense, which prohibited him from owning firearms until the age of 30. So, now, the cops have said this, the cops have been vague, which I mean, the cops have had very little credibility on this case at this point. But the family says in the family lawyer say that’s not the case. There are there are a number of he said she said things here that I think some of them are going to be resolved as more facts come out, but you know, there really needs to be an independent investigation. And I would love to see the to see the emails and the other stuff. Prior to the SWAT team raid, what was their intent, were they you know, were they intending to open up shooting and if so, you know what gets them the right to kill the guy before he had a chance to raise his arms and surrender. I mean, it says it’s the same thing. It’s the same, you know, controversy that happened with the killing of Vicki Weaver. She’s standing there in the cabin door FBI sniper 200 yards away, blows her head off. And then afterwards Oh, I guess we should have done asked him to surrender first. Yeah, that’s that would certainly make you look better. So
Scott Horton 15:27
when he said that the information they say a tip, whatever information was that came in was a couple of months before so do we know whether they had a doesn’t sound like they had case the place that they, for example, they either didn’t know that he was, you know, shared a bed at night with a pregnant woman. Or they did know that and didn’t care and went ahead and attack the house like that anyway. Seems like probably they didn’t even know. It’s not like the guy was holed up in He probably left the house, just like with any of these, like, why didn’t they just wait for him to go to 711 and arrest him then?
Jim Bovard 16:07
Oh, sure, sure. I mean, it’s there was a parallel there with a david koresh case. I mean, the you had the ATF going in there with more than 70 agents for their operation Showtime as they called it. And, you know, they they launched a unprovoked attack on the grass davidians home, and then later told the press that they’ve been ambushed. What they didn’t tell the press is a david koresh and undercover ATF agents had gone out target shooting eight or 10 days before the ATF raid. They had an easy chance to arrest david koresh they chose not to do it. Instead, they you know, they brought in the television crews and they had their big try it but it didn’t turn out so well. But safer here. I mean, you know, it was like Duncan lamp was, you know, locked in his basement and not willing to come out. I mean, cops could have Pull him over. I asked him, you know, and I think he probably would have complied. I mean, he might have been very unhappy. But, you know, they had no reason to kill the guy. And this is what the whole case is about. They went and killed the guy they never gave him never gave him a warning. Apparently, they opened fired. And, you know, this is not someone that the police should have killed.
Scott Horton 17:24
All right now, so talk to me a little bit about and I guess this goes to the idea that maybe they were trolling his social media pages and this and that, because apparently they were doing the same to his family and saw that his family was planning a protest and tried to warn them that they better not, is that right?
Jim Bovard 17:40
Yeah, it was not his family planning, planning their protests. It was some folks, some activists who were planning the protests at montgomery county police headquarters, and and the and the family had a second signal online that they would be, you know, going to the event. The and so the county lawyer, county prosecutor Haley Roberts sends a warning letter to the limb Family Lawyer saying open source information indicates that your clients intend to participate in this plan protest over the killing of their son. Open Source apparently means that the cops are cracking limp family members online. You know, they got lots of extra time on their hands. And the prosecutor warned the family that the governor Huggins stay at home Warner does not does not include planned protests and warn them that they went to the protests that they could face. You know, $5,000 fine and a year in jail for violating Hogan’s locked down order.
Scott Horton 18:47
And then, so they they had the protest and you went and took some shots. So what was it like?
Jim Bovard 18:52
Um, well, it was, you know, I was careful not to recommend that people go to this protest ahead of time. Partly because the the at least one of the organizers was encouraging people to bring firearms to the event. Bringing bringing guns to a protest in Maryland is not legal. So I was, you know, I didn’t want to be encouraging people to go to a place where they would end up getting locked up. And the you know, Mike hearts one of the organizers posted a note on the afternoon before the event saying it’s illegal to demonstrate with arms in the state of Maryland. So So I suggest if anybody is bringing arms, let’s loophole this thing up, and don’t demonstrate just stand or walk around with your arms. I wouldn’t carry these signs If I were you, but I definitely wouldn’t mind taking a stroll with my rifle, that’s for sure. And so you had folks show up. I you know, about 10% of the people who showed up in the demonstration got arrested for firearms violations. That was after after things were Breaking up. But these are folks that ended up in jail because of that.
Scott Horton 20:04
This is a protest about cops murdering a guy, quite lawlessly. And these guys think they found a loophole in the protest with a rifle law that just don’t hold a sign, and you’ll get away with it and it’ll be alright.
Jim Bovard 20:20
Yeah, um, my hunch is, is that my hunch is that organizer did not go to law school. Um, yeah, I mean, this, this was the kind of advice that was being given. And, you know, I know I’ve gotten to lots of demonstrations and I’ve come close getting arrested a number of times, not for carrying weapons, but for other things pushing my luck but I made to see see this level of, well, basically reckless. I mean, you’re, you know, you’re basically encouraging people to come and dance, you know, I mean, basically do a do a less pretend and, you know, hopefully And it worked out badly for, you know, back in January, they had over 20,000 people show up for the gun rights protests in Richmond, over 20,000. So practically almost 1000 times as many as showed up for their protests on Saturday and at the montgomery county police headquarters. You didn’t have anybody getting arrested in Richmond. And here at Montgomery, you get you know, practically 10% of the attendees get arrested. So, anyhow.
Scott Horton 21:31
Yeah. Well, but so, the good part of the rally talk about that, because I think he said the rest really came after the whole thing was burning up anyway
Jim Bovard 21:39
Right. I mean, it was it was great to have a chance to meet lamps, some of the lamps, kinfolk, his aunt and uncle were there. Kathy and Matthew lamp, both very solid folks. they’ve both been outspoken on the online about this case and the outrage. It was great to have a chance to meet you Mercedes lampa his mother, I mean, you she’s had a horrendous loss. You’ve got government agents killing your firstborn son. And it was good to be able to talk with them and get a, you know, get a better sense of the overall how things went down. But, you know, as far as it’s great. It’s great that people are outraged by this case. It’s great that people were protesting. I think a focus protests would have been, hopefully that’ll happen down the road. But you know, basically, there was a lot of shouting and profanity and there are some folks who think that the shouting the F word at police has magical power. It doesn’t. But it was unfortunate because you had all three of those members of the LEM family, all of them are telegenic. All of them are, you know, can explain the case very well. And, you know, they weren’t, you know, encouraged to make statements. There wasn’t a video from them explaining, from their perspective, what happened or raising questions instead that was, you know, guys, you know, waving flags and shouting and, you know, marching around and, you know, hopefully, hopefully, there’ll be other, there’ll be other protests down the road that are organized differently.
Scott Horton 23:21
So, yeah. Well, you know, I think, you know, back to the first part of that about how good it is that people do care about this. I mean, you know, we’d like to think that the cops kill anybody in this way that they’re not just going to be forgotten. And somebody’s going to try to stick up for the truth and for accountability for this kind of thing. So that’s good.
Jim Bovard 23:44
Absolutely.
Scott Horton 23:46
But yeah, you’re right. It seems like you know, this kind of thing. Well, first of all, it’s it’s good that they didn’t arrest the family or anybody just for the violating the social distancing thing like they had threatened right.
Jim Bovard 23:59
Right, right now, it was, you know, it was interesting. There was a lot of animosity against the police there. And I was there as a journalist, not as a participant in the protests. So I got there about 15 minutes early. And it’s funny shortly, shortly after I got there, they the cop cars basically block the entrance roads on both sides to the police headquarters. But I’d already gotten in so I just parked right next to their headquarters and was out walking around. There were several policemen, you know, kind of hanging out in front of the big old headquarters. I said, Hey, guys, is it okay if I park over there? Oh, did you parked by a fire hydrant? No, I didn’t do that. Whoa, whoa, I guess it’s okay. You know, I had my press pass. I had my Nikon camera. So, and, you know, I was, you know, I was just, you know, I wanted to see what happened but I spoke to a number of police and they were, you know, civil. So I would guess it there are some montgomery county police who are very unhappy with how this went down. As far as a SWAT raid, because this is not Baltimore. I mean, in Baltimore, the Baltimore Police are notorious for lying for robbing people and for killing them. That’s not that’s not been the reputation of the montgomery county police at this time.
Scott Horton 25:19
Well, you know, there’s something that they could do about it. I mean.
Jim Bovard 25:24
Oh, absolutely. And it’s and it’s, you know, people well, you have to wait till the investigation is done is like, No, I mean, if you look at the statements that the police department has made so far, and also if you look at Maryland law, Maryland law gives a huge amount of procedural advantages to any placement who kills a private citizen. And it you know, it’s almost like, like a cover up as baked in from the time that a cop pulls the trigger. Something called the law enforcement officers Bill of Rights and it’s like, Yeah, well, it’s basically means that the cops have a right to shoot people. So and then they Five or 10 days before before they have to make a statement, any statement, and often the cops get to see the evidence has come in. And oh, okay. So this is the evidence. So this is what happened then. So you know, I mean, it’s something that the the ACLU has protested vigorously this state, a number of civil rights groups and other black groups have protested this, because it more certainly in Baltimore, the victims of police shootings tend to be black. So and this is something that has gotten media attention. The Baltimore Sun has done some good criticisms of this, but it hasn’t been enough to change the law. And so the law is still basically gives the laws totally slanted against the constitutional rights of anybody who gets shot by police.
Scott Horton 26:48
Yeah, well, and so to the other cops resenting it, they should push to have their paramilitary you know, SWAT force disbanded. I mean, If this is their problem is a crisis of confidence.
Jim Bovard 27:05
Yeah, great. Scott. That’s a good idea. I’ll send them an email.
Scott Horton 27:10
Yeah, man. Those guys I mean seriously and that’s really what’s going on here right is you have these guys who are really nothing but Deputy Sheriffs dressed up like, they’re the Navy SEAL Team Six or the Delta Force or something. And they’re essentially play acting. And, you know, you equip them all with MP fives, and with all the, you know, paramilitary armor and fatigues and whatever the black parachute pants and all of this stuff. Well, they’re looking for a fight. It’s amazing fact when you talk about in your in your first article here the statistics of how many SWAT raids that these guys do a year. I think you said it was 8000 over four years. I mean, where do they find the time and where do they find the victims to launch 2000 SWAT raids in a year. You know, and maybe that was for the whole state of Virginia, but still, I mean, that’s or Maryland, I mean, that’s still completely bananas and and it’s amazing actually that they don’t kill a lot more people than they actually do.
Jim Bovard 28:13
Um, I agree and it was so embarrassing for the state of Maryland, Maryland stopped counting. That was their solution. They didn’t change the law to make SWAT teams less dangerous. Instead, they just changed the laws so that people did not find out how many SWAT raids occurred. And this is typical of how state politicians deal with law enforcement abuses. This is the broader problem here because it goes to the heart of the governed, governed power that can quickly become tyranny and in a case like in a case like a duck and lumps killing. You got an innocent man laying in bed, who gets shot, fatally shot by the police with no warning. It’s like if something like something like Like this happened to a government official that oh my god, it’d be terrorism and you know, we got to have all these flags at half mast and, you know, we got to have new laws protect the government officials but it happens our private citizen as like a yeah is the ACLU might do something on this case, they’ve basically done almost nothing on it. Local media has basically ignored it. I’ve been kind of surprised by that. But maybe that will change. I don’t know.
Scott Horton 29:29
Well, you know, it’s the right wing, especially that they’ve got to count on all these guys waving their thin blue line flags and all of this stuff. And it’s just like with the war, if he loses the Republican Party, conservative rank and file Tea Party voters out there, who do you got left to support this stuff. And so like you were saying, they kill black people in Baltimore all day long. And they get away with that but they start turning against the support your local police faction, then the You’re gonna find that they don’t have really any support at all, and the support your local police faction are actually more well armed than they are when it comes down to it.
Jim Bovard 30:08
Well, and yeah, it’s an interesting thing that the here in Maryland, I mean, Maryland’s one of the most anti gun states and montgomery county is probably the most anti gun county in the entire state. But there are folks who were kind of raising eyebrows about this because it’s like, okay, so there was a SWAT team, a SWAT raid, that apparently started out shooting pre dawn, based on an anonymous tip that someone own firearms, it’s like, you know, there’s a lot of people in this county who own firearms, so probably at least 50,000 or 100,000. So most of them are gonna be out marching the street. Most of them are not going to be waving flags, but there’s a lot of quiet firearms owners here. So if they haven’t been banned by the government yet, yeah. You know, the government might. Some of the local politics was probably I like to do that. But, and it’s this is interesting too, because this is a very liberal county and I, and I’m not aware that any of the county council members have said a damn thing about this case, they have not paid any attention to it. You know, they’re, you know, they’re busy doing other photo ops or, you know, they’re busy, you know, doing well. I try to be I’m trying to be polite, it’s a struggle. But now it’s this you know, it hasn’t registered on the local radar screen. Um, it’s like this guy, you know, his life didn’t matter.
Scott Horton 31:35
Well, and you know, what’s gonna happen here too, is and just look at because of the social distancing restrictions or whatever how quick people are to pick up the phone and rat on their neighbors for taking a walk or whatever it is that they’re allegedly not supposed to be doing. And this is the perfect thing. For those who want to get other people in trouble. tell the cops they have a gun they’re not allowed to have and get them rated And you know, like there’s this swatting where you call and you say, Oh, I just killed my wife and I’m about to kill myself send the SWAT team immediately. And then you know, like a prank call kind of thing. But what about just actually snitching on people and calling the cops going, Oh, this guy’s got a gun. This guy’s got a gun. People will do that. I mean, some percentage of people be perfectly happy to call 911 on each other over anything. And if having a gun is the kind of thing that really get you in trouble, then they’ll call over that so people have a real reason to be concerned about this. It just anonymous tip can get you swatted at 4am huh?
Jim Bovard 32:39
Yeah, well, it was according to the police. It was an anonymous tip. I don’t know. Right. I don’t know if that’s accurate. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t. But that was what apparently launched the investigation. And I think that they had I think that the affidavit will at least show that the police claimed have other sources of information before launching lots of pre dawn attack a violent attack on a peaceful household. So I mean, it’s it’s, it’s appalling the cops have not been compelled to answer more questions so far. I mean, there are you know, there was a case in New York, I think Newburgh, New York like that last month, there was a police shot a guy, and it was disputed what happened, there were riots and within 24 hours, the cop said, you know, made public part of the camp calm from the shooting, which showed that the guy pulled a gun on the cops. Down in Houston. You had that horrendous rate early last last year where the cops came in and killed two people in their 50s on bogus charges. You know, it was only two weeks later that the police chief came out and said look, we did wrong. I mean, this is a horrendous and horrendous abuse. You know, there were false charges that you know, the the entire Case melda to high heaven. So, here we are McGorry county six one on seven weeks. government hasn’t said crap on this.
Scott Horton 34:09
You know I’m pretty sure well I’m not sure where this statistic originally comes from but Radley belko has reported that there are 50,000 SWAT raids a year in this country. 1000 a week.
Jim Bovard 34:21
Yeah. And I think that’s from Peter Peter kraske, a professor at Eastern Kentucky University. He’s done some great work and and Radley belko has done great work on this issue for 20 years a lot of respect for him. Something which I want to mention too is a big thanks to all the people who have either shared or posted or tweeted on my earlier articles on the Duncan lamb killing that’s really helped the help make it visible. And this is a case people need to hear about because this this is what government has become. You know, government can carry off and carry out one of these raids before dawn, shoot and kill us. Someone and then not answer any questions. I mean, you know? Yep. And like you said, Thomas, I’m sorry. Go ahead.
Scott Horton 35:07
Well, they’re claiming that Oh, yeah, you know, the germs got us down, we’ll have to get back to you and that kind of thing. So it takes journalists like yourself and your readers to keep the heat on and make sure that they can’t just slink away on this.
Jim Bovard 35:22
Yeah. The readers and also you. This is the second time you’ve had me on to talk about this case. I appreciate that. And everybody knows that Scott Horton Lester’s are among the most savvy people out there.
Scott Horton 35:36
Yeah, you hear that all you savvy folks. So get your act together, do something helped to make this thing more of an issue than it already is and prevent them from getting away with this? You know, something cannot be done. It’s a matter of public pressure. It’s just a matter of, are they going to be allowed to skate or are they not and that’s up to the people, not just me. Maryland but of the US to make sure you know it justice. There’s an example going around where this woman claims that she was sexually assaulted by Joe Biden back in 1993. And the memo went out apparently, that we’re going to not cover this. And TV news and the major papers refused to even say her name or do a thing with it for weeks and weeks and weeks. And then even when you read the New York Times, and The Washington Post stories on it, when they finally did cover it, you can see how badly they’re trying to play it down. And yet, it’s not going away. And the reason it’s not going away is because the activists who care decided that they’re not going to let it It’s as simple as that and they’re going to keep the heat up. And if it wasn’t for them, it would already be over. And yet it’s still over and it’s not going to be allowed to die because they’re going to keep fighting about it. So there’s just a great example of the difference that can be made with a good article like this and some You know, important retweets and conversations being started by people about this and spreading the word about it. And it is, you know, we both made mention, or you know, reference earlier in the talk here about Ruby Ridge and Waco, and there are a lot of similarities. But then again, yeah, 50,000 of these things a year. What’s really notable about Ruby Ridge and waco was, they were right wingers, or at least perceived to be right wingers and their case of police abuse was championed by right wingers who most of the time are on their knees, licking cops boots all day. And so I think that that’s really important that people get up off of their knees and stop licking those boots and start to realize that hey, these other people who are complaining about police abuse, maybe they have a point. You know, if you were were protesting about what’s happened to Duncan lampe Then what about the Black Lives Matter, guys? And what about the you know, what’s his name? The football player taking a knee during the anthem and all that maybe the cops have been getting away with murder. Maybe there’s a problem that affects all of us here. Instead of just you know, this side versus that side. Maybe it’s the state versus the civilians, of all colors and all political leanings, you know?
Jim Bovard 38:19
Yep. It’s interesting on this limp case, it’s great how gun rights activists around the country are mentioning his name and invoking his name. You know, there’s a lot of JPEGs names out there I am Duncan lampe. Dr. Lim cannot be forgotten stuff like that. One other thing that might be a problem in this case is a Maryland government’s, you know, once again, going back to the building cover up, Baltimore has had so many police killings and so many police abuses, and Baltimore was famous for paying out a lot of money. Basically hush money because people that was who would be beaten or you Even worse or have their relatives killed by the police would get a settlement from the government, but it would be conditioned on them not talking to the media about the case. And I don’t know what the protocol is in montgomery county, I hope you know, I’m I’m guessing the family will have some type of a wrongful death lawsuit, it certainly seems justified against the police in the county. But I hope that there isn’t a muzzle that drops in on this because this is part of the reason why the police brutality and killings got so out of control in Baltimore, is because the the government paid off so many people and you know, but they were kept silent. So people didn’t, people didn’t realize how how widespread the cop cop abuses had become. And I I don’t know if that’s par for all Maryland counties, but that’s a concern in this cace.
Scott Horton 39:55
Well, so I think we may have talked about this last time, but I’m gonna go ahead and bring it up again. Because I think it’s just so insightful. So this great lawyer Scott Greenfield people might know him from Twitter. And he wrote this article called Tamir Rice’s basically reasonable murder. And people might remember Tamir Rice was the 12 year old boy with a toy gun at the park, and somebody called the cops on him. And even told the 911 dispatcher, well, I’m pretty sure it’s just a toy anyway, but he went out and call the cops. And so the cops came and they killed the kid that the cop jumped out of the passenger side, and didn’t even wait two seconds before he just blew the kid away. And so Scott ring, Scott Greenfield wrote this article, explaining that you know, how the law is that you’re not allowed to shoot me unless you can prove that you absolutely had no other choice. You had to you know, it was immediate and proportional to defend your own life or to defend another innocent person, something very close to that and all 50 states. That’s a lot but for a car There is no law that says it’s a crime for them to shoot you. Once they’re a cop. All those laws are completely suspended in their case. Now, the only question is, was it reasonable as in the term reasonable search and seizure of life, liberty or property in the fourth amendment to the US Constitution? That’s it. And so then what’s reasonable, of course, is only to be decided by other cops professional opinions, which means that any cop in America, all he has to do is say, furtive waistband, and they get away with it. Because everybody in every cop, every professionally trained cop knows that if someone is furtive and moves their hand toward their waistband, that then that’s the same as you know, threatening to kill you are close enough for government work. Now it’s reasonable to take your life and that was what the experts said about Tamir Rice. He may have been a 12 year old boy with a toy gun and they may not have have even given him a chance to drop the gun before they killed him. But that’s just tough because they’re government employees, they can do what they want. And this is for all you conservatives out there. This is what they call judicial activism. The judges just made this up on the Supreme Court. There is no state legislature that ever passed a law that said that there’s qualified immunity. In this case, it was the judges that refined it down and down and down to where essentially, even just a local Sheriff’s Department deputy badge is a license to kill in the United States of America. And, you know, go read that article, it’ll blow your mind because it goes through case after case of how they refine this down to the point where it’s essentially impossible. The only time a cop gets in trouble for killing somebody is if he beats his own wife to death on a Saturday night off the clock, which they do from time to time. But otherwise, they can pretty much get away with just about any crime.
Jim Bovard 42:58
Well, it’s it’s it’s It’s true that the laws and the court decisions have been horrendously biased. The Supreme Court decisions on qualified immunity, going back to the early 1980s had been a travesty. And they’ve You know, it is pretty close to a license to not just kill but rob people and, you know, bombed their houses and stuff like that. There have been some cases where police have been held liable, the Houston cases an example of their raid, that was completely based on lies. But if you look at the rate of successful prosecution for police killings, I think it’s probably less than 2%. And that doesn’t mean that every time that a cop shoots someone is amazed at the cops, a killer murder. There, there are lots of cases where cops shoot someone who’s robbing a bank, or who’s doing a violent crime, you know, ongoing, so those are completely different cases. There was there was a case here in montgomery. county last year, actually close to where I used to live on Randolph road, there was a gun store. And there were four or five guys, I guess from DC or from Annapolis, who decided to break into the gun store late at night. And the gun store had no video and the police got alarmed. And the, you know, the people kept robbing the gun store, even though when they figured the cops were on their way. A cop gotten the scene, the and the folks who were fleeing in their car, the cop shot at them killed and killed one of the gun store robbers, and the others were later arrested. And I’ve not heard anybody make any criticism of the cop who did the shooting because, yeah, okay, someone got killed, but it sounds like a clean shot.
Scott Horton 44:46
Yeah, well, I mean, the law is supposed to be that they’ve got to have demonstrated an immediate threat to somebody else. Certainly that would be the case if you had shot them. So just because someone’s getting away with some guns doesn’t mean they’re wrong. Way to kill somebody else with them, you know.
Jim Bovard 45:03
Yeah. There were some other circumstances, but I don’t I don’t recall hearing any criticism by, you know, civil liberties groups or other groups.
Scott Horton 45:15
I mean, if they were pointing guns out the window or something, I don’t know. But anyway, I mean, the point is that it doesn’t matter either way, because a cop could get away with it either way, if they just been robbing a cupcake store, and he wasted them, then there probably would have been much criticism of that either.
Jim Bovard 45:32
Well, okay. I mean,
Scott Horton 45:35
it’s certainly not by the district attorney’s office in the grand jury.
Jim Bovard 45:38
Yeah. Well, you know, Scott, that’s probably the reason I’ve always avoided cupcake stores.
Scott Horton 45:43
I can’t believe that they even have those things. I mean, I guess it’s, you know, at the height of the bubble.
Jim Bovard 45:48
Oh, my God. They seem again, you know, folks with for folks with more money than sense. It’s like, you spent $4 for a, you know, a cupcake, but I think it’s Two inches thick on the top is like, Hey, you know if the same price you could get two or three beers.
Scott Horton 46:06
Yeah, seriously and and how do you convince somebody to invest their money in something like that? That’s definitely it the bubble only kind of business there.
Jim Bovard 46:15
Yep. Certainly around here, it was a mania. Yeah, it’s unfortunate because we’re lots of good old fashioned bakeries, and they’re almost all gone. So instead, we’ve got these kind of, I guess, not unified. But you know, cupcake, places that I don’t know
Scott Horton 46:35
are yet to find and they won’t exist anymore. Now. They’re
Jim Bovard 46:38
That’s true. That’s true. The death rates could be real high for them.
Scott Horton 46:42
Yeah, for sure. Anyway, we’re off on a terrible tangent. probably a good time to stop. The great Jim bovard. Everybody reporting on the killing of Duncan limp by the Montgomery Montgomery County, Maryland SWAT team there last month. Thanks again, Jim.
Jim Bovard 46:58
Hey, Scott. Thanks so much for having me on.
Scott Horton 47:02
The Scott Horton show anti war radio can be heard on kpfk 90.7 FM in LA, APSradio.com antiwar.com, Scotthorton.org and libertarianinstitute.org
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