Category: Florida

Feds: Russian Agent Funded Radical Fringe Groups, Including Black Hammer

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Remember our friend Augustus Romain Jr. a/k/a “Gazi Kodzo”? Well, his Black Hammer group is one of three organizations identified by federal prosecutors as under Russian influence:

An indictment was unsealed today in Tampa, Florida, charging a Russian national, working on behalf of the Russian government and in conjunction with the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), with allegedly orchestrating a years-long foreign malign influence campaign that used various U.S. political groups to sow discord, spread pro-Russian propaganda, and interfere in elections within the United States.
As alleged in the indictment, from at least December 2014 until March 2022, Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov, a resident of Moscow, together with at least three Russian officials, engaged in a years-long foreign malign influence campaign targeting the United States. Ionov is the founder and president of the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia (AGMR), an organization headquartered in Moscow and funded by the Russian government. Ionov utilized AGMR to carry out Russia’s influence campaign.
“Ionov allegedly orchestrated a brazen influence campaign, turning U.S. political groups and U.S. citizens into instruments of the Russian government,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. “The Department of Justice will not allow Russia to unlawfully sow division and spread misinformation inside the United States.”
According to the indictment, Ionov — working under the supervision of the FSB and with the Russian government’s support — recruited political groups within the United States, including U.S. Political Group 1 in Florida, U.S. Political Group 2 in Georgia, and U.S. Political Group 3 in California, and exercised direction or control over them on behalf of the FSB. Specifically, Ionov provided financial support to these groups, directed them to publish pro-Russian propaganda, coordinated and funded direct action by these groups within the United States intended to further Russian interests, and coordinated coverage of this activity in Russian media outlets. Ionov also relayed detailed information about this influence campaign to three FSB officials.
“Secret foreign government efforts to influence American elections and political groups threaten our democracy by spreading misinformation, distrust and mayhem,” said Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “The department is committed to ensuring U.S. laws protecting transparency in the electoral process and the political system are not undermined through foreign malign influence.”

Although none of the groups are named in the DOJ announcement, reporters in Tampa identified the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP, known as the “Uhuru Movement”) as Group 1, while Black Hammer was identified by Atlanta reporters as Group 2, and others have identified the secessionist “Yes California” movement as Group 3. My guess is that after Gazi Kodzo got busted for serious crimes in Atlanta, he rolled over and became a federal informant. Recall that he spent years with the APSP, so Kodzo would have known their secrets, and probably sang like a canary when faced with the prospect of a life sentence in a Georgia prison.




 

How to Get Shot by the Cops

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Lawyer for suspect
in deputy involved shooting
in Indian River County wants
unedited body cam video
— WPBF-TV, June 15

This story is a perfect example of how the media undermines law enforcement by giving voice to bogus criticism, especially in cases like this one in Florida, where an armed felon was shot by sheriff’s deputies investigating a string of crimes in the community. Simply because the suspect is black, many in the media seem to believe, he must be a victim of injustice, and the police must be in the wrong. Therefore, the TV cameras seek out the suspect’s family or a “civil rights” activist or, as in this case, the suspect’s lawyer, to condemn the cops, no matter what the circumstances were that led to the shooting. Watching the video of this incident doesn’t give you the necessary knowledge to understand what happened, or why it happened. Once you do understand it, however, it becomes impossible to deny that the person responsible for this 19-year-old suspect getting shot was — wait for it — the 19-year-old suspect.

Say hello to Jamall Frederick. According to the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office (IRCSO), the events that led to him getting shot were as follows: Deputies were investigating a homicide that happened Thursday in the Gifford community. In the wee hours of Saturday morning, deputies responded to a report of shots fired a few blocks away. Subsequent investigation (i.e., surveillance camera video) gave them a description of a vehicle suspected of involvement in that incident. The same vehicle was also connected to a number of burglaries, including burglaries of vehicles in which firearms were stolen. Thus, the deputies had reason to believe that the occupants of this vehicle were armed and dangerous. So they began monitoring the area in which the shots fired incident had occurred. About 9 p.m. that evening, deputies spotted the suspect vehicle, and that’s when the incident occurred.

 

As I say, just watching the video doesn’t add much to your knowledge of what happened, because it happened very quickly at night. One of the deputies saw the pistol in the back seat next to Frederick and told him not to reach for it. He grabbed it and ran, and they opened fire, and it’s something of a miracle that Frederick survived the shooting.

Civilians may ask, “Why did they shoot? He was running away.” Yes, but he had a gun in his hand. Are cops just supposed to let an armed fugitive run free in the community? And what are the chances that Frederick would have turned around and shot any deputy who pursued him? There’s no rule that requires cops to let bad guys get the first shot.

Frederick is from Fort Pierce, 18 miles away from the scene of the shooting. The deputies also found another gun in the car and arrested 18-year-old Zbryius Jones of Vero Beach. Both guns were stolen, one from South Vero and the other from Fellsmere. Frederick was a convicted felon on probation, and Jones was also charged with violating probation. Sheriff Eric Flowers said: “These guys are countywide criminals. We will not tolerate known felons endangering our community. Our community expects us to prevent crimes and keep them safe.”

There has been much critical attention directed toward rampant crime in Democrat-controlled cities like Los Angeles, where Soros-sponsored District Attorney George Gascon is being blamed for releasing a felon who shot and killed two police officers. You don’t have problems like that in Indian River County, which has not voted for a Democrat in a presidential election since 1944, and which went 60% for Trump twice.

The media can (and should) help fight crime by discarding the anti-cop bias that treats all critics of the police as inherently legitimate. It is one thing — and a very important thing — to expose genuine abuse or corruption by the police, but it’s a whole ’nother thing to portray cops as racist villains when they’re just doing their job.




 

Aspiring Rapper Update: Frères Jacques

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Say hello to Kenard Jacques, Ahmad Jacques and Ameko Jacques of Miami, who are in custody for multiple crimes that include murder charges against Kenard and Ahmad. Two months ago (“Aspiring Rapper Update: ‘Baby Cino’ Gets Out of Jail, Immediately Gets Shot Dead”) we told you the story of Timothy Starks, a/k/a “Baby Cino,” who was only 20 years old when he “died in the hail of gunfire,” shot in broad daylight shortly after he got bailed out of jail. More than 40 shots were fired in that ambush, and “Baby Cino” died while “still wearing the wristband given to inmates at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.”

We are now learning the motive for the murder of “Baby Cino”:

Three brothers are behind bars in connection to a quadruple shooting, and two of them are facing murder charges.
Investigators now say that the quadruple shooting is connected to another shooting on the Palmetto Expressway that shut down traffic for hours.
Now, at least two of those brothers are behind bars for the murder of Troyvon Smith, 26, that happened in February 2022 in northwest Miami-Dade.
This isn’t the first time these brothers have been behind bars.
Kemard Jacques and his brother Ahmad Jacques both face first-degree murder charges and faced a judge.
Police say the two were involved in Smith’s murder. Investigators say six men were involved, including Timothy Starks.
Starks, known as Miami rapper Baby Cino, was shot to death on the Palmetto back in March. Detectives now say his death was likely in retaliation for Smith’s murder.
According to police, Starks had set up the car rentals for those two Mercedes sedans involved and even paid for them to be cleaned after.
Kemard and Ahmad’s brother, Ameko Jacques, also appeared in front of a judge. Police say he was an accomplice in the quadruple shooting in northwest Miami-Dade.
Ameko Jacques was also the driver police arrested for a hit-and-run crash in Brickell in December 2022, when two college students were walking along Southeast 7th Street were hit and seriously injured.
We’re also learning that Kemard Jacques has a lengthy rap sheet. He was shot at in Miami Gardens in 2014 and arrested for bringing a gun inside Miami Northwestern Senior High when he was a teen.
Police say Ahmad was actually hit with a bullet in that quadruple shooting, and say he had somehow gotten shot in the arm and drove one of those Mercedes to the hospital.

Here’s the background on that February shooting:

Three people were shot and critically wounded and a fourth was killed in an ambush-style shooting in Northwest Miami-Dade late Wednesday afternoon [], according to Miami-Dade police.
A group of men pulled up in two newer model sedans — one black and one white — in the area of Northwest 99th Street and 21st Court, just after 4 p.m., according to police spokesman Alvaro Zabaleta. The men then jumped out of the cars and ran over to the victims, who were on foot, and began shooting. After a barrage of gunshots, he added, the men ran back to their sedans and drove off.
The white sedan headed east on 100th street; the black one headed west.
“They were clearly targeted,” Zabaleta said. “This occurred at 4:12 in the afternoon and there were multiple rounds fired and we could have had more people that had nothing to do with this become victims of the gun violence.”
On Thursday, police named Troyvon Smith, 26, as the man who was shot and killed.
According to Zabaleta, officers responding to a ShotSpotter alert found three wounded men on the street. Smith died at the scene, and two others were taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center in critical condition.

So, “Baby Cino” rented the cars that were used in the February shooting that killed Smith and wounded three others. Someone — associates of Smith, we may presume — then put the hit on “Baby Cino,” and now the Jacques brothers, associates of “Baby Cino,” are behind bars in connection to Smith’s murder. Recall the definition:

Aspiring Rapper
North American euphemism for a member of the urban criminal class. This unusual occupation is usually mentioned in conjunction with the subject either being slain or being taken into custody for a violent or property-related crime. A relative of the subject usually points out that the subject’s demise or incarceration comes at an extremely inopportune moment, occurring just as the subject was “turning they(sic) life around.”

Miami has a large “aspiring rapper” population, and the violent deaths and arrests among them barely make a dent in that population.

PREVIOUSLY:




 

‘A Pretty Face Can Hide an Evil Mind’

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Say hello to 25-year old Courtney Clenney, aka “Courtney Tailor,” who reportedly has more than a million followers on her OnlyFans account. “Gosh, Stacy,” the reader asks, “what was she putting on her OnlyFans account that made her so popular?” Uh, adult entertainment, he said euphemistically, summarizing the results of his cursory investigation.

Last we heard from Miss Clenney, she had been committed to psychiatric care under Florida’s Baker Act, after Miami police say she stabbed her ex-boyfriend to death in a luxury apartment. Miss Clenney’s lawyer insists that the stabbing was an act of self-defense, and authorities say that at different times, both she and her ex-boyfriend had been charged with domestic violence. The family of the deceased man, Christian Tobechukwu “Toby” Obumseli, 27, claim that Miss Clenney is getting favorable treatment “because of her privilege as a wealthy white woman.”

Some readers may be tempted to jump to conclusions about this case, but I think it’s important to keep an open mind, to wait for the completion of the police investigation before we decide that this bitch is crazy.

Looney Tunes, Froot Loops, cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.

Permit me to say that a woman who peddles her assets on OnlyFans is a woman that any wise man would be careful to avoid. What sort of status does a man expect to attain from associating with such a woman?

“Oh, yeah, I saw your girlfriend naked on the Internet.”

Way to go, Captain Save-a-Hoe.

Do we even want to delve into the racial angle here? Trust me, this story is being widely discussed in the black community, including thousands of comments on Toby’s Instagram account and — oh, my goodness! — what they’re saying about this interview with Miss Clenney:

There are so many things that could be said about this case, which might be unwise to say, but let me offer this: O.J. Simpson in reverse.

Remember how that case divided America? Now try to imagine if Nicole Brown Simpson had gotten hold of a knife and killed O.J., instead of the other way around. Because it seems this may be what we’re looking at here — a toxic relationship reaches its predictable bloody conclusion.

It was perhaps inevitable that Courtney Clenney would lead some deluded man to destruction, even if stabbing him to death wasn’t foreordained. I’m not saying that every hoe on OnlyFans is a would-be murderer, but I am saying there’s an elevated risk of death for any man that gets involved with such a hoe. You spend enough time playing with fire, sooner or later you’re likely to get burned. And I can’t help thinking of a famous old song by Johnny Rivers:

Beware of pretty faces that you find.
A pretty face can hide an evil mind.
Ah, be careful what you say
Or you’ll give yourself away.
Odds are you won’t live to see tomorrow.

Maybe somebody should have warned Toby. R.I.P.




 

Florida Man Shot to Death After Attacking Cops at His Niece’s Wedding Reception

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“This is why we can’t have nice things,” as they say. When your wedding reception turns into a brawl and somebody calls 911? That’s not good. Then the bride’s uncle punches the cops and gets shot to death?

Daniel Patrick Knight, 39, had a criminal record dating back as far as 1998, when he was 15. According to the Florida Department of Corrections website, in 2006 Knight was sentenced to state prison for the charges of: Robbery, Grand Theft Motor Vehicle, Burglary, Trafficking in Stolen Property, Burglary of a Dwelling, Fleeing and Attempting to Elude a Police Officer and Felony Driving While License Suspended. He was released from state prison in 2013. After he was shot to death at the February 19 wedding reception for his niece, the family claimed police were lying about what preceded the shooting:

Daniel Knight’s family held a news conference in Lakeland on Tuesday night alongside representatives from Black Lives Matter Restoration Polk Inc.
The 39-year-old’s family said Knight was not belligerent or violent during the reception at the Winter Park Events Center on Saturday.
“He was never harmful, he was never aggressive,” said Knight’s niece, Janisha Knight, the bride.
Winter Park police released the 911 call that led to police responding to the venue, in which the caller said a man was “grabbing people by the neck” and “shoving people to the floor.”
In audio released Monday, the caller said, “He’s grabbing an older woman and shoving her.” He was described as “violent” and “very drunk.”

Well, not only was there audio of the 911 call, but there was also (a) surveillance video of the scene and (b) police bodycam video. Police this week released the videos that completely confirm their account:

 

If you watch the whole video, you’ll see that the officer who was knocked unconscious by Knight repeatedly tells backup officers, “He knocked me out.” Knight then attacked the second officer, knocking him to the ground, and continued punching the second officer until the cop shot him. All of this happens very quickly after the first two cops arrived on the confusing scene, and you see the cops trying to defuse the situation — “step back” — and figure out what’s happening. “Move out of the way,” the cop tells Knight’s sister, who is interfering with the officers’ attempt to arrest Knight. When the cop tries to physically move her, Knight says, “Don’t you snatch my [obscenity] sister.” Twenty-three seconds later, while other guests are trying to restrain him, Knight punches the cop. About 10 seconds later, after the second cop deploys his taser (which had no effect), Knight gets fatally shot by the second cop.

This was entirely justified, and no grand jury in America would indict a cop for this incident. While it is likely that Winter Garden will end up paying Knight’s family to settle the inevitable wrongful death lawsuit, such settlements — which have become routine in such cases — don’t change the legal facts. It is always a crime to attack a cop. Danny Knight was probably facing no more than a misdemeanor drunk-and-disorderly charge that night, and if he would have cooperated peacefully, it’s unlikely he would have spent more than 12 hours in the county jail. When he punched the cop, however, that was almost certainly a felony, which would have sent him back to prison. From there on out, Knight’s actions can only be understood as a “suicide-by-cop.”

A civilized society must have rules, and these rules must be enforced. When a wedding reception turns into a drunken brawl, this is not the fault of police. When the police show up to arrest the disruptive guest, interfering with the police is not going to make the situation better.

Could anything have prevented this? I don’t know. Maybe don’t invite your jailbird uncle to the wedding? Or maybe do something to keep your jailbird uncle from getting so drunk at the reception? Or here’s a completely wild idea: Teach your kids to have respect for the police.

That cop has a pistol on his hip for a reason, you know.

The police officer is a representative of the community, sworn to uphold the law, and authorized to use force in the pursuit of that duty.

Disrespect for the police is disrespect for the law, and disrespect for the law should be offensive to every law-abiding citizen. We live in a representative form of government, and thus have the power to change our laws, and to choose those responsible for the job of law enforcement. However, when law enforcement officers show up to the scene of a reported crime — even a misdemeanor, like drunk-and-disorderly — the citizen has a duty to comply with the officer’s lawful orders.

When a cop tells you to “step back,” that’s not merely a suggestion.

If you punched a cop and got shot to death, don’t expect me to join any “social justice” protests in your memory. That’s your fault.




 

Aspiring Rapper Update: ‘Baby Cino’ Gets Out of Jail, Immediately Gets Shot Dead

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Timothy Starks, a/k/a “Baby Cino,” was only 20 years old when he died Wednesday, shortly after getting bailed out of a Miami jail:

Minutes later, as the red Nissan he was riding in turned onto the Palmetto Expressway, he was suddenly ambushed by a gunman in another car in a wild daylight shooting in the middle of traffic.
Starks died in the hail of gunfire, shot in the head. He was still wearing the wristband given to inmates at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.
Miami-Dade police on Thursday publicly identified Starks and a friend who picked him up from jail, Dante’ Collins Banks, 20, who also was wounded in the attack. Detectives have not identified a suspect, but did say “a dark-colored vehicle was seen fleeing the area at a high rate of speed.”
The shooter fired at least 40 times.
Multiple law-enforcement sources say the shooting is being probed for links to a series of public ambushes in recent months believed connected to Miami street gangs. That includes the January ambush murder of rapper Wavy Navy Pooh, who was shot to death in his car near Zoo Miami, and the murder of Brianna Sutherland, who was ambushed while driving on Interstate 95 on Valentine’s Day. Investigators do not believe she was the intended target.
As for Starks, he was associated with a Little Haiti area gang known as “Boss Life,” according to one source.
Online, where many local rappers can rise to fame quickly, Starks did not have a major presence. His main song, entitled “Big Haiti Shottas,” features him and a crew rapping about violence at an apartment building on Northwest Third Avenue and 56th Street.
The video, which has over 21,000 views, is also dedicated to Gary “Melo” Laguerre, an 18-year-old gunned down in a drive-by shooting in 2020 outside a Brownsville market.
Starks had been arrested in Opa-locka on Tuesday night by members of Miami-Dade Police’s Robbery Intervention Detail unit.
According to an arrest report, a RID detective pulled Starks over on Opa-locka Boulevard and Northwest 19th Avenue, for having an obstructed tag. When he was stopped, he was moving “as if he was concealing an object consistent with the shape of a firearm,” the report said.
Officers searched the car and found a fully loaded Glock 32, the report said.
According to jail records, Starks was booked into TGK just before 2 a.m. Wednesday. After posting bond, he was recorded as released at 2:10 p.m. The shooting happened within the hour, starting on the Palmetto near Hialeah, with the Nissan slamming into a concrete barrier wall.
Investigators are now trying to determine if Starks and Banks were followed from the jail — and how the attackers knew they were being released.

Maybe if you keep these hoodlums in jail, they won’t be getting shot dead on the streets. Just a suggestion. Not that I actually care.




 

‘Running Gun Battle’ in Florida Town Leaves One Dead, Four Wounded

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Polk County, Florida, is in the central part of the state, between Tampa to the west and Orlando to the northeast. It used to be a mostly rural area, with lots of orange groves and a cheap place to retire, but the population has grown to more than 700,000, adding about 250,000 new residents in just the past 20 years. Some of the new residents of Polk County are thugs, and they had some of their typical thug fun over the weekend:

A 20-year-old man was killed and four others were hospitalized in critical condition from an exchange of gunfire between two cars in unincorporated Winter Haven early Sunday morning, according to Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd.
The deceased man and three of the injured — a 26-year-old man, a 20-year-old man and a 17-year-old boy — had left a bowling alley in the same car around 1:13 a.m., Judd said.
As the group drove north on Buckeye Loop Road toward Martin Luther King Blvd on the outskirts of Winter Haven, a dark sedan that followed them pulled up beside the car and the two vehicles engaged in a “running gun battle,” Judd said at a news conference Sunday.
“If you look very close, you’ll see some of these bullets are entrance holes into this vehicle, some are exit holes from the vehicle, so the suspects were shooting back and forth at each other,” Judd said.
The shootout was witnessed from a distance by friends of an individual in the first car, who Judd said reported seeing the vehicle ease over to the side of the road before it came to rest.
“And what we find (in the car) is not good. What we found was a 20-year-old young man, still a kid, dead,” Judd said. “He was shot eight times. Did you hear what I said? He was shot eight times.”
Judd said that among the other occupants, the 26-year-old was shot eight times, the 17-year-old was shot twice and the other 20-year-old man was shot between seven and eight times. The man who was shot and killed was the front-seat passenger of the car with an “AR strapped around him” and “a gun in his waist,” Judd said.
Though the shooting occurred in unincorporated Winter Haven, Judd said that the Winter Haven Police Department offered a “remarkable amount” of assistance to Polk County deputies at the scene.
The dark-colored car continued to drive west on Martin Luther King Blvd before it dropped off a 21-year-old man at Winter Haven Hospital who had also been shot and is now in critical condition there, Judd said.
Judd said there were so many bullet holes and shell casings to count that deputies were initially unable to report exactly how many shots were fired between both cars.
“We’re still counting bullet holes,” Judd said.

Watch the video here:

 

You’ll see that Sheriff Judd makes the case that Polk County has a low crime rate, and that this incident was unusual. What apparently happened was that some thugs were dealing dope and got into a feud with rival thugs. And the sheriff makes the point that, while a lot of people talk about marijuana as a “low-level, non-violent crime,” there is an awful lot of violence surrounding the dope trade, because it’s run by thugs.

I’m reminded of a scene in P.J. O’Rourke’s Parliament of Whores, where O’Rourke did a ride-along with D.C. police in an area afflicted by the 1990s crack epidemic. O’Rourke tried to offer a libertarian critique of the War on Drugs, suggesting legalization was the solution, to which the police officer replied, “Air should be illegal, if these people breathe it.”

What that cop was trying to express was an idea that I’ve often phrased a bit more politely: Crime is a people problem. It’s not a drug problem. It’s not a poverty problem or a gun problem. Crime is caused by bad people — criminals — who will commit crime more or less continuously unless they’re put behind bars. The only way you can reduce crime is to identify the criminals, arrest them, and send them to prison. It doesn’t really matter what they’re arrested and convicted for — burglary, assault, drug possession, car theft, whatever — what matters is that you convict them of something, and get them off the streets. Put enough thugs in prison, and the would-be thugs on the street will be discouraged from following in their footsteps. Otherwise, they’ll just kill each other.

“Self-cleaning oven,” they call that in Chicago.




 

‘No Stranger to Law Enforcement’

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Say hello to 32-year-old Davis Howard Jr., who was behind the wheel of a speeding Maserati in Bunnell, Florida, when a Flagler County deputy blue-lighted him and Howard took off — because, really, what’s the point of driving a Maserati if you can’t try to outrun cops once in a while?

The high-speed chase ended only after “stop sticks” were deployed:

During that high-speed chase, Howard called his mother and she was the one who eventually got him to stop the car, according to deputies.
A woman in the car with him also tried to get him to stop, she told deputies.

So nice of him to call his mom. More from the sheriff’s office:

It was determined that Howard had a suspended license since 4/4/2016.
A probable cause search of the vehicle was conducted and multiple illegal drugs were found. Deputies recovered 44 white pills, identified as Oxycodone, in the driver’s door compartment, along with 12g of marijuana. In the center cup holder, deputies recovered 8.2g marijuana and on the rear right passenger seat was a small black bag containing two small baggies with an additional 200 Oxycodone pills. A total of 44g of Oxycodone was recovered and $5,651 was seized.
Howard is no stranger to law enforcement and has been charged 43 times in Florida, with nine felony convictions. He’s previously been charged for Grand Theft of a Motor Vehicle, Carrying a Concealed Weapon, Tampering with Physical Evidence, Destroying Evidence, Flee and Elude Law Enforcement, Use or Display of Firearm During Felony, Possession of Weapon/Ammo by Convicted Felon, Possession of Marijuana with Intent to Sell, Possession of Cocaine, Possession of a Controlled Substance, Possession of Synthetic Cannabinoids, Possession of a Controlled Substance without Prescription, Possession of Methamphetamine with Intent to Sell, Possession of Cocaine with Intent to Sell, Aggravated Assault with a Deadly Weapon, Aggravated Battery on Law Enforcement Officer with Motor Vehicle, Use Under 18 Years Old to Sell/Deliver Meth, Trafficking Opium, Trafficking Controlled Substances, and Trafficking Phenethylamines. He’s also been charged in Illinois on multiple felony drug charges.

Evidently, he’s been a full-time criminal his entire life, but for some reason was not behind bars, and was instead driving around Florida in a Maserati. Here’s video of the pursuit and arrest:

 

Some of my libertarian friends are against “The War on Drugs,” but if drugs were legal, how would someone like Davis Howard Jr. be able to afford a Maserati? Making drugs illegal creates lucrative opportunities for, uh . . . Well, people who wouldn’t be obeying the laws no matter what the laws were. I mean, it’s not illegal to own a Maserati, but it is illegal to drive with a suspended license. Criminals don’t obey traffic laws the same way they don’t obey drug laws or gun laws or just about any other law you’d care to name. What’s the point of having any laws at all, if you think it’s social injustice to put criminals in jail? Because that’s what really inspires the notion that we shouldn’t be locking up drug dealers, i.e., the “disparate impact” argument. When I think back on my own youthful career in freelance pharmaceutical distribution, the fact that I was a suburban white boy didn’t make me exempt from law-enforcement scrutiny. I didn’t have “white privilege,” but I also wasn’t driving around in a Maserati — a spectacularly stupid thing to do, when you’re hauling contraband. While I don’t want to turn this blog into a how-to guide for drug dealers, permit me to observe that a used Volkswagen is a lot less conspicuous than a late-model sports car. Just sayin’ . . .

There are two kinds of drug dealers:

  1. Smart guys who keep a low profile;
    and
  2. Idiots who drive around in flashy cars and go to prison.

We know which category Davis Howard Jr. belongs to:

Howard was arrested for Trafficking Oxycodone 25g or More, Fleeing with Disregard of Safety to Persons/Property, Driving While License Suspended with Knowledge, Selling of Oxycodone, and Possession of Marijuana 20g or more. He was transported to the Sheriff Perry Hall Inmate Detention Facility and is being held on $160,500 bond.

On the advice of my attorney, Bert the Samoan Lawyer, I’ll note that anything written here about my own youthful behavior is fiction, as far as you know. But I damned sure wasn’t driving a Maserati.