Monday, October 31, 2022

Here's One Thing You Learn From Live PD/OP Live

The photo above is an illustration of the type of body cameras worn by officers of the San Francisco Police Department. In current technology, police body cameras activate automatically, often when officers exit their police vehicles. They can't be turned off. I'll get to this below.

One thing you learned as a fan of Live PD, which following its cancellation by A&E has been cloned and resuscitated as OP Live by the REELZ network, is that police departments that allow camera crews to ride along inevitably assign the crews to their best officers. They'd be shooting themselves in the foot if they didn't, since bungled arrests, episodes of brutality, or community relations disasters would all be caught on tape, while conversely, it's to their credit to have a courteous, diverse, effective patrol force on full public display.

My wife and I have watched these shows long enough, since some of the departments have participated in them over many seasons, to see some of the most familiar officers promoted in the course of successful careers, which to me is an indication of the transparent and merit-based systems in these departments. Another feature on display in the best departments is that the supervisory officers who explain things in greater depth to the cameras are clear, effective communicators. In fact, in a merit-based system, clear communications ability is a promotional factor.

Which brings me to the San Francisco Police Department and its Chief William Scott. Yesterday I quoted a Breitbart News story that covered Scott's account of the police response to the Pelosi home:

“So when the officers arrived and knocked on the front door of the residence this morning, the door was opened by someone inside,” Scott said. “And the officers observed through the open door Mr. Pelosi and the suspect, Mr. DePape, inside the entryway of the home.

The officers ordered Pelosi and DePape to drop the hammer and seemingly stood by as DePape attacked Pelosi, waiting until DePape “violently assaulted” Pelosi before disarming the suspect.

If Pelosi and DePape were struggling with a hammer as the police arrived, there would inevitably need to be a third party to open the door, since Pelosi and DePape would have been too busy struggling to open it themselves. Or do I have this wrong? Nevertheless, NBC now claims this is not what Chief Scott said, or meant to say, or something. In a later update to he story, Breitbart reported,

NBC News walked back a report Sunday that there was a third person in Paul Pelosi’s home during the attack.

“The SFPD also says that there were only TWO people inside the Pelosi home (Paul Pelosi and DePape) when they responded, clarifying statements made at Friday’s press conference which seemed to indicate there was a third person inside the home who opened the door,” wrote NBC investigative correspondent Tom Winter on social media on Sunday afternoon.

So Chief Scott misspoke, or that's what they'd have you believe. This still leaves open the question of how the police saw Pelosi and DePape struggling with a hammer through an open door. Did the police knock and Pelosi and DePape temporarily stop the struggle so one could open the door, whereupon both picked up the hammer and resumed the struggle so the police could see it and respond?

I think the best explanation is that SFPD's normal chain of command has been interrupted by Pelosi handlers, who are the ones telling Scott and the department what to say, rather than the normal public information officers who'd be dealing with the media if the incident Friday morning involved anyone other than Paul Pelosi. The result is that, as I began to point out yesterday, almost every detail of the story as it's been put out simply defies logic and common sense. This now includes the newly updated narrative that only two people were inside the house.

As I noted at the start of this post, SFPD officers are equipped with body cams, and the footage would instantly clarify just what happened -- except that my surmise is that what actually happened has nothing to do with the current received narrative. Not only will there be body cam footage showing just who opened the door (if that's even how this whole thing developed), but there will be footage from the security cameras in the entryway as well.

Given the account from Ms Dhillon's experience, plus common sense, there must have been at least one, but likely more, household staff and security personnel in the Pelosi home at the time of the attack. According to Business Insider,

"The Speaker of the House is not a Secret Service protectee," US Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi wrote in an email, adding that all other questions about Pelosi's protection should be directed to the US Capitol Police.

. . . But other lawmakers have offered glimpses into their own security coverage.

In 2017 late [sic] congressional newspaper Roll Call reported that late-GOP Sen. Orrin Hatch, who was then-president pro tempore of the Senate and third-in-line to the presidency, divulged that nearly two dozen armed guards surrounded him and his wife at all times.

"These men and women are like family to me," Hatch said of those assigned to protect him. Hatch aides added that his 23-person security detail "is the second largest on the Hill following Speaker Ryan."

Which, extrapolated out, would mean Pelosi's protective force is likely to be even higher today[.]

The phrase "at all times" relating to coverage of key legislators and their spouses is at least present in this discussion. But if, as the late Sen Hatch said, the dozens in his own security detail were "like family", this would imply that Speaker Pelosi's detail would be much the same, and they would be intimately familiar with the habits and preferences of their protectees. Like, for instance, Paul Pelosi's normal associates and who he'd be likely to bring home late at night. My bet is that DePape was in the house because the security detail had let him in on Paul's implied OK.

At this point, I think the inevitable conclusion is that the whole narrative we've been given about the attack, the roles of Messrs Pelosi and DePape, and the SFPD response is the purest moonshine. Chief Scott's version, never credible in any form, becomes less so with each revision, and it suggests at minimum an astonishing lack of professionalism in that department. Certainly it would appear that Chief Scott was not promoted for his skill at communication. The best analysis I've seen so far is still the one I quoted yesterday:

posted by John Bruce @ October 31, 2022   0 Comments