IMPERSONATING
POLICE The World's Dumbest Criminals
in Dana Point
Dennis Kaiser
DANA POINT - Two men suspected of posing as undercover narcotics
officers in order to pull off a robbery last Thursday (6-25-98),
were arrested after what Dana Point Police Services Chief says
was some keen detective work. "Scotland Yard has nothing
on these guys," Chief Ratchford said. "The city is very
lucky to have them working for them." Ratchford credited
the work of deputies Jim Rubio and Bill Beeman, of the city's
Special Enforcement Team, for tracking down the men after two
days of investigation. (The comment "the city is lucky to
have them working for them," sounds like a veiled threat.
DP Online)
The suspects, John Ryan Fisher, 19, and John Kenneth Watson, 34,
allegedly went to a Dana Point man's house and were introduced
to the victim by a third suspect whom Ratchford said was still
on the lam. (Put out an APB Danno! DPO) Once inside
the residence, the two men flashed bogus police identification,
saying they were undercover narcotics officers. They then produced
a document they claimed was an official search warrant and ordered
the men to lie on the floor. During the incident, one of the suspects
also showed the victim a gun he was keeping in his waistband.
The suspects then proceeded to search the house, took about $300
in cash and fled the scene. By using the knowledge and resources gathered as members of the Special Enforcement Team, (which collectively probably costs millions of dollars, DPO), Beeman and Rubio discovered the suspects had taken a room at the Dana Villas Motel on Pacific Coast Highway. Finding them at the motel, Ratchford said, showed that the suspects probably move around a lot and that it was critical to apprehend them quickly, before they left the area, and their trail disappeared. (Like happens on the really serious crimes, like homicide, one-third of which go unsolved. DPO) The suspects, whom it was later determined had used a barely harmful, and certainly not lethal pellet gun, were arrested and booked on a charge of armed robbery. "Even if a person uses a fake gun it becomes armed robbery because of the threat," Ratchford said. SOURCE: Reprinted from the Sheriff's Blotter of the Dana Point News, 2 July, 1998. Reprinted in the public interest.(DANA POINT ON-LINE: Doesn't it make you proud to know that with the help of millions of dollars in manpower and technology, the police are able to catch crooks who made off with all of $300, with a fake gun! Impersonating officers, or any other kind of authority, is particularly offensive to police, and especially the beneficiary of any licensing scheme, like doctors and lawyers. It is a kind of fraud that exploits the conditioning of the institutions of social control, which teach children to trust the bearers of official authority. That is why it is considered so much more significant when a policeman is caught breaking the law, or a fireman, caught setting fires. At the highest level, of course, it is reflected in current controversies about the President, the senior law enforcement official in the republic, and his unwillingness to tell the truth.)
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