"I provide a paycheck for your husband and his comrades"

Maybe oxymoron will give you your nickel back.

LDS, Througout this conversation I have kept it civil and never resorted to name calling. If that is the shallow characteristic you speak of then I accept it.

If you beleive that the police do not provide you a service than there is nothing I or anyone will be able to do to change your mind. For the rest of us who do believe in the police department do us a favor. Don't call 911 when your car is broken into at the mal while you were away and could not have prevented it. Do not call 911 when you wake up one night , because you could not keep your eyes open aymore trying to keep an eye on your own belongings, and find some of them missing.

Save those 911 calls for people who need, trust, and believe in law enforcement. Don't waste an officers time.

Codearchitect: Lt Col Dave Grossman has two books that I am aware of; ON COMBAT and ON KILLING. Both are a great read. Our copy of On Killing is signed by Grossman.

Oxymoron:

One of my favorite books on warfare is written by the man in that link you provided:

"On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society"

Superb book! Thanks for the link!

Goodnight LDS. We will just have to agree to disagree. I leave you with this quote and this link...

"We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm."
George Orwell

http://www.killology.com/sheep_dog.htm

I do sleep safe at night. I sleep with a cop :)

You will never know what he has done to keep you safe. Just because he has not been right there with you when he did it, does not mean he has not kept you safe at some point or another.

He may have stopped a speeder just down the road from you that would have ran a red light and killed you. You would never know.

He may have arrested a drug addict that was out looking to rob someone (maybe you) do get his next fix. You would never know that.

He may have recovered a stolen gun off a gang member before it was used in a drive by shooting where maybe you would have been the next innocent victim. You would never know.

Maybe just the fact that he and his brother/sister officers are out there, someone thinking about a life of crime decided not to. ou would never know.

LOL LDS,

Tell me how that works out for you. most police cars, and I know the Victoria County and City cars have dash cams in them. These cameras record all the time. When they turn on their lights, the camera backs up about 30 seconds and saves the recordings prior to their lights coming on plus everything after their lights are turned on. It keeps recording until the office turns off the camera.

Cool thing there is your speeding, running a red light, etc is caught on camera.

I also think its funny how if you support your law enforcement, then you must be one. I guess there are no citizens out there that would support police officers on their own.

But I will give it to you, you are close. My Husband is a cop, but I am not. There you go assuming again and again getting it wrong. Have a good night LDS. My honey will keep you safe tonight even though you don't like him. That's the kind of MAN he is.

LDS, again you are missing the point. When a crime is taken to court you can't win just because you say something happened. You have to have proof.

I will never find myself a victim of intrapment. In order for that to happen I would have to be luled or inticed into breaking the law. The law is the law and if I know it is illegal, then I will not be talked into breaking it by anyone.

Thats not saying I am not guilty of breaking the law from time to time. I have caught mself speeding, not using a turn signal, and even running a red light cause I thought it would stay yellow a little longer. We all have broken a traffic law or two. None of us are perfect drivers.

That being said though, they were all mistakes and if I was stopped and given a ticket by a cop, then I deserved it. I do not hate the cop for doing his or her job.

All those violations I mentioned above however I could not have been entrapped into by a rouge cop.

The difference LDS, is that I am not accusing someone of committing a crime without proof as you are. If I am not mistaken that is against the Advocates rules.

There are good cops and there are bad cops. Both exist. That I do not disagree with anyone on. The problem is that although some bad cops do exist, the majority are good cops out there doing a job none of us want or desire to do. Except for maybe JohnW.

This vast majority of good cops need our support not our criticism. If we continue to lump the good with the bad, then one day no one will want the job and where would we be then.

If you have proof of a rouge cop, then by all means present it to the proper peeps and get them removed. Don't blame the actions of a few on the whole.

LDS,

I am sure that cops do typlically know what entrapment is. Generally the public is unclear on entrapment and gets it wrong, falsely accusing law enforcement of entrapment.

If the rail sting was conducted the way you say years ago, then that would appear to be entrapment, but still you have provided no proof other that to take you at your word that this is what happened. If it was entrapment, I would have thought that there would have been lots of law suits and media coverage on this. After all people are quick to point out when officers do something wrong.

Sailor, you are right with the point that it is breaking the law, but again if the purpose was to EDUCATE the public, warning tickets should have sufficed.

And the size of a approaching object has no bearing on the speed it is traveling, admit it, you are wrong on that point, the Doppler effect does, but that is about sound, not what you see.

Again, if you so much want to be a LE officer, go to school and quite riding on your relatives coat tails.

But then again, I guess the 27 tickets issued at $200 a pop, paid VPD back for this little test the taxpayers where subjected to without there knowledge.

Ahoy, JohnW, I knew that would be your response.

The height and width of a locomotive has absolutely no bearing on the topic at hand. They also carry about 9000 gallons of Diesel fuel, does that matter to what speed they are traveling?

Like I said before, if the whole idea of this exercise was to raise driver awareness at rail crossings, why not just a stop by LE, a lecture on what the driver did wrong and a warning ticket?

I countered your "assumption" of what I meant in a previous post, but you totally ignored it but yet you "assume" again, that my statement is MORONIC.

At first you assumed one thing in my other post, now you assume the opposite in your most current post. I take it you checked my math and came to the conclusion that I was right, so instead of admitting a fallacy on your own part, you resorted to the height and width of a locomotive and that blades of grass go by faster viewed out of the side window of a car on a highway, everyone knows that.

Can I suggest something to you? Instead of contradicting a persons post and you are so dead set to be right about all matters dealing with LE, take your self over to VC, and enroll in the Criminal Justice program.

It's never to late to improve yourself.

Sailo...I mean JohnW,

Your statement, "This question is totally without merit because it is logically invalid. It seems to me that you are making an assumption(correct me if I'm wrong) that had the drivers known the train would not close the crossing for long they wouldf have waited but if they knew it was going to be a long time they would get impatient and attempt the illegal crossing." is absolutely 180° wrong.

If this would have been a regular train traveling at app.20 mph, again I "assume" the train was traveling North on the 87 tracks,and the usually time for crossing arms to close in 15 to 25 seconds before a train reaches a crossing,I'll use 20 seconds, that would mean that the crossing arms closed with the train app.586' from the crossing.

5380'in a mile, 29.3' a second @ 20 mph, 29.3x20=586'. If the train was going 10mph,the gates would close 40 seconds before the train arrived, if the train was going 5mph the gates would close 1 minute and 20 seconds before the train arrived.

I think people can judge speed well enough to tell the difference between a object that will take 20 second to arrive and something that will take 5 times longer to arrive. So thus THEY WILL WAIT for a train going 20mph, but they might not for one going 5mph.

Wait a minute here...

How long was this train the officer was riding on?

Was it just a locomotive? A locomotive and a car or two?

It seems to me that a locomotive and a couple of cars could clear a crossing in a few seconds, if they were traveling at speed on the 87 rail line, 35 mph, if I remember right.

SOOOO, how fast was the locomotive actually going if people had enough time to realize it was not going to be a impediment at the crossing, and thus receive a ticket?

I really doubt that the train was a full fledged coal train,the ones that usually use that rail route,with 3 locomotives and 150 or so coal cars.

My previous comment are trivial.

IMO, if the intention of the operation was awareness at train crossings, the best thing LE could have done,since there was no actual train coming, was to stop the drivers, give them a lecture on rail crossing safety and issued warning tickets.

But I still want to know where the city depot is.

I know there are switching yards in Victoria, but as far as I know the only depot, if you want to call it that, is in Bloomington.

"The train comes into town to the city depot."

Dang, I didn't realize the city depot off of Juan Linn street opened again, how about the Roundhouse? Is it open again?

Don't know, I remember about 10 years ago the signal arms at the train tracks where the 59 loop intersected 59B south, across from quail creek, would malfunction all the time. You stop and no train in site, finally someone placed boards under the crossing arms so they couldn't go down.

I always looked when I crossed those tracks just in case, but the boards stayed under the arms for about 6 months.

Sheesh, citing fatality stats of driving around gates? Too irrelevant. And how would you propose recognizing who is "capable of judging" correctly, and then governing who is legally allowed to go around the gates? That is a pathetic argument. How about just obeying that law and waiting until it's legal AND safe to go?

JohnW, I support your views. People don't realize they can be jailed instead of ticketed. Seems folks these days would rather be defiant, for the mere sake of it.

And I think exresident's comments would be hilarious if they were not so asinine.

I think the guys/gals feel comfortable with saying "yeah go ahead and search" because they believe that the drugs won't be located in their secret compartments. They are usually well hid and not just laying on the floorboard in the vehicle.

They are just taking a shot on the Police missing the drugs instead of saying "No" and a K9 come along and hit on the vehicle.

JohnW...Why do I think you'd LIKE to see people go to jail for a traffic offense -- that'd be a REAL power treal power trip; show'em who's boss.

I don't hate the police, John. I'll admit to not trusting them to act in my interest and I've come across one real jackass here in Victoria who pretty much soured me on the PD as a whole. May not be fair but he did. I appreciate them when they are doing their anti-gang activity and investigating real crimes like assaults, thefts, burglaries and robberies. The government has given them an impossible task in fighting the drug problem. I admit that I wonder about all the cases of drug running drivers caught along Hwy.59 who tell the cops, "sure, officer, go ahead and search my car with my cheerful permission even though you have no warrant. See if you can find the 25 pounds of dope I've cleverly hidden on the floorboard in the back seat of my car."

Good Job guys

Uh Oh! Two people have used the dreaded "revenue" word responding to a story about the police and the number of tickets they wrote. I guess they "hate" the police, too. That's what I ususally am accused of when I use the "R" word and tickets. Or, perhaps they see it for what it really is. Hmmmmmm?

What determined that the one individual "rightfully deserved it" (a warning) and the others deserved a ticket? Usually these type of stings are zero tolerance, unless your someone important.

I am all for raising railroad safety awareness...but instead of reporting on JUST the awareness, why not report on the several VERY DANGEROUS railway crossings in Victoria?? I have to cross over one at least once a day that is on John Stockbauer on "the other side" of the Houston Highway, going towards Hwy 59. This crossing has NO arms or blinking lights. It literally has a sign that says "look", and of course the railroad crossing signs. But, if "people are insensitive to trains and they get complacent", then maybe something a little more can be done to help save lives. "It's all about getting the drivers aware of how dangerous these railroad crossings can be.."

the warning was given to some person that rightfully deserved it!

great job PD! revenue is needed!

27 revenue producing tickets given to motorists in one day at one crossing. Since the sales tax revenue spiraled down a million dollars in the last quarter of 2009, this will help the City with that problem. Except that is money it's citizens will not have to spend at local business.
There's no difference between government employees and people on welfare. Both take money from taxpayers that they could use for their families needs.

27 tickets and 1 warning. Any guess who the warning was given to?