"We'll arrest them all." Los Angeles Sheriff Deputy Ware on L.A. bloggers that photograph Metro stations

As reported last Friday, 07 November 2008, an L.A. County Sheriff's deputy, C. Ware (badge #413772), made clear his desire to make Los Angeles safe from domestic terrorism—starting with a campaign to round up and arrest any and every blogger that dares who has taken photos of Metro Red, Blue, Gold and Green Lines. He stated that he will be on-line soon, starting with Metro's Transportation Library, to seek out such lawbreakers and bringers of domestic doom.

As such, there are more than a handful of bloggers that should be on the lookout for this and other brown-shirted schmucks. Top of the list of potential domestic terrorists may well include any blog found on Metro's Library Transportation Library Blog. All of this sounds silly, but it is a nefarious threat, owing to C. Ware's detention and subsequent arrest of public transit advocate and blogger, Randall "BusTard" Fleming, for filming officer Ware (and his brown-suited pal, officer Vo) at Pershing Square. Fleming, along with a handful of other citizens, was awaiting the return of a newsagent when Ware angrily approached him. During the long wait, Fleming noticed the ever-idle presence of officers Ware and Vo and decided to fill the time filming them. (Fleming had filmed the two aforementioned officers as well as several others on many previous occasions, some of which prompted these two and other sheriffs to act somewhat oddly—but nevertheless in a fashion that made obvious the sheriffs' awareness of a person filming them from less than thirty feet—and sometimes within 10 feet—in distance.)

Nevertheless, only Fleming was pulled away and arrested. Ware made a  number of accusations regarding the reasons for Fleming's detention, including "loitering" and "a previous mercury release in Pershing Square," before transporting him to Twin Towers for processing. Along the way, officers Ware and Vo made a point of harassing Fleming non-stop about the dangers of domestic terrorism as well as their duty to assist Homeland Security, including the distinct and prolonged threats of seeking out and arresting all Los Angeles-based transit bloggers. (Perhaps they should start with Wired.)

Apparently I am not the only one to deal with dimwitted dipshits whose calibre of sidearm exceeds their I.Q.

Seeing as Metro sheriffs seem hell-bent on not being documented while NOT doing their jobs, one can only imagine that officer Ware means to make this threat real; he certainly makes enough spare time to do so. However, if Ware were lying, I suggest Baca get a grip on his boys.

-BusTard

Comments

[Matt]

Gee, maybe he can take on Google Street View and Google-I-can-see-the-roof-of-the-White-House Earth while he's at it, Google's Picassa, Yahoo's Flickr and all the thousands, if not millions, of transit and transportation photos already posted online. Yeah, that would be a good place to start, take on the whole internet to save us from...uh...what? Hope he's kind enough to tell Metro's marketing department to stop using photos and especially those pesky videos of transit in promoting its own services, that's just down right dangerous.

[Alex]

Are you pressing charges?

[calwatch]

At the very least, file a complaint with the Sheriff's Headquarters Bureau (not with Metro since they won't do much). At the very least they will be investigated by internal affairs, who might not do anything except hold them from promotion for a few months. Still that is better than nothing.