Pursuant to Mark Steyn's excellent post yesterday "Reading the Tea Leaves in Johnson County", another reminder of how, as I put it yesterday:
"America, I Love You But Your Police Are Out of Control."
Remember this story? I sure do:
The UVA Student who was assaulted by "State Alcohol Control Officers" has filed a gazonga, huge lawsuit against the Virginia Alcohol Beverage Control (ABC) board.
GOOD.
FOR.
HER.
"The Virginia ABC has since said
that two of the agents violated the agency’s policy, but conveniently,
it won’t say what those policies were, apparently to protect the privacy
of those agents’ personnel files. Think about that for a minute. Two
armed government agents violently confronted and terrified a group of
young women in a grocery store parking lot. The women had done nothing
wrong. And yet the public isn’t permitted to know how the ABC is
handling the situation internally — in order to protect the privacy of
those same two government agents. So much for transparency, or for
accountability."
She could have quite easily been murdered by these overzealous assholes.
And as the Washington Post reporter points out:
"There’s also the broader question of why Virginia’s alcohol regulatory
agency needs armed agents in the first place. The arming of regulatory
agencies is a disturbing trend,
both at the state and federal level. "
"Sure, it’s possible to conceive
of scenarios where it might be judicious for alcohol regulators to have
armed officers around — perhaps while raiding an illegal moonshine still
or busting up some black-market booze market. That’s when the ABC could
call in the Virginia State Police or some other law enforcement agency
for help. That, of course, would require convincing that agency why such
force is necessary. When you have your own guns, you’re more likely to
use them, including in situations where doing so isn’t appropriate. Like
this one."