Comments on: Avoid Jericho, Arkansas at All Costs

By: Jay G

Jay G — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:15:04 +0000

In small communities that like to make money by writing tickets, going “too slow” also will get you a ticket. The only decision the police officer following you has to make is whether you’re speeding or going too slow. YOU WILL GET A TICKET!!!

By: codehappykid

codehappykid — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 03:59:46 +0000

Mark: Agreed. This is not about whether law enforcement as a whole is good or bad. That’s a whole other debate that I don’t really care about because it’s stupid. What matters here is that the particular police force in the town of Jericho operated in a way that is not proper for public servants. If we are to generalize at all from this town’s situation, it should be to scrutinize towns of similar size and ratio of police to citizens. The idea of using the situation in Jericho to fan flames in Chicago or New York is ludicrous, and anyone who was thinking about doing that needs to stop now.

By: codehappykid

codehappykid — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 03:52:54 +0000

sabril: I agree that there is a racial angle, but you’re only looking at part of the data to support your conclusion. The town had 171 black people, 8 white people, 4 mixed and 1 “other” at the time of US Census 2000. Keeping in mind that this is a small town in a Southern state, I doubt the 8 white people were living in a town run by black cops. I suspect it was the other way around. Remember that the police force consisted of 7 people.

My hypothesis, based on this data and the earlier comments, is that the police force in Jericho, AR consisted of a group of white people, placed by the state to collapse the town. They’ve been collecting tickets this way for a long time. In Census 2000, 58 out of 140 eligible citizens of Jericho were employed, and there were definitely local businesses reported. The fact that now, people are saying this town has no businesses means something drove them all away. Well, over the course of ten years, if the people that would normally buy things are paying tickets instead, and those people get their money from jobs at said businesses, then the revenue of the businesses will be less than the cost of their operation, so of course they all shut down! Well, now, the outcry has forced the police to disband. No more speed trap. They bled it dry before they blew it open, though. Goodbye, Jericho.

By: Tom Tiner

Tom Tiner — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 00:34:09 +0000

the part that makes all this so bad is that I can never rember reading that a police force is suppose to be a for profit organization. we need to take to money out of cops doing there job and back to portect and serve they need o rember they work for us and we need to be able to fire them if they do wrong
hank you for letting me vent

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 01:24:16 +0000

I spent many years patrolling small towns. No one wants tickets, but they do help keep speedy drivers in check. As for getting a ticket for going 58mph in his own driveway, I suspect the man meant, “I pulled into my driveway and got a ticket for going 58mph on the road a short time earlier.” I ticketed plenty of people in their own driveways because plenty of people speed close to home. As for shooting a speeder who was protesting a ticket, I never did that. I was a pretty aggressive ticket writer when I was young, but I never wrote enough tickets to make it worthwhile for the town to keep me employed just for that. RICO? Anti-trust? Mafia? Get real. Cops are hired to do a job (law enforcement, criminal investigation, public service, etc) and generally do it pretty fairly. I expect that if one of you got hired at a company to manage accounts receivable and aggressively pursued debtors you wouldn’t expect to be called a criminal. I’m not defending Jericho, AR (a town that size doesn’t need more than one cop), but let’s not paint the whole law enforcement community with such a broad brush.

By: andy

andy — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 20:31:19 +0000

Being ticketed for doing 58mph when sitting stopped in your driveway is “speeding?”..No these cops are a mafia of extortionist, plain and simple

By: tomw

tomw — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 19:56:43 +0000

I wonder if Jericho is close to the small town that “didn’t have enough work for one lawyer, but more than enough work for two…” [chuckle]

tom

By: Michael

Michael — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 16:46:47 +0000

Thanks for the info and time K. It seems people have made life more complicated than needed.

By: K

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 10:08:55 +0000

clarification:

change: “The Trusts themselves are gone, the word lingers on.”

to: “The Trusts that caused so much trouble in the 19th Century are gone, the word has a different meaning now.”

Trusts are legal, but they sure can’t behave as they once did.

By: K

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 09:46:01 +0000

Michael: The topic is too big to go much further. Anti-trust is a catch-all term which covers laws about trusts, monopoly, restraint of trade, unfair practices, etc. The Trusts themselves are gone, the word lingers on.

Unfair Practices is the big category, the dirty tricks collection. John D. Rockefeller destroyed his oil competitors with a dirty trick that is now illegal. But it worked then. Over time his company achieved monopoly power, and damn-it-all, that was illegal too.

Now to be specific, yes, if statistical evidence showed that Walmart and Sears repeatedly undercut Kmart in that way it might suffice. Even without a single word of evidence that Walmart and Sears ever communicated.

And if Walmart and Sears acted differently in towns w/o a Kmart that would strengthen the case.

An important point is that conspirators need not have made a plan. They may never have met. But they in some way coordinated acts.

Another point is that you are not to attack business competitors. You must stick to operating your own business in a sensible manner. Then if your competitors go broke anyway, too bad.

My personal experience was with airlines. You can be guilty even acting alone.

Suppose small carrier A announces a reasonable $100 price reduction on NYC to LAX fares. The other airlines study how to respond. Suddenly the biggest carrier, B, responds with an amazing $600 reduction on the same route.

That would be read as a warning that B wants no price competition and will hurt others until it stops. B did not make the $600 cut based upon a rational pricing.

B could argue it really was sound business. That they can make a reasonable profit on NYC-LAX even after the $600 reduction. And who knows? it might work. The lawyers and accountants get paid either way.