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D.C. Police Detonate Man's 'Suspicious' Pressure Cooker
An anonymous reader writes: Yesterday evening in Washington D.C., police officers on routine patrol spotted an unoccupied car parked near the National Mall. They deemed it "suspicious," and took a look inside, where they found a pressure cooker. They also claimed to smell gasoline. The officers called the bomb squad, and at 7:45pm they initiated a controlled detonation of the car's contents. Afterward, a search of the car found no evidence that it contained explosives or any other hazardous materials. The car's owner was located and arrested for driving on a revoked license.
and if so, did they reimburse the guy?
If you can't take the pressure, you shouldn't be a cop.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
"...an odor of gasoline was detected"
In a fucking gasoline-powered car. Where do they find these geniuses?
You need a license to own a parked car? Was he seen "operating" the vehicle?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
They'll have to pry my slow cooker from my cold dead oven mitts
Especially if the cops revoked the owner's driving license just to accuse him/her of something or other.
And was the owner also the driver? It would have been nice for TFS to mention that.
If your license is revoked, don't drive with a pressure cooker.
Is this a new season's advertising?
In a car? Wait, what?
From TFA:
about the same time when we regressed 10,000 years and began fearing any unknown object as it may be the end of our civilization as we know it.
We need universal background checks and registration of all pressure cooker sales.
blowing up peoples personal property because they have a pressure cooker.
Well, apparently it was an explosive pressure cooker, because they managed to detonate it.
The only thing dumber that this article is the police who blew up the pressure cooker. Maybe I'll put a big nitrogen tank in my back seat for a few weeks and see if I can meet some interesting new friends.
the BIG question is
"WHAT WAS IN IT !!!!"
i cook sauerkraut and sausage in mine for outdoor get to together's
and THAT keeps unrefrigerated in the car for a LONG TIME
"I don't pitch OpenSUSE Linux to my friends, i let Microsoft do it for me
Actually - yes. It does sound like they blew up a pressure cooker just for fun. Bullshit and paperwork? It's worth it, to some cops, if they can just get an adreneline rush out of it. WTF? They let the guy go, right? Obviously, they had NOTHING!
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
They use a charge to "detonate" it. Apparently, the cooker didn't blow up. They released the guy with a stupid ticket for driving on a revoked license. You think he would have walked if five pounds of explosives had gone off when the cops "detonated" it?
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
http://www.usatoday.com/videos...
Pretending this is my office full of bitter coworkers..
Assuming the cops had good cause to check his license, assuming there is little or no doubt about him driving with an expired license (maybe he foolishly admitted it, or maybe he was caught on camera), and assuming the offense is one that routinely results in arrest (vs. a ticket-and-tow as some jurisdictions do) then it's a good arrest.
Without evidence that a motorist with a revoked license would typically only be ticketed (and towed), or lack of evidence that he was the driver, it's premature to claim that the arrest was done to cover up the other issue. The only legal tie between the two is that the suspicious car - or perhaps the driver's claim that the car was his car - gave the cops probable cause to check his license for validity. Other than that, they are separate and should be treated as such.
Now, does there need to be an independent investigation to determine if these cops used prudent judgment (vs. "looking for trouble" "judgement") - yes. If they were not acting prudently, does the police dept. need to issue an apology and pay damages? Yes.
Memo to self:
If I drive a car without a license and park it, and I see police activity around my car, call a lawyer and have HIM arrange to recover the car.
Memo to self #2:
If my license is revoked, call a cab.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
So they didn't detonate it, but they blew it up.
Pressure cookers have also been used to cook delicious meals economically and quickly. That's actually why they're called pressure cookers.
or seize some cash from unsuspecting tourists from say Canada eeee drug dealers I mean from drug dealers.
In some states and possibly in D.C., ordinary traffic tickets require a police to witness you "doing the deed," but more serious crimes like DWI, reckless driving, and possibly driving with a revoked license do not. Yes, they require proof beyond a reasonable doubt to result in a conviction (assuming a fair trial *cough*), but that can be achieved legally through non-police witnesses, surveillance cameras (the cops can subpoena the ATM across the street or the toll-road cameras, and D.C. is littered with government-run security cameras), or even a non-coerced admission.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
or if they managed to plant that is to find some traces of illegal mental state altering substances.
Yes, they blew it up. With their own explosives. That doesn't mean the device was explosive before the bomb squad showed up.
If you leave your backpack unattended at the airport, the bomb squad will take it away and detonate it. Your backpack will blow up even if it only had clothes and a vibrating dildo in it.
Careful attention to terminology is important. In point of fact, they use an explosive charge of their own, carefully configured and arranged in a manner which they hope will touch off any explosive contained in the pressure cooker. Of course, the police spokesman used outlandish terms in her press release. They "disrupted" the pressure cooker? Jesus - I've never heard a military man use the term "disrupted". It's far more accurate when we say, "We blew it to fuck!"
In point of fact, the cops detonated their own charge, but failed to cause an explosive reaction within the pressure cooker. Maybe they should have used a bigger charge?
Idiots. Everywhere you look these days, idiots. Juvenile minded fools, trying to act like important people.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Unless it was a pressure cooker running Linux.
Pressure cookers have also been used to cook delicious meals economically and quickly. That's actually why they're called pressure cookers.
So have cars.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
The word "detonate", used as a transitive verb means: to trigger an explosive object. You can detonate a bomb, but you can't detonate a door.
Sometimes the bomb squad will use a directed charge designed to shake the crap out of suspicious objects, but without blowing them to smithereens. The idea is to ensure that it can't go off, while still leaving behind evidence that can be analyzed.
Paranoid police ruin poor man's life.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Your backpack will blow up even if it only had clothes and a vibrating dildo in it.
Now... what happens if you're one of those enthusiast preppers and accidentally left behind a backpack full of accessories and water containers heavily shielded with blastproof heat-resistant armor, and latched up tight with blastproof padlocks? :)
You know the first thing that happens when the police have any reason to stop or question you is to check out your identity, background and legal history. If you've got any warrants they want to know or if you're a convicted felon. Even if they had hunted him down to get him to open the car and the pressure cooker (what the lazy asses should have done) he'd still have gone to jail.
Oklahoma City can attest to that.
I remember my mother cooking an old rooster in one. That tough old bird came out tender as a fryer. Hmmmm.....chicken and dumplings. Yum!
Probably the same guy that tried to blow up the chemical lab in junior high school.
They smelled gasoline near a car? How in the world could that happen?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Could be but it seems like a lot of people with a little authority start to get an "the end justifies the means" kind of mentality. They mean well but it creates a lot of hell.
Ummm, you must not know any EOD types. A disrupter tries to disassemble an explosive device faster than it can detonate. It is typically the first choice for suspected IEDs and has been for decades.
Of course, it will also cheerfully disassemble non-explosive items too.
Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.
Have gnu, will travel.
If it didn't contain explosives, they couldn't detonate it. They blew it up by detonating something else next to it.
"My pot roast! Noooooooo!"
Do the police also blow up suspicious shoes and underwear?
The lids of pressure cookers are all transparent as far as I know, so you should be able to see if it's empty...
Surely they would not have blown up a clearly empty pressure cooker... right? Right??
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You will be charged with the manufacture of a device that (when blown up) injured or if unlucky killed several police officers.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
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Unfortunately, we have done so much to militarize the police that sometimes they forget they are civilians.
So you want to encourage people to think those of us using them are out to hurt someone?
You're doing the harm.
The risks of terrorism and illicit drug production are only two of the risks of allowing this dangerous 'dual use' technology to be sold on the open market! A far more insidious problem is the destruction of essential vitamins in the pressure cooking process. Some of these are required for higher brain functions, like the ability to parse textual data for abstract meaning. In one recent study, over 70% of regular pressure cooker users were unable to detect irony, satire or even obvious jokes in posts on internet forums. The end product may be delicious but, like cannabis or Snapchat, the long-term effects on the developing brain can be devastating.
Maybe culturing some schedule I mushrooms?
When achieving sterility is outlawed, will all the outlaws become sterile?
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Tasty dinners provide aid and comfort to the enemy!
Sorry. You had the order wrong. Don't worry. I fixed it for you.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Indeed, the police's preferred terminology is inaccurate and sensationalist. It almost makes you wonder if they have an ulterior motive (such as, say, scaring the public into accepting their increasingly totalitarian abuses of authority).
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
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Clearly this man should have had a barbecue and several cylinders of propane in his car instead! The police would have certainly let him be if that were the case.
Anything made by the USA with a V8 in the "malaise era" is the anti-tesla.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Usually they ask around. I don't know if they did or didn't. I remember back in the 80's when I was in Germany there was a woman who drove through a gate on Rhine Main Air Force Base. She ran from the Security Police and ended up at the terminal there. The SP's tried to get her to open her car and when she refused they put charges on the doors and blew them off. When she saw they were serious she tried to get them to let her open it up but they were through playing by then. Cops love to blow stuff up when they get the opportunity. Maybe this incident will bring about some changes in how they operate. I hope so.
That'll keep those damned blacks from breeding! (Partially black here - I jest. Sadly I have to add that as some may think I am serious. Amazon needs to sell sarcasm meters.)
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
...
Poe, is that you?
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
When did they revoke his license, before or after they blew up his car?
Quinoa
The AntiJoey
The owner has no license... could have had a friend drive him to do some shopping. Or the owner lent the car to a friend since he couldn't drive it. More likely than a stolen car.
As for the smell of gasoline well one thing that pressure cookers are really good at are keeping a seal. So even if it was an improvised bomb and there was gasoline in it chances are that you wouldn't smell it. Pressure cookers and chilli go together like ham and cheese. The most obvious thing was that the driver was taking something cooked to a gathering.
For some reason the police like to blow up anything out of the ordinary. Vary rarely is it anything harmful.
The car's owner was located and arrested for driving on a revoked license.
So they blow up his stuff, maybe ruin his car and to CYA they smelled gas. And in order to justify whatever, they arrest the guy for being poor. The car isn't being driven folks -- it's there because the man ran out of money. He COULD HAVE had it towed or any number of responsible things -- but, he didn't have money.
Being poor has been a criminal act -- let's face it, you can slip on all kinds of licenses, and run around without insurance because you trade feeding a family or medicine for taking a few legal risks 9 times out of 10. But now it's terrorism?
They should just admit they were a bit overzealous and compensate the guy for the pot -- maybe give him a tow or sell his car for him. The public interests are not served on this hyperbole.
While the Boston bombing did use a pressure cooker -- the average killing spree with a gun is far more dangerous -- and we've accidentally killed more people with prescription drugs and nobody is blowing up jars of Oxycontin (but who knows what bored people might do?)
The really annoying thing here is that the Police put out statements and the Press repeat them, that have anyone with functional BS detector saying; "Oh come on." This is more crying wolf and pretty soon, a real or fake terrorist attack is going to be huge, just so people don't treat the issue as a joke or a jobs program.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
...blowing up ham radio equipment. This action has probably been appreciated by neighbours, but it seems that US policemen are a bit too much paranoid, isn't it ?!?
AIU, they use an explosive charge of their own, carefully configured and arranged to destroy the bomb's ignition source without setting off the explosives.
D.C. has speed cameras...no cop required to issue you a ticket.
Just another day in Paradise
But I don't see where they get off arresting someone for driving without a license when they weren't driving. Perhaps that's why his car was "abandoned".
They went from stealing people's lunch money to just blowing up their lunch.
If it's like most jurisdictions, it's probably a "civil" (i.e. non-criminal) ticket levied against the car owner rather than the presumptive driver.
Other American jurisdictions have run into legal trouble when they try to use cameras to send misdemeanor (criminal charge) tickets to people with things like speeding and running red lights.
The distinction may be moot though, if speeding is merely a civil, not criminal, offense in D.C.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Regression? What the hell is that??? Everybody attack!!!
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
So I'm very very curious to know how an unoccupied car "appears suspicious" to the cops... and based on this they had the rights to break into it and blow up stuffs inside...
Not only that, the guy that owned the car was arrested even though they were not able to prove that they guy drove the car there. Couldn't he have arrived at the mall with someone and that someone drove?
But wait!!!! They didn't have the probable cause to begin with... WTF?
Or, in this case, a What-If?
It might not have to be unattended.
In 1992 I traveled through Moscow airport with a pressure cooker with a slide projector inside it (I had trouble keeping my luggage in one suitcase).
When they put it through the airport scanner there was a lot of shouting and they made me take it apart in a corner with concrete walls while three guys was pointing rifles at me.
Glad I don't live in the US. This kind of story makes me want to go to a supermarket, buy a pressure cooker and take it home by public transport. Then forget it somewhere on the bus....