Authorities Arrest Activists Instead of Those Responsible For CA Gas Leak (inhabitat.com)

MikeChino writes: The California State Patrol has arrested two people in connection with the massive methane leak in Southern California's Aliso Canyon. Instead of busting company executives and engineers that caused the leak, the CSP arrested protesters who had draped banners on the headquarters of the California Public Utilities Commission. The banners highlighted the lax regulatory environment that enabled the spill.

Comments

There is no "California State Patrol"

[chispito]

I think you mean the California Highway Patrol

This suggests something about the quality of the source's and the submitter's fact checking ability.

Re:There is no "California State Patrol"

[OverlordQ]

> This suggests something about the quality of the source's and the submitter's fact checking ability.

Check all of his submissions, they're all trying to astroturf his shitty 'news' site

Re:There is no "California State Patrol"

[Dutch Gun]

From the article: Headline (emphasis mine):

Shockingly, authorities arrest activists instead of people responsible for the Aliso Canyon methane gas leak

No, it's not "shocking" that authorities would arrest someone who knowingly committed a minor crime rather than investigate one who caused a large-scale industrial accident, even if negligence was involved. Because, you know, that would require some bureaucrat to get off their ass and do some work rather than rubber-stamping forms and collecting fees. And it might just inadvertently highlight some systemic corruption or incompetence within the department, and that could just get plain messy. No one wants that. The protesters are low-hanging fruit. I sometimes wonder why it is some people put so much faith in their government when they're every bit has corrupt and/or incompetent as these corporations that are vilified so much?

But unbelievably, the activists are now the ones going to jail.

This writer is quite easily flabbergasted, isn't he? Or he loves faux-outrage. Either way, it makes him sound ridiculous and juvenile. Don't misunderstand... I'm sympathetic to what happened to these poor people who had to move out of their homes because of this gas leak, but the "article" is laughably bad. Yellow journalism is apparently back with a vengeance.

the CSP arrested two protesters who draped banners on the headquarters of the California Public Utilities Commission

Oho... I think I spotted the problem here. They went and pissed off government officials. That's why the hammer came down on them. And when you piss off the government, they can send police after you to arrest you and cart you off to jail.

P.S. If I get modded down as flamebait, I'm going to blame government officials with mod points for trying to silence me.

Re:There is no "California State Patrol"

[Obfuscant]

No, it's not "shocking" that authorities would arrest someone who knowingly committed a minor crime rather than investigate

And it is even less shocking that the police would arrest someone who is currently committing a crime in public while still investigating a potential crime committed by the officials of a company. As in, they can see the protesters committing the crime, but it may take a while to examine documents to determine liability in a corporate environment.

Where did we get the idea that arresting protesters in the act meant that they were arrested INSTEAD of someone else who allegedly committed some other, corporate crime?

Yes

[OverlordQ]

Instead of busting company executives and engineers that caused the leak, the CSP arrested protesters who had draped banners on the headquarters of the California Public Utilities Commission.

Because the corporation has already been charged. What's your point here? You're saying if somebody does something illegal, everybody else gets a free pass to do illegal things to them? That's stupid.

Re:Yes

[gurps_npc]

The corporation has been charged but none of the people at the corporation have been charged.

Corporations can't go to jail. All they can do is pay fines or be dis-incorporated. Historically the fines charged tend to be minute - small fractions of the cost to make whole - and they are almost never dis-incorporated.

Charging a corporation is like giving a warning to a person - it does nothing.

If you want to truly punish wrong doing by corporations, you HAVE to press criminal charges and not at low level either. If the head of the corporation does not personally know the guy going to jail (or go to jail himself), he's just going to do the same old crap all over again.

Re:Yes

[AmiMoJo]

It's time to introduce jail for corporations. In Japan corporations can be forced to shut down for a number of days. Staff sometimes get paid if they were not to blame, but otherwise the company can't do any business at all during that period.

The longest shut down so far was over 100 days.

Re:Yes

[HiThere]

Sounds good. I do think that during that period corporations should be allowed to dissolve (but not go bankrupt). But how can you apply that to an international corporation? Especially not one incorporated within your legal bounds? Forbidding them to do business locally isn't quite the same thing. And what about rents due during that period on premises they occupy?

I think that this would require an entirely new set of laws to be written. Does making a river poisonous count as 1 week, 1 year, or one decade "in prison"? Does it depend on who uses the river for what? Whoo! The idea has merit, but implementation would be horrendous, with many questions that have no obvious answer, and you know who would be pushing for minimal punishment.

Is this Slashdot?

[ichthus]

What the fuck is this story doing on Slashdot? How is this, in any way, tech related?

there were Cal state police...1990's

[Archfeld]

There were in fact California State Police, but they were rarely seen outside Sacramento, the state capitol, as their duty was to protect the state buildings, and our elected officials. The California Highway patrol are tasked with patrolling the freeways and highways that cross county jurisdictions, with the stated purpose of traffic enforcement and assisting with incidents that cross county lines. There are also California State park police, aka Rangers, who are full on police but generally limited to, guess what, state parks and some county park/open space areas that contract to the state for such services.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Here's a better article on this

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

Pasadena Star News has a far better write-up on this. One, is was the California Highway Patrol. Two, the building they trespassed on is owned by the California Public Utilities Commission, which is a .gov so it's probably property belonging to the State of California ("after scaling state building" in the headline). Three, the protesters are quoted "we are occupying the PUC".