When I was on the campaign trail I heard people frustrated with police attentiveness. “You call them, they show up late- and they just don’t seem to care.” However when some people call, it seems there are no stones unturned. We seem to have two standards for justice in our community.
I tried time after time to get the police to investigate the wacko mail [1] that I’d been receiving. Dayton Police showed no interest, Oakwood police tossed it off as an issue for the postal inspectors and the postal inspectors weren’t interested unless it was a death threat.
Recently, some high powered people had enough of getting wacko mail- often bearing my return address. They called the police and next thing you know, the FBI is involved and experts from Quantico are working the case at major expense to the US Government and you the taxpayer.
Today I read in the Dayton Daily News that a single prank on Craigs list directed to a Riverside City Councilman- brings an instant investigation:
Imagine strangers showing up at your home in the middle of the night with trucks and trailers in tow, hoping to cart off all of your belongings.
It happened Jan. 29 to Riverside City Councilman Mike Denning and his wife, Julie, president of the Riverside Jaycees.
The Dennings are working with police after someone anonymously placed an online ad on craigslist.org that listed the couple’s Schwinn Drive address and said they were moving out of the country and giving away their things.
The Dennings, however, aren’t moving.
They don’t know who pulled the prank on the Web site, which offers free classified advertisements.
Riverside Police Chief Mark Reiss said his department plans to ask a judge today, Feb. 10, to approve a request to serve an administrative subpoena with craigslist to find out where the posting originated.
“Hopefully that will help us identify the poster,” said Reiss, noting the person could face a misdemeanor menacing or stalking charge.
In an e-mailed response to Dayton Daily News questions, craigslist spokeswoman Susan MacTavish Best said: “Use of craigslist for criminal purposes inevitably leads to apprehension and prosecution. An electronic trail to the perpetrator is created, and craigslist actively cooperates with law enforcement.”
The hoax has occurred elsewhere, including to an Oregon man who came home to find that much of what he owned was missing.
The description of posted items included their gas fireplace, snowblower and two of their dogs.
“This isn’t a joke you pull on people,” Julie Denning said Tuesday.
The real question is that once the FBI found their man, former General Surplus/GS Outfitters owner Sid Schultz, after considerable use of their resources, somehow- no charges are being filed. Is it because Sid Schultz has money and is perceived as a member of the elite business community? When I asked about the anti-Semitic nature of many of the letters- and if the FBI would prosecute under hate-crime statues, I was told since he was a Jew sending hate mail to other Jews- it wasn’t prosecutable.
Somehow, it seems like there are two standards of Justice in our community. Sid Schultz gets to promise not to write any other letters and fly off to Hawaii to hang out.
A 27 year old bi-racial ex-con gets three years for threatening a Beavercreek cop while drunk and shackled in the back of a cruiser. [3]
Somehow, justice doesn’t seem to be blind or impartial. It seems warped by social status, money, connections.
If we want to people to believe in the system, the system has to provide equal protection to all,
Maybe it’s just that Riverside cops follow through, or that Council members get better protection, but, I’m still wondering why I’m the one sitting in the foot of snow- while a man who has harmed my reputation, my business and my political career through a continued, methodical smear campaign- is on a beach in Hawaii.
Justice is only justice when the same standard applies to all.
These cannot be recent revelations.
No. More like 4 or 5 standards. We all know it, and most take advantage of it, unless you are in the lowest of low groups. But your not there – yet. Money talks, crying people walk.
That whole Sid Shultz thing is just plain wierd. You would not expect a guy like that, owning a respected business like General Surplus, do be doing wacky mail harrassment.