Double Standards in Play in LA

[XLFD]

I find the following story very illustrative of what the general media and police have devolved into over the last few years, because the general public does not expect more:

Los Angeles police found a shotgun that fell off an officer’s motorcycle and on Friday arrested the man accused of taking it from the area.

Takee Williams, 43, was arrested for grand theft after officers were able to track down the shotgun a few miles from where it came off the officer’s bike, according to a news release from the Los Angeles Police Department.

The shotgun was lost about 1 p.m. Thursday when, due to a faulty lock, it was dropped in the area of South Vermont Avenue and West Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

Police closed down the area Thursday while they searched for the loaded gun.

During the search for the gun, an LAPD officer was severely hurt when he was bitten by a police K-9 and had to undergo surgery, police said.

Williams was held in lieu of $35,000 bail, police said.  

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-lapd-find-missing-shotg...

Just in case you think the brevity of this story is leaving something important out, here is another source that goes into a little more detail.  Both stories gloss over the fact that the shotgun fell off the bike on Thursday around 1:00 PM, and that the shotgun was finally found over 24 hours later on Friday afternoon. 

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2014/08/01/search-continues-for-miss...

Several things are at play here in this scenario.  A police officer's shotgun drops off his motorcycle.  Either he didn't secure it properly, or the securing equipment failed.  Either case, it's the officer's or police equipment manager's fault that this happened.

Someone, presumably, Takee Williams (whom I will presume is this Takee Williams, also pictured above) picks up the shotgun from the street.  Takee's profile on Facebook has the following young man featured on it, one would presume it is his son:

Now, I don't know the man or his history (one would presume the police would release his rap sheet if it was bad), but I do understand that if Takee picked the weapon up he actually did the community a favor.  A loaded shotgun falling into a kid's hands, or a criminal's hands would have been terrible, and the officer who lost the shotgun was oblivious enough about the loss that he had moved on before noticing the shotgun's disappearance.

After securing the gun we must presume that Takee took stewardship of the gun, until the police tracked it down later, probably based on tips since it was a few miles away at that point.  The news reports don't go into that aspect.  We do not even know if Takee knew it belonged to the police.

He is now charged with grand theft.  Grand Theft is defined as intentional taking property of others in an amount exceeding the state statutory amount, which in California is $950.  Takee did not intentionally take anything, he found a loaded shotgun lying in the street.  If you find a penny lying on the street and pick it up and claim it's your lucky day, have you committed larceny?

More to the point, if you find a wallet lying on the street with a lot of money inside of it, are you guilty of grand theft if you do not immediately follow through and return it?  What if it has no ID in it; are you guilty of grand theft if you do not turn it into the 'authorities'?  This was more than a wallet, however, it was a loaded gun located in the middle of a rough neighborhood that could be used for a lot of mayhem and mischief.

Takee Williams is incarcerated and facing significant jail/prison time for securing a loaded weapon dropped on the street by a police officer.  The police officer will, at worse, get ribbed by his fellow officers for a while.  Maybe he will get some grief from the officer who got mauled by the police dog because of his incident. 

Does anyone believe that if the roles of the motorcycle cop and Takee were reversed, Takee would get off any easier?  In that case, Takee Williams would be facing reckless endangerment charges and worse.  The officers action of picking up the loaded shotgun would be looked at as heroic.  The media, however, will impart the official spin on to the story so as not to offend their usual source for news, the LAPD.  There shouldn't be two tiers of justice, one for those with badges and one for those without.  There shouldn't be two stories in journalism; one that tells the 'official story', and one that tells the truth.  Unfortunately, the media usually just prints the former.

[Willy]

I looked up the definition of "theft" and "steal" and found them to be incomplete and confusing. In short, stealing is taking another's property. It doesn't clarify if that property must in the possession or intermediate possession of the owner, such as a vehicle which can be stolen at a persons dwelling or from a public parking lot. Obviously the shotgun did not belong to the man who recovered it but why would this be considered a theft when he did not physically remove the shotgun from the police officer. If I find a $100 bill on the street and I pick it up is that also stealing. When does picking up an object become theft when it is found on a public street? Any lawyers out there who could answer that question?

[XLFD]

When I ride my bicycle around the area, there are a lot of things I see and a few things I pick up that have fallen in the street or off the road.  I generally presume this has fallen out of a car window or off the back of a truck.  Earlier this year, I found a wallet in the LSP parking lot when I was going through it, as if someone had put it on top of their vehicle and forgot about it when they drove off after registering.  I returned it to the rangers at the station, who had recognized the name of the person and had a campsite number.  If I didn't try to find the owner, I believe it would have been akin to theft, but I do not believe one has a legal obligation to do so, just a moral obligation.  The legal definition of theft suggests one intends to take something.  One may pick something up that has been left on the road for a variety of reasons not involving the intent to take it from someone else, and that may have happened in this case.

Takee Williams had a more difficult choice than I, he could have left the gun lying in the street and just walk away, but he picked it up.  The police have assigned theft as his motive, but there are traffic safety issues and community safety issues that come to he forefront.  So he picks it up, his prints are on it, and he takes it away from the scene. 

Let's say it has LAPD identifications on it, what can Takee do.  Does he call the police and say I have a shotgun that belongs to you guys, BTW I found it on the street in a bad neighborhood which I live?  This would be scary, because he probably doesn't know how the gun got there and he would be under intense scrutiny by the notoriously unkind-to-black-folks LAPD to find the 'truth' of the matter.

If it doesn't have obvious police ownership, what is he now supposed to do?  Go to the same cops and have them check out the gun which may be traceable to a felony or two?  "So, Mr. Williams, you said you found this shotgun in the middle of the street, in the middle of the afternoon?  Do you know how lame that story sounds?"

So I find it difficult to implicate Takee Williams for anything given the circumstances as related.  He was in a pickle whatever he did once he picked that shotgun up.

[Willy]

Another scenario would be if he decided to take it to a police precinct and got stopped by the police on the way or he walks into a police precinct with the weapon and gets plastered full of lead while being mistaken for a terrorist. Anyway you look at it he was damned if he did and damned if he didn't. The smart thing to do would be for the police to thank him for picking up the weapon and leave it at that. What kind of message are the police trying to send here. If a person is going to be charged for theft, you can bet the next time an officer loses a weapon it will stay on the street until some kids pick it up.

[XLFD]

I agree; the police actions here vindicate the fear and distrust that certain populations have of the police, which in turn will effectively make the 'public safety' of all compromised. 

[angrymomma]

I know Mr takee Williams in this article, and all I ask is you remove the picture of the child because he is MY son not his, he has no blood relation to my son and I DONT want my son being related to him in this situation, if you want the full details feel free XLFD to e-mail me@ [e-mail]. but I beg you to remove the picture of the child from this post because he is NOT takee's and has NO relation to him.
Please remove the picture of my son from this article.

[XLFD]

The picture has been removed, sorry for any problems the association may have caused. 

I would be interested in the full situation, so please take advantage of the 'send a message' feature you can reach by clicking on my avatar and finding that in the upper corner links.  You can send script, photos, links, and any other small enough files to provide more information about what may have happened here.  I will keep all information you want as confidential, unless you otherwise want it so.

[angrymomma]

And for the record he did NOT pick it up to keep it out of kids hands He picked it up for a profit for himself I know.this as a FACT

[XLFD]

You have a greater talent than I for knowing what the intentions of others are as a matter of fact.  But feel free to elaborate on why you believe that is the case. 

If Williams' sole motive was to turn a profit from selling something he found lying abandoned on the street, then I still believe he did not intentionally take it from another, which is the element the State of CA has to prove.  During spring cleaning days in Ludington, people put a lot of stuff out for the trash collector to pick up, and there are a whole lot of people that go around picking up scrap metal and second-hand items as if it was a yard sale with 'free' on every item.  These people aren't thieves, they are actually doing a good community service by recycling scrap, reducing the amount of landfill space needed and turning useless trash into useful commodities.

Similarly, if Takee had profit as his motive, he wound up doing the community a good service by picking the gun up rather than having it fall into the hands of a kid or someone with criminal motives.  There's a very real likelihood that if he tried to return the gun to LAPD (presuming there was some type of ID on the gun itself, which, of course, could have been fraudulent) he would be facing the same charge from a police force with a history of insensitivity.