Good job Lubbock DA Office!

“Texas man who spit at police sees 'life of crime' crumble, slapped with 70 years in prison to 'send a message'“

https://www.foxnews.com/us/texas-ma...rumble-slapped-years-prison-send-message

Dang, You sure watch alot of Fox News

Wow that is a very strong measure Hope it does send a message to the POS that when they F.U there are consequences!

Was he convicted of other charges other than spitting on two police officers? If not then 70 years is excessive.

No it is NOT. The message needs to be sent. That's the problem with society today...we are too [censored] soft! Do dumb chit then win dumb prizes.

Some things you can get away with in Lubbock and some things you can`t.

Well that "message" is that the government can do absolutely anything to you that they want for even the most minor of transgressions. It's all well and good when you think a dirtbag is getting sentenced but one day it might be you when the populace at large begins to think that you're the dirtbag. Just imagine sitting in front of a jury comprised of antifa or BLM members because you said something racially insensitive or publicly declared that a man can't become a woman and are being charged with a felony over it.

Edit: Would anyone support the officers getting a 70 year sentence for spitting on a man during an arrest?

Linky No Worky

Apples and Oranges. Saying something is TOTALLY different. The perp acted out an deserved the punishment he got IMO. He could have a communicable disease that he has now infected the officers with. ZFG or sympathy for him! Move on.

He also had previous convictions of aggravated robbery and family violence. The DA stated that the sentence would not have been harsh had this been a first time offense. He had been given the opportunity to clean his life up previously. He obviously didn't learn his lesson the first two times.

Worked for me....nothing wrong with defending your home. Tough guys and lead don't mix too well.

Click on Watch on YouTube and then I understand and it will. If you don`t understand then don`t click on it.

Makes sense after unclebubba's comment but as far as The Dude's comment an officer could have a disease too that infects someone they spit on too, not oranges to apples at all.

The political left equates speech they disagree with as violence and are trying in several states to get laws passed that punish offensive speech the same way physical assault is judged..

Would have could have, nowhere in the article did it say the man had a disease that the officers could catch from being spit on. Had there been something I'm sure the prosecutor would have added that to the indictment. Do you believe a person if they walked up to you on the street and spit in your face deserves a 70 year sentence? I got slugged in the mouth once in a bar and had blood pouring out so I spit a mouthful right back in the guy's face and then beat his [censored]. Did I deserve to go to prison for 70 years for doing that?

What happened in this instance is not justice. It is a perversion of justice. I could care less about the man and wouldn't care if they accidentally shot him while he was in the back seat of their patrol car. What I care about is massive government overreach and punishment that is completely disproportionate to the crime. Killers rarely get 70 years, rapist rarely get 70 years, child molesters rarely get 70 years.

He also had previous convictions of aggravated robbery and family violence. The DA stated that the sentence would not have been harsh had this been a first time offense. He had been given the opportunity to clean his life up previously. He obviously didn't learn his lesson the first two times.[/quote]


I fully acknowledge that the man was a POS. My problem is not a problem with what is happening to the man. My issue is giving a court that much power to punish someone so severely for something so minor. The government has to have a check on their authority and someone spitting in another person's face despite being disgusting does not call for a 70-year prison sentence no matter what kind of POS the person doing the spitting is or how severe their criminal history is. If he had such a severe criminal history the problem could have been solved by not letting him out of prison in the first place.

Even under Joseph Stalin in the old Soviet Empire no punishment this harsh was ever handed down for something so minor.

Gottie to Workie...

I remember when that incident happened. If you're dumb enough to Bow up on an armed man who's asking you to leave his property and who was courteous enough to give you a warning shot don't be shocked at what happens to you if you refuse to leave. I really hope the guy that got shot felt really really stupid as he was laying there dying.

Yep. Friend of mine was spit on and the bad guy got 17 years. I was shot at, bad guy got 2 years. Same county. Makes perfect sense.

I fully acknowledge that the man was a POS. My problem is not a problem with what is happening to the man. My issue is giving a court that much power to punish someone so severely for something so minor. The government has to have a check on their authority and someone spitting in another person's face despite being disgusting does not call for a 70-year prison sentence no matter what kind of POS the person doing the spitting is or how severe their criminal history is. If he had such a severe criminal history the problem could have been solved by not letting him out of prison in the first place.

Even under Joseph Stalin in the old Soviet Empire no punishment this harsh was ever handed down for something so minor.[/quote]

It’s not like he will serve the full 70, prob only 10 with accelerated time and parole. Also, this makes the court look good in-front of the community and then the appeals will come and the sentence will be lessened. Smoke and mirrors

^^^^ That doesn't make much sense. I'm not advocating for spitting on people but even 17 years sounds excessive. At worse it should be a Class A misdemeanor with County jail time and a fat fine assuming the person being spat on is a peer or near peer physically. If a very large man is doing that to a child, an old person, or someone with a huge disparity in physical abilities you could make the argument that it should be a felony.

The Clown who thought it was a good idea to take a couple of shots at you should have gotten at least 20 years that he had to do day for day.

Edit: The law of the man is charged with is a 3G offense. He has to do 85% of his time or 45 years whichever is less before he becomes eligible for parole. 70 years unless you're quite young is effectively life without parole. This isn't my opinion, I sent a link to a friend of mine that is a felony prosecutor in TX and that's what he sent back to me.

It was a mandatory minimum 25 year case already, because he had been previously convicted of two felonies that met the 25 sentencing guidelines. The last one I had involving one of my officers and the same circumstances, the offender received 40 years and an epic brown strike.

^^^^ Again, I'm not advocating for people to be spitting on other people. I simply don't believe it should be a felony except in a very narrow range of conditions and even then it shouldn't be that serious of a felony. When we are locking up people for more serious crimes and giving them less time then something is seriously wrong. While someone spitting in your face is disgusting at worst in most circumstances it should be a Class A misdemeanor.

Edit: I was on a jury for a man that killed two people in a traffic accident while drunk and he had easily a dozen previous DWI arrest that were pending in County Court. The most we could give him under the law for killing two people was 20 years and it wasn't even a category of crime where he would have to do the majority of the sentence.

Same folks wanting Abbott to pardon Perry? Asking for a friend doing a self awareness study...

FWIW - both cases sentences are so beyond ridiculous it's not funny.

Get Hepatitis C, from some scrote bag who had bloody saliva and spit in your mouth, and you won’t think it should be a Class A Misdemeanor.

Hep C is 100% curable and it's also very very very very unlikely you're going to catch it from someone spitting on you. Maybe if they use some spit as lube for your backside you're going to catch it but at that point you've got other issues. In the example at hand no one's alleging that the man had a communicable disease. And if the concern is really about catching a disease then have it where it is a felony if you have hepatitis C and spit on someone. We all know what this law is really about and that's about the cops feeling dissed. Homeboys in the hood feel dissed all the time and they act in a disproportionate fashion as well. More often than not tyranny comes cloaked in the appearance of Law & Order and it comes from men in uniform. That's my opposition to this and nothing more. I have no problem doubling out prison sentences for deserving people and I've done so multiple times in my life. I wouldn't have even considered a conviction in a case like this if I knew that it carried 25 years and up in prison. Like I said before, even in the old Soviet Union under Stalin they didn't hand down sentences like this for such trivial bad behavior.

Guess they should've given the perp a ribbon.

It’s curable now but wasn’t until 2013. Plenty of dead cops from it or who have massive liver damage from it. Meth addicts have a mouthful of blood almost always from their teeth rotting out. You would know about this but your knowledge is based on reading about it rather than seeing it all firsthand. You’re an astronomer but damn sure no astronaut.

Hepatitis C has been considered fully curable since 2010. If that's your real concern then we will put a provision in the law that says if someone spits in your mouth and they have Hep C that can be a state jail felony or whatever felony the legislators think it should be. I have a great uncle that picked up hepatitis C from a blood transfusion on the battlefield in the Pacific during the second World War. He's been dying from it since I was old enough for someone to explain to me what hep C was and he also drank like Winston Churchill. He lived to be 103 years old. I'm pretty sure he volunteered but I know a lot of people were drafted for the second world war. Police officers are not drafted and they voluntarily do the job. If the hazards involved with the job are too great they are free to find other employment. Fyi, I'm the son of a policeman and grew up around policemen. In my dad's era if someone had spit in his face he would have beaten on them until he got tired, then he would have taken a break, and once he caught his second wind he would have beat on them some more. I don't think the thought of sending them to prison for 70 years would have ever crossed his mind.

If this guy isn’t in Austin he’s missing quite an opportunity.

I live across the street from SMU. The problem is you're jaded because of what you did for a living for a long time and you have a totalitarian and authoritarian slant because of it. I always err on the side of civil rights and you don't. I want to severely restrict the harm that government can do while you were an agent of the government and while I'm sure you were a fair competent investigator your outlook is slanted. I have no problem punishing someone for a crime but making a mountain out of a molehill regardless of your reasons is why I call myself an activist juror. Juries are the last defense against tyrannical behavior by the government and I take that responsibility seriously. You are experienced and because of that you are concerned about the ill health effects of someone spitting in someone else's face. I will concede your point but I will never concede the point that it is an aggravated assault and if I'm ever on a jury I will find the man not guilty in a case like this. We're going to Simply have to agree to disagree on the matter and I'm sure it won't be the last time. Please don't think I get butt hurt having discussions like this, I really enjoy them and they're even more fun in person.

Edit: If we legalize methamphetamines where any citizen of age can buy a couple of ounces of it for the cost of a six pack of beer at 7-Eleven you won't have to worry about toothless bloody spitted meth heads spitting on officers any longer because they will no longer be criminals albeit they will still be doing crazy meth head stuff just like they do now, they just won't be stealing to afford it. They'll probably just be dead.

I find blkt2 to be quite level-headed, open-minded, intelligent, and a follower of the Constitution as best as he can interpret. Agree with him or not, he’s clearly approaching things with the correct perspective.

If living with a female dominatrix is level-headed, I must be out of touch with what level-headed is.

He’s not perfect.

For what it’s worth, I value your posts just as much. It’s good to see both sides of any coin.

What happened in this instance is not justice. It is a perversion of justice. I could care less about the man and wouldn't care if they accidentally shot him while he was in the back seat of their patrol car.


This comment validates my suspicion that you really don't care about honest justice. You're okay with a scumbag getting shot in the back of an LEO car but are outraged at time given a scumbag for assault. If you were worried about over reach the shooting should be of more concern.

A lot of truth in these two statements.

FAFO.

We split up 12 years ago and I have since gotten married. That was just her job. When I first met her she was a customer and sold insurance. I was seeing somebody at the time and her and I were only friends. Insurance wasn't working out for her, she was a single mother, she had bills to pay, and a certain set of skills that were only valuable to certain people. I don't judge, I'm a pool guy with an advanced degree that serves no purpose and I'm pretty open-minded and not jealous. To the best of my knowledge she has retired from that profession and has settled down with a man she knew in high school who has a large spread out past Weatherford. I don't really have a single thing to say bad about the woman.

Yeah, he is and some of his musings lead him to inconvenient outcomes. His solution to the drug problem in this nation has been exposed in Oregon. He decried the faults of liberal policies, a convenient way of shielding or clouding his argument which were showing it's buttox.

Here, he seemingly defends some perp who spits on LEO as if it is NOTHING. Side effects be darned. "What - Hep C? That can be cured." Listen to yourself. Earth to blankey, you don't spit on nobody and especially no LEO, people there to protect & serve us. Btw, I believe the spitter dude's sentence considered a previous history and was not solely based on the multiple spitting incidents.

I have seen rather logical people use valid positioning to get them to places which are unsustainable.

Used to be in the Dallas county, you killed someone like during a fight with a gun you would maybe get 2 years involuntary manslaughter.

Look like the time are a changing.

Writing has never been my best subject. You misunderstood my meaning. I would be okay with the man being shot in the back of a patrol car by accident because I understand that things sometimes happen in the Heat of the Moment. Irrational people having a hissy fit like the man the story is about spitting in someone's face is also something that happens in the Heat of the Moment. It is disgusting, it is not a serious crime. I use the example of a jury that I sat on where a drunk with a long history of drunk driving killed two people. The maximum we were allowed to give him under the law was 20 years. The man killed two people and only got 20 years. Now someone comes along and gets 70 years for spitting in someone's face and I'm supposed to jump up and down and clap and say that that is justice?

My position on drugs has not been exposed by Oregon and how they're running their policies. Because it's only one area and drugs are still illegal but simply not being prosecuted everything gets concentrated there the same way flies swarm in to a rotting corpse. I was in Portland in the middle of November and rented a car and drove around. I deliberately found something that I would call skid row so I got out and walked around to see things for myself. It's way worse than you see on TV.

I simply don't believe that law enforcement is here to protect and serve us and that belief is backed up by 54 separate Supreme Court rulings saying that police don't have to protect and serve us. The police are there to protect and serve us the same way the teachers unions are there to teach children in public schools. They have effectively become a special interest group by themselves. My belief is that we should get rid of the majority of the laws on the books and only concentrate on truly Bad actors instead of ever expanding police Powers while eroding civil rights and building more prisons.


In the case we are discussing there was No HEP C and squawking about a hypothetical is just as pathetic as the gun control ninnies running around screeching that a 30-round magazine should be banned because it could be used by a mass shooter.

In Dallas county like many other big liberal counties such as Harris or Travis county and so on, it all depends upon who shot who! Politics and race play a huge factor in applying justice in those counties.

I ran into a black guy about 25 years ago and he was just getting out of prison for a life sentence and a girl I was seeing was his PO. He went to prison for murder in the late seventies. He did 12 and 1/2 years and got out on parole and when I ran into him he had just gone back for 2 years on a minor violation. He was out late one night and got into an argument with a guy more accurately the man got into an argument with him. He tried to leave and when he did the man shot him in the back twice. He fell face first down onto the ground and the man that shot him walked up to him talking smack and was going to kill him. Unbeknownst to the shooter the man he just shot had a revolver in his jacket pocket and he had his hand on it. The man fired six shots from inside of his jacket pocket and hit the man five times out of six. He said it was actually really satisfying to see the surprise on the guy's face when he shot him. He didn't trust lawyers so he represented himself at trial. He had three trials with himself as the attorney and it was a hung jury every time. They finally convinced him to take a court appointed attorney and that attorney got him a life sentence. I will repeat that, a man who killed a man who had just shot him in the back got a life sentence for killing the man and the argument was over nothing and he was trying to leave when he was shot. Frequently people telling their story are extremely biased so I dug into his files and found out that every single word that came out of his mouth was exactly what the investigators wrote down. Justice? Maybe, the guy was a hoodlum anyway and was probably doing a lot of hoodlum stuff when he just happened to get wrapped up in that incident. Since I can't even remember the man's name anymore I can't look up what's become of him.

Some years back my friend was working on his doctoral thesis in criminal justice and he was able to pull the stats for every single person in TDCJ. It's just run of the mill criminal stuff stuff when you're reviewing it but occasionally something will really stand out. This is an example of something unusual that stood out, there are three people incarcerated in Texas prisons who have life sentences and their crime was jumping bail or maybe it was failure to appear I don't remember exactly what it was called. Laws change over the years and what we call something in one decade may not be the same thing in the next. I have friends that are prosecutors and I know sometimes they will go for the low hanging fruit conviction when they don't think they can get a conviction on the more serious charge. If I had to guess I would say that that is the case in what I just described but it's still shocking to the senses to see people doing a life sentence for something relatively minor.

This guy is a POS and deserved everything he got. Unfortunately these kinds of sentences send a louder message to law abiding citizens than it does to criminals.

Like I said earlier in this post. The message that got sent is from the government to the citizenry at large and that is that we will do anything we want to you regardless of how minor your transgression actually is. Communist China at least has the courtesy to simply shoot you in the head instead of condemning you to a completely mundane purgatory for the rest of your life.

I guarantee you his local people know exactly what he got sentenced to.

Your attitude that simply ignores the civil rights of the citizenry is why even staunch conservatives like myself are willing to take away qualified immunity,, make police officers civilly and criminally liable for any misdeeds that they may do and severely defunding police departments and letting the chips fall where they may. But none of that matters because you got your pound of flesh out of the man not realizing that you are steadily eroding the public Trust that the citizenry has had for decades in law enforcement. Law enforcement is not God and they do not get to set the rules, they do what they are told by the legislators and they need to and are required to by law to enforce the law in a just and neutral fashion without bias. Once you step away from that you're nothing but a jack booted Thug who can't resist the urge to keep your boot on someone's neck.

Edit: Because of the contemptible delight that you are showing for a man being sentenced to 70 years for doing something that harmed no one and simply was disgusting I'm willing to start prosecuting police officers like these men with any felony that can be made to stick and sending them to prison versus simply saying mistakes happen. Turnabout is fair play my friend.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/body-camera-footage-shows-police-041256883

Let's review what you posted in Red.
First off he is a Convicted Felon out on parole, last I heard it is a Parole violation for him to carry a firearm.
So maybe he was out taking a Sunday stroll in the park and just happened to find that gun laying on the sidewalk in front of him, he reluctantly picked it up and put it in his coat pocket so he could take it straight to the police station and turn it in

A convicted felon, which he had to have been, commits a new felony offense of Unlawful Possession Firearm when he possessed the firearm. It's good he's gone.

He was not a felon when it happened to the best of my recollection. I believe that his first and only trip to the pen at that point was for killing the man that shot him. He was on parole when I ran into him; I believe that he had only been out for a day or two which is why my girlfriend was meeting with him but he did have his own house east of Dolphin and south of 30 by a few blocks. If I recall correctly he went back for 2 years on a technical violation but I don't remember what that violation was. He was just a hood rat black guy out doing hood rat black guy things when the shooting happened. He was carrying a gun in a era without carry permits so he may have been involved in something. He could have been a terrible person for all that I know since I only met him that one single time but he was a much older man when I ran across him than when he committed his crime and people tend to mellow with age. At the time I was just in shock that he completely missed the 80s; it was simply incomprehensible to my youthful ears. To the best of my recollection the killing happened in 77' or 78' and I think he was in his late 20's or early 30's when it happened and I bumped into him in the late 90's.

I didn't read the OP's original post, nor the link from Fox News......... Nor the rest of the comment.

Just stating what I have seen from family members getting shot and killed in Dallas, this was back when Dallas was republican controlled.

From blankey - "Edit: If we legalize methamphetamines where any citizen of age can buy a couple of ounces of it for the cost of a six pack of beer at 7-Eleven you won't have to worry about toothless bloody spitted meth heads spitting on officers any longer because they will no longer be criminals albeit they will still be doing crazy meth head stuff just like they do now, they just won't be stealing to afford it. They'll probably just be dead."

The last five words are incomplete. Had an, let's say, associate start to do some extremely strange things. Mind boggling. It was over a period of years. I was closest to him and had brought him in to a certain group. The others said he must be on drugs. I couldn't "put that together" and said that I didn't think he knew what marijuana smelled like. The ridiculous events manifested themselves into a position where he could no longer be allowed in the group. He later came to me and indicated he had started smoking meth 8 years prior. I think it was while he was a city councilman. He has fallen off the face of the earth and I am betting he still has issues. He can afford his meth and has no need to steal. Your last five words should've read, "They'll probably just be dead" and hopefully they won't have unintentionally cause harm to others.

You may be the only conservative in this great nation who understands the need to legalize drugs, is accepting of spitting on LEO and who can find no fault in a person who chose to be a dominatrix. Btw, I would love to know the untold portions of the story about the poor guy who killed the man who shot him in the back.

You have had family members (more than one) shot and killed in Dallas, please share with us the circumstances/details.

All of the bad things that people are afraid of with drugs are happening now despite them being illegal and the laws against drugs have spilled over into the lives of people who have nothing to do with drugs which is why I am done with the war on drugs.

I only met the man once and thought his story was unusual so I read his file and it said the same thing that he told me. I have no more information than that and can only go by what the investigators in the case wrote down and what was in his indictment. It's not like I was sitting on his jury because I hadn't even hit puberty at that point.

The dominatrix was a great lady who was pretty normal outside of the bedroom or at work. It does take a certain level hardness to be a sadist for a living and she had it by the bucket full. A weaker man could not have handled her but it was not an issue for me. If you were hard enough to handle her she was a switch and would be submissive to you. Maybe you would have been more comfortable if I had just been dating a stripper?

I am not accepting of people spitting on anyone, I simply don't believe that it is serious enough to give someone what is effectively a life sentence over. There being a law on the books saying that spitting on an officer is aggravated assault tells me the majority of the people becoming officers now days simply aren't tough enough for the job and are all a bunch of [censored].