You might as well flip a coin. – Maria Hartwig, on “deception detection”
Saving Them From Themselves (#681) 
This story asks us to feel sorry for a man who was hoist with his own petard:
…[A high] school [principal in]…Colorado…[has been] accused of possessing child pornography…Bradley Bass…is facing up to 12 years in prison and the possibility of being branded a sex offender [just as the teenagers he was trying to catch would have been]…Bass violated a Colorado law that says even unintentionally possessing explicit images of [legal minor]s is…having child pornography…The case began when Bass and…[his boss] Scott Hodgson…[seiz]ed [students’ phones based on a rumor and]…found photos on a few students’ phones, saved in the disappearing photo application Snapchat. Worried the boys [might escape having their lives destroyed by “child porn” charges via the expedient of]…delet[ing] the photos by logging into their Snapchat accounts remotely, Bass used his work cellphone to take photos of the students’ phones…After police learned the administrators had taken photos of the boys’ phones, they arrested them [just as they wanted the students to be arrested]…
The prosecutor in this case rode it to become attorney general of Massachusetts:
…Gov. Charlie Baker [of] Massachusetts…[has] recommended pardons for Gerald “Tooky” Amirault and Cheryl Amirault Lefave, who were convicted of sexually abusing young children at their Malden day care…in the [Satanic Panic]…of the…1980s…[despite] the…scientific [and practical absurdity of the claims]…Baker’s office included in its announcement of the pardons a statement of approval from former Attorney General Tom Reilly, who fought as Middlesex district attorney in the 1990s to keep the Amiraults and their mother in prison…
Calling 911 = calling the cops. Never call the cops for any reason whatsoever:
[A cop named] Eric Matthews decided Jessica Logan probably killed her baby before he talked to a single eyewitness or collected…any evidence…the coroner hadn’t [even] announced a cause of death. What Matthews did have was a recording of Logan’s 911 call…[from which he magically divined that]…the 25-year-old…had likely staged the scene to cover up a murder…Matthews…reach[ed this bizarre, megalomaniacal conclusion because]…he had taken a two-day law enforcement training course called “911 homicide: Is the caller the killer?”…the [pseudoscience has]…spread across the country and burrowed deep into the justice system, largely without notice…defense lawyers and judges…often learn…[of] the technique for the first time in the courtroom…[but] hundreds of [cops and other sociopaths and psychopaths]…who have taken the course…now present themselves as experts, able to divine truth and deception — and guilt and innocence — from the word choice, cadence and even grammar of people reporting emergencies…
Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic (#1233) 
Blaming bad behavior on an imaginary “addiction” is the opposite of admitting responsibility:
A…pastor at Faith Baptist Church in Round Rock, Texas who was caught with…child pornography…[tried to excuse his behavior by blaming it on] an addiction…David Lloyd Walther now faces federal charges for distribution, receipt, transportation and possession of child pornography…[includ]ing an image of a nude boy with a collar on his neck and being sexually abused, a similar image of a female toddler…images of nude young boys and girls being restrained by ropes and tools…[and] a bestiality video involving a dog and a female toddler “likely less than three years old”…
Women of childbearing age should avoid Alabama entirely if at all possible:
Another Alabama woman has been jailed for using drugs while pregnant. But this time there’s a twist: she wasn’t actually pregnant. Her young child merely told a social worker that she was, according to the woman’s lawsuit against…Etowah County…[which locked her in a cage instead of just giving her a] pregnancy test…Etowah County… “has prosecuted more than 150 women on pregnancy-related charges in recent years,” Pregnancy Justice said. “Of the more than 1,700 pregnancy-related criminalization cases Pregnancy Justice has documented from 1973 through 2020, Alabama leads the nation with more than 600 cases, and Etowah County leads the state.” Freeman is now suing [pregnancy-persecuting cop Brandi] Fuller and Etowah County Sheriff Jonathon Horton…
Unsafe for Human Consumption (#1279)
[A fantasy that] Halloween candy collected in [Calgary, Alberta was] tainted with fentanyl…is [of course bogus, but the]…RCMP are continuing to [search for some person whose life they can ruin on a bogus charge of]…illicit tampering…a[nother] woman [claimed that] that she found a sewing needle in the wrapping of a chocolate bar her child received while trick-or-treating on the same Halloween night [in the same small city even though it has ever actually happened anywhere since at least the Second World War]…
Think a non-cop would’ve been given a mere six years for this?
A [typical and representative] Charleston [Illinois cop] who fled the country after being charged with three sex crimes was sentenced…to [a mere] six years in prison on lesser charges…David Iwaniw…pleaded guilty…to a charge of official misconduct…[for raping a 17-year-old girl and filming it]…Judge James Glenn sentenced Iwaniw to three years in prison on the official misconduct charge and another three years for fleeing the country, with credit for 313 days already served…[after the rape he told his victim that he would] “hunt her down if she told anyone what happened and that if she told, no one would believe her because he was a police officer”…
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