The Tamalpais High puzzle

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The Tamalpais High puzzle

Post by spot »

No doubt matters will become more clear with time but at the moment, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/27/worl ... icans.html has me totally bemused.

Among other things, every US news report I've seen about this refers to the Carabinieri as "Italy’s military police" or "Paramilitary". Where does that notion originate? The Carabinieri are domestic police plain and simple.

I'm waiting now to see whether President Trump demands their immediate return like he's done with A$AP Rocky. Or perhaps they're not sufficiently high profile.

The way to make them high profile is to notice they went the the same school as 2Pac and presumably assimilated some of the most violent notions possible as a direct consequence - I refer to 2Pac's profuse rap output - and hence fall into the same category of offender as A$AP Rocky. These two left Tamalpais High last year in the bottom quartile of their academic scale (apparently three quarters of American students graduating high school have GPA "honors" which pretty much makes the term meaningless). President Trump had better get on the phone as a matter of urgency.

My bewilderment is that these Californians ended up in Europe spending 200 Euros a night at the Meridien Visconti, I can't imagine any storyline in which that might happen.
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The Tamalpais High puzzle

Post by gmc »

Most of the polioce forces in europe are paramilitary i.e. armed and capable of being used as a military force. the Uk is almost unique in having an unarmed civilian police force. Americans speak american english poor dears do get things wrong sometimes. To us a military policeman would be a member of the armed forces (redcaps) there to police the army soldiers and not part of the civilian police force. American police are all paramilitary they just can't contemplate any other way of doing things.
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The Tamalpais High puzzle

Post by spot »

The pair of them were in court today. I'm just wondering what they think might get them back to America this century. Other than President Trump, of course.

Would saying they didn't know he was a policeman make things better?

How about having an Instagram account makes stabbing strangers seem normal, a bit like Fortnite or Grand Theft Auto. Like having "Death is guaranteed, life is not" as a personal motto on your homepage. Perhaps that wasn't meant as a threat, perhaps it only sounds like a threat to sane people.

200 euros a night, that hotel. What sort of world lets unemployable tossers like those two stay in a hotel like that. I have never in my life spent even a single night in a 200 euro hotel.

Their best shot at a short sentence is to blame 2Pac.
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Post by LarsMac »

it strikes me that these punks have already had far more attention than they deserve from the US.

They should simply be abandoned to the Italian Justice System.
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The Tamalpais High puzzle

Post by spot »

I'm tempted to keep the thread moving for several months by posting 2Pac rap violence followed by a "2Pac made me do it" whinge at the end of each tirade. Not as extenuation, you understand, but definitely as a witness against rap.

It can't help that the officer who died may well have been the most sainted member of the Italian constabulary and just one week back from his honeymoon. Neither of the culprits appears worth a fraction of their victim in human terms. Yet if they're sat back feeling hard done by it wouldn't surprise me at all.
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The Tamalpais High puzzle

Post by LarsMac »

spot;1524089 wrote: I'm tempted to keep the thread moving for several months by posting 2Pac rap violence followed by a "2Pac made me do it" whinge at the end of each tirade. Not as extenuation, you understand, but definitely as a witness against rap.

It can't help that the officer who died may well have been the most sainted member of the Italian constabulary and just one week back from his honeymoon. Neither of the culprits appears worth a fraction of their victim in human terms. Yet if they're sat back feeling hard done by it wouldn't surprise me at all.


Seems pointless to feed the human notion that they can always blame someone else for their sad behavior.
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Post by spot »

It turns out at least one of them didn't commit any crime at all. Fabrizio Natale issued a statement to the media after visiting his son to the effect that "We are very upset by the predicament he's in, but we are all fully convinced of his innocence". One can only hope Kanye West and other White House influencers are immediately made aware of this fact.

Perhaps a petition announcing that nobody died at all would help too, or the deletion of all the CCTV evidence.
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The Tamalpais High puzzle

Post by spot »

Is there a convention in America to call a knife with a 7" blade a 7" knife, or is it just when the papers want to minimise things? For the record the knife, with handle, is 12" and sells for $20 in Walmart as a replica WW2 US Marine weapon. Why it's allowed in aircraft luggage I'm not sure.
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Post by LarsMac »

spot;1524187 wrote: Is there a convention in America to call a knife with a 7" blade a 7" knife, or is it just when the papers want to minimise things? For the record the knife, with handle, is 12" and sells for $20 in Walmart as a replica WW2 US Marine weapon. Why it's allowed in aircraft luggage I'm not sure.


Usually a knife is identified by it's blade length.

So a "seven-inch knife" would generally be a knife with a seven inch long blade.

And it probably is not prohibited in checked luggage, but it would definitely be rejected in Carry-on.

I expect that most states in the EU probably have some laws/statues, or guidance as to when and where one might be prohibited from carrying such a knife on their person.

My son-in-law once had such a knife taken away from him when he entered the local Airport with one strapped to his belt.

Airport security generally discourages such things.
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Post by spot »

If you carry it anywhere in a British city you face a maximum five year jail term.
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The Tamalpais High puzzle

Post by spot »

The wealthy businessman Elder has assembled a war cabinet of US and Italian lawyers to fight the charges against his son at the luxurious five-star Cavalieri Waldorf Astoria hotel.

With commanding views over Rome, a Michelin-star restaurant and priceless Renaissance art-work hanging in the lobby, the resort as one of Italy’s finest, where suites cost up to $1,500 a night.

https://en.brinkwire.com/us/father-and- ... is-arrest/




There appears to be a clash of cultures on the horizon.
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The Tamalpais High puzzle

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The autopsy is now with the magistrate but is not yet public. The key question the autopsy will address is the truth of Mr Elder's assertion that the chap he was sticking his knife into eleven times was fighting upright, or whether Mr Elder was in fact repeatedly stabbing a body on the ground.
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Post by spot »

Here's the next trickle of news.

Adnkronos also reports that Natale's palm and fingerprints were found on a hotel room ceiling panel, where investigators recovered the knife used to kill Cerciello Rega.

https://abc7news.com/cellphone-photos-l ... r/5538064/




This is the one who knew nothing about a knife. Remember "We are deeply upset by his predicament, while at the same time fully convinced of his innocence. Gabriel never imagined there would be a confrontation and did not know his friend was armed. He only became aware of what actually happened after his arrest."?

The article also notes regarding the "my son was an innocent bystander" fellow's phone



One photograph shows Natale indoors, tongue out, holding a handgun with a blue glove. Another shows someone wearing a hood and a similar glove, holding what appears to be the same weapon outdoors.

Adnkronos also reports that the carabinieri found a large quantity of photos with drugs and cash on Natale's cellphone: marijuana in jars, plants, tablets with descriptions, cocaine in pieces or crack.




And so to today's announcement:

The lawyers of one of two Bay Area teenagers being held in the slaying of an Italian police officer have dropped a request for their client to be released.

Lawyers for Gabriel Natale-Hjorth of Mill Valley, who’s in custody for his alleged role in the fatal stabbing of Italian police officer Mario Cerciello Rega, said Monday they need time to study new evidence that emerged recently.

https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2019/ ... r-killing/




I bet they do, too.
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The Tamalpais High puzzle

Post by magentaflame »

wow! looks like we have stricter laws here.
The 'radical' left just wants everyone to have food, shelter, healthcare, education and a living wage. Man that's radical!....ooooohhhh Scary!
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Post by spot »

magentaflame;1525280 wrote: wow! looks like we have stricter laws here.


I have as much sympathy for their predicament as I would for a pair of scorpions surrounded by meerkats with no cover in sight.

I have no idea why the elder Elder doesn't just walk away and disown his killer offspring, surely he has more like that back home. One can only hope the legal fees are causing him distress. Is there no expression in America warning those in thrall to lawyers never to throw good money after bad?
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Post by spot »

We can now stop wondering whether these two uncontrolled hooligans knew the police officers were police before the knife killing happened. It might not be admissable but it's incontestably true.

The new information comes from an Aug. 2 prison visit between Elder, his father Ethan, and their American lawyer Craig Peterson that police had surveilled. During the conversation, Elder is reported to have told his father that indeed, he did know Rega was a cop. Elder reportedly made the same admission in a phone call home in the hours after the incident occurred. “I made a mistake,” he reportedly said. “I hit a cop.”

The widely-reported transcript, which The Daily Beast also obtained from an investigative source, says Elder was explaining what happened to his dad and attorney. “When they quickly flashed their cards or whatever,” Elder said before being interrupted by his lawyer, Peterson, who the transcript says then whispered to his client, “Stay calm, stick to your statement, review it point by point, remember it. Your statement shouldn’t worry us during the interrogation,” he reportedly said before adding. “You did not see anything.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/finnegan- ... ref=scroll




And that lawyer should be disbarred for collusion.
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Post by spot »

That trial is now in progress.

I've decided I have a biased view, which distresses me. I dislike bias.

The bias consists of disliking prat knives like those. If you have to have a warrior authorized by law and bred over generations to actually kill enemy combatants during battle then such a knife has its place, though I'm convinced an international treaty could easily make killing enemy combatants illegal and that such a treaty ought to happen.

In the hands of teenage prats though, definitely I have a bias.

When a prat teenager then takes the prat knife abroad on holiday, I'm quite happy for the prat teenager to be inconvenienced at every turn.

To then go out inviting every drug pusher in a foreign capital city to take his money and hand him aspirin in exchange, the prat teenager is simply looking for trouble.

Where my bias finally takes over is when the prat teenager then decides to take on the criminal element of the foreign capital, knowing nothing about local conventions or procedures, and sticks his prat knife repeatedly into a living person.

I'm not sure where the concept of self-defence fits into this story at all. The fact that the dead man was a police officer is completely irrelevant.

As for avoiding the whole process, legalize the drugs for sale in corner tobacconists. It's far less harmful than providing the criminal community with a market.
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Post by LarsMac »

spot;1531024 wrote: That trial is now in progress.

I've decided I have a biased view, which distresses me. I dislike bias.

The bias consists of disliking prat knives like those. If you have to have a warrior authorized by law and bred over generations to actually kill enemy combatants during battle then such a knife has its place, though I'm convinced an international treaty could easily make killing enemy combatants illegal and that such a treaty ought to happen.

In the hands of teenage prats though, definitely I have a bias.

When a prat teenager then takes the prat knife abroad on holiday, I'm quite happy for the prat teenager to be inconvenienced at every turn.

To then go out inviting every drug pusher in a foreign capital city to take his money and hand him aspirin in exchange, the prat teenager is simply looking for trouble.

Where my bias finally takes over is when the prat teenager then decides to take on the criminal element of the foreign capital, knowing nothing about local conventions or procedures, and sticks his prat knife repeatedly into a living person.

I'm not sure where the concept of self-defence fits into this story at all. The fact that the dead man was a police officer is completely irrelevant.

As for avoiding the whole process, legalize the drugs for sale in corner tobacconists. It's far less harmful than providing the criminal community with a market.


Well, I hope that said Prat is found guilty and gets to spend a very long time enjoying the hospitality of the Italian penal system.
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The Tamalpais High puzzle

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The trial has been suspended until mid-April due to the Italy-wide virus lockdown. Italian prisons are riot-filled this week with prisoners complaining about being in jail, five so far being dead (of rioting, not of infection).

The two exceptional Americans remain in jail despite having shaved their stubble, sprayed deodorant and had their hair cut to try to look more innocent. Their parents very sensibly stayed in San Francisco.
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Re: The Tamalpais High puzzle

Post by spot »

The trial is back in business, the American lawyers are once again throwing dust at the eyes of the judges.
Finnegan Elder's father, Ethan, told the I-Team's Dan Noyes, "More lies, omissions and mistakes by the prosecution and Carabinieri continue to be exposed during recent hearings. We hope the full picture of what really happened that tragic night is becoming clearer. We are trying to save our son's life."

Finnegan Elder and Gabriel Natale continue to say they did not know the two men were police officers that night, that they thought the officers were thugs coming after them for stealing a backpack, and that they acted in self-defense.

https://abc7news.com/rome-police-stabbi ... e/6264932/
Where I come from, killing someone during the commission of a crime is entirely indefensible regardless of whether they were recognized as police or not. I still think "2Pac made me do it" is their only choice.
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Re: The Tamalpais High puzzle

Post by spot »

What on earth is Fox News? This is biased to the point of deliberate disinformation.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/american- ... hed-police

Just the headline alone - "American student accused of killing Italian cop in drug bust gone wrong claims ..." - it wasn't a "drugs bust", no prat on earth could think it was a drugs bust. There's a police informer staking out a bit of Rome, his life is compromised by these two random Americans stealing his backpack which could expose him to the criminals he's reporting on, two carabinieri go plainclothes to try to save the situation and one of them gets knifed trying to retrieve the backpack. How on earth is that a drugs bust? Call it a drugs purchase gone wrong if you like, but not bust. These people are reporters?
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spot wrote: Fri Jul 10, 2020 3:43 am What on earth is Fox News? This is biased to the point of deliberate disinformation.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/american- ... hed-police

Just the headline alone - "American student accused of killing Italian cop in drug bust gone wrong claims ..." - it wasn't a "drugs bust", no prat on earth could think it was a drugs bust. There's a police informer staking out a bit of Rome, his life is compromised by these two random Americans stealing his backpack which could expose him to the criminals he's reporting on, two carabinieri go plainclothes to try to save the situation and one of them gets knifed trying to retrieve the backpack. How on earth is that a drugs bust? Call it a drugs purchase gone wrong if you like, but not bust. These people are reporters?
FOX News. The Nadir of journalistic integrity in America.
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Re: The Tamalpais High puzzle

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Here we go - statement in court:
Elder said he had not spoken out before due to “lack of courage”.

“In prison, I’ve had time to reflect,” he added. “I want to say that night was the worst of my life, not because I’m in prison but because I took someone’s life, I took a husband from his wife, I broke a bond between brothers. And I took a son from his mother. I will never be able to forgive myself and I don’t expect the family of Cerciello to forgive me today, that would be difficult, but I hope one day they might be able to.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... s-in-court
What do I hear? I hear words dictated by a lawyer, that's what.
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spot wrote: Wed Sep 16, 2020 8:53 am Here we go - statement in court:
Elder said he had not spoken out before due to “lack of courage”.

“In prison, I’ve had time to reflect,” he added. “I want to say that night was the worst of my life, not because I’m in prison but because I took someone’s life, I took a husband from his wife, I broke a bond between brothers. And I took a son from his mother. I will never be able to forgive myself and I don’t expect the family of Cerciello to forgive me today, that would be difficult, but I hope one day they might be able to.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... s-in-court
What do I hear? I hear words dictated by a lawyer, that's what.
I seem to remember those lines from a movie back in the 60s. Or, something very similar.
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Re: The Tamalpais High puzzle

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The Associated Press expresses the single aspect I find most baffling about the American public reaction to the facts:
The defense has insisted that the Americans did not realize the two Italians were police officers and thought the men were criminal thugs.
Why does anyone think this claim, whether it is true or not, has the slightest bearing on either the guilt of the two killers or severity of the crime? And yet it's being brought up by the defense time after time. If it were being said after a verdict, at a sentencing phase, in mitigation, I would still regard it as irrelevant, but it's being put forward as a defense against a prosecution for murder.

It is, I take it, common ground between the prosecution and the defense that the two defendants were both knowingly engaged in a criminal enterprise, both when they bought what they believed to be narcotics and when they stole the backpack and, during the same sequence of events, when they then went to an arranged meet to exchange it for the actual drugs and money. No system of law is going to allow you to declare that you then killed innocently in self-defense, any question of whether you were in fear of your life at that moment is immaterial. The crime is that someone died while you were criminally engaged. How does knowing or not knowing you were killing a policeman have any relevance?
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spot wrote: Fri Sep 18, 2020 1:41 am The Associated Press expresses the single aspect I find most baffling about the American public reaction to the facts:
The defense has insisted that the Americans did not realize the two Italians were police officers and thought the men were criminal thugs.
Why does anyone think this claim, whether it is true or not, has the slightest bearing on either the guilt of the two killers or severity of the crime? And yet it's being brought up by the defense time after time. If it were being said after a verdict, at a sentencing phase, in mitigation, I would still regard it as irrelevant, but it's being put forward as a defense against a prosecution for murder.

It is, I take it, common ground between the prosecution and the defense that the two defendants were both knowingly engaged in a criminal enterprise, both when they bought what they believed to be narcotics and when they stole the backpack and, during the same sequence of events, when they then went to an arranged meet to exchange it for the actual drugs and money. No system of law is going to allow you to declare that you then killed innocently in self-defense, any question of whether you were in fear of your life at that moment is immaterial. The crime is that someone died while you were criminally engaged. How does knowing or not knowing you were killing a policeman have any relevance?
True. Casing the death of another person during the commission of a crime is a homicide. At least in the US, and Canada, I know this to be true.
I presume Italy has some similar wording in the law books.
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Re: The Tamalpais High puzzle

Post by spot »

The trial started a year ago, it's still running. The lawyers must be bleeding the families like stuck pigs but who knows, it may be legal in America to insure against case costs for sticking a knife into a policeman while trying to buy drugs on the street. Perhaps you can buy it as an add-on while paying for the flight.

https://nypost.com/2021/02/04/californi ... ow-badges/
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Re: The Tamalpais High puzzle

Post by spot »

The two gentlemen have now been tried, the next question is whether their behavior is found wanting. Judge Marina Finiti said yesterday that the case will go to the jury on May 5.

From what I can see, the fate of the non-stabber depends entirely on whether the stabber's action is found to be criminal, and whether they were already engaged in a criminal enterprise at the time.

As for the stabber, if I understand the defense presented in court, he claims not to have been engaged in crime when the stabbing happened, he was merely trying to to get an $80 refund. He was thrown to the ground out of the blue. While not having deliberately gone equipped with a lethal weapon, he recalled while lying on the ground being beaten and in immediate fear for his life that he happened to have a replica wartime marine commando knife about his person. In a matter of seconds he located it, gripped it, withdrew it and thrust it into the body of his attacker eleven times, causing the attack to stop, after which he ran away. The immediate death of the attacker was an incidental consequence and subsequently hiding the weapon while trying to flee the country was irrelevant to the case. Members of the jury, he was only tooled up because he was habitually fearful due to the environment in which he had been raised.

The moment he lost his head was, presumably, when he decided to return to his hotel and plan an escape from Rome rather than finding the nearest police and reporting that he had been attacked out of the blue. I don't think he was asked in court why he didn't take that course which would have supported his account. I've no idea why he wasn't.

The smoke blown toward the jury was whether either of the officers identified themselves as police before or during the ruckus. I still have no idea why that could even slightly have a bearing.

I'd point out that if buying cocaine in Italy hadn't been criminalized, the lads would have gone to any local dispensary and bought their recreational drug over the counter. None of this pratting around with shady opportunist dealers would have happened, and the officers could have been dealing with proper crimes like domestic violence instead. What possible excuse does Italy have for preventing the sale of quality-controlled recreational cocaine over the counter? Let's apportion the blame where it's due.

If I might anticipate the verdict for a moment to be very very guilty, I do have a suggestion on how to stop future behavior of this sort in Europe. The European Union could quite simply remove America from the list of countries whose citizens need no Schengen Visa before admittance. Filling in a visa application is simple enough, but the application could then be summarily rejected for every applicant whose social media accounts demonstrate a tendency toward violent expression. My reason for singling out America in this regard is that a huge proportion of American youth fall into this category, in contrast with those of most other countries. One look at the accounts of these entitled teenagers would have stopped any rational country from wanting them loose on its streets.
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Re: The Tamalpais High puzzle

Post by LarsMac »

I confess that I may be wrong about this statement.
LarsMac wrote: Fri Jul 10, 2020 7:16 am

FOX News. The Nadir of journalistic integrity in America.
Surely this isn't the first you've heard of it.
I have recently found a number of "News outlets" in the US who make FOX News seem almost legitimate.
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Re: The Tamalpais High puzzle

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Two American students have been sentenced to life in prison by a Rome court for the murder of Italian police officer Mario Cerciello Rega.

[...]

Elder looked stunned when the verdict was read out on Wednesday night.


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... an-in-rome
I blame the verdict on their lawyers standing the stabber in the dock and making him perform their unbelievable apology. Had they just taken my advice and said it was 2Pac's violent rapping that made these teenage Californians the way they are, both would be back in San Francisco by now. For Elder's legal team to rely entirely on claiming their client hadn't known he was stabbing a law officer, despite ringing home before being apprehended to say "I made a mistake", "I hit a cop", has no logic whatever. And what sort of family uses "hit" to mean "killed"?

As for "Elder looked stunned when the verdict was read out", the disconnect between entitled white Americans and the real world is all too apparent sometimes. I wonder who will get rich from the inevitable ghost-written autobiographies of the killers. The book could expand on such mystifying observations as ""Having a knife is not unusual for a kid of his age in our neighbourhood," Elder said", which gives a wildly different impression to "In 2007, MSN and Forbes magazine ranked Mill Valley seventy-third on its 'Most expensive zip codes in America' list". It might even dissect "Finn is a thoughtful boy".

Three unanswered questions remain. How much did all the elements of the "war cabinet of US and Italian lawyers" cost in fees and expenses; who paid the invoices; and will Craig Peterson be invited to account for professional standards in respect of the leaked transcript.
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Re: The Tamalpais High puzzle

Post by LarsMac »

spot wrote: Thu May 06, 2021 2:35 am
Two American students have been sentenced to life in prison by a Rome court for the murder of Italian police officer Mario Cerciello Rega.

[...]

Elder looked stunned when the verdict was read out on Wednesday night.


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... an-in-rome
I blame the verdict on their lawyers standing the stabber in the dock and making him perform their unbelievable apology. Had they just taken my advice and said it was 2Pac's violent rapping that made these teenage Californians the way they are, both would be back in San Francisco by now. For Elder's legal team to rely entirely on claiming their client hadn't known he was stabbing a law officer, despite ringing home before being apprehended to say "I made a mistake", "I hit a cop", has no logic whatever. And what sort of family uses "hit" to mean "killed"?

As for "Elder looked stunned when the verdict was read out", the disconnect between entitled white Americans and the real world is all too apparent sometimes. I wonder who will get rich from the inevitable ghost-written autobiographies of the killers. The book could expand on such mystifying observations as ""Having a knife is not unusual for a kid of his age in our neighbourhood," Elder said", which gives a wildly different impression to "In 2007, MSN and Forbes magazine ranked Mill Valley seventy-third on its 'Most expensive zip codes in America' list". It might even dissect "Finn is a thoughtful boy".

Three unanswered questions remain. How much did all the elements of the "war cabinet of US and Italian lawyers" cost in fees and expenses; who paid the invoices; and will Craig Peterson be invited to account for professional standards in respect of the leaked transcript.
So, is it over? Or are the punks' attorneys going to work out some sort of deal to get the Italians to transfer them to the US correctional system to do their time "Closer to home" , perhaps?
There, the parents might be able to get their sentences commuted to home retention or some stupid thing like that.
I hope the Italians keep them.
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Re: The Tamalpais High puzzle

Post by spot »

LarsMac wrote: Thu May 06, 2021 8:23 am So, is it over? Or are the punks' attorneys going to work out some sort of deal to get the Italians to transfer them to the US correctional system to do their time "Closer to home" , perhaps?
There, the parents might be able to get their sentences commuted to home retention or some stupid thing like that.
I hope the Italians keep them.
The rapacious litigant vultures will appeal to keep inflating their fat fees, so that's a given.

Nobody in their right mind would prefer a US jail to an Italian one. Maybe they're dim enough to try, who knows. As for corruptly arranging a subsequent release, nothing about the American legal system would surprise me. It's profit-oriented. The French forced New Zealand to send home the special forces assassin who killed a Greenpeace activist once and he was freed to a hero's welcome when he got back, but I'd hate to think America would stoop so low.
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Re: The Tamalpais High puzzle

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My experience and knowledge of Italian Jails is limited to one instance of sobering up in one in Napoli, and waiting for the SP to come retrieve me to return me to my ship.
It was anything but pleasant.
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Re: The Tamalpais High puzzle

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I had it in mind that a general impression of American jails is they are controlled by gangs among the convicts, and that this is unsafe for those with no reputation. I can well imagine post-war Italian jails were filthy hovels with rats, straw and insanitary latrines - they were in England too - but a safer environment even so.
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Re: The Tamalpais High puzzle

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Well, Jails and prisons are actually two different things.
A life sentence in prison, I reckon would not be terribly comfortable in any country.
And you get to spend your life consorting with thieves, murderers, Con men, rapists, and all sorts of fine people.
But, again, these two fools will be a a bit of a disadvantage in Italy, I think. And if they can get transported back to the US. I suspect there are strings that Daddy can pull to maybe get them early release.
OF course, being a cop-killer probably would give them some creds in any prison, maybe.
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Re: The Tamalpais High puzzle

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England has a quite different imprisonment system to America.

Detention in a police station involves cells under the control of a custody sergeant. Anyone of any age can be kept there. We never call them jails, just a custody suite. None are privatised.

A court can direct that anyone before trial can be held on remand. Over-18s are held in a prison alongside convicts. There are youth detention centres for 13-17 year olds on remand. Younger children on remand are held in secure child detention. Many of them have been privatised. All are single-gender.

After conviction there is still the three age segregation. 18+ prisons have four security categories, from inescapable to open sites. Anyone walking away from an open site is recaptured and put back in a secure facility. Prisoners prefer lower security. I don't think there are different security categories for younger convicts but I might be wrong.

Bryn will no doubt correct me.
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Re: The Tamalpais High puzzle

Post by spot »

I'm not sure how anyone can defend against a knife attack. Here's another San Francisco account of a repeatedly violent aggressor:

https://abc7news.com/patrick-thompson-s ... /10595207/

I've no idea how imprisonment is meant to prevent anyone from repetitive assault. I have no idea what imprisonment is meant to achieve at all. Imprisonment is barbaric and futile, while antisocially discriminating against minority groups and subsistence poverty.

Cutting off both hands would stop repeat criminal violence. I can see a benefit to that. I'd prefer to see some form of effective psychiatric intervention but nobody appears to have developed such a thing yet.
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Re: The Tamalpais High puzzle

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spot wrote: Sun May 09, 2021 6:13 am I'm not sure how anyone can defend against a knife attack. Here's another San Francisco account of a repeatedly violent aggressor:
If you know it is coming, basic self-defense methods can work.
But, if you don't see it coming, the only defense is to not let people near you.
spot wrote: I've no idea how imprisonment is meant to prevent anyone from repetitive assault. I have no idea what imprisonment is meant to achieve at all. Imprisonment is barbaric and futile, while antisocially discriminating against minority groups and subsistence poverty.
Imprisonment is simply a method of trying to isolate the undesirables from the rest of society.
Any claim otherwise is simply political maneuvering.
spot wrote:
Cutting off both hands would stop repeat criminal violence. I can see a benefit to that. I'd prefer to see some form of effective psychiatric intervention but nobody appears to have developed such a thing yet.
I don't believe that intervention after the criminal mind has been formed will ever prove effective. Unless society learns how to prevent forming such mentalities they will be with us, always.
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Re: The Tamalpais High puzzle

Post by spot »

I offer the tale of Joe Ligon as told at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-57022924

Imprisoned at 15, released three months ago aged 83. I don't believe he could be ever have been described as having a criminal mind.

One question immediately springs to mind - what pension provision does someone in Joe's position have?
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Re: The Tamalpais High puzzle

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spot wrote: Sun May 09, 2021 8:36 am I offer the tale of Joe Ligon as told at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-57022924

Imprisoned at 15, released three months ago aged 83. I don't believe he could be ever have been described as having a criminal mind.

One question immediately springs to mind - what pension provision does someone in Joe's position have?
I never actually suggested that all people in prison are criminals.
And, Mr Ligon's story is likely not nearly as unusual as both of us would like to believe.

The American legal, and penal systems have long been a tool of the racists.
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Re: The Tamalpais High puzzle

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After the trial comes the mythologizing. It's a thing much discussed in British fiction, the convenient sweeping away of inconsistency and the laying out of a simplified coherent set of statements which can be stuck to regardless of the reality of the original events. John le Carré referred to it as building a legend.

Speaking to ABC News, Elder's parents described him as "incredibly kind, incredibly sensitive" and "painfully honest."

"He does not see a reason to lie," Leah Elder said of her son. "From the moment Finn was detained, he has not changed his version of that night one iota."

https://abc7.com/parents-speak-out-son- ... /10608015/

It's as though the cellphone communications on the night, and the social media accounts and phone history prior to the holiday, have been airbrushed from the universe. Which is silly because they'll always be permanently visible across the Internet archives.

It's as though the intercept transcripts of the coaching lesson, when the defense team framed and stabilized what was going to become testimony, have evaporated. From now on any mention of them will be blanked, walked past. Stronger than simply ignored - they can't have happened. The two convicts are now locked into this mindset by the actions of their families and lawyers, as are the families themselves. There's no way forward any longer, no progression, just this crafted mantra they must now all parrot until doomsday.

I do have one unanswered question though. Why would any reasonable person contemplating an appeal re-engage the same defense lawyers who blatantly screwed up the trial? This is scarcely no-win-no-fee territory. Do legal teams employ mesmerists on their clients? Perhaps the appeal should be handled from scratch by a local firm like Giambrone.

And finally... I could spend a quarter of an hour explaining why "incredibly" should be purged from the vocabulary of public interviews. It doesn't help. And ABC News should be told they needn't keep writing "allegedly" once the trial is finished. They're no longer allegations, the court has accepted liability for the truth of the statements. The court is a higher authority than the defense team despite only being a foreign court, despite the convicted parties being exceptional Americans who in any legitimate unbiased freedom-loving pro-American country would have been automatically immune from prosecution. Continuing to print "alleged" makes ABC News' reporting a bit one-sided. Referring to them as "students" has a similar effect - as far as I've seen they're not associated with any educational institution, nor were they when the crime occurred. I thought they were reported to have finished school and to have no visible means of support. Perhaps someone could correct me if that's mistaken.
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Re: The Tamalpais High puzzle

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Mothers will nearly always maintain and incredibly ignorant view of their children's failings and faults.
It is some sort of self-hypnotism.

And to be fair to ABC News, this was the local TV Affiliate that posted this interview. I doubt that the corporate entity that is ABC could really give a F*** about the two lads.

I kinda feel sorry for the other guy. He probably was just along for the ride. I can't help but wonder how long it will be before the Elder kid turns on him, and leaves him for the dogs.
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Re: The Tamalpais High puzzle

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The court was to account for its verdict within 90 days. Here's an extract:
Elder testified that Cerciello Rega attacked him without cause and was trying to strangle him, so he pulled out a knife he carried for his own protection and stabbed the officer repeatedly to break free.

"How can the court not ask itself why Vice Brigadier Cerciello, in service for more than 20 years, about whom all spoke of his professionalism, his dedication to work, his experience on the streets, his humanity, ought to have strangled Elder as the defendant contended?" the court wrote.

The court was scathing in its dismissal of key defense arguments, adding: "And if the intention of the two officers was to kill, why would Varriale not have done the same thing with Natale, leaving alive an inconvenient witness?"

[...]Varriale testified that both officers went to the rendezvous without their service weapons and that both showed their police badges and told the Americans they were officers.

"In the end, the only protection (the unarmed officers) had at the moment was precisely that badge," the court wrote, noting that Cerciello Rega's bloodstained wallet was later found.

"Vice Brigadier Cerciello can't offer his version, but his martyred body speaks for him and attests to the murderous fury of Elder,'' the court wrote.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rome-court ... ello-rega/

There's 346 pages in the original.
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Re: The Tamalpais High puzzle

Post by spot »

I believe I offered the thread a selection of lyrics penned by the killers' fellow alumnus, 2Pac. If this didn't influence their upbringing then I'd be surprised. It got them to the point where they were taking their killer-pose photos on their phones and sucker-punching a classmate into a week-long coma followed by brain damage.

Can you picture my prophecy?
Stress in the city, the cops is on top of me
The projects is full of bullets, though bodies is droppin'
They ain't no stoppin' me
Constantly movin' while makin' millions
Witnessin' killings
Leavin' dead bodies in abandoned buildings
Can't reach the children 'cause they're illin'
Addicted to killin' and the appeal from the cap peelin'
Without feelin', but will they last or be blasted?
Hard headed bastard
Maybe he'll listen in his casket; the aftermath
More bodies being buried, I'm losin' my homies in a hurry
They're relocatin' to the cemetery
Got me runnin', stressin', my vision's blurry
The question is will I live? No one in the world loves me
I'm headed for danger, don't trust strangers
Put one in the chamber whenever I'm feeling this anger
Don't wanna make excuses, cause this is how it is
What's the use? Unless we're shootin' no one notices the youth
It's just me against the world, baby

https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/2pac/me ... world.html

It's like an instruction manual. America's gift to the world.
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Re: The Tamalpais High puzzle

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The Italian Supreme Court will consider the murder conviction of 22-year-old Finnegan Elder of San Francisco in a hearing January 17, 2023.

[...]Elder currently has a 24-year prison sentence. His friend, Gabriel Natale Hjorth of Marin County, has a 22-year sentence as an accessory to the murder. His father tells us, both young men will appear before the Italian Supreme Court together.

https://abc7news.com/finnegan-elder-rom ... /12339834/
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Re: The Tamalpais High puzzle

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spot wrote: Tue Oct 18, 2022 4:29 am The Italian Supreme Court will consider the murder conviction of 22-year-old Finnegan Elder of San Francisco in a hearing January 17, 2023.
Waiting for the final judgement
Cerciello Rega murder, hearing in Cassation postponed to 15 March
The judges will be called to decide on the sentences of the Court of Assizes of Appeal to 24 years and 22 years for Finnegan Lee Elder and Gabriel Natale Hjorth. At first instance, the two Americans were sentenced to life in prison

https://www-rainews-it.translate.goog/t ... r_pto=wapp
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Re: The Tamalpais High puzzle

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spot wrote: Wed Feb 01, 2023 8:00 amCerciello Rega murder, hearing in Cassation postponed to 15 March
The judges will be called to decide on the sentences of the Court of Assizes of Appeal to 24 years and 22 years for Finnegan Lee Elder and Gabriel Natale Hjorth.
And here we have it. From The New York Post...
Italy’s highest court has ordered a retrial for two American citizens who were convicted in the slaying of an Italian police officer during a sting operation gone bad.

The Court of Cassation late Wednesday threw out the guilty verdicts against Finnegan Lee Elder, now 23, and Gabriel Natale-Hjorth, 22, both convicted in the stabbing death of the 35-year-old carabinieri during a plainclothes operation in July 2019 while the Americans, teens at the time, were on vacation in Rome.

The court will issue its reasons for the verdict in the coming weeks, and instruct an appeals court on the precise issues to examine in a new trial.

Elder’s lawyer, Roberto Capra, expressed satisfaction at the decision, saying a new trial would open the possibility of recalculating the sentence.

“It confirms a topic we raised from the first day: That Elder was not aware of having in front of him a law enforcement agent. The dynamics of the events exclude this fact,” Capra told reporters. He expressed hope that a retrial would give room to lower the penalty.

https://nypost.com/2023/03/16/italy-ret ... f-officer/

I'm not sure I'd call that a retrial, particularly.

Maybe the appeals court will call Finnegan's mum as a witness. Here's one I made earlier...
spot wrote: Sat Nov 23, 2019 8:54 am We can now stop wondering whether these two uncontrolled hooligans knew the police officers were police before the knife killing happened. It might not be admissible but it's incontestably true.

The new information comes from an Aug. 2 prison visit between Elder, his father Ethan, and their American lawyer Craig Peterson that police had surveilled. During the conversation, Elder is reported to have told his father that indeed, he did know Rega was a cop. Elder reportedly made the same admission in a phone call home in the hours after the incident occurred. "I made a mistake," he reportedly said. "I hit a cop."

The widely-reported transcript, which The Daily Beast also obtained from an investigative source, says Elder was explaining what happened to his dad and attorney. "When they quickly flashed their cards or whatever," Elder said before being interrupted by his lawyer, Peterson, who the transcript says then whispered to his client, "Stay calm, stick to your statement, review it point by point, remember it. Your statement shouldn't worry us during the interrogation," he reportedly said before adding. "You did not see anything."

https://www.thedailybeast.com/finnegan- ... ref=scroll

And that lawyer should be disbarred for collusion.
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Re: The Tamalpais High puzzle

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I missed this from last March - the Supreme court sent the appeal back for reconsideration. When that will happen isn't apparent though. Who knows, the holiday couple might even get deported to America before 2050 at this rate, and try the less exciting option of going to college instead of knifing Carabinieri deputy brigadiers.
March 15. Encore appeal for Gabriel Natale Hjorth for complicity in the murder of Carabinieri deputy brigadier Mario Cerciello Rega , killed with eleven stab wounds on 26 July 2019 in Rome, while for Finnegan Lee Elder for aggravating circumstances only and for the charge of resisting a public official . This is the decision of the judges of the first criminal section of the Supreme Court who annulled the sentence which had sentenced Elder to 24 years and Hjorth to 22 by referring it to a new section of the Court of Appeal of Rome. The general prosecutor's office had instead asked for the convictions to be confirmed. ''The Court has evidently recognized the validity of our censures on the errors made by the judges of merit who had considered Gabriel Natale's participation in the murder. A statement incompatible with all the results of the test'' commented after the sentence the lawyer Francesco Petrelli, defender together with his colleague Fabio Alonzi, of Gabriel Natale Hjorth.

translated from https://www.ildubbio.news/giustizia/dal ... e-nv8eka33
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When flower power came along I stood for Human Rights, marched around for peace and freedom, had some nooky every night - we took it serious.
Who has a spare two minutes to play in this month's FG Trivia game! ... My other OS is Slackware.
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LarsMac
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Joined: Fri Nov 27, 2009 9:11 pm
Location: on the open road
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Re: The Tamalpais High puzzle

Post by LarsMac »

I confess that I have given those fellows not a single thought since that last update in March.
It would not upset me even a little should they remain guests of the Italian Justice department for the rest of their days.
If they were shipped back here to the US, someone might decide that they should be pardoned and sent home.
The home of the soul is the Open Road.
- DH Lawrence
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