“We know there are collateral things that happen with gambling and some can be rather serious. This shouldn’t be happening. There’s legal gambling in Illinois. These things are not legal,” [Lt. Michael Paulus said, adding that police are aware of four or five other games in town and are continuing to investigate those as well.

I hope the police remember to investigate every convenience store for the gambling going on there, something called the lottery. And I’m sure they have Senator Mike Frerichs’ house staked out for it’s the likes of he who has casino gambling expansion in mind for Danville. And boy, are police going to be busy come March, when every business and every gathering at the bars fills out those March Madness brackets for money. Like the Drug War, this hypocricy brings distrust and disdain toward law enforcement. While I imagine it was great fun to use Patriot Act surveillance techniques, and SWAT-raid-with-the-guns-out the low-hanging fruit of a bunch of poker players, Lt. Paulus should be ashamed of wasting tax dollars and jeopardizing officer and citizen safety in such an unnecessary way. How do you like your big, nanny government now, Republicans?

The problem these guys had is they’re not a giant corporation that pays taxes. Then they’d have a nice riverboat out in the open to play their games.

Local Yocal never fails to entertain. First of all, the lotto is legal in Illinois as I’m sure you know but went on to make a ridiculous comparison anyway. And the NCAA brackets/Super Bowl pools/etc. is yet another ridiculous comparison, with these being no harm/no foul type situations that are so rampant no jurisdiction is going to act on them. Then the “SWAT-raid-with-the-guns-out” shows that you didn’t bother to read the article or maybe believe the police are just lying, since the article said the police knocked on the door and then just walked right in when no one answered. They were acting on a complaint (of course you probably think that’s a lie too) and this wasn’t a run-of-the-mill friendly quarter ante poker game. And how was this “jeopardizing officer and citizen safety” if these were just a bunch of harmless chaps getting together for a friendly game? And Patriot Act surveillance techniques?? What’s that, checking Facebook?

Equally entertaining is how Beam and Q-Tips never fail to pull their squad cars behind anyone who would question a prohibition that would affect police job security, or question the heavy-handed police tactics that call to question whether police are out there to cause trouble or solve trouble. The ridiculous comparisons are ridiculous, especially to those who will be dragged into court on charges of gambling, when the State not only runs a gambling operation, but gives the wink-wink go-ahead when gambling is so widespread as to be unenforceable. (Kinda’ like underage drinking during Unofficial St. Patrick’s Day on campus) If you can articulate the probable cause, the warrant that was issued and what the warrant declared to be the things searched for, or the grounds by which a warrantless search was necessary, or how police gathered the intelligence to know what the facts were about this horrible poker game; we’d love to hear the inside scoop, since it wasn’t so forthcoming from Lt. Paulus. What was so “shocking” to the participants of the game when police arrived, if the guns were not out? Lt. Paulus has already articulated what he thinks of citizens to city council and it’s hard to believe he didn’t organize a raid that didn’t involve police “getting the jump” on citizens as he has declared to be the training for police for the last 10-15 years. If police didn’t have guns at the ready, what is your evidence for such a claim? As to whether this was a no-harm/no-foul poker game, do you really want to compare harms created by alcohol use v. marijuana use? Do you really have a list of the harms created by this game that had been going on for months? What? No taxes collected? The entire incident represents turf warfare for market share and has nothing to do with discouraging the act of gambling. In fact, the cost to the taxpayers has just gone up exponentially now that officer time, resources, and the cost of criminal defense and court time, and the possible sentences will require taxpayers to pony up even more for the moralizing enforcement on consenting adults over an angry housewife, mad at her husband for messing up the money. Had he blown the paycheck at the casino in Danville however; well, then no problem, thanks for the taxes.

Classic LY here. He gets called out for numerous factual errors and conspiracy theories. Of course, this doesn’t faze him, as he comes back swinging with even MORE factual errors and conspiracy theories.

It’s pointed out to him the police were acting on a complaint, but LY reads right past that to toss out even more craziness, to the point where you can almost see him frothing as he lapses into incoherence.

LY, let me quote the great Dolph Lundgren here: “You should have taken your ... medication!”

Also, LY, I’d appreciate it if you would keep me out of your conspiracy theories. I already told you in another thread that I looked into the procedures for a complaint against the police department you think I want to protect. It simply wasn’t worth proceeding with that effort.

And I’m not sure how you believe there was a warrantless search conducted. It doesn’t sound as if you know what was in the warrant, so maybe you should just give the crazy accusations a rest until you have a fact or two. I realize that is asking a lot of you—both to give the craziness a rest and to get a fact or two—but give it a shot.

Classic Q-Tips in response: Claims of factual errors are backed up by…..nothing…. but the usual personal attacks at the writers. For a review of Q-Tips’ remarkable inability to conduct a civil disagreement supported by facts, see page 5 in the Splog Section under Gillespie’s post, “FBI absolves CPD of civil rights violation” from Dec. 5th. Beginning in Comment #27, Q-Tips displays his brilliance for all to see. But then, Q-Tips would prefer there be no discussions regarding the police and the law, which is why he throws rocks at cars on the computer whenever Smilepolitely raises a question about local law enforcement. Here’s something to give a shot, Q-Tips: support your claims with facts and try comprehending what others write before you spout off with more insults. And when you do answer this with another insult, PLEASE BE FUNNY! Otherwise, I’m going to lose all interest in what you have to say…

Again, classic LY—he has no facts, specifically nothing about the warrant. Yet this does not stop him from drawing multiple conclusions and then challenging others to get the facts to knock down his beliefs.

One more time—have you seen the warrant? Or are you just guessing?

“You should have taken your ... medication!”

Not sure why, Q-Tips, you ask what I know about the search warrant, but whenever you read a News-Gazette crime article, the public is usually left guessing; other than what little Miss Mary was given by police to print:

“...[Lt. Michael] Paulus said that about four months ago, a citizen complained about the operation, so police began gathering information.
“We wanted to know how long it had been going on and how often was the gaming happening. We developed intelligence [how? Did they send in an undercover detective to play poker too? Pay a snitch, wearing audio recording devices to go in and gamble?] that told us there was a fairly regular schedule of events,” he said.
Officers learned that there was usually a game every Wednesday night; some weeks featured games on a second weeknight.
Waiting until after the holidays, Paulus said they obtained a search warrant Tuesday [from which Judge on Jan. 10?, declaring what facts based on what information? and what items did the warrant list that were to be seized?], on Wednesday, a group of patrol officers conducted what he [Paulus] described as a “low-key” raid.

I agree with you, Q-Tips, the public should be allowed to inspect search warrants and the newspaper should be allowed to publish its contents.
But parsing little details to yap Local Yocal is wrong again is but a distraction from the greater hypocrisy exposed in this incident: the 5 out of the 13 people found “sitting around the tables” should not be charged with a misdemeanor crime of gambling; and officers should not be wasting tax dollars and time on such nonsense. A 4 month investigation on a friendly poker game? That’s got to make Toni Cassano feel real good.

Well, we agree on some things—the article has holes. And some of the people probably should not face charges. I assume the court will resolve that issue.

I disagree about it being just a friendly poker game. When you have ledgers and when it apparently takes place at a business location, it’s not a friendly game.