🚀 go-pugleaf

Anthony Argyriou wrote in message <3512a667.6762957@news.dnai.com>...
>Great article - I didn't know that the price of a permit was so high!
>I figured a couple hundred bucks to the Sheriff's campaign would be
>enough.


Anthony, the "cronyism" is common as hell and to a lesser degree, so are the
"payoffs" in campaign funds.

Sheriff Craig was possibly the worst.  He got caught because of the Byrd
controversy...if you haven't heard the story, it's a good'un:

Before 1/1/98, Police Chiefs could issue to any resident of their *county*.
"Gentlemen's Agreements" between jurisdictions usually prevented brass from
issuing in each other's "turf"; in some cases these were formalized in
writing, such as in San Mateo County with it's "uniform CCW system" whereby
you needed *both* Chief and Sheriff to "sign off" one after the other to
score a permit.  The "Richmond/Pittsburgh mess" is a variant; the Sheriff
issues a few permits by inclination, but he claims the zero-issue in those
cities is at the request of the local Chiefs.

Interestingly, Richmond is also caught up in another major scandal involving
cops who'd been found guilty by IA being cleared by the City Attorney and/or
City Manager, plus they just lost a huge lawsuit with the San Francisco Bay
Guardian over release of police discipline records and are bordering on
contempt if the SFBG is to be believed.  See also www.sfbg.com for
details...it would seem that corruption in gun-related issues is just the
*start*.

Enter Eugene Byrd, PD Chief of a little burg name of Isleton in southern
Sacto County, pop. 995.  Byrd and two cops made up the whole dept.  He was
(and is) pro-permit; he issued at least 1,500 permits and briefly made the
news over it.

This cut into Craig's profits.  Remember the Judge who got hit up for
$20,000?  She drove to Isleton, paid the same total of $150 that anybody
else of any race could, and after the one-month background check, hit
"lock&load city".

The first effort to shut Byrd down failed; Craig went to his long-time pal
Dan Lungren and got Danny to declare Byrd's permit fees a "local tax" that
couldn't be leveled without voter approval.  That didn't last long; with a
pop. of 995 solidly behind him, a quick referendum fixed that.

Craig accused Byrd of issuing out-of-county and of not doing proper
background checks.  He went back to Lungren and got Danny to stop doing the
required background checks for Byrd, totally contrary to state law.  Despite
being Attorney General, Danny's always cared more about his buddies than
about the law, so it took an actual suit to get Lungren to do the checks.

Peter Alan Kasler, a pro-2nd amendment lawyer and part-time deputy in rural
Tehama county did some digging into Craig's allegations.  Not only was Byrd
clear, it was *Craig* that was issuing out-of-county; right about then (94)
Craig's asshole drunk buddy made those statements to an honest deputy that
you saw in my "open letter"...plus the Judge spoke up.  None of this would
have come to light if Craig hadn't (falsely) complained about Byrd and made
a huge stink on the subject, therefore we have almost no way of knowing how
common this shit is because there ain't enough Eugene Byrd's around!

On 1/1/98, SB142 kicked in and denied PD Chiefs the ability to issue to
anyone other than city residents - they *finally* found a way to nail Byrd
who was, admittedly, financing pretty much the whole PD with permit fees.

Or at least, they've stopped him so far.  Craig's not running for
re-election.  Near as we can tell his long-time flunky Lou Blanas is the
"appointed heir", the same guy mentioned by Mr. Drunken idiot.  His
competition?

Chief Eugene Byrd of Isleton.  OH ya.  If Byrd wins and issues tens of
thousands of permits in Sacto County and absolutely no bloodbath occurs
(i.e. same peaceful results as 31 states) it'll be a huge kick in the pants
for statewide CCW.

Note that Craig has now set up a "permit review commission" to distance
himself from the process and at least make it LOOK cleaner.  That was after
all the above shit; probable reason is to give Blanas a fighting chance.
That commission doesn't remove the possibility of corruption, whoever the
Sheriff can still do a "back room special".

GO BYRD!

Jim March