ID Refusal Officer Lentz MPD

YouTuber 'superrick568' posted this video. We presume he is the unseen individual being dressed down by the officer in this video.

Officer "Let me see your ID!" Lentz is an outstanding ambassador for the city of Milwaukee and his department ... with his combative and adversarial tone, saying nothing of his demands for ID and veiled threats. And Sergeant "That's just him!" Carpenter is fine example of a police supervisor ... with her dismissive attitude toward a citizen complaint.

I enjoyed that deflating moment at around 3:15 when Lentz realized he'd been beaten. All he had for you after that point was schoolyard sarcasm.

"On 03/05/16 the Milwaukee police went on a ticket writing bonanza. I filmed this guy and his partner three times in less than an hour. There were so many stops within a 2 mile radius that I couldn't keep up. The third time got to him and he demanded my I.D. ."



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S01EvBA0Y3U

Peace Officers
Officer "Let me see your ID!" Lentz, badge #1763
Sergeant "That's just him." Carpenter, badge #389

One of the first techniques you want to see from a police making a stop is de-escalation of a potentially adversarial encounter. But there was none of that here. Officer Lentz was in a fully-escalated mode when he briskly walked up to the individual and got right in his face and demanded ID, refusing to take "no" for an answer.

Officer Lentz was unnecessarily aggressive and hostile, combative, badgering and harassing toward the individual he stopped, shouting commands to "show me your ID!" and lambasting him for "following [the officers] around."

In merely watching the video of the officer's hostile and continuous rain of belligerently yelling orders, the intense verbal tirade against the individual, one senses the intimidation created by the officer during the encounter was palpable to anyone.

I may be bothered most by Sergeant Carpenter's dismissive response to the complaint, saying "That's just him."

CONTROLLING DEMEANOR and REPEATED COMMANDS AMOUNT TO DETENTION
Telling the individual to produce identification and "I wanna know who you are" no less than two-dozen times amounts to a demand by any reasonably peaceful observer. Because of the officer's behavior and commanding tone, no court would have considered this encounter a consensual one; this was a full-on investigative detention.

We don't need to be terribly intimate with the American lexicon to understand the power of veiled threats by police officers. Among the most interesting ones is designed to maintain deniability should he be challenged on it: "I'm only going to tell you once." Or, "I'm going to give you one more chance to comply." The denial: "I never actually threatened [to arrest] him."

What can't be denied, though, is that, even though ambiguously stated, warning that you're only going to say something one more time is both powerful, and a universally-underststood threat that some form of consequences will ensue if complicency isn't achieved quickly and forthrightly -- even if the exact consequences aren't spelled out. In fact, oftentimes it's the vagueness of the threat, the fear of the unknown, that becomes the most intimidating factor of such a veiled threat.

------------------ 0:00 ------------------

(Officer Lentz gets out of car at curbside and approaches superrick568. Lentz's tone indicates a clear frustration.)

------------------ 0:14 ------------------

Officer Lentz
"Okay, now that you're filming me and everything, let me see your ID."

superrick568
"What am I doing?"

Officer Lentz
"Right now?"

superrick568
"Yeah."

Officer Lentz
"Let me see your ID!"

superrick568
"Why?"

Officer Lentz
"Why?"

superrick568
"Yeah, why?"

Officer Lentz
"Because, I wanna know who you are, why you keep following us around. You can film all you want and that's fine with me..."

superrick568
"I know I can."

Officer Lentz
"But I still wanna know who you are."

superrick568
"I'm not asking permission."

Officer Lentz
"I wanna know who you are, so let me see your ID."

superrick568
"Unless I've done something wrong, I'm not going to."

Officer Lentz
"Right now?"

superrick568
"Yeah."

Officer Lentz
"You are doing something wrong."

superrick568
"What's that?"

Officer Lentz
"I just asked you for your identification. I need to know who you are because you are sitting out here filming us. With all the crazy stuff going around in this world nowadays, I am worried ... yes I am ... for my safety, their safety (pointing to his left) and anybody else out here right now."

superrick568
"Uh huh."

Officer Lentz
"You can keep filming me. Let me see your ID. I'm gonna take a look and then you can film me all you want."

------------------ 1:00 ------------------

superrick568
"What's my ID gonna tell you?"

Officer Lentz
"It's gonna tell me who you are and make sure that you're not somebody that's doing crazy things out here."

superrick568
"How you gonna tell that by my [identification]?"

Officer Lentz
"Because I'm gonna run you."

superrick568
"That's not gonna tell you anything..."

Officer Lentz
"Yes it is. Go ahead and bring it out. You can film me all day, brother, I don't care."

superrick568
"I haven't done anything wrong."

Officer Lentz
"That's why they're called field contact interviews. Now you've brought yourself to us, now I wanna know who you are!"

superrick568
"Uh huh."

Officer Lentz
"So let me see your ID, please."

------------------ 1:26 ------------------

superrick568
“Is that a lawful request?”

Officer Lentz
“Yes it is.”

superrick568
“Or an order?”

Officer Lentz
“Na-I'm asking you, let me see your driver's license or your ID please.”

superrick568
“I'm denying that.”

Officer Lentz
“Okay then, why don't you just turn around and walk away.”

superrick568
“Cuz I'm not going to.”

Officer Lentz
“Then let me see your ID. I'm only gonna ask you one more time.”

superrick568
“Wait, I just asked you…“

Officer Lentz
“Let me see your ID.”

superrick568
“I just ask you if...”

Officer Lentz
“I just asked you, and I gave you my reason why I'm out here talking to you now.”

superrick568
“Unless I've violated...”

Officer Lentz
“Now I want...you are violating my rights right now”

superrick568
“Why?”

Officer Lentz
“Because you're stopping us from doing our job pertaining to him over there.”

superrick568
“But he's still doing it.”

Officer Lentz
“There's two of us here. There's two of 'em in the car. Right now you are creating a disturbance. “

superrick568
“I'm not creating a disturbance.”

Officer Lentz
“Yes you are.”

superrick568
“I'm not in your investigation at all.”

Officer Lentz
“You're taking me away...”

superrick568
“I'm 25 to 30 feet away.”

Officer Lentz
“Yes you are. You're taking away our concern because I gotta look for our safety, I gotta look for our safety as well as theirs' in the car. Let me see your ID.”

superrick568
“All I got is a camera.”

Officer Lentz
“I'm asking you, let me see your ID.”

superrick568
“Sir, I've done nothing wrong.”

Officer Lentz
“Yes you are! You're interrupting our investigation here.”

superrick568
“What statute is that?”

Officer Lentz
“What did I just tell you? It's a safety-for officers and for the people in the car. You followed from over there, and Tower, all the way over here, and now you got my concern going. You can film all you want, I don't have a problem with that. Okay? But I do wanna know who you are. And yes…”

Officer Lentz
“You're being filmed, too.”

superrick568
“Alright. Good.”

Officer Lentz
“So let me see your ID.”

superrick568
“Unless I've violated a law...”

Officer Lentz
“A field- a contact- a field interview contact I can ask you for your information, yes I can.”

superrick568
“Sir, I'm not gonna give you any ID.”

Officer Lentz
“Let me see your ID.”

superrick568
“I'm not gonna give you any.”

Officer Lentz
“Why not?”

superrick568
“Cuz I don't have to. Because I've...”

Officer Lentz
“You got something to hide from me?”

superrick568
“I didn't do-I-I...”

Officer Lentz
“I'm asking you, you got something to hide from me?”

superrick568
“I didn't do anything to show you an ID.”

Officer Lentz
“Right now you did. You're creating my … awareness …”

superrick568
“Will you call your supervisor?”

Officer Lentz
“… and you brought me out here.”

superrick568
“Can you call your supervisor?”

Officer Lentz
“I can bring- I can call a supervisor.”

superrick568
“Call 'em out here.”

------------------ 3:15 ------------------

(Officer Lentz turns around and appears to be making a radio call)

My sous vide life

For me, living a sous vide life means to...
 - Buy in bulk
 - Vacuum pack meal courses
 - cook-chill/cook-freeze
 - Cook foods gently and thoroughly, to the desired doneness, at precisely controlled temperatures

Benefits...
 - Volume priced food
 - Fast, no-fuss meal prep
 - Non-critical cook times
 - Meals are consistently delicious
 - No waste
 - Less cleanup
 - Cost savings
 - Better food safety
 - Refrigerator is less cluttered
 - It's healthier (portioning helps me to keep an eye on my calorie intake)

I buy fresh chicken, beef, pork and frozen vegetables at sale prices, portion for meals, vacuum package it, pre-cook/pasteurize, then store in the refrigerator or chest freezer. In the morning I cut open lunch courses and put them in a microwavable container for work. I can drop dinner courses in the sous vide bath either before or after work.

I've spent $960 on gear & gadgets to facilitate my new life (so far), but I think it saves even more than that over the course of a year between the grocery store and restaurants (by virtue of fewer visits thereto) and spoilage of leftovers.

My setup...
 - Ary VacMaster VP112S chamber vacuum sealer ($525)
 - VonShef 8-liter sous vide water oven ($99)
 - Gourmia GSV130 sous vide immersion circulator ($129)
 - Rubbermaid 12-quart commercial polycarbinate food container ($16.25)
 - Kenmore 12702 7.2 cu. ft. Chest Freezer, White ($189.99)

Uber faces possible steeper insurance requirements in Iowa

I've asked my Iowa Assembly members Sen. Matt McCoy and Rep. Jo Oldson to help stop Iowa House Study Bill 130 and Senate Study Bill 1228.

If passed and signed by Gov. Branstad these bills would immediately create a brand new law called "Iowa Transportation Network Company Insurance Act" designed to crush taxicab competition by putting draconian burdens on rideshare drivers, ultimately resulting in fewer transportation options for Iowans and prospective Iowans, as well as tourists.

We need an environment in Iowa that allows innovation and free market competition to flourish, and this is a step in the wrong direction.

How to end poverty and disrupt a corrupt U.S. Congress

Poverty exists because too many workers aren't paid equitably by corporate American capitalists for the fruits of their labor, limiting consumer spending, which hurts the economy, which kills jobs, creating high unemployment, which creates the need for a compulsory levy on other people's earnings to pay into the welfare system.

The business model of corporate America is to keep labor costs as low as possible, but if small businesses on Main Street shared in that kind of greed (essentially pocketing more than their fair share of the profits, which they enjoy thanks in large measure to their labor force), they’d be run out of town.

In recent years, corporate America has been able to get away with paying low wages precisely because of the high unemployment they caused in the first place; more workers competing for fewer jobs facilitates a low-wage climate.

A lot of the job loss in this country is permanent because U.S. companies have been pushing production offshore, exacerbating an already poor economy.

It is the proliferation of big business and their political campaign funding that has hurt the U.S. economy.

The only way to fix the problem is by creating a system that doesn’t provide financial rewards for the current business model.

1. The first step is to eliminate the giant teat of the individual taxpaying collective by constitutional amendment. In other words, end individual income taxes. (Not including capital gains and Wall Street speculation.) In this way, campaign contributions would go to shrinking government spending, since all tax revenues would come directly out of corporations’ pockets instead of the low hanging fruit of the weaker class: the worker, lobbies would have incentive to do only that.

2. The second step is to tax commerce where it occurs, not where the corporation happens to be headquartered. It’s not fair for a company to be penalized by virtue of the geography of their home office when its success comes from the markets it serves well.

3. Eliminate compulsory contracts, both directly by mandate and those indirectly by necessity. This stops insurance companies from amassing fortunes on the back of the free market system, allowing prices for services to soar unchecked. This will also dissolve large pools of capital, which are sitting targets for frivolous litigation.

4. Shift all sales taxes to the seller and require that all advertised consumer prices are the actual, total, final prices … after all taxes, fees and surcharges. This puts integrity back in consumer-business dealings and provides price transparency and eliminates obscuring actual costs behind hidden additional costs to consumers, restoring consumer trust.

Top five reasons radio advertising is better than television advertising ... and YouTube isn't one of them!

If having the more persuasive pitch in a competition between radio and television is considered stealing, then guilty as charged. Many people operate on the full faith and credit of bad information in perpetuity, and the conventional wisdom on Madison Avenue is no exception.

Here are my top five reasons radio advertising is better than television advertising:

5) TV advertising is overpriced chiefly because it's easily disrupted by technology and a general collective attention deficit in the real world.

4) One doesn't require a study to prove that images are nearly superfluous in marketing; most people know innately that the most significant, powerful and lasting impressions in our memories are made by audio input to the brain.

3) The best marketing value in radio and social media is derived from the power of a personal recommendation from familiar, credible people; you don't need pictures for that, but sound is our most penetrating cue.

2) Without an intuitive presumption, reinforced by the ad industry, that television is just better because it delivers motion and color, we can all understand on a primal level how disinterested people are in what we have to show. It's hard not to notice that you can't sit in the same room with a person and keep their eyes on you for very long?

1) The most significant reason people get your message is because they have no earlids.

I had a weird dream last night

I was in the empty lobby of a police precinct, unwittingly there just to rest a moment, to calm my anxiety and collect my thoughts.

There was a faint sound of conversation in an adjacent office. "He was a white, middle-aged man on a bicycle..." were the first words I heard plainly. And it was a familiar female voice.

It's true. Minutes earlier it had been me that was flying my bike down a crowded city street, possibly causing alarm and panic, whizzing past a lady that looked a lot like a blonde TV-cop -- who, in a predictably commanding tone, screamed out, "Stop and get back here right now!"

She might not have been a cop, I thought. And even if she was who knows who she was screaming at? It felt like I was evading a cop.

Things are moving fast. Time to get out of the area. Time to assess the situation, I thought, turning a corner, ditching the bike, and stepping into the first public building I came to.

Alarmed myself now, realizing I was the subject of this field report to the authorities, I swiftly ducked away through a corridor, where I stumbled on a somewhat interesting shipping tube laying atop a trash bin. Inexplicably I swept it up to have a closer examination while on my brisk walk. But the sound of a conversation between Patricia Arquette, the actual actress, and two men I presume were a pair of detectives, caught me off guard. "That guy," Patricia said assuredly. I slowly looked up as I paused.

They gave me a silent stare that felt like minutes. I returned a look, vowing to myself not to say a word while they analyzed me. As I began to realize just how virtuous silence can be, I confidently and calmly turned and continued down the corridor. No one stopped me. I'd managed to flee the scene without incident or objection.

"Clever," I heard one of the men say as I stepped out of sight. "The only evidence is sealed by federal postal law." They must have thought I'd hidden something in the shipping tube I merely thought looked cool ... as if I'd have had the wherewithal to contemplate such a calculated maneuver. A parcel is safe harbor from search & seizure, I imagined. That, along with my instinctive silence, saved the day.

A palpable sense of relief washed over me as I climbed back onto my bike. I can only imagine the conversation that transpired amongst the trio after I'd left. Lacking a real crime, I bet the detectives dismissed Ms. Arquette with polite platitudes.

It seemed real.

Rep. Steve King and the SCOTUS gay marriage ruling

So Friday SCOTUS nixed states' arbitrary restrictions on marriage, restoring civil rights owed to couples of like gender. And before day's end, the always sensational Rep. Steve King (R-Ia.) predictably argued that decision is oustside the court's purview, calling it "judicial fiat."

Apparently they're members of the Grand Old Party, conservatives & libertarians, except when those principles conflict with a certain world view.

You may remember '09 when the King scare machine reacted to Iowa's top-court ruling striking down this state's restriction on gay marriage, fearing that decision "turns immediately Iowa into a Mecca for same-sex marriage." He warned of "weekend [travel] packages being planned right now." And the fear language didn't stop there. "We'll be the Las Vegas of same-sex marriage for America if the legislature doesn't act now," King asserted. At the time he called on the Iowa Assembly and then-Governor Chet Culver (D-Ia.) to move quickly to require residency for marriage ... "right now, before the planes start landing in Des Moines," as if they might be loaded with WMD.

Video: Rep. Steve King with radio host Jan Mickelson, April, 2009



Let's be clear. A fundamental duty of the high court is to hold states' authority in check, protecting individuals' Constitutional protections from Gestapo-style government imposition where ever necessary.

Instead King, applying a bizarre sort of acrobatics to language and logic that even a 5-year-old can see through, today claims this country "cannot tolerate a Supreme Court that would impose their will on the rest of this country."

Striking down same-sex marriage bans in no way creates a restrictive imposition on others. Efforts by Congressman King, right-wing religious lobbyists like Bob Vander Plaats and pundits like Jan Mickelson to paint certain kinds of marriages as "weakening the institution" are absurd, and their attempts to moore their false logic in mythology can't mask their scalding bigotry. They can only point to religious symbolism in order to criticize Friday's ruling. Must we remind him there are no references to "holy matrimony" in the Constitution?

America is not a compendium of special clubs who get to use government as a tool to impose their wants on the "those people" whose behavior they despise. Being an American means a lot of different things to different people, but it can never mean you have a right not to be offended.

Consensual and non-consensual police encounters

We've covered the levels of police encounters before and I don't like to spend too much time on covered ground, but I discovered a very nicely made instructional video with an excellent example of a non-consensual encounter without justification that quickly escalated to an arrest without any cause.

A promise broken

The Woodland Cemetery to the founders of Des Moines was seen as a promise of security for all time.

Located at Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Woodland Avenue, Woodland Cemetery is an honored and revered resting place for the founders of our city and heroes of our nation.

The cemetery advisory board voted last night to strip the barrier between this revered site and vandals, the homeless, dog walkers.

There is simply no more historic place that is seeded so deeply the history of Polk County, aptly named for President James K. Polk. But among those interred at our cemetery is a different Polk. Jefferson Scott Polk (1831-1907) as a lawyer well educated, clear headed, deliberate, optimistic, positive, nervous, sanguine temperament, aggressive and plain of speech.

In 1859, J.S. Polk formed a partnership with Judge Casady and M.M. Crocker, making one of the strongest law firms in the district.

In 1861, when Mr. Crocker entered the military service, and the firm became Casady & Polk, which continued as such until 1864. At that time Casady retired and was succeeded by Fred M. Hubbell, as junior partner. For twenty-five years Polk & Hubbell thereafter became synonymous with push and enterprise in our town.

In 1867, Mr. Polk and others organized the Equitable Life Insurance Company. The following year, he was elected Secretary and held that office fourteen years.

In 1871, Mr. Polk organized the Des Moines Water Works Company.

August 29, 1866, Des Moines was finally treated to the iron horse with a line fully built from Keokuk along the Des Moines River, after a long and oft-fruitless battle to bring a rail line. On October 1st of that year, Mr. Polk, Fred M. Hubbell, Dr. M.P. Turner and U.B. White completed the first mile of street railway in the city as the Des Moines Street Railway Company. Now fully connected by rail, Des Moines enjoyed 38 daily rail connections and the beginnings of a world class mass transit system, thanks in no small measure to the work of Mr. Polk.

By 1888 Jefferson Polk procured a charter for the Rapid Transit Company, and in 1889 he purchased other competing Railways, and began installation of an entire new public transit system.

In 1874, he laid a narrow-gauge track to Ames, purchasing and laying out the town of Sheldahl.

Sources: Find A Grave/Katie Lou; History of Polk County, 1880

Humanity at its finest

It's easy to find character flaws in people, so it's refreshing to find and share stories about selflessness and compassion. What may have begun as a self-serving exercise, this generous individual turned his personal misfortune into life changing tools for children.

Unfucking our educational system

The public has been brainwashed into thinking that voting for more money in a fucked up education system will somehow, magically, unfuck it.

School boards and administrators are politicians and operate in much the same way as the ones in the state assembly and in DC. They're wined & dined by organizations desperate to suck on the enormous teat of the taxpayers. Teachers are organized into packs whose mission is to benefit teachers, and in no way concern themselves with higher learning or figuring out a better way to impart wisdom for our future.

How can that model ever be anything but massively dysfunctional and corrupt?

I'm tired of hearing the big education thinkers using terms like "at grade level" when there's absolutely no evidence showing kids learn better while in lock-step with peers of the differing intellect. A child learns based on his or her own cognitive abilities and the learning resources available and it's intuitive that no two kids are alike. Therefore assigning a rigid grade level to a child is completely arbitrary.

The starve-or-struggle grade-level system insures no kid will learn on pace with his or her cognitive ability. One child will always complete a module early and find himself board, while another will always struggle to keep pace with the class and eventually give up. It makes no sense to try to force their instruction into the arbitrary constructs we have built and selected for them.

On the other hand, systems like Khan Academy [www.khanacademy.org] can facilitate learning at one's own pace. That's a conversation this country should have sooner rather than later.

Part of the problem is thinking in terms of centralized instruction (and food prep and authority) as opposed to more evenly and accessible distributed systems throughout the community. Distributed models in all domains inherently have less bureaucracy and tyranny, and therefore offer more individual accountability resulting in less waste and corruption. This is a topic that deserves note here, but far more discussion in public forums.

A major factor is that teachers are unavoidably flawed. They're notoriously inconsistent from day to day, year to year and among classrooms across the nation. That means there are no consistent quality standards to ensure all kids have access to the country's best possible instruction -- but they definitely deserve it.

As a community and as a state and as a nation we should be able to objectively and openly produce the best of the best instructional materials and presentations and lectures and put them to work for the students.

And another not-so-impermanent thing: information is free. Why are we wasting so much money on that which is free? In any other domain we'd be appalled by how much information is locked behind paywalls which are put in place for the sole purpose of revenue generation on the backs of the people.

It's hard to define what education is today. It's part political, part institution, part incarceration, part indoctrination and part corporation. Kids learn better how to be reliant on and subservient to the totalitarian class instead of discovering how to be free-minded explorers.

One day not that long ago we had an educational system that was at its core a means to provide kids with a schoolhouse and the best information available, and that resulted in world class thinkers and doers of the industrial age. They were not institutions and their purpose was not to generate revenue or political power, but simply to help kids develop into contributing, productive members of the community and go out in the world as free people and invent and build new things and enrich the lives of our neighbors.

Today, instead of giving the children the smartest mind in town, a world class education could mean giving them the smartest minds in the world from which to develop their new found wisdom and places in our collective society, to invent and build new things to improve the lives of our neighbors.

So before you vote one more time to throw more money at an educational system in hopes that will finally unfuck it, put to the schoolmasters how they intend to leverage a modern infrastructure and a bounty of information into a world class education for all children.