Rex's Las Vegas Lists
And I thought I had bad experiences in North Las Vegas …
I’m not a huge “Vegas Blog” reader myself, but when I do read them, they are almost always the blogs of fellow locals. In my opinion, they tend to be more original and interesting than the far more prevalent “non-vegas Vegas” sites out there.
One guy I check out once or twice a month is a local poker player who goes by the name “Poker Grump”. I like his writing, and I can personally relate to much of what he talks about.
Today, a reader in our forums (Tully) pointed me to an article on his site. Even though I have not gotten back-roomed, this story does hit a little close to home. I have also been harassed numerous times for breaking zero laws. It is an occupational hazard of trying to bring Las Vegas life to the general public via The Internet.
The article is here:
http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2009/02/i-got-backroomed-by-casino-security.html
Read it. Laugh. Then worry.
To sum it up, after committing no crime, he was assaulted and kidnapped at a local casino. Instead of being rescued by the police, the cops took his driver’s license without cause, and continued to harass him without charge.
None of his story surprises me, especially given that he was in North Las Vegas.
North Las Vegas cops make Mexican cops look like boy scouts. Hell, NLV cops make the entire Third Reich look like models of compassion and professionalism.
You want to know how bad North Las Vegas cops are?
They are so bad that the Review Journal even occasionally writes about their abuses. If you are a casino company or a law enforcement agency, you have to fuck up pretty bad in this town to get the RJ to take your dick out of their ass.
http://www.lvrj.com/news/breaking_news/37663469.html
Here is another pillar of the NLV community:
http://www.kxnt.com/pages/3552846.php
No, these guys are not an “exception”. Every time someone gets caught doing something wrong in a law enforcement agency, they are “the exception”. Even if that were true (which it isn’t), it is not acceptable to have even a single exception in a position with as much authority as a police officer. A bad cop is a hundred times worse than a violent criminal, because the cop has the default presumption of being correct.
Because of this, bad cops often leave a trail of thousands of victims, yet still get a gold watch and a pension.
The only thing worse than a North Las Vegas cop, is a guy who wants to be a North Las Vegas cop, but didn’t get the job because he couldn’t complete one entire side of a Rubik’s Cube (the standard NLV police exam).
What do you do when you are denied the opportunity to be a cop in this town?
You become a security guard where you have twice the attitude, half the intelligence, and none of the authority.
In my opinion … if Grump doesn’t sue, he’s harming us all. He doesn’t need an attorney. He can represent himself, lay out the facts as he did on his blog, and I’m sure a dozen local bloggers will follow him.
With or without a lawyer, he doesn’t stand a chance of prevailing. The only thing more corrupt than a Vegas cop is a Vegas court. That is why I think a lawyer is irrelevant in this matter. John Q. Public vs. The Casino cannot win in this town … so he might as well save his money.
But if he sues, and enough people pay attention, it will bring the issue to the forefront. There is even an outside shot that he will be offered a Jamie settlement to make the whole thing go away.
He should file both a civil and criminal complaint. You don’t need to prove monetary damages if you are illegally imprisoned for 90 minutes, otherwise I could yank homeless people into my house and use them as my personal slaves for an hour at a time. Kidnapping has nothing to do with monetary damages. It’s an extraordinarily serious felony.
If Grump’s story is true (and based on my own experiences, I have little doubt that it is), then the Cannery is staffed by felons and should be avoided at all costs. Not that it isn’t already avoided at all costs, but perhaps it should be moreso. The guy is trying to promote the shithole property by doing an innocuous “guess the casino” segment, and the douchefluids that run the place won’t even accept the publicity. When casinos don’t know the law, it opens up the potential for all kinds of customer abuse.
Allowing casinos and law enforcement to get away with what they did to Grump only ensures that it will happen to someone else. Sure it’s funny to read his story, but when the article is over and the laughter stops, you realize that he has stumbled upon a part of a larger problem. That problem is the complete and utter disregard of civil rights not just by Las Vegas casinos, but also by local cops.
Some casinos are under the impression that they operate their own little Banana Republic with their own unique set of sovereign laws, but there is no basis for that. Casinos cannot write their own legislation. “Policies” are not laws. They are wish-lists.
You can draw up whatever “policy” you want, but unless it is codified in law somewhere, it’s nothing more than the preferences of casino ownership. It’s my “policy” to get a blowjob from every cocktail waitress at the Orleans, but unless they agree to my policy, it’s Vaseline time. A “policy” on my part does not incur a legal obligation on any other living creature on the planet.
Also, casino security guards are not law enforcement agents. They are civilians. They have as much authority over you as I do. This is a huge issue that many people misunderstand. Security guards can make the same citizen’s arrest that ANYONE can make, but only if they witness a crime being committed. They can’t detain you because they don’t like you, if they don’t like what you are doing, or even if you call their mother a whore (which is probably factually accurate for most North Las Vegas guards).
They can order you to leave, and call the cops to remove you if you don’t leave, but they can use no more force than necessary to preserve life or property. If you encounter me in a casino, and I demand that you stay in that casino, you are free to go. I cannot forcibly prevent you from leaving. Security guards have the exact same authority as I do. Badges mean nothing. Deputy Dawg had a badge, and you don’t have to do what he said either.
This experience also underscores why Las Vegas, and especially North Las Vegas police have bad reputations. You don’t have to be a criminal to fear Las Vegas cops because Las Vegas cops are the criminals. They notoriously fabricate stories, and the corruption in our law enforcement agencies make Blagovich look like Ned Flanders.
The majority of Vegas police have NO IDEA what the law is. None. All they know is that they have a gun, and you don’t. I would not trust a Vegas cop to watch a nickel for me. I would worry that as soon as I turned my back, he’d grab the nickel, shoot me in the head, and plant cocaine on me.
Of course, the Nevada Court System is as corrupt as the day is long, as is our local mainstream media who almost certainly will not touch the story with a pole as long as Ron Jeremy’s dick. Fortunately, these corporate lapdogs masquerading as media outlets are becoming obsolete, and it’s harder to bury this shit in 2009. Mark my words, I’m still going to find out what happened to “Jamie”.
The other common misconception is “private property”.
People cannot do whatever they want on their own private property. If that was the case, I could invite my enemy over to my house for dinner, and then hit him in the head with a baseball bat. You can’t smoke pot, and you can’t have sex slaves on your own property. Just ask Rick James.
Outside of personal privacy issues, such as the right to be nude, you have no more legal rights on private property than you do on public property.
I’m not sure why this issue is so misunderstood, but the basic rule of law is this:
If you can’t legally do something to someone on public property, then you can’t do it to them on your private property.
To put it simply, “private property” means absolutely nothing with regards to your legal ability to control the actions of others. If someone walks on my lawn, I can’t hit them in the head with a brick any more lawfully than if I could in Central Park.
If any reporter from the RJ or one of the local TV stations have testicles which have fully descended, they should be all over Grump for this story.
While it can be extremely difficult and awkward to not answer the questions of the people we have been taught to trust since first grade, it is imperative to realize that times have changed. Most of these guys aren’t 9/11 heroes. They wouldn’t run into a burning building to save you. Hell, they won’t even go into a casino to preserve your rights.
The paradigm has shifted, and the civilian is now the enemy, not a valued member of the community worthy of protection. We’ve gone from a servant government to a master government.
As far as photography is concerned, I would encourage everyone to print this out, fold it up, and carry it in your wallet.
http://www.krages.com/ThePhotographersRight.pdf
It’s not the gospel in all jurisdictions, but it’s a starting point.
As for Grump, I hope he files a civil and criminal complaint. There aren’t very many articulate people in Las Vegas that understand what the law is, and if he decides to fight this, it will be an important battle not just for him, but for everyone who tries to bring Las Vegas content to the rest of the world, and who tries to promote a city that quite frankly, doesn’t deserve it.
The corruption that runs rampant through the casinos, the media, law enforcement and City Hall has already ruined the confidence of many locals, and I can’t imagine that it won’t eventually trickle down to tourism.
A point can be reached where people don’t want to take the risk of vacationing in a place that makes up its own laws, and physically abuses its own customers with impunity.
This type of behavior on the part of those tasked to protect us should give everyone pause, and re-evaluate what it is that is happening in this town.
If you want mob rule, bring back the mob. At least we won’t have shitty 6:5 Blackjack and stalled construction projects lining The Strip.
Right now, we have the worst of both worlds.
