West Boca resident Serge Sando was arrested by Boca Raton city police last night on marijuana and other apparently minor drug charges. He was released early this morning.
A black man spending time in jail on Martin Luther King Day is just one more example of the negative consequences of the War on Drugs. From what we can see in our research, Mr. Sando is a hard-working young man trying to earn a living. In fact, it looks like he works two different jobs.
Our policy of drug prohibition, like alcohol prohibition back in the 1920s and 30s, is an absolute failure. Gambling was also outlawed during this period. Despite this, respected hotels would often allow punters to gamble illegally on their premises. You can learn more here about how prohibition affected The Sagebrush Inn during its colorful history. Thankfully, visiting a Judi Bola (Gambling Ball in English) website is no longer a criminal offense in most civilized nations. Prohibition did not work in the slightest. It does nothing to protect anyone from drugs and indeed pushes them into our schools. Meanwhile it creates more crime. Instead of 1000 points of light, we get thousands of Al Capones. And MLK Day is a good day to highlight the well known racist consequences of the drug war.
We see promising changes. Colorado has legalized marijuana, a drug that is less harmful than alcohol. Other states are allowing medical marijuana. Florida may do so soon.
But that’s not enough, some states and countries can purchase marijuana from internet based dispensaries, while in other locations people are getting thrown in a cell for less than a gram. For example, in the UK having any amount of marijuana on your person results in arrest, whereas in the US there are companies like hytekmed that help you find out if you are eligible for a medical marijuana card in your state, and then provide doctors who can prescribe the drug. Additionally, in Canada, you can buy marijuana products easily online from sites like togoweed (Read More about that here). Voters need to recognize that prohibitions don’t work, and that they cause more crime. The criminal law should be limited to real crimes, especially violent crime. If we stop wasting police resources on the failed drug war, our cops would be freed up to investigate burglaries, home invasions, car break-ins, domestic violence, car jackings and more. Let’s put the real criminals away and stop destroying innocent lives.
Please consider the words of our friend Cliff Thornton, in the interview below:
Category: Opinion
Editorial: Crime Reporting on West Boca News
A SWAT raid is news anywhere, especially in a suburb like West Boca. A reader notified us of a raid. When we posted on Facebook about what was then an unconfirmed rumor, two other readers commented guessing correctly that a man named Nick, who has a twin brother, must have been involved.
After our investigation, we wrote up the story – Twins Arrested in SWAT Team Bust – and the Facebook post was one of the most popular we’ve ever seen – nearly half the people who saw it clicked on it. For those familiar with the concept of “click-through-rate”, that’s astonishing. It’s news. People want to read about it.
In the story we wrote sympathetic comments toward the pair, especially in the final paragraph. Without reading the whole story and thus missing the sympathetic part, one sent us a message: karma is a bitch, just remember that!!
We’ve had other complaints, and they are usually rude. One brother complained that we mentioned his sister’s arrest for breaking into a car, offended because she has a drug abuse problem. We have long been critics of the War on Drugs and we touch on that in some of our crime articles. We believe that ending the drug war would reduce other crimes. But criminals should still be held responsible for the crimes they commit.
Another story we did – Spanish River Thugs? – provoked a flurry of comments (at the bottom of the linked article) from one of the arrestees, at least one of the girlfriends, and other friends, all indignant that we covered their alleged misdeeds and republished their “interesting” Facebook photos. They’re all really nice people apparently. Four days after his comment, the sweet and gentle arrestee posted this photo of himself as his profile, smoking and giving the finger to the camera:
He called us “unprofessional.” He’s right actually. We don’t claim to be professional journalists. West Boca News is an attempt at citizen journalism, and we don’t make money at this.
These complainers are unaware that crime reporting is a small part of what we do at West Boca News. Crime stories account for less than ten percent of all stories we’ve written, and about twenty percent of stories in the last few months. Recently we’ve written a lot about various store and restaurant openings and closings – especially the soon-to-reopen Palmetto Walmart – as well as road construction on Glades Road and a major project on I-95 at Spanish River Blvd. They are also uninterested in our crime coverage until it’s about them, reflecting a selfishness that has become all too common in America.
The internet is full of various mugshot websites. The Sun Sentinel posts them too. Once the Sheriff puts it out there, it’s out there. Unlike other media, our approach is to investigate the story and provide more context about the people, the places and more. It’s not “entertainment”. People in West Boca want to know about crime here because it affects us. Some live in gated communities with guards, home alarm systems, double deadbolts, and firearms at the ready, all to protect themselves from a crime threat that is very real.
We see many cases of serious crimes (like robbery, burglary, and assault) dropped by prosecutors with either a “No File” or a “Nolle Prosse”. In many of our stories the person arrested has had multiple previous arrests with charges often dropped or reduced to little or no jail time. In a story we did in October, a father-son duo allegedly assaulted a man at a local Subway. The pair had 43 different court cases dating back to 2002. Their daughter/sister had the following delightful comment:
“It was just an ass whooping … It was just a normal fight like a regular fight between two men and it wasn’t that big of a deal.”
There are two possible sides and both may have some truth to them. On the one hand it’s possible that deputies are arresting far too many people without justification. On the other hand it’s possible that our so-called criminal “justice” system is failing to hold criminals accountable for their crimes.
I’m a criminal defense lawyer. I have many friends who are police officers, prosecutors, judges and of course other defense lawyers. I’m known for being pro-defense. Yet from what I’m seeing here in Palm Beach County, it is my opinion that the larger problem is not police making bad arrests, but rather the failure to hold criminals accountable. We think the responsibility for that falls mainly on the State’s Attorney, including the current one and his predecessor.
We will continue to report on crime news in West Boca. Our readers want to know. Perhaps there’s hope that the public attention drawn to arrestees, that they apparently don’t like, will discourage people from committing crimes in the first place.
The Sushi Thief – Arrested Again
Thanks to a reader comment, we learned that a man we previously called The Sushi Thief has been arrested again, on the 24th, and is currently in the county jail with bond set at $25,000.
As noted in our previous article, Mr. Perrelli has had several arrests in the past 13 months.
At West Boca News, we firmly believe defendants are innocent until proven guilty. However, we also firmly believe that prosecutors should vigorously prosecute cases like this and that the court system should hold people accountable when they are guilty.
One other arrest of minor note, local Joe Benavides (23) was arrested on marijuana charges. As we’ve said in the past, it is a waste to arrest and prosecute people for drugs. In this case Mr. Benavides seems to be a good guy with a job, no obvious criminal history, and a part of the community with many friends.
We live in a place where violent criminals are routinely let go. Police, prosecutors and courts are valuable resources that should not be wasted harassing someone like Mr. Benavides, who has harmed no one. Those resources should instead be devoted to investigating and prosecuting real crimes – ones with actual victims.
It is worthy of note that he has apparently been open about this with many of his friends, as shown by his Instagram post yesterday, liked by 40 friends.
Has Apple Fallen?
Something fundamental has changed at Apple. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because Steve Jobs is gone. I first noticed things going downhill a few months ago. But recent problems with iOS 7 and the new Mavericks OS for Macs have convinced me that it’s a big problem that will probably get worse. There was also a recent visit to Town Center mall in Boca Raton. We passed by the Apple Store and there were far fewer customers than we’re used to seeing in there.
I’ve been an Apple fan since before the Mac. I started using computers back in the late 1970s, writing programs in BASIC on the Commodore Pet, and later played around with various Apple II models. When the original Mac came out in 1984, I was hooked. Over the years I used DOS and Windows as necessary, but I always preferred Macs. When my law practice started generating enough revenue, around 8 years ago, we went all in on Apple and haven’t looked back. Until now.
We currently have multiple iPhones and iPads in our family, along with three iMacs and a MacBook Pro laptop. And we have a couple older laptops and a recently retired iMac sitting around. I was also an Apple shareholder, but I sold my stock about a month ago. I was actually talking to a friend of mine about this a few days ago. She lives in Germany and works as an investor and she told me that she is currently thinking about adding some Apple stocks to her portfolio. Apparently, in Germany, a lot of people are convinced that now is the time to start Apple Aktien ins Portfolio holen (adding Apple stocks into your portfolio). I suppose when it comes to stocks and shares, it is all about doing plenty of research to discover what is best for your own portfolio after all! What is good for my friend might not be best for my portfolio and vice versa depending on the markets.
Anyway, for me, the watershed moment was when I upgraded my iPhone 4S to the new iOS 7. The experience reminds me of the title of an old Rick Moranis movie, “Honey They Shrunk the Kids,” but with a twist. Honey They Stunk My iPhone. Before the “upgrade,” my iPhone worked fine. It was fast. It did all the things I wanted to do and did them well.
I didn’t upgrade right away. I waited to see if there were any news stories or other hints of problems, and until they’d had a couple rounds of bug fixes. In mid-October I upgraded to version 7.0.2, and I’m currently using the latest, 7.0.4. It took a few days for me to notice the problems.
The phone is much slower now, dramatically slower than it was with iOS 6. There’s something wrong with the caching. Under iOS 6, when I’d switch from one app to another and then switch back, it would usually retain the information on where I was. Now it’s much more likely to dump and force me to restart in the app when I come back. Certain actions that used to be nearly instant now take several seconds, which of course in our modern age feels like an eternity.
As an aside this reminds me of the Louis CK interview with Conan O’Brien – Everything’s Amazing and Nobody’s Happy:
There’s a tendency to think any problem you experience is bigger and as humans we often do not realize that such problems may be specific to us – that it may be a small problem and not widespread. In this case the speed issue does appear to affect many people. ReadWrite has a help article for iPhone 4 and 4S owners dealing with the iOS 7 slowdown, and there are a number of other articles on the subject. Just Google ios 7 iphone 4s slow.
Speed is not the only issue. There have been many complaints about various changes. Personally I find the Calendar app far less usable. I can’t put my finger on exactly what’s wrong with it, but it’s worse. Imore suggests some alternative Calendar apps for those who are frustrated. For other criticisms, see 15 most annoying things about iOS 7 or 7 misses in iOS 7.
As another example, the Mail app has become quirky. Here’s a couple things I noticed recently. In my inbox I have a bunch of messages. When I know I don’t want something I click on the edit option and I can delete messages without having to click into them. In the image below, you see the third message has a circle next to it, which allows me to check it and then delete checked messages. That circle does not appear for the top two messages? Why not? I have no idea.
Also, you see in the above image a “No Sender” message. It is also something that can’t be deleted, and was apparently “sent” in 1969. Clicking on it accomplishes nothing. What is this? Why is my Mail app acting up?
Deep down this reflects a huge underlying problem for Apple. The company’s success has been driven by its obsession with user interface, commonly referred to in the industry as UX.n release or so that they comply with various required standards. I have lovedause their UX has long been better than Windows. I feel the same about the iPhone. They nailed the user experience on the original and had been doing ve problem because the engineers who ultimately make everything work have different expectations than regular users. When Apple ran an ad campaign with the phrase “The computer for the rest of us,” my engineer brother sarcastically described it as “The computer for the rest of them.” One of the great things about Steve Jobs is that he was able to drive the engineers at Apple to make their products easy to use. With iOS 7 and other issues we’re all seeing, that’s clearly gone now.
My next phone will not be an iPhone. It will probably run some version of Android, especially if Amazon comes out with one. Jeff Bezos at Amazon is the current leader in the industry at delivering a quality user interface.
On the desktop and laptop front, I haven’t given up on Macs yet. We had a major problem with our newest iMac the other day. It was a very frustrating experience. I spent a few hours with Apple’s customer service and we were not able to get it fixed. It felt like the support person was going through the motions and really didn’t have the technical expertise to understand what was going on. On the bright side, the people I spoke with were clearly Americans working in the United States, and they stayed focused on me. With some companies you talk to someone in a foreign country, often India, and you get the feeling they’re handling two or three calls at the same time. Also to Apple’s credit, the same support person agreed to replace the iMac with a new one. I had to drive to the store to pick it up, but it was brand spanking new and a slightly newer model so in that sense they did take care of me. On the negative side, I still had to upgrade it to the new Mavericks OS myself, rather than it being preloaded on the machine. Mavericks was released well over a month ago.
On that visit I again noticed the Apple Store was nowhere near as crowded as it had been even a few months earlier. This suggests that Apple’s “buzz” is fading. For investors that should be a huge concern. And one aside, I wonder why Apple never built or bought its own search engine for all the searches that are done on the various iPhones, iPads and so on. That is a hugely successful business, in terms of ad revenue and big data. It seems like a business blunder.
Sadly it appears the Apple has fallen far from the tree it once was. Will it be able to get back up again?
Fatal Car Crash on 441 Friday
A resident notified us of a serious accident that took place on 441 Friday. Several media sources have reported on it, including the Sun-Sentinel and the Palm Beach Post.
Unfortunately the media scrum leads to inaccuracies and key facts are disputed by one of the passengers (below). On a less controversial level, the Post described one of the vehicles as a “2010 Mercury Grand Am.” Most likely this was really a Grand Marquis, as the Grand Am was a Pontiac model that hasn’t been made since the 2005 model year.
Another source described one of the drivers, Vivian Schwartz (pictured above) in its headline as a “realtor.” From what we can tell, Ms. Schwartz is actually a businesswoman affiliated with Zeus Footwear and JS Shoes LLC. While she may have a real estate license we don’t see any evidence she actively works in the field, nor for the brokerage she’s associated with.
Ms. Schwartz and her husband own a home in The Oaks, north of Clint Moore near 441. The media say she and her daughter were “seriously injured” in the accident, but her daughter Kayla’s Twitter account suggests otherwise. In the other vehicle, Thomas Giordano passed away and his wife was reportedly injured. The Giordanos appear to have been on their way home to a townhome neighborhood within Sandalfoot Cove, east of 441 off of SW 3rd Street (south of Palmetto Park Road).
The initial media accounts put the blame on Schwartz for allegedly running a red light, but it’s unclear at this point whether those accounts are afflicted with similar inaccuracies. Kayla vociferously disputes the media version on her Twitter page, KaylaRaq.
If you call yourself a “journalist”, make sure you have your facts straight before wrongfully accusing people in the local paper.
It should be noted that Kayla is a recent graduate of Olympic Heights with top honors.
We also found a video of Kayla on YouTube from an audition a few years ago. She’s quite talented.
West Boca News wishes the best to both families in this difficult time.