#i more care about them entering public buildings with assault rifles!!! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

m4-05spersonalblog · 3 years

Text

The M4 siblings fanfiction

Chapter 1: In the name of journalism

It had only been a day since M4 discovered the story, a republic senator for a mining colony in the mid-rim and imperial captain stationed near the remains of Ziost both turn up dead at the exact same time, and security footage reveals it as the culprit, though M4 had killed plenty of people by now, some more notorious and a lot more powerful than a senator and captain, so what’s 2 more kills under it’s designation after all? The reporter who first made the story public fell to the floor of his office, set ablaze, as he looked up, paralyzed with the utmost fear of the one responsible, in front of him stood M4-05 and it’s faithful akk dog partner, Murjr, M4 grabs the man by the collar, lifting him off the ground as the droid places it’s wristblade to his neck, speaking to him in a tone of pure anger “I don’t appreciate slander, especially slander that puts the few people in the galaxy I have left at risk, now tell me what do you know about those imposters.” The reporter was speechless, as M4 pressed it’s blade further against his neck he began to fumble for words, “I- I- was told that the one who killed the senator worked for sith intelligence, I just thought it was you collecting on those bounties you do when your owner doesn’t need you shoving people who only want to give the public the truth aside!” In a sudden burst of emotion, M4 pins the reporter against the wall, slowly causing blood to drip from the man’s neck, if he didn’t talk quick enough he would surely die, but before he could try and save his own life M4 gets in the first word “Here’s a story for you to publish. I. Am. Nobodies. Property!” M4 continuously slammed the reporter against the wall before cutting his throat entirely, stepping back and allowing Murjr to get some bites in of the man, though the akk dog quickly changes he spits out what was bitten off quickly. The two partners walk out of the reporter’s house before M4 sets off a disintegration bomb inside, wiping the evidence from the building as it slowly crumbled down a flaming mess, if there was an imperial copy of M4, then there was bound to be a republic one as well, but only 2 questions remained in M4’s metal head, how to destroy them and make sure it’s not copied again.

Chapter 2: Enter “Vanguard”

Cheers roar out from a bar on the upper levels of coruscant as a group of soldiers celebrate a recent victorious campaign, talking about sticking it to the imperials and what-not, with other patrons of the bar celebrating as patriots alongside their protectors, better known as ‘Sigma Squad’. As the celebrations were in full swing the bar doors open and a droid with claw-like feet, a built-in jetpack and face plating walks in and up to sigma squad, prompting more cheers from the soldiers. The orange and white droid looks at the squad before introducing itself, it’s voice contained that of a proud republic accent as it gives a salute, “M4-06, code name: vanguard, the first of the 06 assault series developed by the SIS for usage by special operations squads, having completed my testing I have been transferred to act as a member of sigma squad, effective immediately.” The hulking sigma squad commander chuckles and pats the droid’s shoulder “Don’t worry vanguard, we knew you were coming, welcome to the squad! I was told you had our next mission for us, but that can wait, come, join the party!” The squad and bar patrons partied on until dark and they got kicked out by the barkeep. Back at the republic command centre, the squad, once more suited up in armour looked eagerly at their newest addition to relay their next mission to them, the droid robotically looks at the squad before projecting a holo-image of 2 droids that looked near-identical to it. “These are M4-05 and M4-07, M4-05 is the droid I am based off, a dangerous mercenary and republic defector, M4-07 is my sibling who was stolen and modified by sith intelligence during the early stages of our development, command has decided it is up to us to destroy them, for the republic.” The commander walks up next to Vanguard and gives some final words “I’ll requisition the gear we need ASAP, we leave at 06:00 in the morning, we have our orders, sigma squad, move out!” The squad walk out as the commander turns to Vanguard and simply directs the droid to follow him to requisition the gear needed.

Chapter 3: Preparations After a sudden jump to hyperspace M4 forces open a security crate, laying it’s optics on the deadly contents. “Looks like Azutek came through” M4 plainly stated as it picked out the disruptor rifle, sealing the rest of the contents back in the case before putting it in a smuggling compartment “Best keep those unarmed unless I have to use them” the droid simply mutters to itself, the silence aboard the tenacity was beginning to cause M4 to go mad again, without distraction M4 only did what it had ever known, calculate. Every movement, every second, every destination and every purpose had to be flawless, if not, go back to the start and do it all again until it’s right. This feeling of loneliness, even if it was to keep one of the few people in the galaxy M4 cared about safe, was something it simply couldn’t push back forever, going so far as to turn off it’s face lights and removing it’s faceplates just so it could practice everything with it’s own, unfiltered optics, M4 wanted every advantage possible, even if that meant pushing it’s only body built for combat to the absolute limit. As time went on M4 slowed down it’s combat calculations and began thinking more straightforward, it had an idea of a plan, but nothing specific, all it knew was to lure it’s copies to a location and destroy them both at the same time, what remained was, how and where? It needed an unrealistic amount of luck to even get the 2 to the same location and luck wasn’t logical, M4 pondered about this for some time, talking to itself in it’s lonely state “Luck… luck, there is not a possible way to calculate such a thing or even obtain it, to a point, luck can be considered something a person is born with, the concept of luck favors those incredibly stupid for they would not survive without some form of intervention… ugh” M4 waves it’s head around in annoyance realizing that out of the statistical odds of it, it knew one of the luckiest idiots in the entire galaxy, and it owed the idiot a favour, how joyous this plan was going to be, doing so it sets course and turns back around to a hub-zone of loot, rumors and the one place the pirate known only as “Flip” could likely be found, Nar Shaddaa.

Chapter 4: The imposter’s imposter

“Dread it, run from it, death arrives all the same, or rather, it simply has more intelligence than your organic brain can comprehend.” A sly, robotic, imperial accent matched with black paint and armouring met only with the laughter of an idiot about to start wallowing in his own blood, the masked fool laughs “You know, you would make a great actor, plus you’d be doing a better job than you are right now.” The masked idiot gets his head slammed into a wall of Nar shaddaa for this, the claw-like metal hand creating an ear-piercing scratching noise as the imperial assassin, M4-07, runs it’s hand down to Flip’s neck, “I’ll give you credit, fool, you’re braver than most targets who’ve had the pleasure of seeing my face, you lack their fear, but a sith agent without fear to feed on is a vicious beast to tangle with.” Flip just laughs at the sadistic droid “Wow, you really don’t get the message huh? I already told you where your big bro was heading, someplace called ‘the crater’ ominous I know, but hey, there are hundreds of craters in the galaxy, which one do you go to, let me, help you, so I can help myself keep living?” 07 let’s go of Flip’s head, letting him drop to the ground like a sack of hammers, only for the idiot to get back up on his feet and stretch as if he hadn’t just had his ass whooped for the 17th time this week. “Like I said, I don’t know where ‘the crater’ is but I do know a place that’d be easy to kill an organic for your brother, it’s this completely inhospitable area on Tatooine, not even moisture farmers can use it, plus it drives people insane, now I don’t know a huge amount of it’s backstory but if my luck is anything to go off, I reckon it has a base there, no place an organic can approach without going insane? Any droid would want to go there!” 07 looks at Flip before speaking again as it raises a blaster to Flip’s face “Your service to the empire will be rewarded painlessly” Though before the droid could even pull the trigger Flip rolls to the other side of the room before grabbing his dropped rifle and jumping out of the closed window and falling into the abyss below, all the way down yelling “At your service!” 07 backs away before dropping a thermal detonator in Flip’s hotel room, even if he did survive the fall, he didn’t have anywhere to sleep anymore…

Of course anybody who knows Flip, knows he can survive worse than a big fall, getting caught in a red speeder, driven by M4 of all droids before zooming off to the spaceport, M4 shook it’s head as Flip relayed the details to it, now it owed the fool two favours.

Chapter 5: “Hello old friend”

M4 stood in front of a burnt and decaying pile of logs in the vast and harsh desert night of Tatooine, so much had happened since M4’s first visit here and everything personal always caused it to end up here, except with Grillrilot, but that wasn’t an opportunity it would’ve got a second shot at. Simply staring at the wood as it’s cloak flew in the wind the droid noticed something it hadn’t noticed last time it was here, a single holoprojector that had somehow survived the bonfire, curiously M4 picks it up and wipes some ash off it before placing it down at it’s feet and pressing play on it. The projector boots into life as a man clad in red armour, with red hair and the worst shaving job in the galaxy, appeared, taking the droid back, the man simply smiles at looks at M4, speaking in a typical mandalorian accent, with a hint of balmorran. “If you’re finding this, it means this… disorder of mine has got the best of me and I was proven killable, if so, I commend the warrior who managed to kill me and rid the galaxy of the voice in my head, but chances also are you found this looking for some wisdom from a strong member of clan Stalos, who defeated the republic’s own mandalorian killer, twice and fought alongside some of the best warriors in the galaxy, well bit of some bad news, whatever you might know about my story might be a little lost in translation, because… Well a lot of the stories attributed to me are only half true, I never faced a single enemy down alone, there was always someone else by my side in a fight, whether that be aiding me through a commlink, on the field of battle, or just when I needed someone to talk too, whether it’s still around by the time this message is played back I don’t know… we sort of, got into a fight and well… we went our separate ways I suppose. So maybe I do have some wisdom after all, whether they are mando’ade or not, anyone who is willing to stand by you through everything the galaxy throws at you is a true vod, whether they consider themselves mandalorian or not, for me that person was a droid, funny I know, who’d have thought a mandalorian and a droid would make such a good team, the droid in question was called M4-05, heh… We started out hating each other, and I mean hated each other, all we both wanted to do was get off tatooine and go our separate ways then, but things obviously changed, M4 was more than a machine, more so than I think even it realised, it was a friend to so many people, sure it could be a bit cynical at times, M4 stuck around when nobody else did… and I let the voice in my head throw that away, but M4’s tough, built of some of the strongest stuff in the galaxy, always had a plan for everything, it’s got a plan to outlive the end of the universe itself I bet, dunno if it’ll stick with artix or move on to work with someone else, what matters is that it finds a place in the galaxy… where was I? Oh yeah, moral of the story and stuff… a brother is more than your fellow mando’ade or your blood, a brother is someone who believes and doesn’t give up, someone you can be transparent with, someone who sticks by your side just because it’s you. So, to whoever may be seeing this recording, do this mad mando a favour, just one, find M4 if you can, tell it, no, tell my brother I’m sorry, tell him that Robert ‘Anarch’ Artix-Stalos was wrong, that I wish things could’ve turned out better, got a kid on the way and everything as well, coulda used a babysitter every now and again…” The long and drawn out recording finally stops and M4 looks down at the recording, before removing it’s faceplating to look at the projector before picking it up and look at it with it’s two, basic optics before speaking back to the lifeless projector, in a sad and defeated tone “I wish I had a plan for this… I really do, but given your combat success, perhaps the best plan isn’t having one at all… and apology accepted, ‘brother’.” The droid places it’s plates back on before walking off further into the desert, the last remains of it’s first true friend in hand.

Chapter 6: The crater (dun dun duuun!)

M4-07 stood in a desolate, completely black area of Tatooine, amongst what appear to be the charred remains of a sand person camp, the only thing not charred in the area was a single cliff face, with no cracks or rocks to use to climb, only 07, no life, no back-up, yet impossible to ambush… Then at the top of the cliff stood a group of heavily armed republic soldiers as none other than M4-06 jettisoned down to meet 07 in the optics, as it yells in declaration “M4-07, you are found guilty of working as an agent of sith intelligence, surrender now and you will be treated fairly!” 07 just looks at the soldier droid before chuckling “M4-06 and sigma squad then? I don’t know what your game is but I doubt you’ll find your ultimate goal here, allow me to explain the purpose of our creation, we were built to anger the same droid, to lure it out of hiding and destroy it, to our respective factions we are expendable, I am here of my own initiative to prove otherwise, your being here benefits only me, not you and certainly not our target.” 06 stands proudly in defiance “If my purpose is to be expendable in the fight for freedom then so be it!” it’s imperial brethren only shakes it’s head in disapproval “A patriot to the end eh? Well I suppose I can sympathise to a degree, my programming grants me free thought in nearly every aspect, other than attempts to betray my empire.” 06, clearly tired with 07’s ego simply raises it’s rifle to the droid “Enough talk, either you come silently, or in pieces! And once we’re done with you, we’ll deal with 05 too!”

In response 07 raises it’s blaster firing at 06 with no hesitation, 06 responds by firing back, both droids absorbing and ricocheting the shots with their armouring, as the 2 scurry for cover as 06 yells into it’s comms “Commander, your assistance would be appreciated right about now!” 06 actually got a response, but not from the person it was expecting, as a cold, robotic voice speaks through the commlink to 06 “Not so fast, inferior. And don’t think about adjusting your aim, one move towards me and the blood of your organic masters is on your copied hands.” 06 continues to engage 07 as it speaks back through the comms as it briefly looks up to spot a dot of red and black atop the cliff where sigma squad has seemingly disappeared. “So the traitor shows themself, you will surrender yourself to republic custody for trial in front of the galactic senate and leave that of sigma squad alone.” The patriot droid’s demands are met with a sinister and annoyed tone “I don’t know if you’ve ever been programmed to deal with a hostage situation before, so allow me to give you some tips, do not demand the exact opposite of what the hostage-taker wants.” for a second a blaster shot echos from the cliff before a human body is thrown off and hits the ground with an unbearable cracking sound. “For every wrong move you make, is another republic death on your hands, can your limited mind comprehend that?” Atop the cliff M4 turns it’s head to the entire unconscious sigma squad as it waves the commander’s helmet over them and watches the 2 droids below fight each other before speaking into the helmet “Now, my demands are simple, destroy M4-07, then yourself.” As yet more bolts bounce off 06’s armour it simply gives a simple response “No can do, my duty is to serve the republic, not you!” M4 simply sighs back in response, before something atop the cliff goes boom and M4 descends down to the ground, causing the two copies to stop shooting at each and look at it before it simply states “Wrong answer. Now I’m not usually one for teaching those I’m about to kill a lesson, this place ‘the crater’ that’s not it’s real name, that’s just what the only jedi who ever came here called it. The real name of this place is ‘daba'r’ which is mandalorian for ‘The beginning’ and in my case that’s what organics would call, symbolic.” 07 simply points it’s blaster at M4 and begins firing “Enough talking, shut up and die! For the empire!” and in suit 06 yells in response “For the republic!” M4 simply draws it’s blasters and opens fire on the two, bolts ping back and forth as the 3 all try to get a killing shot on each other. The battle raged on into the cold night, the once more cold desert allowing all 3 machines to operate at their respective peaks. With the fight going nowhere, M4 jettisons itself at 06 to no avail as 06 dodges and M4’s stomach crashes into a charred rock before it gets grabbed by 06, which repeatedly strikes the point hit by the rock before turning M4 around to use as a shield against an oncoming 07, piercing M4’s armour with a metal screech painful enough to deafen even the poorest functioning hearing. In this state of immobility 07 begins to strike M4’s face plating repeatedly, the unified wish of the two copies to destroy their original outweighing their dogma against each other. The strikes against M4 so continuous and powerful the metal begins to bind inwards until the sound of shattering glass could be heard, one of it’s primary optics had been broken, unable to even move the two opposites throw the broken droid to the side as they begin punching each other out.

Chapter 7: Can’t beat a classic

The shattered, cracked and flickering optics of M4 fade in and out as the sound of white noise clouds the sound of the copied droids slamming their metal fists into each other, this wasn’t meant to happen, how did this happen? All M4 could do was search it’s memory, what had it miss? Past Nat’s party, past fighting the progenitor, past working for Azutek, killing Stalos, killing Grillrilot, further than even the first time on Tatooine… Soon M4 only reached nothing but darkness, except for one sentence, repeating over and over, in a voice even M4 didn’t recognize “Just because you can’t see doesn’t mean he’s not smiling, so you can keep your fake friends because I’ve got a better one!” ...how old was this memory that not even M4 could remember it? But it didn’t matter, the voice brought the old droid a feeling of warmness, not like the kind of heat on tatooine, a feeling of pride, even now M4 felt no fear, but it wasn’t a feeling of malice, something much better than that, something that caused the droid to roll over and pick it’s beaten body back up. Seeing this 06 and 07 freeze in place, how was M4 still able to stand on it’s 2 feet with only one primary optic working? To this question, M4 only gave one answer, with a tone of pure determination “I am made of stronger stuff than what’s on the surface.” Only with one response, the 2 droids began to run at M4, both of them trying to dent the other on the way to the stationary droid, 07 being the more agile of the 2 made it first, unprepared for what M4 was planning, using what power the droid had in it’s rockets it performs a roundhouse kick to 07’s face with enough force to tear off it’s face plating, and before the imperial copy could even retaliate M4 dug it’s hand into 07’s exposed face before tearing out the copy’s wiring, letting the now powerless assassin drop to the floor before turning it’s attention to the soldier. 06, having just witnessed the mechanical carnage, didn’t know what to do, it had no protocols to use for this scenario, it knew M4 could be brutal, but not to that extent, it had practically given up as M4 closed in on it picking up one of it’s blasters on the way, as 06 tried to analyse a new strategy it’s legs were shot out from beneath it as M4 grabs it by the neck, before speaking in the tone of anger “You are everything I ran away from, living proof your precious republic will burn in it’s own incompetence, you were never, nor will you ever be my equal or better. So allow me to properly introduce myself: I am M4-05, and I implore your masters to throw their entire army at me, waste the blood of their dogs, let them howl in pain for the sake of someone else’s ego, I will not provoke the republic more than they will provoke me so next time your masters consider trying to kill me, make sure they remember Grillrilot, and remember how he ended up because I am capable of so much worse!” with it’s speech done M4 begins to slam 06 into the same rock it had been thrown into earlier, repeatedly, until the last semblance of functioning tech had faded from it’s enemy, dropping it to the ground. Before leaving M4 places two oddly shaped detonators next to the robo-corpses of it’s copies before walking off just over a mile away, only pressing a button on it’s belt, an explosion large enough to level two buildings goes off in ‘the crater’ creating an actual crater now only muttering something with a joking tone as it limps off back to it’s ship “Programming is overrated anyways.” Epilogue: My turn Stumbling back onto the Tenacity, M4 puts it’s damaged body back on the bridge, pressing a few buttons to try and take-off, to nothing, now fuel or power, M4 chuckles at this “Of course… Things really are full circle… Oh well, at least I have options this time around…” M4 throws it’s head back as it powers down and a red and friend-sized astromech bursts into life as it exits the cargo hold, speaking in the native language of binary. “M4-05 = back to the beginning. M4 = searching contents… Contact = found.” Authors note

This, despite however bad it may be, was a lot of fun to write, sort of revisiting everything I’ve rped with M4. Now it’s no secret of mine that a couple of years ago I wasn’t in a good spot mentally, and since then I’ve got out of that state and been thanking people for listening to my bullshit ever since, and swtor rp has definetly helped me deal with the shit I was dealing with during all that. I’ve been rping on swtor for over a year now and despite all the arguments and drama, I’ve enjoyed myself at the end of the day, it’s been an escape and a way to socialise with new people who aren’t the sods I go to school with, so to the jedi, sith, mercenaries, the pubs, the imps, the overdramatic adults who act more like children than the actual 16-year-old, the mechanics, gamblers, the Mandalorians, criminals but certainly not to the ‘erp exposure’ guy, thank you. Thank you for making this past year so much better than it had any right to be.

#star wars #star wars oc #star wars the old republic #swtor oc #swtor #swtor fanfiction #OC: M4-05 #M4-05 #star wars droids #fanfic #fanfiction #OC: Robert Stalos OC: Murjr the Akk Dog/Akk God

6 notes · View notes

sanpatron · 5 years

Text

An ‘Isola News’ post regarding these events will be made soon. Until then I hope that this is an enjoyable read to anyone who decides to go through the whole damn thing. It’s a bit of a mess but I’m still proud of finally getting this out there. That being said; please welcome one and all to the start of an incredibly long and incredibly exciting tour de force of all manners of criminal activities and gang shit.

With the Purgatory Casino having now opened and other business ventures owned by the Saints doing financially well, the Boss was rather content in the gradual progression of the gang’s influence across the city. It wasn’t anything too spectacular just yet, especially compared to how everything came together back in his universe, but he couldn’t complain. Slowly but surely the Saints will become a dominating force throughout Spirale, and whether people liked it or not they would be here to stay.

Now as he tends to do when there wasn’t much work to take care of, the Boss had decided to take one of his usual strolls throughout the city and see if anything of interest would catch his eye. He had found himself wandering into the Fibonacci Ward, which felt a bit too appropriate given the sort of trouble he’d been causing here over the last few months. Surprisingly enough criminal activities weren’t on the mind as he wandered through the ward’s streets. Instead he began to think about the possibility of opening another store here. It seemed like a good idea as it would give the people here a means to purchase fine clothing without having to travel all the way to the Cotes Ward.

Having this in mind he decides to send a message to his second-in-command, one Roman Torchwick, to let him know of the idea in question. Now Roman wasn’t necessarily directly involved with the matters of GANG☆STAR, but the business was still a means for the Saints to collect more income in order to finance all their various misdeeds. So naturally his input on the idea would be greatly appreciated. If it meant a greater revenue for the gang then surely it was a marvelous idea.

Over the next few minutes the two of them would continue their conversation through text messages. An unfortunate distraction as the Boss would fail to realize, at least until the very last minute, that he had several sets of eyes on him. It was a small group of about seven or so men, all in civilian clothing in order to blend in with the rest of the crowd. They had been watching him for some time now; practically as soon as he first set foot within the ward today. As the group pushed their way through the crowd and came closer and closer upon the man, the Boss finally took notice of them. And with a quick message towards Roman that he was being pursued, he placed his phone back into his pocket and quickly picked up the pace before these bastards could get to him.

Not wanting to lose sight of their target, one of the men in the group begins firing at the Boss. He’s far too focused on the task at hand to care about any poor civilian who might be struck by a bullet. Immediately mass panic begins to set in and people all throughout the streets rush to the safety of any location or barrier they could find before they too are caught up in the crossfire. Using the scattered civilians to his advantage, the Boss lets himself get lost in the crowd before finding himself heading straight into a back alley where he can possibly find himself a brief moment to process what exactly is going on.

‘ Shit. Guess those assholes are with Alfonso’s higher ups. ’ He thinks to himself. There’s no way in hell he’s going to deal with these bastards out in public without some sort of disguise, lest the people of this city discover who he truly is. Thankfully the man had made it a conscious decision to carry the mask he had designed for him by Shiro Iori on his person at all times now. However, he’d need to find a better spot to put it on as he can already hear these assholes yelling out for him. “ Where the fuck did he go?!?! ” “ I think he might’ve ducked this way, I see some blood! ”

It’s that last comment that makes the Boss realize that he had indeed been shot at. Thankfully the wound isn’t anything he hasn’t dealt with before—it had entered and exited the left side of his torso—but he’d have to cover it up soon else he’d wind up bleeding out. And if he’s to take on these motherfuckers personally then the last thing he needs is to spill his own blood in the process.

As he continues to make his way through the various alleys the Boss comes across what looks to be a building up for lease. A perfect place to hopefully buy him some time. Using his monster strength on the door in front of him he begins to rush through the building, climbing up a set of stairs that takes him towards what he assumes to be a former office area. Once he feels as if he’s gotten enough distance from the group following him, he proceeds to quickly check his wound before tying his suit jacket around his body to stop the blood flow. From there he checks the ammunition on the pistol he had begun to carry for situations such as this. “ All loaded up and ready to go. ” he says to himself, placing the mask onto his face as he gets himself into position.

“ This way! I think he went in that building! ” shouts one of the men from outside. “ Oh how fun, the cavalry’s here. ” A downright ironic thing to say as the group of men had in fact called more reinforcements. They really weren’t fucking around this time as the reports they had gotten from the casino massacre months prior and the takeover itself made them incredibly cautious. A dozen or so men stood outside the building while the previous group of seven made their way inside, soon climbing up the stairs into the office area.

The room itself was rather dark as the only source of light coming through was from a set of windows towards where the front of the building would be. Slowly the men made their way through the empty cubicles, peeking over walls and around corners. Keeping themselves quiet as they wanted to get the jump on him. Even their breathing was far more quiet than normal. They could not let him escape. They could not let him continue his actions throughout the city. To them the casino takeover was only a taste of what the man and his crew were capable of doing.

A sense of doubt soon overcame the men as they began to question themselves as to whether or not the Boss was actually still in the building. This was then followed up by two shots, the sounds of which rang out throughout the room, alerting the men to their target’s presence. And before a single one of them could even react towards what had just occurred, they had suddenly realized that their group of seven had now dwindled down to five.

And with that all hell broke loose.

None of the mobsters standing outside of the building had any semblance of an ideas as to what may be going on. Either their comrades had managed to get the upper hand on the Boss or that bastard was slaughtering them all. Gunfire is all they heard for a bit two or so minutes before complete and utter silence. They all stood their momentarily, wondering if any of them should enter the building and see just what the hell happened. Yet before any of them could make a single decision they’re quickly made aware of the fact that one of their own had been tossed out the window, his body landing right before all of them. Poor man looked like a mess—his body riddled with bullets from what looked to be one of the assault rifles they were carrying.

Following this the Boss soon appears, leaping forth from the window and using the man’s body to break his fall. “ Wow, did all of you boys really come out here for little ol’ me? I’m touched! ” he yells out before quickly gunning down a few of these jobbers, soon making his way towards cover. And boy oh boy did they really send out quite the number of people for him. Normally he’d stick around and see just how many he could murder in broad daylight, but with the unfortunate wound he’s been given plus the fact that the cops could arrive at any second he didn’t wish to fuck himself over. After popping off a couple of more rounds the Boss makes a quick beeline over to some more cover before finding the opportunity to really start booking it.

Making his way through one of the many different tunnels connecting the various buildings of Fibonacci, the Boss pushes his way through the numerous crowds of people as his pursuers continue to follow him along. Many attempts are made at knocking him down via shots to his limbs, but fortunately enough these idiots can’t aim for shit. He soon finds himself in another populated area, one with a whole slew of shops, restaurants and other public services. Eyeing the wall to one of the many shops littered about, the Boss makes his way over to it to use as cover and begins to fire away at the chucklefucks still on his ass.

“ YOU BOYS GONNA TELL ME WHO YOU’RE WORKING FOR? I’D LOOOVE TO KNOW WHO DECIDED TO ARRANGE THIS LITTLE GET-TOGETHER. ” He shouts out, voice disguised as so no one could recognize him. From the look of things these idiots have an impressive set of tools at their disposal; pistols, SMG’s, rifles, you name it. Whoever they work for must be the real deal if they’re able to provide their boys with this kind of hardware. As he continues firing away at his enemies the Boss recalls what Alfonso had told him and Roman previously when taking over the casino.

He had alluded to his superiors having eyes and ears everywhere, not to mention that going up against them was to basically ask for a death wish. ‘Criminal Illuminati?’ he wondered to himself. ‘ Hmm. Sounds like it’d be fun. Maybe I could ask Roman to ask Neo if she could do some digging. ’ Immediately his train of thought is derailed once he feels a bullet fly right past his head. Seemed like a good sign to keep moving on. As he continued his trek towards practically anywhere the property damage caused by both him and the other mobsters steadily grew more and more. Windows broken, vehicles damaged, merchandise destroyed. It was an absolutely chaotic nightmare, made more ridiculous by the fact they were all on the higher end floors of Downtown. Oh man were the numbers going to be in the thousands.

Eventually the Boss finds his salvation in the form of elevator, one that should theoretically take him to an area with a shuttle train. If he can get to it fast enough there was a chance he could shake off these assholes and properly take care of his wound. However, during this moment of realization a few of the mobsters happened to catch up to him. Unfortunately there was no clear form of cover he could take so he opts for his tried and true plan B; bum rushing them!

Now the sight of a 6′5″ man rushing towards you as he fires off his assault rifle is quite the terrifying sight. Made more so by the fact that he’s wearing a rather creepy oni mask that looks like it’s just smiling all the damn time. You could only imagine what these poor bastards must be thinking as the Boss rushes towards them, having only heard stories about the kind of damage he caused the last two times at the casino. Immediately the Boss shoves the barrel of his rifle into the chest of one of the men and begins firing away. This idiot is then left to lie on the floor in a pool of his own blood, desperately trying to comprehend what just happened to him as he withers away and dies.

Soon the other three try their hardest to back and make some space between themselves and the Boss. Unfortunately he’s already starting to beat them senseless with the stock of his rifle. And while a few good blows are given back to the man, the Boss is far too efficient and pissed off to let these punks get the best of him. In a fit of rage he pulls out his bowie knife and begins to continuously stab one of the men in the throat before tossing him aside. Seeing a chance to gather more ammo he takes what’s left from the bodies scattered around him before continuing into the elevator as he hears more men approaching.

The elevator ride is a much appreciated moment of calm, one in which he could use to contact Roman and inform him that he’s doing alright. However, it doesn’t take long before the elevator reaches its destination and he can a shuttle platform straight ahead. As he makes his way over he pays no attention to the number of civilians staring at the sight of this large man with an oni mask and blood stained clothes carrying around a rifle. Some begin to question calling the authorities while others try their hardest to pay no mind. This is all soon interrupted by the arrival of those relentless dipshits; one of them yelling out “ YO, ASSHOLE! STAY WHERE YOU ARE! ” before they all begin to rush towards him.

‘ For fucks sake, I don’t have time for you guys. ’ the Boss thinks to himself. At this point he can’t let stick around for much longer. Deciding to outright ignore the men after him, he makes a mad dash towards the shuttle’s platform. Closer and closer he makes his over till he sadly realizes that train is about to depart. So with no other options and a strong idea to get the fuck outta here, he decides to jump on to the train itself and hold on for dear life.

“ SHIT! HE’S GETTING AWAY! ” screams another of the mobsters as they all soon take turns firing at the Boss who in turn flips all of them off. This joy is however short-lived as he remembers that this shuttle was probably going to wind up at another part of the ward. He suspects that no matter where he goes right now he’s bound to run into more of these assholes. Seemed like another stupid idea was in order. Thankfully the sight of one of the many highways that connected Fibonacci to the rest of the city gave him a pretty good one. He was more than positive that what he was about to do would wind up causing him some serious injury, or at the very least leave him quite sore for a few good days. So with really no other options he decides to jump off the shuttle and try to, hopefully, land on a car to break his fall—all to the shock of the many passengers aboard the train of course.

And predictably he winds up slamming down on some poor schmuck’s car. However, the impact winds up tossing him onto another vehicle, which is really all-too familiar of the many instances of Insurance Fraud he’s committed. Thankfully it’s the bed of a truck and from what he can tell the driver is heading right into the Archimedes Ward. The driver, having noticed the Boss land in his vehicle, makes an attempt to pull over to get him out. Though a quick brandishing of his pistol and a surprisingly nonchalant threat makes the man reconsider.

Eventually the two arrive in the ward and the Boss quickly hops out. Despite how downright sore he’s feeling, not to mention the still active bullet wound, he begins to rush deep inside the ward to gain more ground between him and any potential threat that may come his way. He hopes they have no one looking for him right now, or at the very least that they gave up on their search. Faster and faster he keeps on running, ignoring his exhaustion plus any and all pain that seems to violently surge throughout his body. None of that matters right now. Needs to focus on surviving. Needs to focus on making it out alive. Before you know it he finds himself off in some corner of the ward with seemingly no one around.

Maybe it’d be wise to take a breather. Just a few minutes. Nothing more and nothing less. He slowly trudges his way towards a wall before finally slumping down and letting himself catch his breath. Something about how he currently feels doesn’t sit right with him. Was he still tired from that fantasy war that was days prior? Perhaps. Would have to train his body more. Can’t let himself get this tired so easily. But this will be something to think about later. Right now all he wishes to do is rest.

Looks like things were about to start picking up around Spirale. About damn time the show finally started.

#Isola Drabble ⚜#Straight up was gonna post this on like Tuesday or Wednesday but I figured naaahhh I'll just get it out of the way.#It's a mess but hey I hope it gets the point across. Like I said at the beginning tho I'll write an Isola News thing soon cause I am bushed.

2 notes · View notes

madamslayyy · 6 years

Text

Imprint (Erik Killmonger x Reader NSFW)

Pairing: Erik Killmonger x Reader

Words: 3.5K

A/N: Sorry it took so long to put this out but just know i threw everything except the kitchen sink into this fic! This is an Erik Killmonger Imprint AU. If any of you have seen the Twilight Saga movies, there’s this ability that the wolfs have to know their soulmate just by making eye contact with them. I usually do not like Soulmate AUs (like I don’t like that whole name on the wrist or glowing heart shit) but I actually am a fan of this because I like the devotion and carnal aspect of it. Anyway I hope you like it, I worked super hard on it.

Warnings: NSFW (+18)

You were running late for work yet again. This was the third time this month and you doubted that your boss’s leniency would extend as far as a third infraction. You couldn’t help it however. You were still completely overwhelmed by your urgent move to a completely alien environment.

You had grown up in the city of Luxor your entire life and happily so. You were content until you lost your steady job at the Luxor City Museum. You spent the better part of three weeks filling out applications and submitting your resume to every industry you could think of that would value a degree in History and Architecture before getting a call from the Tanzania Humanitarian Museum saying they’d reviewed your credentials and were offering you a position as Director of Small Projects. Your position, however, was anything but small as you were charged with overseeing some of the most precious and rare pieces you could have ever imagined.

You arrived to work only to notice that the museum was quiet, unnaturally so. Of course at 6 a.m. it was usually quiet as the doors did not officially open to the public until 10 a.m. but there was at least a small hum of activity from the staff.

You hurried towards the direction of your office only to pause at the sight of broken glass on the floor. This immediately set off a red flag in your mind and just as you turned to make a quick exit, you noticed three figures rushing straight for you. They all wore Tanzanian military uniforms, with heavy firearms strapped across their torsos. You immediately throw your hands up in surrender.

“What business do you have here?!” One barks at you, his assault rifle pointed directly at you. You feel your heart plunge. You’re too frozen to speak. You had never had a weapon of any sort aimed at you before, let alone a gun.

“Answer him!” A different one yells, reaching for his weapon as well.

“I-I’M THE DIRECTOR!” You spurt quickly. The one in the middle, whom you assume is the one in charge, nods in your direction and the other two immediately seize both of your arms dragging you away.

“We’ll take her to M’Baku,” The middle one grinned as they dragged you into the main exhibit entrance. Your heart sank at the sight of how the pieces had been thrown about, broken from their glass cages and tossed without thought or care of their historic value.

“Chief, it looks like one managed to worm her way in, what should we do with her?” A rather large man turned around and trained his eyes on you. He was utterly huge, you could tell even from where you were standing, and you immediately cast your eyes down.

“Where is the Agnew Amulet?” He growled in a voice so deep is seemed to physically bounce of the walls.

“I-It’s s-still in s-storage,” You emitted softly. Another man entered the room, the crunch of glass under his boots announcing his entrance. He was even taller than the first man (M’Baku you assumed was his name) just not as bullish. The man also wore the mask of a ram, intricately carved of variant woods.

“Have any of you laid eyes on the Amulet?” M’Baku asked referring to the militants that brought you to him. They all silently shook their heads no.

“Erik?” He turned to the masked man. The man nodded once.

“Go with her then, to ensure what she presents to us is indeed the amulet. And if she tries anything, kill her.” The man in the mask (Erik?) did not appear to be listening to M’Baku in the slightest however he stalked towards you nonetheless. The men let go of your arms as he approached and you instantly recoiled at his presence. His stature alone was so intimidating.

Realizing he was waiting on you to lead the way, you sprang into action leading him to your office to retrieve your key to the storage room. One you obtained the key you went down two flights of stairs to the basement floor of the building used for storage. The further you two traveled from the others the more vulnerable you started to feel. Of course it was just as dangerous upstairs as it was here, however you were completely at this man’s mercy and here there were no other eyes to witness and judge.

Once finally inside the facility, an enormous ice cold room kept at a firm – 8 degrees to better preserve the artifacts, you led your captor to a small black box, opening it to reveal the amulet but never laying a single finger on it. Erik took off his mask for the first time to better inspect the authenticity of the amulet and what it revealed shook you to your core.

He was strikingly handsome with beautiful smooth skin, full lips, a keen nose and strong brow. You gasped at his appearance, taking his attention away from the amulet for only millisecond but that was all it took. The moment his eyes met yours, it was as if a light switch had been turned on. You felt as if you knew everything about him and you’d never even heard him speak. There wasn’t even a meter between the two of you, yet it felt like you were fields apart. You needed to be close to him, touch him, be as one in body as you felt in soul. The look in his eyes told you he felt the exact same way but was trying to fight it.

You took a step forward and he simultaneously took a step back. He was shocked at his own seemingly involuntary movement and stormed off with the amulet. You remained frozen where you stood.

“C’mon,” He barked over his shoulder once he had put some distance between the two of you. This was the first time you’d heard him speak and it instantly overwhelmed you. His voice was so deep and languid, it felt more like it was being poured into you. You rush to follow him out of the basement area.

Upon making it back to the rest of his party, you could see M’Baku was growing impatient. Erik nodded once to indicate he had the real amulet which unfortunately meant you had outgrown your usefulness.

“You’ve done well, and for that you deserve an honorable departure,” M’Baku said as he drew a machete from his waistband and started towards you. You closed your eyes in pure fear only to open them at the sound of a rushed “Stop!” You, M’Baku, and the three men dressed as army officials all paused to stare at the source of the command, that being Erik.

“We’ve made it through this operation without any casualties, we’re not about to change that.” Erik said as he approached M’Baku.

“She’s seen our faces,” M’Baku growled in his face. Erik stood his ground, looking down at M’Baku with a barely concealed emotion that you couldn’t make out.

“Fine! She’s your responsibility Killmonger. You deal with it,” And with that M’Baku made his exit, his band of faux militants behind him. Once he was sure they’d left the building he turned to you with a look of pure anguish. For some strange reason , you felt it too. Like he was within you, his emotions becoming your own.

“Let’s go, we have a plane to catch,” His deep voice rumbled. His accent was so bizarre. You couldn’t quite place it but you knew for sure it wasn’t Tanzanian or even coastal for that matter. You quietly followed him out of the building, to the back where a motorcycle lay waiting. He picked up his helmet, handing it to you before mounting the machine. You stared at it in amazement for a moment, before sliding it on. You plopped yourself down behind Erik before tentatively wrapping your arms around his waist. The second you made contact it was like a bolt of physical electricity shot throughout your body. You could tell he felt it too as his body tensed at your touch and he ceased to breathe for a moment.

The two of you sat in what felt like frozen time for all of maybe a minute before Erik roared the motorcycle to life, ending the incident. He drove much too fast for you, leaving your vision a dizzy blur. You elected to close your eyes the remainder of the drive which consequently led to you resting your cheek against his back as he steered.

While your eyes were closed, every other sensor in you was in high alert. You were aware of every breath he took, every muscle he flexed. You were subconsciously committing his strong body to memory; the hard, sculped back, steel torso, even the slightest brush against his powerful thighs were driving you nuts. Unbeknownst to you, you’d began nuzzling your face into his back, taking in his heavenly scent.

Suddenly the two of you came to a halt and you opened your eyes. Before you stood a small black jet, sleek and precise. He got off and you followed behind him through the entry way of the plane which was being guarded by two men wearing bulletproof vests with assault rifles in hand. Upon entering the jet, you realized by it’s small, beige interior that there was no way this plane was ever intended to transport M’Baku as well as his henchmen.

“Sit,” Erik said, and you did. He settled himself directly in front of you, eyes watching you with silent intensity. That feeling was beginning to stir inside you once more, that feeling of being drawn to him. It was stronger than ever now that you two were alone and you subconsciously felt your face heat up.

You crossed your legs and Erik instantaneously inhaled sharply. One look into his now predatory eyes let you know that this barely contained magnetism was mutual.

“Let me explain something to you,” Erik said, glancing out the window as the plane took off down the runway.

“I’m from one of the oldest lineages in Wakanda. Believed to be direct descendants from certain distinguish animal species. Some derive from Panthers, my family, however, derived from Jaguars. Being from this lineage has certain advantages, especially in terms of strength and stamina but it comes with certain disadvantages as well.” He watched you carefully to see if you understood where he was leading the conversation but he could see you did not.

“Have you ever heard of Imprinting Miss……?”

“(Y/N), my name’s (Y/N)”

“Miss (Y/N), tell me what you know of Imprinting,” His velvet voice making it hard for you to really recall anything in that moment.

“Isn’t it when newborn ducks become attached to the first maternal figure they perceive?” Erik chuckled and shook his head slightly. You could see the shine of gold in his mouth as his bottom fang grills caught the light.

“No, it’s a little more complicated than that and it has nothing to do with ducks.” He sat up straighter now and you knew whatever he was about to tell you was going to be serious.

“Imprinting for me as well as my people and the other noble families of Wakanda is a means of insured continuation of that lineage. When we imprint on a particular person, it is effectively the person we are deemed to be with for the rest of our lives.” Erik paused but upon seeing your further confusion, he went on “Some believe it is all based upon biology: health, durability, genetics, etc. However others believe it is an act of fate, destiny. That they have found their one true soulmate through the power invested in our old Wakandan Gods. Even though I’m more inclined to believe the latter, I always assumed I was too far removed from my people and our customs to be susceptible for such a phenomenon. I see I was wrong.”

You could do little more than murmur a small “oh,” as you tried taking it all in. Was he saying what you thought he was saying? Was he insinuating that you were supposed to be his mate? Well he really wasn’t describing it as a mate, it sounded more like a breeding machine to produce his babies. The very idea of it didn’t sit well with you.

“It seems I’ve imprinted on you. An act I can not say I regret it.” His intense eyes did not leave you for a moment as he slowly licked his lips, his bottom fangs more visible than ever. That seemed to be the final straw for you as you suddenly stood up, only to be pulled back down by his strong arms wrapping around your waist, guiding you to lap.

His lips crashed into yours, impossibly soft as the hair from his beard tickled your face. Your hands immediately found his shoulders to steady yourself as you felt the muscles tense beneath your fingertips. His lips made their way from your own to your neck as he began ravishing your pulse leaving dark purple bruises in his wake. You could feel him nipping at the tender flesh of your neck with his fangs, making you wet instantly.

You released a high pitch moan as he cupped your breasts through the fabric of your dress. His head shot up, looking at you with a wild expression in his eyes before he ripped the dress straight down the middle, exposing your black bra and panties. You slid the remaining fragments of the dress off your shoulders and quickly unhooked your bra before it suffered from the same fate. Your panties, however, weren’t as lucky. Erik tore the thin fabric clean off your body leaving you utterly exposed before him.

The look in his eyes alone was almost enough to end you right then and there. He looked at you like no man ever had, like you were perfection, something he couldn’t believe had quite literally fell into his lap. You cupped his face in your hands, bringing your foreheads together. You heard him whimper slightly beneath you, as overcome with emotion as you were.

“Take off your vest,” you whispered in his ear. His eyes suddenly shot open, as if your voice broke him from the trance that engulfed you both. He lifted you in his arms as he stood up, laying you down across the row of empty seats before breaking free of his bulletproof vest and shirt. What you saw before you rendered you speechless.

The entirety of his back, arms, and chest were covered in tiny intricate keloidal scars. His eyes narrowed slightly, gauging your reaction carefully.

“They’re beautiful,” you uttered. You could see Erik visibly exhale in relief at your approval. He climbed on top of you, nuzzling your neck once more before making his way to your chest. His tongue enveloped your nipple, bringing you to arch further into him. Your entire body was overly sensitive to Erik’s touch, undoubtedly a side effect of the imprint. However, Erik was relentless in his teasing of you and you decided it was time to play fair.

You brought one leg up between his own, brushing mercilessly against his member. He was impossibly hard and one stroke of your foot against the fabric of his groin sent him reeling. He accidently bit down on your shoulder in the moment, causing you to cry out. He pulled back and began undoing his belt, looking down at you with his eyes glazed over with lust.

He pulled down his pants to reveal his large, pulsating member. It was the most beautiful specimen you’d ever seen. All of a sudden, ensuring the continuation of his lineage didn’t sound like a bad idea after all.

“Ready?” He growled, jerking himself lightly above. He was such an exquisite sight before you that all you could manage was a meager nod of the head. He slowly entered you, with one hand gently rubbing the side of your thigh, encouraging you to take it all. He gave you a few moments to adjust to his size before you began to squirm under him. He took this as a sign to continue and slowly began to pump into you.

His stimulations were incredible however, you had to admit from all the passion displayed earlier, you were ready for him to pick up the pace. You could tell he was afraid that he would hurt you, if not for his strength then for his mere size alone.

You wrapped your arms around his neck and brought him closer, whispering as seductively as you could manage “Get on with it.” He paused momentarily before going full throttle into you. He tightened his grip on your waist, pulling you towards him to meet his strokes. You could feel his length stretching you out he as he slammed against your cervix in an almost animalistic way. You arched into him and began clawing at his back as you felt your orgasm quickly approaching.

Erik was biting his bottom lip, his eyes laser focused when he began rubbing quick rough circles into your clit. You couldn’t contain the loud, involuntary moan you uttered at his new administrations. You knew you were being loud and that the pilots, along with whomever the men were guarding the planes entrance, could probably hear you loud and clear but you couldn’t care less.

You were almost to your breaking point when Erik began pounding into you even faster and more sporadically, growling “Cum for me, gorgeous,” in that ever so deep baritone. This sent you over the edge, as you cried out, beating his chest lightly while your orgasm washed over you. He shot into, filling you completely until his seed began to spill out onto the seat beneath. You felt immobilized, every ounce of your energy gone. Naturally, you had had orgasms in the past but none could even hope to compare to what you had just experienced. It was absolutely earth shattering, you felt as if he was within you, coursing through your veins. You could physically feel him and with him inside of you, it was as if the two of you were one.

He stayed inside you, hovering above with his forehead pressed against your own. Finally the silence was broken by him uttering a raspy, “I’m sorry,”. Still too entranced to speak, you simply raised an eyebrow inquisitively.

“I should have pulled out,” He said stoically as he began removing himself from you, and standing up. You propped yourself up on your elbows, watching him as he zipped up his pants and slipped into his shirt. When he went to grab his bulletproof vest from the floor, he saw the remnants of your dress and the thought that you had nothing to wear now dawned on him.

“Wait here,” He exited down the aisle, only to come back a few minutes later holding a folded light blue uniform. Upon inspection once he handed it to you, you came to the conclusion it was a flight attendants uniform. You began to get dressed quickly, however was stopped by Erik wrapping his arms around you from behind, kissing your neck tenderly. You were dressed only in the skirt and your bra and wanted to finish dressing as soon as possible, the realization that someone else could walk in at any moment finally sinking in.

“Erik please,” You giggled as he continued his assault on your pulse.

“I can’t help it,” He mumbled into your throat as one hand slipped under your bra to massage your nipple. You could feel yourself getting worked up again so you turned to face him only for him to capture your lips in another searing kiss. You’d realized resistance was futile at this point and surrendered to his actions when a blue light pinged above you two.

“It looks like we’ve arrived,” Erik said, looking out the window.

“Arrived where?” You asked taking this opportunity to put on your shirt.

“Home,” Erik beamed, his smile so bright it made you week in the knees.

5K notes · View notes

capepd · 5 years

Text

School Resource Officer Joseph Zalenski Was Published On PoliceOne.com

Officer Joseph Zalenski is a School Resorce Officer (SRO) at Caloosa Elementary. He has become a well respected member of the Cape Coral Police Department’s School Resource Officer Program. Officer Zalenski wrote an article called SRO 101: A guide to your first day in school. This article was published by a very well respected Police News source called PoliceOne.com. Officer Zalenski is a great representation of how the SRO Program can benefit the Officer, Children and Staff at a school.

SRO 101: A guide to your first day in school

You may be greeted by wary looks and gazes of consternation from the students – stick out your hand and introduce yourself

By Officer Joseph Zalenski

Whether you have been “volun-told” or have volunteered to become a school resource officer (SRO), there are several things you should know before your first day at school.

If you haven’t served as an SRO, no matter what classes you’ve attended, no matter your law enforcement or educational background, and no matter how many kids you have at home, this is an experience-based assignment. While you may have kids, you don’t have these kids! And they are as diverse as you can imagine.

Officer Sydney Wilcox and Officer Zalenski pictured on their first day back at school. (Photo/Cape Coral Police Department)

3 steps to SRO success: How to be a good cop in school

How one Calif. SRO is helping kids be safer on social media

Our first line of defense: Training and recruiting school resource officers

Campus Collaborations: How to improve school safety

On your first day, you may be greeted by wary looks and gazes of consternation from the students. Smile and push forward. Your challenge is to make fans out of these folks. Stick out your hand and introduce yourself. To help you on your way, use this CliffsNotes guide to surviving your first semester as an SRO.

BUILD RELATIONSHIPS

In a post-Parkland world, many educators and administrators are pleased to have a law enforcement officer in their schools and the deterrent that offers. However, in some instances, you may encounter pushback. It is in your agency’s best interest to find common ground and sell yourself and the service you bring to the school.

Some principals want a uniformed disciplinarian and general hard-ass cop to prowl the halls ready to pounce on any infraction that may be encountered. Others – particularly elementary and middle school principals – want you to be congenial, visible and accessible to the students and public alike.

Your marked car is the external deterrent to trouble. Your presence and involvement inside the school is what works to keep threats from within occurring. Your goals will include winning the hearts and minds of the student body and making them understand police officers do not have an us vs. them mindset. We aren’t anti-fun; we are pro-safety. The pro-fun part will push you outside your comfort zone.

WIN OVER THE EDUCATORS

Your principal and administrators must be fans of you and your mission. You must work on these relationships daily. You also need to work on your relationships with guidance counselors, behavioral specialists, school psychologists and security specialists. Influencers such as coaches will help find the methods to reach these students and begin a mentoring relationship.

Educators represent the most influential person in a student’s school life and, in many cases, are surrogate parents for kids who may have no real love or guidance at home. You need to win them over. Build connections with with your IT person, your school building supervisor, and maintenance and custodial staff.

Officer Sydney Wilcox and Officer Cortney Hamilton-Reyes during "recess." (Photo/Cape Coral Police Department)

Be ready to fill in gaps and maintain a professional demeanor even when you think what’s being asked is outside of your mission, while never compromising your commitment to the safety and security of the campus, students and staff.

INTERACT FREQUENTLY

Your students need to interact with you on a daily basis. You are the sheepdog. Some will want to be sheepdogs years from now and will remember your positive interactions with them.

You will not spend a great deal of time in your office, if you have one. You will be in trouble spots, congregation areas, morning drop off areas, bus drop off and pick up, administation offices and lunchrooms. You will deal with behavioral issues, assist special education students, talk to your state equivalent of Department of Children and Families, and evaluate students for involuntary mental health commitments. You will meet parents who care for their children less than you do. You will perform threat assessments and secure building checks, pull on doors and check locks, ensure single access points are monitored, make sure cameras are optimized for not only watching the student body but for intruders and threats, and educate students how to stay out of trouble and be safe. You will be present in the lunchroom, recess and PE classes, all while working on the above relationships.

If you are beginning to envision a one-armed juggler with a persistent itch, you are getting the picture. Most SROs I know have keep track of the steps they accumulate daily, with 12,000-16,000 steps considered a normal day.

BE A TEACHER AND A MENTOR

You will be teaching DARE, GATE, or whatever curriculum your agency or school district has agreed upon. Having an instructor background is very helpful. Many students do not have role models for manners or polite interaction, but if you have taught a room full of cops, no crowd will seem daunting.

Officer John DiGiovanni in the classroom. (Photo/Cape Coral Police Department)

Hopefully you have sought this assignment and have prepared not only your warrior tactics and mindset, but also your communication skills. On patrol, you shift gears constantly. As an SRO, you may go from dealing with horrid details of a child’s sexual assault victimization, then into a crowded lunchroom where students want to give you high fives, fist bumps and hugs and won’t understand the distant look on your face. Each student interaction is important.

TAKE SMALL STEPS

Your goals need to be flexible and you need to be institutionally aware. It may take time to get things accomplished. In my case, I saw the need for a piece of equipment – an AR-15 rifle – that would cause some controversy. I did some research, then talked it over with my principal, who talked it over with his people who said they weren’t sure, but I had convinced my principal of the need. I discussed it with my chain of command and they were on board when the school district got on board. I touched upon it a few times during the school year to keep the topic alive. When summer came, my chain of command came to me and asked, “Hey, what about the piece of equipment?” Around the same time, my principal said we had approval. Lesson? You have two monolithic entities to negotiate. Take your time, as the answer “not now” isn’t the same as no.

TREASURE YOUR TIME

The most treasured items I have from more than 20 years in law enforcement are from my days as an SRO. I have notes written in crayon that simply say, “Thank you for protecting us.” I have memories of parental interactions that end with, “I’m so glad you’re here in my child’s school.” And I have pictures in my mind of the special education students who were afraid of my uniform the first day I was in school, but who eventually hugged or high-fived me with a big grin.

About the author

Officer Joseph Zalenski is currently assigned as an SRO in Lee County, Florida. He entered the Philadelphia Police Academy Class 322 in 1997 and joined the Cape Coral Police Department in 2005. He has served in patrol as an FTO, training Unit, bike unit, honor guard and now the SRO unit. Officer Zalenski is passionate about campus safety and is frequently caught in the classroom with “his” kids teaching them or spending time at recess, PE or the cafeteria. He recently attended FASRO 2019 and Active Shooter Instructor level courses.

#ccpd #capecops #schoolresourceofficer

0 notes

rolandfontana · 5 years

Text

Americans and Guns: Are the Politics Changing?

Igor Volsky. Photo by Peter Dohan

Igor Volsky learned to tell the difference between what politicians say and what they do when he was growing up in the former Soviet Union. The lesson came back to him forcefully as a teenager exposed to the debates and controversy about gun control in the U.S.

After the mass shootings in San Bernardino, Ca., (2015) and Orlando, Fl., (2016), annoyed by what he called the “risk-averse” approaches taken by politicians, he decided to form Guns Down America, a nonprofit organization aimed at harnessing the national consensus that more regulation can help reduce gun violence. He turned his policy ideas into a forthcoming book as well: Guns Down: How to Defeat the NRA and Build a Safer Future with Fewer Guns.

In a conversation with The Crime Report’s Julia Pagnamenta, Volsky explains why he thinks the chances for meaningful gun control have improved, why firearms manufacturers are vulnerable to a concerted campaign, and what he thinks the Founding Fathers might have made of the current debates over the Second Amendment.

The Crime Report: How did you get started in gun control and reduction advocacy?

IGOR VOLSKY: My entrance into the gun movement really started with a Tweet storm after the San Bernardino shooting [December 2015]. That came after a deep frustration that we have lawmakers who say the right thing after a shooting, or at the very least express their “thoughts and prayers” after a shooting, but do not actually do anything to reduce gun deaths. And so when I sat down on the computer the day of the San Bernardino shootings, I saw all of the lawmakers who voted against background checks in the aftermath of the [Sandy Hook school shootings in December 2012], now Tweeting their thoughts and prayers as if they cared about actually doing something to reduce gun deaths, that just made me really angry.

Probably because I came from a background where the gaps between what a politician actually said and what a politician actually does is really wide, and I found that to be the case on this issue.

So [gaining a platform] really brought me into the movement in a real way, and when I got to the table I recognized that there were lots of great organizations that were working on this issue, but they had a scope that was relatively narrow. Their scope was what can we get done in this Congress? What is politically possible in this moment? What incremental change can we secure? And I realized from my work on other issues that there existed a space for an organization that talked about long-term goals, that talked about where do we want to be in 10, 15, 20 years? And for me that point was a future with fewer guns and making guns harder to get. I got to that point by looking at all of the research. I looked at countries around the world and there is unanimity on the point of where there are more guns, there are more gun deaths.

The book is really an effort to reset the conversation. After the [February 2018 Parkland school shooting] there is so much new energy in this movement. There are folks who are coming into the issue, and into politics, fresh, and we as a movement need to meet them where they are. The American public is way ahead of politicians on this issue, and I view it as my role as an advocate to help close the gap between the kinds of incremental reform that politicians are still putting forward and where I think most Americans are.

TCR: Is there a large discrepancy between where politicians stand on gun control and what the American public believes?

VOLSKY: Politicians are naturally risk averse. Whether it is guns, or whatever issue, they use talking points, framing, and messaging that is safe. You saw that same dynamic in marriage equality. In 2007, 2008, the country was clearly in a place where the country was ready to move towards marriage equality, and yet you had a bunch of Democrats running for office, or for the presidency in 2008, who would only go as far domestic or civil unions. They were just afraid that a mythical number of voters would drop out. The reason why I think Obama didn’t do it in 2008, didn’t do it in 2009, was because he was risk averse. The established and conventional wisdom was, you can’t go that far, you will alienate voters.

And we saw in 2012 once the president [Obama] embraced marriage equality, or first Joe Biden, nothing happened. Nobody cared because the public was already there. And I think the same thing is true on the gun issue.

‘Frankly, I think the gun movement [is] where we were on marriage equality in 2007 and 2008.’

[California Senator] Kamala Harris just held a town hall where she talked about background checks; where she talked about banning assault weapons. Those are all good things, we support all of those things, but it is time for lawmakers, for candidates, to meet Americans where they are; to go bolder on this issue because we really as a country have evolved on this issue. Frankly, I think the gun movement [is] where we were on marriage equality in 2007 and 2008; where Americans were in a bolder place than politicians. The purpose of the book and the organization [Guns Down America] is to move our conversation towards that bolder place.

TCR: How did your personal background influence your decision to enter gun reduction advocacy work?

VOLSKY: The reason I work in progressive politics at all is because I grew up in the Soviet Union, where you were told every single day that lawmakers were working for you, and they are making things better for you, and you are all equal/ The reality, the reason why we literally had to flee, first to Israel, and then to America was that being Jewish in the Soviet Union at that time—and I suspect is also to some degree true today in Russia—was very difficult. You were locked out of opportunities, you couldn’t go to colleges, you couldn’t get good jobs just because you were Jewish.

From a very early age [I was exposed to] the gap between what lawmakers actually say and what they do in reality. And this issue followed me to America, and so when I sat down on Dec. 2, 2015 [San Bernardino shooting] and saw the hypocrisy of “thoughts and prayers,” I [realized] I had honestly seen it before, and in that moment it really sparked an anger inside of me that I think goes back to those roots.

TCR: You write in the book that the Founding Fathers would have embraced Guns Down’s policies. Can you put this debate into historical perspective?

VOLSKY: The history here is really important. The fact that during the drafting of the Constitution and the drafting of the [Second] Amendment there was no argument about an absolute right to own a firearm, and to the extent that it was discussed, their understanding of what it meant to own a firearm really extended to the militia, not to the individual. And this notion of an individual right to own a firearm, which the Supreme Court would then find many years later in 2008 in the Heller case [District of Columbia v. Heller], that wasn’t something that we birthed in the beginning of our nation.

That is really something that came out following the revolt within the National Rifle Association (NRA) leadership in 1977, and it came out of a multi-million dollar propaganda campaign on behalf of the NRA and the really successful work they were able to do in the legal profession through the states to build and create a new understanding of what the Second Amendment meant.

The argument that I make is that the Founding Fathers would be shocked to learn that the Second Amendment actually extended individual rights to own and have a firearm. That is certainly not the way they talked about it; that’s not the way they wrote about it; that wasn’t the debate at the time. It really evolved into that understanding as a result of a very powerful gun lobby and that of course has created a standstill in our politics and has cost hundreds of thousands of lives.

TCR: You cite research showing that Americans make up five percent of the global population, yet they make-up approximately half of the world’s civilian gun owners. Are these striking figures part of an historical continuum or did a specific event or political era trigger mass gun ownership?

VOLSKY: Americans have long had a place in their culture for guns. This didn’t make it into the final book, but it certainly started as America began to expand West. Guns were used for all kinds of purposes, to clear the land of indigenous people. That was also the case during colonial days when guns were used to enslave people and exert a degree of power. That’s just the history of guns in America. And you certainly move into what was happening during the time of the Martin Luther King assassination [April 1968], and the John F. Kennedy assassination [November 1963], and the rise of urban unrest, and how certain parts of the population responded to that with gun ownership.

What I find more interesting is the change in the National Rifle Association (NRA) that really occurred in the latter end of the 1970s. There was new leadership at the time, and with it came this notion that any kind of gun control violates the Second Amendment. That the right within the Second Amendment is far broader than past NRA leaders, than the Supreme Court, had argued, and that’s really in many ways the starting point of gun fundamentalism that said you cannot regulate my ability to have a gun. That my freedom to have a gun for all intent of purposes is absolute. That’s an idea that the NRA birthed in the late 1970s, and that’s an idea they spent millions of dollars propagating.

So, whereas before Americans had guns, [they] also understood that those guns could be controlled for the interest of public safety. You actually saw that in the Wild West days, where many of those towns actually had very strict gun control. You saw that in the way the NRA publicly thought about guns in the early part of the 1900s; that all changed in the 1970s. So part of the argument I make is that the modern notion from gun enthusiasts that the Second Amendment is absolute, and that their right to own any kind of gun could bear almost no restriction, that’s a pure invention.

The NRA invented that for two reasons: one is to sell memberships, and two is to help the gun industry sell more guns.

TCR: You write that the NRA is powerful not only because it shapes gun policy, but also because it has built a social community and identity.

VOLSKY: The social construct piece, the social identity of the gun owner was probably the most interesting part for me as I began researching and writing the book. It was important for me to understand: why is it that gun owners are so much more likely to call their members of Congress? [Why] are [they] so much more likely to be plugged into the advocacy on their side of the issue? The NRA doesn’t make arguments around facts and figures, they make arguments around what it means for an individual to own a firearm and what kind of individual that is.

In their construct, when you own a gun, you are a great patriot, you are somebody who is living the spirit and the ideals of our Founding Fathers, and the very core of what it means to be an American. That’s how they structure all of their arguments. If you, as a gun owner, are the quintessential American who has all the values for freedom and democracy, then the opposition is the exact opposite of that.

They are building a set of values that goes into social issues. So you are more likely to have certain views on abortion, certain views of LGBTQ rights, certain economic views. It really is an entryway for you to construct an entire worldview that everyone in your community shares. That’s really the power they were able to tap into.

The gun control movement in contrast argues in a very different way. It argues through facts and figures, and through logic. As a result, it doesn’t have the same kind of emotional resonance as the other side.

TCR: You describe how common and routine it has become for schools to engage in active shooter training. How have these shootings transformed education in this country, and the training’s psychological effects on students?

VOLSKY: I am 33. I have never undergone a lock-down drill in school. The first shooting I vividly remember is the Columbine shooting on April 20th, 1999. I was in homeroom, we heard about it, we talked about it. [But] there wasn’t any suggestion that now we are going to change all the policies, that we’re going to do active shooting drills. As I point out in the book, at that point when I was in school, the percentage of public schools that had locked down drills was relatively low. That really changed after the Newtown shooting.

It changed after [Sandy Hook] because we had so many more mass shootings, because the industry had more time to advertise their military style weapons to young people, and they do that deliberately because they want an in into that market. As a result, young people are really on the front lines of our broken gun laws, and the fact is that we, as a country, have made a decision to basically let the gun industry do whatever it wants.

When I went to the March for Our Lives [March 2018] here in D.C., I talked to a lot of students and a lot of teachers about what it meant to be in a lock-down drill. It really fell into two different camps. One camp was that it was a really traumatic experience. It’s really scary, but what’s increasingly been happening—and this is both in the anecdotes I heard, but it’s also chronicled in David and Laura Hogg’s book [#NeverAgain: A New Generation Draws the Line], and also in the movie, The Eighth Grade—is that it’s become so ubiquitous that it is now treated as a joke. This is just another thing. Even in the Parkland shooting, Laura and David Hogg talk about how in the actual shooting, when it was actually happening, a whole bunch of kids thought it was just a joke.

‘We’re more concerned about stuff coming out of guns, rather than making sure guns don’t get into the schools.’

On top of that, you have different companies that are trying to profit from it. Having all sorts of backpacks that are bullet-proof, different vests that are bullet-proof. And so we’re in this place where we are putting our kids in danger, and we’re somehow more concerned about how to protect them from the stuff that is coming out of the guns, rather than making sure that guns don’t get into the schools, and into the movie theaters, and into the malls in the first place.

TCR: What role does American media coverage have in shaping the conversation around gun violence?

VOLSKY: What I think is important to recognize is when I started writing the book in August 2016, the movement itself was different, and the way Americans themselves related to the issue was different. Before Parkland you would walk into rooms with movement leaders, or you would walk into just general conversation, and there was a great divide between the way people would talk about mass shootings and the way people talked about everyday gun violence that plagues a lot of our urban communities. Mass shootings were always seen as a big problem that we have to solve, while everyday gun violence was barely mentioned.

As a result of the Parkland movement, and the very smart way that the leaders of that movement weaved in and connected every day gun violence to mass shootings, I think both the movement and Americans at large see the two as intertwined. As a result, I think the media is really catching up, and in many ways, closing the gap. Certainly more work still needs to be done.

In the book, I discuss to some degree about the great community-based violence intervention programs that are running in cities across the country, like Cease Fire, and Cure Violence, and others that really changed community norms to make sure that people don’t pick up the guns in the first place. And there really is a greater recognition of that both within the general public and our elected leaders. I think we were able to make significant progress on that front.

TCR: What do you think of sociologist Zeynep Tufekci’s warning in a 2012 piece in the Atlantic in which she cautions newspapers and the media against printing “detailed information about the killer and his methods” because it possibly generates a copy-cat effect?

VOLSKY: In all of my work, and certainly in the book, with the exception of the Australian chapter, I don’t talk about the perpetrators. I don’t even frankly know their names because I don’t want to glorify the perpetrators and the killers.

More broadly, there is research, you are citing some of it, into the notion that the perpetrators of mass shootings are not necessarily copying other shooters. Some of them certainly are, and some of them have admitted to it. But the other factor here is that they have a fantasy of being in a shoot-out with police, of attracting the kind of attention that these acts generate, and that’s part of the calculus of committing the crime. I have no interest in feeding into that.

TCR: In certain European countries, such as Great Britain, the vast majority of law enforcement personnel don’t carry guns. Do you think that weaponizing our law enforcement contributes to perpetuating violence in our society?

VOLSKY: Research on this shows we have over 393 million guns in circulation and that in the states with higher rates of gun ownership, the police are three times more likely to die than in states with lower gun ownership. It’s also true the opposite way. You are more likely to die at the hands of police if you live in an area with higher rates of gun ownership. That suggests our rate of gun ownership in the United States puts both us and law enforcement officials at risk. It’s also a fact that law enforcement is not immune from this shoot-first, ask-questions-second culture that the NRA perpetuates. All of these are factors that contribute to the problem.

Can we move to a place where law enforcement officials don’t carry firearms? I’ll just say that in a country with 393 million guns that’s a challenge, a great challenge. I think the policing aspect and police brutality is something that the gun control movement hasn’t really grappled with. But it is something that they are stepping into and recognizing that they are part of the same general problem that we are all trying to solve. I fully recognize that it is incredibly complex, but that our ubiquity of firearms is certainly a contributing factor.

TCR: Please describe Guns Down proposals, such as the New Second Amendment Compact.

VOLSKY: The New Second Amendment Compact is [intended to] balance our unbalanced approach to firearms, and to propose a series of proposals that will help get us to a long-term goal of building a future with fewer guns. It’s basically divided into three different buckets.

The first bucket is cracking down on the gun industry. That’s significant because the industry is highly unregulated, and made a business decision in the late 1980s, early 1990s to make firearms of increased lethality, so we’re in a situation where people are dying from gunshot wounds that they would otherwise be surviving because the industry needs to market a new, more powerful weapon. That’s a huge problem and we really need to regulate the industry in a serious way. I propose in the book that the Consumer Safety Board regulate these firearms. We really have to start with the big fish and that’s the industry.

Bucket two is making it significantly harder to get [guns]. I write in the book about all of the latest science that shows that background checks only work in the context of a larger licensing system where it takes a lot longer between when you want the gun and when you actually get a gun. When the checks you have to go through, and the hoops you have to jump through, are far more extensive, we know that works in reducing gun deaths, both suicide and gun crimes. Both domestically and internationally.

The final bucket is an effort to deal with and reduce deaths in urban environments. That’s really about funding community based programs that we know work in changing behaviors and ensuring that people deal with offenses or fights or disagreements in a way that does not include firearms.

TCR: Let’s go back to your first bucket. In the debate around gun violence reduction and control the focus is on gun owners, but in your view transformation hinges on a top-down approach that holds big industries, such as gun manufacturers, accountable.

VOLSKY: Yeah, the top down approach is incredibly important. Part of the reason why we’re in this cycle is because the industry and the lobbies changed the conversation around the Second Amendment, around guns, and these industries pumped much more powerful weapons into our communities and they have not been held accountable.

So the group I run, Guns Down America, is really focused on weakening the industry. The other reason why going after the industry and the lobby is so important is because a lot of times the solutions we talk about are focused on criminalizing the gun owner. I spend some time in the book talking about whatever our solution is we can’t go down the route of criminalizing the gun owner, which historically has disproportionately impacted communities of color, while at the same time giving the industry and the lobby a pass. We can’t stand for that, we can’t make the same mistakes we’ve made in the past. That’s part of the reason why I’ve been emphasizing the industry over the user end.

See also, National Police Foundation report: “Does a Code of Silence Among Students, Parents Abet School Shootings?”

Julia Pagnamenta is a contributing writer to The Crime Report. Readers’ comments are welcome.

Americans and Guns: Are the Politics Changing? syndicated from https://immigrationattorneyto.wordpress.com/

0 notes

thebuffalohuman-blog · 6 years

Text

Mount Hood: Cultural Sensitivity, The Ancestors & Knowing One’s Place

I recently made several journeys to Mount Hood. I went for two main reasons; the escape the bustling, loud and mundane life of the city and to enter sacred space, to heal and build myself after my trials in the city. I was never disappointed.

My first time, I took the trip via public transportation and because of a schedule misjudgment, it took almost 6 hours. Regardless, I still arrived with plenty of sunshine and time to have wonderful experiences.

On the trip up there, I had an interesting conversation with this man who was a foreman at a steel casting factory and told me all these cool stories about casting metal. It was interesting to me, this man’s passion for his work, even though he lived basically a “worker-bee” type of existence (has a house, kids, one grandkid, makes his life from residual checks from an event that disabled him, though he admits he has full capability to work now...)

To each their own. It’s not my place to judge.

Finally, I take the timberline express up there and I’m impressed by a few things.

1) The houses on the roadside are fucking incredible cabin-like retreats, hidden behind pine and spruce groves and windy dirt roads. Hidden sheds with animal skulls hanging off them. Really fascinating stuff. I hope that I get to own a house someday. With my current student loan situation, it looks as if that may never be a possibility. I guess we can hope, right?

2) The homogeneity of the people riding the bus. Literally everyone is white, has $500+ mountain bikes, wears expensive “mountain bike” clothes with expensive helmets and fancy gear and how many times I could hear them mentioning the hiker who got lost up there the week before. It’s almost as if I were tuned into the local news channel via their voices.

Alright, so I get off the timberline express at the ski lodge and start walking up and down the road, figuring out where I wanted to go. I ended up walking behind the hotel and calling my friend who knows the area. His suggestion didn’t help, but I did discover a hidden little grove of a few spruce and pines with a tiny circle of a plant that resembled the May Apples from back home. (BTW May apples are one of the coolest fucking plants ever. Every single part of the plant is deadly toxic except for the ripened, yellow fruit! The seeds are poisonous as well. Be careful! May apple colonies mostly grow in concentric circles. Every year or two, another layer is added to the outside of the circle. They are also known as American Mandrakes, though they are not botanically related to the famous European Mandrakes of Mythical Magic. It’s honestly too bad they don’t grow in the West. I’m not sure what this plant was.)

So, I find myself a nice fucking stream, way off the path and just camp myself there. I think I sit by that stream for 5 hours, absorbing the moss and the water and the bugs and processing the grief and trauma leftover from my forced relation to Portland and my recent breakup that I hadn’t had time to process.

For those of you who don’t know, in July of 2018, within two week span, I was assaulted in my own home with a baseball bat twice by my mother’s not-quite boyfriend, Gay* (I left the second time after diplomacy didn’t work, the police refused to help me and I didn’t want to get out my rifle), my van’s front wheel fell off while I was driving it, consequentially totaling it, my buddy who had plans to move with me to Portland in less than a month backed out of the trip without any warning, my girlfriend whom I loved very much left me and someone tried to rape me. All of a sudden, I had nothing and my entire life was in shambles. I took what money I had left, bought a ticket to Portland and started over with $700 in my pocket. (In this time, I am very grateful for my brilliant friend, Red who held so much space for me and held me when I felt so lost and alone. Seriously, I don’t know what that traumatic time would have looked like without you and the support of a few other people who kept me going and safe during that time.)

So, after I’m done processing what I can of that, I’m waiting for the Timberline Express down the mountain and the Ranger tells me that it would probably be quicker and easier to hitchhike down the mountain and that riders where often quite willing to give a traveler a lift.

So, I stand out there with my didgeridoo and eventually this older woman pulls over in a beat up old stick-shift Nissan Pickup with a SUPER chill dog in a cage in the back, asks me where I’m going and tells me to throw my stuff in the back. I tell her I’m going to the Sandy Bus stop. She tells me that she can’t bring me that far, but she’ll bring me somewhere it’ll be a better wait. I tell her that I have no idea where I’m going and that it’s all on her where she drops me off.

Okay, so I get in and here’s where things start getting deep. To break the initial silence, I start asking her questions about herself. The dialogue went like this:

Me: What’s your name?

Her: *silence*

Me: I’m James.

----I don’t tell her that I prefer to be called Buffalo. Doesn’t seem right... Obviously her name didn’t matter to her)----

Me: Where are you from?

Her: *in an irritated manner* Oh man! Isn’t that obvious?

Me: *taken aback* You’re right. I thought it was right to ask...

----Obviously she’s Native, given her physical features and the direction from which she came (Government Camp, the Reservation))---

*silence*

Me: Well, how are you doing? Did you have anything cool happen to you today?

Her: *gruffly* Why do you care?

Me: I reckon it’s right to care about people.

*silence*

---We make eye contact. There’s a connection established somewhere, oddly enough.---

Her: No. My day was pretty uneventful.

*silence*

Me: That’s a nice raccoon skin you’ve got there. *points to raccoon skin on dashboard*

Her: Oh, that’s nothing impressive. *turns her head and makes a face like she’s smiling, but hiding it*

Me: I reckon if I ever took a creature’s life, I’d have to use every single part of the animal. I feel like I owe it to Earth Mother not waste and to be grateful for everything.

Her: I guess that’s right. *pauses* People who love the Earth the way she truly wants to be loved are always going to be stepped on, though. If you submit to the way she wants you to be be, you’re always gonna end up taking the brunt of things.

---Now, honestly, I get this on a DEEP level. Sometimes, surrendering to the highest path is a scary thing and you get thrown into situations where you aren’t sure of your abilities to manage, people throw their emotional garbage on you at increasing levels and you’re expected to be able to respond in a way that teaches them compassionately, rather than return the violence. At the same time, I feel like I can’t accept this, because only by learning to be more intelligent in your dealings with people are you often able to both escape the negativity of dealing with less “realized” people AND to bring the kind of understanding and light you want to see in the world. It’s a matter of understanding the threat of uncertainty and embracing it. So, I, a culturally educated but “colorblind” white boy, open my mouth and say...

"It’s all about learning to fight SMARTER. You can’t just lie down and take their bullshit. We all gotta stand up and do our parts to stop this thing!”

---Honestly, I’m glad that she didn’t throw me out of the vehicle right there on the winding mountain highway and drive away with all my stuff. She pulled over quickly after that, told me that this was where she was dropping me off (by a convenience store, a dispensary and a coffee shop). I asked her if the bus came this way, she said it did, wished me well on my journey, let me get my stuff from the back and drove off---

So, after a nice, flirty, but intimate and deep conversation with the guy behind the counter at the dispensary, I roll myself a joint in this wooded area behind the convenience store that looks like someone’s far yard. I see ANOTHER cool ass, moss covered, old shed with an elk skull hanging from the outside and reflect on my journey... communing with this ageless spirit I encountered on the mountain that seems to personify all life on the mountain.

I learned so much from this experience about “knowing one’s place” in the world. We are all human beings and are on this journey of life together and there is NO excuse for racism or boundaries between people. We must all understand ourselves and come together to grow and ascend as a species, otherwise we are doomed... but it is CRITICAL that you understand your place in it all.

I am white. Not once did I ever kill a Native person, force them off their land, destroy their culture or attempt to destroy their spirituality. This does not mean that I get to ignore that my Ancestors had roles in these terrible genocides in history and that I have benefited in some way from this... through schooling or health care or whatever comes with the laws of the country I was “born” in. It is my responsibility to recognize where I am in the world.

I am male. Not once did I ever rape a woman or hit a woman... In fact, I have involved myself in situations where I aided a person in escaping these kind of situations. This does not mean that I get to ignore the fact that I may threaten a woman because I resemble her abuser or trigger her in some way, or that her female ancestors (and mine) have lost their birth names, or been repressed by marriage customs, voting rights, cultures and misogyny.

It is my responsibility to accept everyone where they are and to accept myself where I am and to not try to make the situation any better, just to learn from it and hold everyone in the highest respect and love as possible.

So, that’s Mount Hood. She’s ancient. She knows you and I and is willing to show us what we need to know. I am grateful for the experience.

0 notes

ethelbertpaul444-blog · 6 years

Text

5 People Dead, 2 Injured In ‘Targeted’ Capital Gazette Shooting

* A gunman opened fire in the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis, Maryland. * An official said there were five fatalities and two other people were injured. * A lily-white male in his late 30 s, to be defined by media reports as Jarrod Ramos, has been taken into custody. * The suppose apparently mutilated his fingers to shun determining, but authorities have identified him expending facial acceptance technology. SAUL LOEB via Getty Images Police respond to a shooting at the position building that houses the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis, Maryland, on Thursday. Five parties vanished and two were injured in a “targeted attack” on the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis, Maryland, on Thursday, according to city officials. The suspect has been identified in various media reports as Jarrod Ramos, 38, nearby residents of Laurel, Maryland. Court enters show that Ramos has been charged with five countings of first-degree slaying, and will have a bail hearing Friday morning. The Capital Gazette corroborated on Twitter that Ramos had filed a defamation litigation against the working paper and a critic in 2012. Bill Krampf, deputy chief of the Anne Arundel County Police Department, decreased to figure the suppose during a news briefing on Thursday but said he was a lily-white male in his late 30 s. Krampf said the man consumed a shotgun and “looked for his preys as he stepped through” the newsroom. Authorities linked the main victims as Wendi Winters, Rebecca Smith, Robert Hiaasen, Gerald Fischman and John McNamara , noting that all labor in some capacity for the Capital Gazette. Krampf have also pointed out that the news channel had received social media threats that indicated brutality “as early as today, ” although investigators were still specifying who cast them. “This person was prepared today to come in, this person was prepared to shoot parties, ” Krampf pronounced. “His intent was to cause harm, and as I territory before, the investigate part of this is going to be careful and it’s going to take some time.” He sustained: “The Capital newspaper is our local newspaper. We interact with the Capital newspaper daily. We have friends at the Capital newspaper, “were talking about” these men and women on a daily basis. We’re now. We’re gave. We’re going to come this inquiry right.” This person was prepared today to come in, this person was prepared to shoot beings. His intent was to cause harm. Bill Krampf, deputy chief of the Anne Arundel County Police Department Authorities remarked officers were at the panorama within approximately a minute of receiving 911 calls and that they evacuated 170 parties from the building. They abruptly made the accused into custody, although Anne Arundel County Executive Steve Schuh said the man “has not been very forthcoming” about his rationale, according to The Associated Press. The suspect apparently mutilated his thumbs in some way to avoid being identified, an unnamed law enforcement official told the AP and CBS. Powers afterward told NBC that the believe was identified exploiting facial approval engineering and that a search warrant had been issued for his house. Krampf was unable to confirm those accounts. Krampf noted earlier Thursday that officials had discovered what they “thought may have been an explosive invention that has been taken care of” at the site of the crime. He eventually was indicated that they’d noted a pocket containing inhaled grenades. Lisa Clough, chairman of media ties-in for the University of Maryland Medical Center, confirmed to HuffPost that one patient from the killing was at their facility but had not been able confirm the type of wind or case of individual patients. Power described the injuries as superficial curves , not gunshots, and said they may have been caused by shattered glass in the newsroom. During the shooting, reporters treated developments in the situation as it occurred. “A single shooter fire various parties at my power, some of whom are dead, ” tweeted Phil Davis, a reporter at the paper. “There is nothing more terrifying than examining various people get shot while you’re under your table and then discover the gunman reload.” Davis described the crap-shooter as shooting through the building’s glass door. Photojournalist Joshua McKerrow, who determines himself as working for The Baltimore Sun and Capital Gazette, tweeted photos from the place that testified a ponderous law enforcement existence outside. A Twitter user who links himself as an intern at the Capital Gazette tweeted out a request for help around 2:45 p.m. local time. Baltimore Police participated at the newsroom of The Baltimore Sun — which owns the series of affiliated society newspapers in the Capital Gazette newsroom — as a prudence, but have not reported obtaining anything. The New York City Police Department likewise cast police to major New York media shops, including HuffPost, following the attack. “These deployments are not based on specific threat information, but preferably out of an abundance of carefulnes until we learn more about the suppose and purposes behind the Maryland shooting, ” Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counterterrorism John Miller said in a statement. “It has become a standard practice to shift aids strategically during active shooter or terrorist events.” Google Maps The be built upon Bestgate Road where jurisdictions responded to a shooting Thursday. Jimmy DeButts, community news editor and metro critic for the Capital Gazette, tweeted about the shooting Thursday afternoon, saying he was “numb.” “We deter doing more with less. We find ways to cover high school sports, smashing word, excise hikes, academy budgets& regional recreation, ” he tweeted. “We are there in times of tragedy. We do our best to share the stories of parties, those who become our community better. Please understand, we do all this to serve our community.” “We try to expose bribery, ” he continued. “We crusaded to get access to public records& bring to light the inner workings of authority despite major overcomes put in our highway. The reporters& writers give their all into finding the truth. That is our goal. Will always be.” Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, responding to word of the hitting on Twitter, said he is “absolutely devastated to learn of this tragedy.” “The Capital Gazette is my hometown article, and I have the greatest respect for the fine correspondents, and all the men and women, who work there, ” Hogan said in a statement. “They help every day to glint light on the world around us so that we might recognize with more clarity and greater understanding.” He prolonged: “There is no lieu in our society for this kind of hatred and violence, and the individual responsible for this grisly misdemeanour must be prosecuted to the fullest degree of the law.” President Donald Trump tweeted he has been briefed on the shooting and his “thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families.” “Thank you to all of the First Responders which is now on the background, ” he tweeted. Maryland has some of the nation’s most stringent shoot regulations. A 2013 rule generally forbids sales of so-called assault weapons like the AR-1 5, the semi-automatic rifle used in countless recent mass shootings. The territory too curbs the sale of rifles or shotguns for customers with a autobiography of mental illness, brutal action, criminal convictions or drug addictions. In April, Hogan banned bump assets and expanded law enforcement’s they are able to expropriate grease-guns from distressed someones with additional measures known as a “red flag” principle. He likewise approved$ 5 million in funding for grease-gun violence prevention programs. See more photos of the incident below TAGEND SAUL LOEB via Getty Images Police respond to a shooting in Annapolis, Maryland, at a house that contains the Capital Gazette newsroom. SAUL LOEB via Getty Images Police respond to a shooting in Annapolis, Maryland, at a building that contains the Capital Gazette newsroom. Reuters Police detectives respond to an active crap-shooter inside a house that houses the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis, Maryland. Reuters Police officers respond to an active shooter inside a build that houses the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis, Maryland. Reuters Journalist E.B Furgurson, right, makes notations with two other beings as police officers answer. Reuters Journalist E.B Furgurson, right, takes mentions with two other people as police officers answer. Reuters Police policemen talk to a serviceman outside the representation. Reuters Police officers talk to a male outside the stage. SAUL LOEB via Getty Images Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan( R) speaks during a press conference. SAUL LOEB via Getty Images Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan( R) words during a news conference. Baltimore Sun via Getty Images Police respond to the situation. Baltimore Sun via Getty Images Police respond to the scene. Joshua Roberts/ Reuters Police gather near the Capital Gazette newspaper agency. Joshua Roberts/ Reuters Police gather near the Capital Gazette newspaper office. Baltimore Sun via Getty Images Baltimore Sun via Getty Images Alex Wroblewski via Getty Images Emergency personnel congregate outside. Alex Wroblewski via Getty Images Emergency personnels assemble outside. Joshua Roberts/ Reuters Joshua Roberts/ Reuters Hayley Miller, Jenna Amatulli, Michelle Lou, Lydia O’Connor, Sara Boboltz and Liza Hearon lent reporting. This is a developing story. Check back for informs. RELATED COVERAGE Capital Gazette Journalist Reports Live During Active Shooting Sean Hannity Blames Maxine Waters For Capital Gazette Shooting These Are The Victims Of The Capital Gazette Shooting Download http://dailybuzznetwork.com/index.php/2018/07/06/5-people-dead-2-injured-in-targeted-capital-gazette-shooting/

0 notes

juvenileevasion · 6 years

Text

Tactical lessons from San Bernardino attack

By Chief Travis Walker Cathedral City (CA) Police Department

Two years ago, on Dec. 2, I was the tactical commander for the San Bernardino Police Department during a terror attack that claimed the lives of 14 people and injured 22 others.

Saturday’s anniversary brought back a lot of memories. I am reminded of the first responders who endured the unimaginable sights, sounds and smells while suppressing personal feelings as they carried out a very unpredictable mission.

Serving as the overall tactical commander responding to this tragedy, I was also reminded of the teamwork, tenacity and courage of law enforcement officers from several agencies that ultimately stopped the two terrorists, whose names won’t be repeated here because they deserve no recognition, no glory, for their cowardly act against the innocent.

Since then, I was fortunate to become the chief of the Cathedral City Police Department in Southern California. It’s been interesting to me how many people have asked what I learned from that horrific event and what changes I brought to the department when I came on board in September 2016.

But it makes sense to me why they do. Few policing leaders have led a tactical operation amid an active terror attack. Sadly though, as we keep experiencing attacks both domestically and internationally, the list of policing leaders with that sort of experience is growing.

My first response is we must make sure our people are preparedm because we don’t get to pick the time nor the place where these tragic events occur. In the past, we focused on training for the last event. But what we are finding is we must train our people for the future.

Although we will never discount the lessons from the past, as we have seen from Columbine to Aurora to Boston to San Bernardino to Orlando to Las Vegas to New York, each attack is different. Each has its own unique characteristics and we must do our best to prepare our personnel to address a variety of potential threats.

All the training in the world won’t prepare you for the specifics of the unknown, but proper training can help your personnel develop the necessary skills to allow them to use processes and systems to work through and mitigate the challenges of each individual situation. This includes ensuring our personnel have a better understanding of critical incident management principals, along with a better understanding of the basic principals of the Incident Command System.

That means we focus on teaching our staff how to be effective leaders in critical incidents, even when they may not be the ranking officer at the time.

The military has a very good way of looking at leadership. They emphasize the concept of training an individual to not only be proficient in their job but also be proficient in the job of the person above and below them.

We need to do the same. We must teach our people how to be more effective leaders, especially during critical incidents because decisions are rapidly having to be made, and often without a supervisor being present with the employee.

That means giving your officers the best training possible with their decision-making, helping them do the basic parts of the job very well so when the big event happens, they can focus on the critical incident.

We saw it on Dec. 2 where officers were able to form multi-agency entry teams and enter the building, the rescue and evacuation of victims, and during the subsequent pursuit and firefight with the suspects. Despite not being from the same agency, the officers’ training allowed them to work well together.

Training has expanded what is typically a traditional response to an event to prepare people to create dynamic squads with specific cross-training to effectively handle assault, support, rescue and force-protection missions.

Another critical lesson from the Dec. 2 attack is it can happen anywhere. In San Bernardino, we had done a lot of training, both as a department and on a regional level that we led. The morning of Dec. 2, I had our SWAT Team, along with some of our newer patrol officers, participating in Active Shooter and Multiple Assault Counter-Terrorism Action Capabilities (MACTAC) training.

The concept of MACTAC provides the means to allow officers to spontaneously and effectively control various threats as quickly as possible by using small unit infantry tactics to immediately apply pressure on assailants vs. waiting and holding a perimeter.

We had just finished a training scenario when we received the call to respond to the Inland Regional Center. Ironically, we had changed our training to cover these topics due to the attacks that occurred in Paris, as well as the shooting attack at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs the weekend before.

Did we prepare thinking we would have a terror attack in our city? Not really, but we thought it could happen somewhere in our region. We thought we would most likely provide a mutual-aid response, but the training allowed for our officers to be ready when it came to our doorstep.

It opened our eyes it could happen anywhere.

When I became deputy chief in Cathedral City, we immediately undertook the assessment of departmental supplies and equipment. Using grant funding, every officer was outfitted with a rifle. We also used grant funding to upgrade body armor by purchasing plate carriers to protect from enhanced weaponry. For our motorcycle officers, we added rifles to their motorcycles to ensure all of our personnel had access to the same standardized equipment for their protection – no matter their assignment.

From my perspective, if we are going to prepare our officers to prevail against the enhanced threats that they are faced with now, we must give them the available tools necessary to win the fight. This is paramount.

We also provided each officer with personal trauma kits that fit in the plate carriers of their concealable body armor.

I highly recommend doing so because a trauma kit is worthless sitting in a cruiser’s trunk or glove box. The kits, which come with a tourniquet, hemostatic gauze, pressure dressing and gloves, are easy to open even if an officer has been wounded in the field. I think back to the 1997 North Hollywood shootout and what a difference that could have made for wounded officers who had been trapped behind parked vehicles and in areas that prevented their immediate rescue.

We also are doing more training on in-the-field medical procedures, such as self-aid during range training, which often can be the difference between living and dying.

This isn’t the forum to discuss tactical changes that we have made to our public venue events, such as festivals, parades and concerts, but I will tell you we have reevaluated our deployment strategies and we have enhanced our capabilities and response to be better prepared and to deter possible attacks.

Since the attacks in Boston, New York and Las Vegas, we must reassess how we view our deployment strategies where we have events that draw large numbers of people within our communities.

It’s often been said we live in a video game era. Throughout our nation’s recent history, attacks have shown suspects desire to exceed the highest death toll. Today, that number is 58 killed and 489 wounded – as in, 547 victims killed and wounded during a single event that occurred with no advanced warning.

Take time to think about what dealing with 60 deceased victims would look like. Or 75. Or … fill in an awful number. How would you and your agency deal with that many victims? Have you discussed and trained with neighboring agencies, along with your Fire and EMS partners, what a unified response would look like? Start having these discussions now so that you are not meeting your counterparts for the first time in a command post at the scene of a critical incident.

As we spend time training our officers to work a critical incident, we must also take time to train and better prepare the organization for the post-incident care that our officers will need. This would include effective peer-counseling programs, support groups and strong mental health support.

As policing leaders, that’s what it has come to. That’s what we need to plan for.

Chief Travis Walker joined the Cathedral City Police Department in September of 2016 as deputy police chief and was promoted to police chief in October of 2017. Prior to joining Cathedral City Police Department, he spent 20 years with the San Bernardino Police Department. Chief Walker has a master’s degree in leadership and disaster preparedness from Grand Canyon University, and possesses a management certificate issued by the California Commission on Peace Officers Standards and Training. He is also a graduate of the Sherman Block Supervisory Leadership Institute.

Chief Walker is a recognized subject matter expert in the areas of active shooter response, critical incident management, gangs, incident command, and narcotics.

from Police Foundation http://ift.tt/2BGcLYN

#Police Foundation

0 notes

unpunny · 7 years

Text

True Story - Bad Joke That Backfired

Well basically, a couple of years ago, i got two tax refunds within a few weeks due to me paying way to much tax at work, and i suddenly ended up with a good £400 in the bank, now i did airsoft at the time, and i thought, ok, i'll treat myself to a new sniper rifle and some tactical camo clothes, but then in my own stupid mind, i thought back to an old joke i made with my father, now this joke in particular was treading a fine line, basically if i went ahead with it, i would either get a good few laughs out of it, or end up getting my head kicked in.

So in my own stupidity, i hopped on the internet, found a world war 2 uniform website, and purchased a Nazi SS Officer uniform, complete with the hat, boots and a swastika armband, now the first website i purchased this uniform from, screwed up my order and i got sent someone else's order, basically this poor guy in france got my SS uniform, while i got a helmet and a camo net.

My stupidity continued when i decided to contact the company i purchased the uniform from to arrange a refund, as well as looking at airsoft rifles, in a public college, and the computers there were monitored by the I.T. staff.

Before i knew it, i was brought up in front of the manager of the college, and was asked every question under the sun, "what are my political beliefs", "do i agree with what the germans did during world war 2" etc etc... Best bit was, it turned out my teacher was irish and grown up during the IRA troubles, and didn't like the fact that i was looking at what appeared to be assault rifles on the internet.

Now i played it off and started acting cocky, saying that i didn't care how the teacher felt, and that he should respect everyone's hobbies and interests, even if their interests piss him off.

Now this pissed off the manager of the college, and before i knew it, two police officers turned up and immediately started grilling me, saying i was breaking this law and i committed a "promoting racial hatred" offense.

Immediately i knew the police were talking out their ass, and that technically freedom of speech was going to cover my stupidity... I weighed it all up and i put my chances at 50 / 50.

I was escorted out the college by the police, and walked me back to my motorbike.

After riding home, i went to my father and explained the situation, and me and him had a good laugh about it, and we both thought nothing more would come of this situation.

Well a couple weeks pass, and i get a knock on my door, its the police officer who escorted me out of the college, she said that i was going to be interviewed under caution for the "promoting racial hatred" offense in a few days, and that i needed to attend the local police station.

So i did what most people did and i got a solicitor on the case, so i at least had my ass covered in that sense.

A few days pass and i go to the police station for the interview and meet with my appointed solicitor.

Before the interview, me and my solicitor had a one on one chat in a closed office to discuss the so called "case" the police were building on me.

Now what the lawyer said the moment he entered the office both made me feel ecstatic and pissed me off at the same time.

The lawyer walks in, sits down in front of me, pulls out some police statements, and basically says, "what the hell are you doing here, you haven't committed any offenses at all.

Now i'm sat there staring at the lawyer with my mouth open basically going "what the fuck, i know i haven't broken the law, now why have the police got such a huge stick up their ass about it"

well we went in for the interview, i answered their questions, and right at the end, my solicitor piped up and said to the officer, "in my opinion, this guy hasn't broken any laws and i will discuss this in detail with you outside"

I leave the interview room and wait in the office for ten minutes, before my solicitor and the police officer turn up, the officer apologizes for wasting my time and that they will not take this issue any further.

After leaving the station i went back home, and then a month later, i went to airsoft completely decked out in my SS uniform.

Now to say i pissed people off was an understatement... several of the regular players were ex military, and one in particular worked as a royal guardsman for the queen... Me cracking shower and gas jokes during the day really didn't help either.

I got a fuck ton of abuse, called a racist bastard and everything else you could think of.

About half way though the day, the fucking airsoft site owner turns up, due to getting multiple complaints about my attire, so he walks up to me, and basically tells me to fuck off and not return.

As i'm leaving the site, i decided to give them one last joke, and i immediately swung round, stuck my arm in the air and yelled sieg heil at the top of my lungs.

In my opinion, best £400 i ever spent.

#joke #jokes #haha #lol #lmao #funny

0 notes