He was only released yesterday. And it’s not like the police are going to make an announcement about it. Which brings about the question, doesn’t anyone at the student paper work the police beat?
Probably nobody in the church knows that it’s happened already, including Carol.
They know they gave Blaine the money to do it and they expect it to happen soon.
But unless Blaine or Ross called them, they don’t know it has happened. I can’t imagine Blaine would have bothered, it’s not like he feels accountable to them or anyone else.
And Ross probably doesn’t even have a cell phone. Blaine has pretty clearly been trying to keep him incommunicado.
We’re discussing Joyce’s parents as “them” but I believe they are very separate entities in this matter. Joyce’s mom was there at the bail-out get-together and Hank was not. I firmly believe Hank is telling Joyce without her mom knowing, which is why he couldn’t call 20 times a day and why he had to walk out casually talking and why, when he was out of earshot, he suddenly and drastically changed the seriousness of the conversation with Sarah
But didn’t Hank promise Becky to help get her set up with her own bank account and stuff? I distinctly remember her mentioning this to, I think, Dina, when she started working at Galasso’s, and that action would imply that she trusts him enough to pick up the phone for him.
Becky only got a stable cell line of her own after the last time she saw Hank, so it’s possible he doesn’t have her number yet. (And if Hank is in the habit of leaving his cell where Carol can access it, it may not be safe to change that fact.)
I don’t think Hank is in the loop at all. Not only does he not know Ross is already out, he only “thinks” the church is working on it. He’s probably just heard some rumors.
Carol certainly knows more – that they’ve raised the money with a kind stranger’s help, but even she may not know he’s already out.
Or what Blaine’s demented ass brought him along to be a part of..I don’t think anyone else but Amber’s ‘Amazigirl’ split personality knows what happened to Mike…Blaine and Ross may be on the run as we speak with Mike’s body…
Pessimism, the mother of pragmatism and black humor. Whenever the voice of pessimism enter your brain, kick it where it hurts more and move on. In the case of clinical depression, visit a doctor.
He was screaming the name during the hunt though. There’s a possibility someone woke up and remembers being awake due to a screaming teen when the police asks for unusual things that night.
And it’ll only take us about a year real time to find out..
I feel like it says something that the police didn’t think it worthwhile to inform Becky and the other victims of his freedom. Either that or the news media to report on one of the rare gun wielding psychopaths in America captured alive out on bail.
I would have expected the former to be a matter of course in a case of attempted murder and murder and kidnapping though not the latter.
Someone tried to explain bail in the USA when they got him out but I still cannot grasp how someone caught in the act for this can get bail.
However, I do know from experience (don’t ask; I ain’t telling) that if you are out on bond/bail, one of the conditions is that you do not commit any additional crimes. If you fail to toe the mark, however, and DO commit additional offenses and are re-apprehended, not only do you get charged for your new offenses, you are also liable to be charged with violating the conditions of your original bond. Which means that you have just forfeited your original bail and, by displaying your willingness/likelihood to re-offend, just made it a whole lot harder to get out on bond again. And if you ARE able to get assigned a bond a second time, it is most likely going to be set so high you’d better learn to like jail food anyway.
How does the “forfeited your original bail” part work when you actually paid 10% of it to the bondsman? I mean, he’s out money and he’s mad at you, but then what?
“So, you actually did take you legally adult daughter by force against her will – that’s kidnapping, after walking around the university grounds while wielding a loaded rifle – which you did fire once – terrifying everyone in the vicinity, then caused an motor vehicle accident by – going off witness statements – hanging out the driver’s side window trying to shoot the vigilante on the roof who was attempting to rescue your daughter FROM YOU?!?! …………… I’m sure we can trust you, just pay $###### and you’re good to go…”
Yep. I believe Willis actually posted a news story in the comments back from when this whole bail storyline started about a guy who shot a school bus driver actually succeeding in posting bail.
In theory, the purpose of bail isn’t to punish or even incapacitate. It’s simply to provide a (literal) guarantee that the accused will show up to trial. An aggressive prosecutor might argue that the accused is a menace if left at large, in which case bail will be denied entirely rather than just set very high. But otherwise, the only purpose for bail is supposed to be ensuring the guy doesn’t flee the jurisdiction. That means weighing primarily the person’s means (which doesn’t happen nearly often enough, IMO) and how much likely sentence is to hurt them, and setting a figure so that skipping out on bail will hurt them more.
Arguably, setting bail higher on the grounds of ongoing risk is a violation of several constitutional rights of the accused, including the presumption of ignorance and the bar on excessive bail.
In other words, “caught in the act” shouldn’t impact where bail is set. That’s a question of establishing guilt, which is something a bail hearing isn’t supposed to consider. The severity of the charge (kidnapping, plus probably some firearms offenses and a few other things) does have an impact on bail, in that one presumes someone’s more likely to flee if the crime carries a heavy sentence and so bail is set higher. But it’s also not a basis for denying bail.
In this case, the DA was clearly not aggressive. At the very least, someone should have contacted Becky. Given his declaration that he was willing to die “for” Becky, a strong case could have been made for denying bail on the grounds that he was a threat, and barring that Ross should have at least gotten an ankle monitor. (Which raises a whole host of economic injustices, but is definitely called for in this case.)
…. or maybe it’s required in Indiana, like Daniel said. Huh.
… okay, a bit more research suggests that armed kidnapping is a level 3 felony (level 1 is the most severe, level 6 the least before it gets downgraded to misdemeanor). Sentence ranges from 3-16 years. Monroe County (where Bloomington is) has guidelines saying bail for a level 3 felony should be placed $500 cash plus $15,000 surety (basically insurance that pays out to the court if you don’t show up). But these are just guidelines and the judge has a lot of discretion.
Getting surety bond usually costs 10% of the bond value, plus a few dozen extra dollars administrative fees, so if the guidelines were followed bail would have cost Ross and his fellow godly Christians somewhere between $2000 and $2100.
What else is a Level 3 felony? Embezzling?
I understand a right for bail for low-level or non-violent crime, but I do not understand how anyone who did premeditated violence can ever get out on bail. In case of caught-in-the-act with several witnesses who are not the arresting officers, the point of the trial is not to determine, if he has done it, but how to legally weight the act.
Showing up with a gun on campus determines premeditation.
“You’ve been accused of a bad crime, so you’re going to jail for a year or so before we even hold a trial.” The system as it is, is already horrific enough, particularly for poor minorities accused of relatively mild but violent crimes.
That said, cash bail is a bad way of handling it. Paying to stay out of jail isn’t exactly a great equalizer. Some states are experimenting with doing away with it entirely, giving judges more discretion to release offenders who aren’t flight risks or likely to reoffend.
There is however an entire entrenched industry of bail bondsmen trying to keep the system in place.
And of course, the mere existence of the bail bondsman system means bail as we commonly think of it doesn’t work. The concept is that you give the court a large sum of money to ensure you show up. Essentially a deposit that you get back if you don’t. But that doesn’t happen – instead you pay the bondsman a fraction of it and they put up the rest and you’re out the part you pay the bondsman no matter what. Now the only penalty if you don’t show is that the bondsman will try to track you down and get the money from you, but that means if you get away, you’re not out anything. Why not just have the state track down people who don’t show and impose more penalties on them? It’s the same thing in practice.
Except the trial is definitely to determine guilt.
They already know the answer in this caswe, sure, but that’s still what a trial is for. It’s a very important step to not be in a police state.
Otherwise, y’know… Well, we already know that CJ is actively trying to murder several people right now, so no need to legally prove it.
Sorry, where do you get that now? As long as several people have seen an easily identifiable person commit an act of violence, what you need to to in trial is to make sure that all the witnesses have not cooperated to frame your likely criminal. Witness statements from several persons who are not the arresting officers should be enough of a likelihood of having the right person, that in cases of obviously planned violence the public has the right to have the person who has been seen and clearly identified as the person to have done the violence (I would suspect that Toedad even never bothered to deny what he did because god given right), the intended victims have the right to be safe.
So there are several points that distinguish my view from a police state:
1) an act of violence was committed and there are several witnesses that can without any doubt identify the perp (this is not very often the case as people who are less crazy than Toedad will try to disguise themselves and not use their own car, therefore making identification difficult)
2) the act of violence was planned and, as it didn’t reach its intended goal, is likely to be repeated
3) the witnesses are not the arresting officers as it’s been proven time and again that some arresting officers will tell tall tales to justify arrest on a whim.
In those kind of cases, bail should be denied by default, though, as not to be a police state, you must see to it that the accused has access to a lawyer and they can try to prove that there is reasonable doubt concerning 1 or 2.
Making sure the victim is not victimized again should be the main aim here.
At the actual trial, the proven guilty can be very fast as there is no reasonable doubt as who did it, though the accused has every right to fünf use the issue, and the really interesting thing is if the jury/judge will find mitigating circumstances (you could argue, that Toedad is not really able to understand what he is doing).
“Innocent until proven guilty” is there to make sure people aren’t framed or just arrested on a whim. Which clearly isn’t the case for Toedad.
It wouldn’t really help in cases of domestic violence as you very seldom have several witnesses.
Except, who gets to decide things like “was there an act of violence” or “are there several witnesses”? Obviously anyone can have an opinion on that, but whose opinion is official?
Answer: A jury’s.
And until a jury is convened to hear and rule on that case, for legal purposes the man is innocent and treated as such. Accused, but not as yet moved from the category of innocent to the category of guilty.
Oh, and you asked earlier what is a level 3 felony? Obviously it’s an arbitrary category defined by people to organize laws. In this case, kidnapping is treated as having several different grades of severity, with armed kidnapping being the second-most severe. For reference, aggravated assault (causing serious injury) is also a level 3 felony. Above that, at level 2 felony, is kidnapping someone for ransom, to serve as a hostage for making demands like the release of prisoners, to serve as a human shield, and so on. This is the second-most severe grade of felony under Indiana law, under only level 1 felonies like aggravated rape (eg, rape with threat of deadly force). There are also some felonies, like murder, that aren’t ranked and don’t fit into the schema.
I find in conversations like this it’s useful to distinguish between statements about what the law is and statements about what the law should be. Everything I’m saying here is about what the law is, not about what it should be.
@Relzik: The current law in most countries lets violent people out on bail and thus allows those violent people to commit more acts of violence.
It is more likely that someone who embezzled a large amount of money is denied bail (because it is likely they will flee) but people who went around severely injuring random people on the street by starting a fight, perps of domestic violence, or in this case, gun-slinging, kidnapping Toedad get bail and an opportunity to do it again.
As the readers, we all know that Toedad did it. The police also knows that Toedad did it, they have several witnesses and Toedad didn’t bother to deny it. There is no reasonable doubt that several acts of violence have happened and that Toedad did most of them. And, as he didn’t reach his aim, letting him out is tantamount to be accessory before the fact to him doing it again. No one can doubt that Blaine is an accessory before the fact by getting him out and promising to help get Becky.
So the law should provide a way to not become an accessory to violence.
There already is a bail hearing – there is a judge presiding, right? -and under the conditions I stated above, it should be legal and actually mandatory to deny bail to avoid the attempted crime being finished.
Having several people who can clearly identify the perpetrator (because they know him) and the perp’s own car and gun used makes it extremely unlikely that someone else committed the crime. It’s not like “oh, we found this random black teenager three streets away and he must have done it”.
As we all learned, in Indiana, it currently isn’t.
My question about the levels was if there are non-violent crimes that are level 3.
@CJ Embezzlement is a Level 5 or 6 depending on the amount embezzled.
I’m not finding a complete list of level 3 felonies online, but all of the ones I am seeing are either violent, employ the threat of violence, or are so harmful that they should probably be treated as violent even if they don’t necessarily involve throwing a punch or waving a gun. (Examples of the last category include elder abuse and human trafficking.)
Any chance that the police didn’t have contact information for Becky? At the time of her kidnapping she was essentially homeless, and I don’t even think she had a phone of her own at the time.
It would still take time… Have to call the campaign office (where many of the staff have quit) , find a person who know her number, etc.)
And there is no guarantee that the officer who’s job it is to inform Becky would be paying attention to what might essentially be a low-level political story.
Given that not only couldn’t he pay it himself (out of whatever savings he had), but the church group wasn’t capable of raising it either without Blaine’s help, it seems that bail was set high enough to keep him in jail under normal circumstances.
The US sent in the military and invaded another country to bring their head of state and his aids up on drug trafficking charges. Bail was set for one of the aids at million dollars or so but initially refused for Noriega, then later in the trial bail was set for him too. Memory suggests it was many millions of dollars of bail. Nobody put the money up, but by gosh, bail was set.
In most jurisdictions, the police don’t do that at all. That’s not their job. It’s an individual’s job to keep up with the case on their own. And if bail was set by a judge, then nobody’s obligated to tell you when they post it.
Now once he’s been convicted of the crime and gone to prison, most DOCs have a victim services division that will keep victims notified — if they ask for it. But you gotta ask for it.
My wife and our children celebrate Winter Solstice on the 21st of December. Father Frost, aka All Father Odin brings the presents.
THEN my parents come over on the 25th with more presents to celebrate Christmas.
And somewhere in there, my wife’s parent comes over to celebrate as well.
So our kids get three “Christmas” like events, no divorce required.
Yep. He can figure out Carol’s up to something, the rest of the church is in on it, and he is decidedly out, and that leaves a relatively narrow number of things that could do it… but he’s out of the loop enough to have missed the unexpected windfall of mob goon, and they’re not gonna tell him that.
It’s possible that Blaine didn’t even tell the church when he was going to successfully post bail. He just found out the amount from them, then came in and took Blaine out.
So as far as Carol and the dunderheads know, the Benevolent One is going to help them spring Ross any day now.
Because of just how it’s placed, Mike’s bit ends with Amber just waking up, them talking just now about him getting out of Jail, when they would know he’d gotten out of jail because he attacked Mike??
Because hopefully Amazi-girl kicked the crap out of them and people physically could have seen Toe-dad and Blane doing this stuff out in the open of a public campus.
It’s not marked off as a flashback by the blue filter. It doesn’t make sense as a flashback, as the party would have gone completely differently, had this scene happened. And there is no reason whatsoever to show this scene if it’s as entirely meaningless as putting it before the party would be.
American laws. Sometimes I see all the corruption here in Mexico, but then I remember the American government hasn’t signed international agreements about human rights, have legal executions, a super prison in Guantanamo where there’s no human rights, the private prisons where prisoners are slaves, trans women are usually send to male prisons where they are usually targets of rape, black people and immigrants are the main arrest target of cops, the supreme court judge is a known sexual predator, evolution has been disputed by law, and rich people get away with bribes.
We also have a corrupt president who appears to think he’s above the law, and the members of his political party in Congress seem to agree with him on that. And one of the candidates running for president of the other major political party in the U.S. is a super-rich asshole just like the president who thinks he can buy his way to the nomination. I’m really hoping the 2020 election doesn’t end up as a race between those two rich, racist, sexist assholes, because if it does we’re probably screwed no matter which one wins.
I think it’s been thoroughly proven he IS above the law. The law applies to exactly two kinds of people, those who are willing to let the law apply to them and those who can be forced to have the law apply to them. Trump is clearly not the first kind, and the Republican-controlled senate refuses to make him the second.
As for Trump v Bloomberg, well… I hear Yellowstone has a supervolcano waiting to happen. Supervolcano 2020.
I mean, for that to happen they would have to team up with a gangster who clearly has his own nefarious agenda and will most likely screw them over. What are the odds for that?
Yeah, the question in the situation, I have problem with it. They all seem to know bail was set. And even non-lawyers, even young college kids can figure out without much thinking that, if someone raises the money, then yes, anybody who has bail set can be released if they, or anybody else pays it. So why look at Sarah. There’s no question on that point. Now if it were a question of can they get a judge to set bail, that would be different, but that would be a weird thing to wonder, plus they should know that bail was set already. So the only real question is, could JOYCE’s church that neither Sarah nor Dorothy know anything about, raise the money. Joyce would be the one most likely to answer that, and if she can’t, neither can the others.
They might not know the bail requirements, lawd etc for their state. That isnt a thing most 18 yr olds are in the know about and they were pretty happy that toedad being caught = justice served. Dont think becky would have pulled the scientist/birds if she thought she’d possibly see him again any time soon outside of a jail.
They seem to more be looking to Sarah for reassurance in regards to the question, rather than an actual answer. More akin to ‘please tell me a church can’t post a horrible man’s bail’ while inside knowing the answer is yes, they can.
I think it’s less ‘they know bail was set’ and more ‘they know bail exists as a concept’ but have been unspokenly assuming that it would not apply in this case. After all, bail is for accused people, and there’s no question to them, factually, that Toedad did exactly the crimes he did.
If Sarah (or Dorothy) went into research mode and called the authorities about Ross’ bail, would she learn the name of Blaine as the one who provided bail and fetched him?
Or is that ‘Information we cannot release’?
And yes, yes they do. Maybe by now the media’s reported he’s out? The story’s still hot enough they’d report him being on bail right? Surely some Fox News network show is praising the heartwarming story of a church community banding together to raise the money to get their loving if short sighted family man out of jail?
Yes, I need to go shower for typing that out, see you in a week.
Maybe if they tie his story together with Robin making Becky her campaign manager, it could draw national attention.
Generally, making bail won’t draw as many eyeballs as coverage of the initial crime did. The local papers might stick it in the “local news” section, or maybe a couple local network affiliates will stick it in their newscasts if it’s a slow news day.
I could definitely see the heartstring-tugging angle from an opinion show, though. Yech.
Just look at what’s become commonplace: lockdown drills, armed security officers, and zero tolerance policies. Sadly, we’ve become jaded to school shootings, and these measures that would have seemed dystopian in the early 90s have become just another day at the office.
I’d argue it was all over after America collectively shrugged after Sandy Hook, where 26 people (20 of them children under seven years old) were murdered by a crazed gunman with a stolen automatic rifle. When we as a whole deem that level of abject horror palatable…
I had a lockdown drill once or twice a year in school and my high school had one security guard but honestly, most of what she did was hang around the cafeteria (because it was in the atrium) and say hi to people and occasionally break up fights. I wonder how much of that is because Canada collectively freaked out after Virginia Tech? I don’t remember any before that.
But really, I’d be surprised if ‘school shooter on bail’ didn’t make at least local news. Or even just a university alert.
I graduated in the mid-2000s, and we had none of that. Columbine was still a recent memory, but all that really came out of that tragedy in my area were “zero tolerance” punishment guidelines. (Those were ineffective at best and counterproductive at worst, but that’s a rant for another day.)
Too young for Duck and Cover, too old for lockdown drills. #justxennialthings?
If the church actually intended to bail him out after he has done violence again, I really hope there is a special hell for them to burn in.
Unfortunately, that idea has more merit to them than to me, and as they are sure they are right, they will not consider it.
Though I like the idea of some random deity providing a hell for people who go out of their way to enable violence.
I don’t think they would have had the time/opportunity to try to post bail again. Amber’s dad had made up the difference the first time. Seeing how much of a tightwad he is, I can’t see him fronting a second round of bail money on Toedad.
No, Sarah, they’re looking at you because you’re older than them and, because a part of them are still children, they’re looking to you for reassurance, a plan and, on a certain level, protection. Not the answer you wanted, I’m sorry about that.
That said, I do wonder if Sarah might actually accept such a burden. It fits in with her self-image a bit.
There are coloring conventions Willis usually uses for flashbacks. They are not present. Mike would have disappeared last night. Someone might notice he wasn’t in class, but the only person positioned to miss him was Walky and Walky spent the night at the party using a pizza box as a pillow.
either we jumped forward and nothing happened after the fight…or Amber split personality is way more split than we thought before, and everyone will find out that Mike´s corpse is somewhere in campus…dark
It has not jumped forward, this is the day after the ‘Mike Fall’. Amber’s DID has been shown before to have reached the point where they are not sharing memories. Anxiety seems to be leaking through though as she is aware something important happened and she should be doing something, but has no idea what because no memory of it.
And Willis explicitly referred to the memories not being shared as a Chekhov’s Gun that was going to get fired eventually over on Twitter when Amber woke up, not remembering things.
He’s doing the Mike thing deliberately (and picked a character who would go unnoticed for a while by most of the main cast, while arranging things where the characters who WOULD notice and care are positioned so they won’t yet – and note that Ethan was tagged at the start of the Evil Daddening in the window but hasn’t been seen since.) This is just the latest in the long-running saga of DAMN YOU, WILLIS,
I’m wondering if it’s possible to call someone (the local jail I guess? Or the court system?) and find out someone’s current bail status, or if that’s not a thing that’s shared, or if it’s more complicated than that, or what.
These last strips left me very confused about Hank’s character and his relationship with Carol. I’m afraid by how this is going that the Browns will not appear again until 2022. My only hope now is Jocelyn decides to tell family stories to Joyce.
That would be totally not-confusing, but it does not seem to be happening. If she is just doing what he tells her to do, why all the phone pantomime? It looks like Hank and Carol have a disagreement about Toedad and what to do about him, and it’s not clear how they are dealing with it.
Carol is a good christian who believes she’s a good human being whereas Hank is a good human being trying to be a good christian but failing because those two things are often in conflict (as he has found with the situation both Becky and her mom found themselves in); plus he has a wife who delusionally believes that being a good christian trumps (Trumps!) being a good human being, despite the cruelty that inflicts.
It’s pretty straightforward, actually. Willis probably has personal experience here, and American Fundangelicals have been making it abundantly clear to the entire world for the past 4+ years. 🙂
Hank looks sad and fearful about Carol. Is he sad about her delusional nature and fearful of the consequences this is having for their marriage? Or is he in fear of Carol herself, of what she can do (e.g. to Joyce) and sad about his powerlessness to confront her (and the church)?
Hank is suffering what Jesus and many of his followers did in the attempts to be a Good Christian conflict with being a “good member of the ruling class of society.”
PS: Am I the only one who thinks that Dorothy is on a sharp learning curve with respect to the real levels of eagerness on the part of the enforcers of the law to protect the innocent?
And now compare his current results with Warren’s, who has much of the same policies (as every ideological compatibility quiz I’ve taken suggests) but is of the female persuasion.
Sexism is definitely a factor but the irony may be that Bernie or Warren isn’t completely dominating the field now because they both are running. If Bernie had endorsed Warren, she’d probably be the nominee.
I’m voting Bernie over her only because he promised to dissolve ICE.
Our state has an offender lookup site, and it looks like Indiana does too. In which case they’re gonna know in about five minutes that the toe is on the street…
…”The Toe is On the Street”… wow, if this were still the ’80s, that would make a great song to play as underscore on an episode of Miami Vice. I’m already hearing a collaboraton between Phil Collins and Glenn Frey.
how long ago in-universe time did the whole kidnapping/shots fired stuff happen? my poor old brain has enough trouble remembering to put on pants let along what happened when.
If only there was a superhero you knew and could talk to!
IIRC, Walky is the only person who knows that Amber doesn’t remember what she does as Amazigirl (aside from Amber herself). I suspect Dorothy is going to talk to Amber about this situation and find out.
By the way, i think it needs to be said that the whole “bail bond” system is biased against poor people. I remember watching a documentary about it somewhere. They made the case that a poor person is unlikely to have any spare money to post bail (or even pay a bail bondsman), with the result of loss of job, vehicle, home, etc. that can cause a spiral into homelessness.
Doing away with the whole “bail” thing is probably best. If you are suspected to be a flight risk (or the state had to do a hell of a lot to grab you in the first place) then they hold you until your trial. If not, then you’re free to go because “innocent until proven guilty.” And if you miss a court appointment, they throw you in jail until trial because you’re a flight risk.
Basically, what i’m saying is that ‘justice’ shouldn’t be a for-profit business.
TECHNICALLY, the bail amount should be adjusted according to the defendant’s means. This isn’t so much a case of “the law is fucked up” as much of “the people in charge of applying the the law aren’t doing it”. Contrast with theeeeeeee… I wanna say 15th? ammendment, where the law is fucked up from the get-go.
Bail exists because of the desire for poor people not to spend their entire pre-trial experiences imprisoned like they were in Victorian Times. It’s also why Bail Bondsmen exist and while the companies have been sensationalized with bounty hunting, they serve a valuable purpose that nonviolent offenders can end up paying a much-much lower fee to the Bail Bondsman.
Remember, Bail is returned to you after you show up for trial.
More that bail exists because of the desire for everyone not to spend their entire pre-trial experiences locked up. Bail Bondsmen exist to profit from the system.
As you say, bail is returned to you after you show up for trial, but the fee you pay the bondsman is not. He puts up the money for the court and he gets it back if you show. Essentially you’re just paying a fee the bondsman to get out of jail until the trial.
Why is any of this necessary? If I have to pay a fee to get out of jail, why not pay it to the court directly? That would be obviously counterproductive, so why not abandon the system entirely?
Essentially, because its a form of blackmail. The idea of bail is that you have the money paid to the court so you don’t run away or not bother to show to court. Going away with bail pretty much would mean that either plenty of people don’t show up to court (and huge numbers don’t even if they get bailed out) or they are in jail.
I’m not certain what another system would look like.
The presumption of innocence actually. The big thing is Ross is guilty as fuck but say, To Kill A Mockingbird, with a random black guy fingered for an assault is another matter entirely.
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And he IS out.
Guess who forgot to tell…
I was wondering if I missed a ‘one week ago’ or something
yeah, for a sec I thought that Ross was already back in jail after the Mike incident.
My thought was that it was before Mike somehow
He was only released yesterday. And it’s not like the police are going to make an announcement about it. Which brings about the question, doesn’t anyone at the student paper work the police beat?
Probably nobody in the church knows that it’s happened already, including Carol.
Maybe that’s Billie? I mean, she was working the Amazigirl angle for a while
Wasn’t the Amazigirl reporter job given to Dorothy a while back?
Surely the church people know and also I don’t see why Carol would mention any of this to Joyce.
Yeah, it’s not like Joyce tried to get Becky away from Toedad, or tried punching him or anything…
Um, OK, I just realized Joyce Mum probably wouldn’t want to tell Joyce, so she doesn’t get in the way/get Becky beyond Toedad’s loving arms…
They know they gave Blaine the money to do it and they expect it to happen soon.
But unless Blaine or Ross called them, they don’t know it has happened. I can’t imagine Blaine would have bothered, it’s not like he feels accountable to them or anyone else.
And Ross probably doesn’t even have a cell phone. Blaine has pretty clearly been trying to keep him incommunicado.
Daniel here. The church group SHOULD know Toedad is out, or at least know the gears are turning that way, since Amber’s sperm donor showed up playing “Knight with Shining dollars”. Mind you, while Joyce’s Mum was there, her Dad most likely wasn’t there… https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-9-comic/03-sometimes-the-sky-was-so-far-away/bond/
They probably should be telling Becky. You know, the person he’s accused (very credibly) of having kidnapped?
… but “should” isn’t the same thing as “will”.
They should tell her but that idea presumes they have her number and/or she would answer a call from them (joyce’s parents that is)
We’re discussing Joyce’s parents as “them” but I believe they are very separate entities in this matter. Joyce’s mom was there at the bail-out get-together and Hank was not. I firmly believe Hank is telling Joyce without her mom knowing, which is why he couldn’t call 20 times a day and why he had to walk out casually talking and why, when he was out of earshot, he suddenly and drastically changed the seriousness of the conversation with Sarah
Still doesn’t mean Becky would answer the phone.
But didn’t Hank promise Becky to help get her set up with her own bank account and stuff? I distinctly remember her mentioning this to, I think, Dina, when she started working at Galasso’s, and that action would imply that she trusts him enough to pick up the phone for him.
Becky only got a stable cell line of her own after the last time she saw Hank, so it’s possible he doesn’t have her number yet. (And if Hank is in the habit of leaving his cell where Carol can access it, it may not be safe to change that fact.)
I’m assuming this is why he didn’t text
Agreed.
By “they” I meant the authorities that released Toedad. I should’ve been clearer.
The sad thing is Carol probably spearheads the bail thing.
I don’t think Hank is in the loop at all. Not only does he not know Ross is already out, he only “thinks” the church is working on it. He’s probably just heard some rumors.
Carol certainly knows more – that they’ve raised the money with a kind stranger’s help, but even she may not know he’s already out.
Or what Blaine’s demented ass brought him along to be a part of..I don’t think anyone else but Amber’s ‘Amazigirl’ split personality knows what happened to Mike…Blaine and Ross may be on the run as we speak with Mike’s body…
Can’t it be both?
It’s a gif that keeps on giffing.
*el dorado both gif*
*El Paso Taco Why not both + celebrations.gif*
let the pessimism flow
Pessimism, the mother of pragmatism and black humor. Whenever the voice of pessimism enter your brain, kick it where it hurts more and move on. In the case of clinical depression, visit a doctor.
Yeah, about that “want” part…
its-more-likely-than-you-think.jpeg
what-part-of-pesimist-did-you-not-understand.not
fight-me.tiff
How the @#$% did png become not?
p and o are right next to each other on a keyboard, as are g and t. Your autocorrect probably takes such things into account.
Well, she can at least warn Becky now. The one downside being that she won’t know that he is already out and has been stalking her.
But Mike will surely tell them, right?
While he may not be dead, Mike may not be in a position physically to say anything at this time. Who knows how fucked up he got from the altercation.
He was screaming the name during the hunt though. There’s a possibility someone woke up and remembers being awake due to a screaming teen when the police asks for unusual things that night.
And it’ll only take us about a year real time to find out..
That would work. But one other person on campus knows as well. She’s just not here right now.
Shame there isn’t a convenient switch attached to Amber/Amazigirl that could be flipped when needed.
Quickly! To the Garbage Roof Signal!
Better call Sal.
…. oh, wait, that doesn’t work anymore.
Mike doesn’t even know who Ross is. Amazi-Girl did, but she isn’t talking. (Neither is Mike, for that matter)
Mike could be badly injured and tied to a chair someplace
Amazi-Girl would be unlikely to have left until Mike was helped…or unless he was already beyond helping.
Carol: “I’m not driving Joyce away from religion quickly enough, what would certainly do it?”
Her thought process on that subject is basically the meme of Principal Skinner asking “am I so out of touch?”
“No, it is the libs who are wrong.”
I hope Joyce lets Becky know this, so she won’t be blindsided by it.
The dad is apparently out of the loop…
Now I’m more curious what happened that night.
Daniel here. It looks like Mum was there, but Dad currently has plausible deniability…
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-9-comic/03-sometimes-the-sky-was-so-far-away/bond/
I feel like it says something that the police didn’t think it worthwhile to inform Becky and the other victims of his freedom. Either that or the news media to report on one of the rare gun wielding psychopaths in America captured alive out on bail.
What victims? Nobody died or even got seriously injured. He’s practically harmless!
(Extremely /s in case that’s not clear.)
Kidnapping and attempted murder have victims unless you’re arguing from the point of Sideshow Bob.
I submit that Sideshow Bob is the victim any time he attempts kidnapping and/or murder.
I would have expected the former to be a matter of course in a case of attempted murder and murder and kidnapping though not the latter.
Someone tried to explain bail in the USA when they got him out but I still cannot grasp how someone caught in the act for this can get bail.
Simply put, it’s Indiana. The constitution of that state mandates bail to be set for any crime that’s not actual murder.
Pretty sure that’s not just unique to Indiana.
However, I do know from experience (don’t ask; I ain’t telling) that if you are out on bond/bail, one of the conditions is that you do not commit any additional crimes. If you fail to toe the mark, however, and DO commit additional offenses and are re-apprehended, not only do you get charged for your new offenses, you are also liable to be charged with violating the conditions of your original bond. Which means that you have just forfeited your original bail and, by displaying your willingness/likelihood to re-offend, just made it a whole lot harder to get out on bond again. And if you ARE able to get assigned a bond a second time, it is most likely going to be set so high you’d better learn to like jail food anyway.
How does the “forfeited your original bail” part work when you actually paid 10% of it to the bondsman? I mean, he’s out money and he’s mad at you, but then what?
You either pay him back or you find you’ve got a civil suit on your hands as well.
Maybe Becky has gotten numerous messages via the DeSanto administration but she never checks her phone for anything but emojiis.
If the message has less than seventeen emojis, Robin didn’t actually write it.
“So, you actually did take you legally adult daughter by force against her will – that’s kidnapping, after walking around the university grounds while wielding a loaded rifle – which you did fire once – terrifying everyone in the vicinity, then caused an motor vehicle accident by – going off witness statements – hanging out the driver’s side window trying to shoot the vigilante on the roof who was attempting to rescue your daughter FROM YOU?!?! …………… I’m sure we can trust you, just pay $###### and you’re good to go…”
Yep. I believe Willis actually posted a news story in the comments back from when this whole bail storyline started about a guy who shot a school bus driver actually succeeding in posting bail.
Doesn’t Indiana require bail to be set for all crimes short of murder? I thought someone talked about that in the comments a while back.
This is what happens when you read the comments from the bottom up.
In theory, the purpose of bail isn’t to punish or even incapacitate. It’s simply to provide a (literal) guarantee that the accused will show up to trial. An aggressive prosecutor might argue that the accused is a menace if left at large, in which case bail will be denied entirely rather than just set very high. But otherwise, the only purpose for bail is supposed to be ensuring the guy doesn’t flee the jurisdiction. That means weighing primarily the person’s means (which doesn’t happen nearly often enough, IMO) and how much likely sentence is to hurt them, and setting a figure so that skipping out on bail will hurt them more.
Arguably, setting bail higher on the grounds of ongoing risk is a violation of several constitutional rights of the accused, including the presumption of ignorance and the bar on excessive bail.
In other words, “caught in the act” shouldn’t impact where bail is set. That’s a question of establishing guilt, which is something a bail hearing isn’t supposed to consider. The severity of the charge (kidnapping, plus probably some firearms offenses and a few other things) does have an impact on bail, in that one presumes someone’s more likely to flee if the crime carries a heavy sentence and so bail is set higher. But it’s also not a basis for denying bail.
In this case, the DA was clearly not aggressive. At the very least, someone should have contacted Becky. Given his declaration that he was willing to die “for” Becky, a strong case could have been made for denying bail on the grounds that he was a threat, and barring that Ross should have at least gotten an ankle monitor. (Which raises a whole host of economic injustices, but is definitely called for in this case.)
…. or maybe it’s required in Indiana, like Daniel said. Huh.
… okay, a bit more research suggests that armed kidnapping is a level 3 felony (level 1 is the most severe, level 6 the least before it gets downgraded to misdemeanor). Sentence ranges from 3-16 years. Monroe County (where Bloomington is) has guidelines saying bail for a level 3 felony should be placed $500 cash plus $15,000 surety (basically insurance that pays out to the court if you don’t show up). But these are just guidelines and the judge has a lot of discretion.
Getting surety bond usually costs 10% of the bond value, plus a few dozen extra dollars administrative fees, so if the guidelines were followed bail would have cost Ross and his fellow godly Christians somewhere between $2000 and $2100.
What else is a Level 3 felony? Embezzling?
I understand a right for bail for low-level or non-violent crime, but I do not understand how anyone who did premeditated violence can ever get out on bail. In case of caught-in-the-act with several witnesses who are not the arresting officers, the point of the trial is not to determine, if he has done it, but how to legally weight the act.
Showing up with a gun on campus determines premeditation.
That’s not how “presumption of innocence” works.
“You’ve been accused of a bad crime, so you’re going to jail for a year or so before we even hold a trial.” The system as it is, is already horrific enough, particularly for poor minorities accused of relatively mild but violent crimes.
That said, cash bail is a bad way of handling it. Paying to stay out of jail isn’t exactly a great equalizer. Some states are experimenting with doing away with it entirely, giving judges more discretion to release offenders who aren’t flight risks or likely to reoffend.
There is however an entire entrenched industry of bail bondsmen trying to keep the system in place.
And of course, the mere existence of the bail bondsman system means bail as we commonly think of it doesn’t work. The concept is that you give the court a large sum of money to ensure you show up. Essentially a deposit that you get back if you don’t. But that doesn’t happen – instead you pay the bondsman a fraction of it and they put up the rest and you’re out the part you pay the bondsman no matter what. Now the only penalty if you don’t show is that the bondsman will try to track you down and get the money from you, but that means if you get away, you’re not out anything. Why not just have the state track down people who don’t show and impose more penalties on them? It’s the same thing in practice.
Except the trial is definitely to determine guilt.
They already know the answer in this caswe, sure, but that’s still what a trial is for. It’s a very important step to not be in a police state.
Otherwise, y’know… Well, we already know that CJ is actively trying to murder several people right now, so no need to legally prove it.
Sorry, where do you get that now? As long as several people have seen an easily identifiable person commit an act of violence, what you need to to in trial is to make sure that all the witnesses have not cooperated to frame your likely criminal. Witness statements from several persons who are not the arresting officers should be enough of a likelihood of having the right person, that in cases of obviously planned violence the public has the right to have the person who has been seen and clearly identified as the person to have done the violence (I would suspect that Toedad even never bothered to deny what he did because god given right), the intended victims have the right to be safe.
So there are several points that distinguish my view from a police state:
1) an act of violence was committed and there are several witnesses that can without any doubt identify the perp (this is not very often the case as people who are less crazy than Toedad will try to disguise themselves and not use their own car, therefore making identification difficult)
2) the act of violence was planned and, as it didn’t reach its intended goal, is likely to be repeated
3) the witnesses are not the arresting officers as it’s been proven time and again that some arresting officers will tell tall tales to justify arrest on a whim.
In those kind of cases, bail should be denied by default, though, as not to be a police state, you must see to it that the accused has access to a lawyer and they can try to prove that there is reasonable doubt concerning 1 or 2.
Making sure the victim is not victimized again should be the main aim here.
At the actual trial, the proven guilty can be very fast as there is no reasonable doubt as who did it, though the accused has every right to fünf use the issue, and the really interesting thing is if the jury/judge will find mitigating circumstances (you could argue, that Toedad is not really able to understand what he is doing).
“Innocent until proven guilty” is there to make sure people aren’t framed or just arrested on a whim. Which clearly isn’t the case for Toedad.
It wouldn’t really help in cases of domestic violence as you very seldom have several witnesses.
Except, who gets to decide things like “was there an act of violence” or “are there several witnesses”? Obviously anyone can have an opinion on that, but whose opinion is official?
Answer: A jury’s.
And until a jury is convened to hear and rule on that case, for legal purposes the man is innocent and treated as such. Accused, but not as yet moved from the category of innocent to the category of guilty.
Oh, and you asked earlier what is a level 3 felony? Obviously it’s an arbitrary category defined by people to organize laws. In this case, kidnapping is treated as having several different grades of severity, with armed kidnapping being the second-most severe. For reference, aggravated assault (causing serious injury) is also a level 3 felony. Above that, at level 2 felony, is kidnapping someone for ransom, to serve as a hostage for making demands like the release of prisoners, to serve as a human shield, and so on. This is the second-most severe grade of felony under Indiana law, under only level 1 felonies like aggravated rape (eg, rape with threat of deadly force). There are also some felonies, like murder, that aren’t ranked and don’t fit into the schema.
I find in conversations like this it’s useful to distinguish between statements about what the law is and statements about what the law should be. Everything I’m saying here is about what the law is, not about what it should be.
@Relzik: The current law in most countries lets violent people out on bail and thus allows those violent people to commit more acts of violence.
It is more likely that someone who embezzled a large amount of money is denied bail (because it is likely they will flee) but people who went around severely injuring random people on the street by starting a fight, perps of domestic violence, or in this case, gun-slinging, kidnapping Toedad get bail and an opportunity to do it again.
As the readers, we all know that Toedad did it. The police also knows that Toedad did it, they have several witnesses and Toedad didn’t bother to deny it. There is no reasonable doubt that several acts of violence have happened and that Toedad did most of them. And, as he didn’t reach his aim, letting him out is tantamount to be accessory before the fact to him doing it again. No one can doubt that Blaine is an accessory before the fact by getting him out and promising to help get Becky.
So the law should provide a way to not become an accessory to violence.
There already is a bail hearing – there is a judge presiding, right? -and under the conditions I stated above, it should be legal and actually mandatory to deny bail to avoid the attempted crime being finished.
Having several people who can clearly identify the perpetrator (because they know him) and the perp’s own car and gun used makes it extremely unlikely that someone else committed the crime. It’s not like “oh, we found this random black teenager three streets away and he must have done it”.
As we all learned, in Indiana, it currently isn’t.
My question about the levels was if there are non-violent crimes that are level 3.
@CJ Embezzlement is a Level 5 or 6 depending on the amount embezzled.
I’m not finding a complete list of level 3 felonies online, but all of the ones I am seeing are either violent, employ the threat of violence, or are so harmful that they should probably be treated as violent even if they don’t necessarily involve throwing a punch or waving a gun. (Examples of the last category include elder abuse and human trafficking.)
Did you mean “presumption of INNOCENCE” up there? When it comes to Toedad, the ignorance is obvious, there’s no need to presume.
… yes, presumption of innocence.
There is also a presumption of ignorance, which is called the right to counsel.
Any chance that the police didn’t have contact information for Becky? At the time of her kidnapping she was essentially homeless, and I don’t even think she had a phone of her own at the time.
She’s made news as Robin’s campaign manager. I think they can figure it out.
Bureaucracy. They looked in their files, found no contact address and shrugged. Procedure’s been followed.
It would still take time… Have to call the campaign office (where many of the staff have quit) , find a person who know her number, etc.)
And there is no guarantee that the officer who’s job it is to inform Becky would be paying attention to what might essentially be a low-level political story.
Given that not only couldn’t he pay it himself (out of whatever savings he had), but the church group wasn’t capable of raising it either without Blaine’s help, it seems that bail was set high enough to keep him in jail under normal circumstances.
The US sent in the military and invaded another country to bring their head of state and his aids up on drug trafficking charges. Bail was set for one of the aids at million dollars or so but initially refused for Noriega, then later in the trial bail was set for him too. Memory suggests it was many millions of dollars of bail. Nobody put the money up, but by gosh, bail was set.
Look up Manuel Noriega.
In most jurisdictions, the police don’t do that at all. That’s not their job. It’s an individual’s job to keep up with the case on their own. And if bail was set by a judge, then nobody’s obligated to tell you when they post it.
Now once he’s been convicted of the crime and gone to prison, most DOCs have a victim services division that will keep victims notified — if they ask for it. But you gotta ask for it.
Oh wow, so Hank doesn’t even know the deed is done.
Yeah, uhh, so, Joyce, on the bright side…. two Christmasses? You know, because your parents are super getting divorced.
I don’t think Joyce will be attending Christmas with Carol anymore.
Another option is to celebrate secular Christmas, or Yule if you want to return to pagan roots.
My wife and our children celebrate Winter Solstice on the 21st of December. Father Frost, aka All Father Odin brings the presents.
THEN my parents come over on the 25th with more presents to celebrate Christmas.
And somewhere in there, my wife’s parent comes over to celebrate as well.
So our kids get three “Christmas” like events, no divorce required.
Doesn’t that mean she will be visited by three spirits?
And those spirits’ names will be rum, tequila, and vodka.
Joyce might choose Daddy’s side, but Mum might try to bribe her back…
…Or kidnap her to protect her spiritual health. It’s not like Toedad did anything really wrong… /s
Yep. He can figure out Carol’s up to something, the rest of the church is in on it, and he is decidedly out, and that leaves a relatively narrow number of things that could do it… but he’s out of the loop enough to have missed the unexpected windfall of mob goon, and they’re not gonna tell him that.
This is gonna suck.
It’s possible that Blaine didn’t even tell the church when he was going to successfully post bail. He just found out the amount from them, then came in and took Blaine out.
So as far as Carol and the dunderheads know, the Benevolent One is going to help them spring Ross any day now.
(I guess this website didn’t like The Rolling Stones just now.)
*plays “Ashokan Farewell” a.k.a. the theme from Ken Burns’ The Civil War on the hacked Muzak*
Guys I am feeling like this might be a flashback
…why?
Because of just how it’s placed, Mike’s bit ends with Amber just waking up, them talking just now about him getting out of Jail, when they would know he’d gotten out of jail because he attacked Mike??
I feel like it is.
How would Mike being attacked tell anyone who has no way of knowing that Mike was attacked, at all, who attacked him?
Because hopefully Amazi-girl kicked the crap out of them and people physically could have seen Toe-dad and Blane doing this stuff out in the open of a public campus.
At night in a deserted area.
We don’t know how it went down (after what we saw), but there’s been no indication anyone knows anything, much less that it’s common knowledge.
I doubt it. Everything’s not a shade of blue here.
This is in no way a flashback.
It’s not marked off as a flashback by the blue filter. It doesn’t make sense as a flashback, as the party would have gone completely differently, had this scene happened. And there is no reason whatsoever to show this scene if it’s as entirely meaningless as putting it before the party would be.
American laws. Sometimes I see all the corruption here in Mexico, but then I remember the American government hasn’t signed international agreements about human rights, have legal executions, a super prison in Guantanamo where there’s no human rights, the private prisons where prisoners are slaves, trans women are usually send to male prisons where they are usually targets of rape, black people and immigrants are the main arrest target of cops, the supreme court judge is a known sexual predator, evolution has been disputed by law, and rich people get away with bribes.
Mexican law enforcement still sucks ass!
I’ll have you know we have the best laws money can buy.
We also have a corrupt president who appears to think he’s above the law, and the members of his political party in Congress seem to agree with him on that. And one of the candidates running for president of the other major political party in the U.S. is a super-rich asshole just like the president who thinks he can buy his way to the nomination. I’m really hoping the 2020 election doesn’t end up as a race between those two rich, racist, sexist assholes, because if it does we’re probably screwed no matter which one wins.
I think it’s been thoroughly proven he IS above the law. The law applies to exactly two kinds of people, those who are willing to let the law apply to them and those who can be forced to have the law apply to them. Trump is clearly not the first kind, and the Republican-controlled senate refuses to make him the second.
As for Trump v Bloomberg, well… I hear Yellowstone has a supervolcano waiting to happen. Supervolcano 2020.
Yes.
You will? Great! The lawyers will send over the papers in the morning.
Isn’t this the moment when Blaine and Ross come crashing in through the window?
A clear case of a literary device we call Rumpitur Machinatione.
(Roughly translated, the machinery is broken.)
I mean, for that to happen they would have to team up with a gangster who clearly has his own nefarious agenda and will most likely screw them over. What are the odds for that?
Utah has banned conversion therapy, amen.
So it’s kind of funny that the church is even more extreme and psychotic now–and I think it was pretty both to begin with.
Yeah, the question in the situation, I have problem with it. They all seem to know bail was set. And even non-lawyers, even young college kids can figure out without much thinking that, if someone raises the money, then yes, anybody who has bail set can be released if they, or anybody else pays it. So why look at Sarah. There’s no question on that point. Now if it were a question of can they get a judge to set bail, that would be different, but that would be a weird thing to wonder, plus they should know that bail was set already. So the only real question is, could JOYCE’s church that neither Sarah nor Dorothy know anything about, raise the money. Joyce would be the one most likely to answer that, and if she can’t, neither can the others.
Joyce has had a lot on her mind lately. It’s also reasonable to think for most people that someone wouldn’t pony up the cash for a lunatic like Ross.
I think they’re asking for odds that a judge will set bail.
They might not know the bail requirements, lawd etc for their state. That isnt a thing most 18 yr olds are in the know about and they were pretty happy that toedad being caught = justice served. Dont think becky would have pulled the scientist/birds if she thought she’d possibly see him again any time soon outside of a jail.
They seem to more be looking to Sarah for reassurance in regards to the question, rather than an actual answer. More akin to ‘please tell me a church can’t post a horrible man’s bail’ while inside knowing the answer is yes, they can.
I think it’s less ‘they know bail was set’ and more ‘they know bail exists as a concept’ but have been unspokenly assuming that it would not apply in this case. After all, bail is for accused people, and there’s no question to them, factually, that Toedad did exactly the crimes he did.
and no, Sarah. They look to you for answer because you are the adult in the room.
I’m sorry, but for them it’s true.
Technically they’re all 18, so they are also adults. But I would assume Sarah might know more about how the laws work since she’s studying law.
Sarah’s a year older, she had the whole “stoner roommate I got sent back home and Raidah resents me” during her freshman year.
If Sarah (or Dorothy) went into research mode and called the authorities about Ross’ bail, would she learn the name of Blaine as the one who provided bail and fetched him?
Or is that ‘Information we cannot release’?
Or more likely, information that the guy answering the phone does not have.
If Blaine paid cash or by cashier’s check, then no. His name probably won’t even appear in connection with the case.
They can confirm that he was bailed out (and when), but that’s about it.
We need both right now, Sarah.
And yes, yes they do. Maybe by now the media’s reported he’s out? The story’s still hot enough they’d report him being on bail right? Surely some Fox News network show is praising the heartwarming story of a church community banding together to raise the money to get their loving if short sighted family man out of jail?
Yes, I need to go shower for typing that out, see you in a week.
Maybe if they tie his story together with Robin making Becky her campaign manager, it could draw national attention.
Generally, making bail won’t draw as many eyeballs as coverage of the initial crime did. The local papers might stick it in the “local news” section, or maybe a couple local network affiliates will stick it in their newscasts if it’s a slow news day.
I could definitely see the heartstring-tugging angle from an opinion show, though. Yech.
Really? “School Shooter makes bail” wouldn’t be a headline in the US? It was only three weeks ago.
I can see one of those ‘tough on crime’ shows being hysterical about it.
Just look at what’s become commonplace: lockdown drills, armed security officers, and zero tolerance policies. Sadly, we’ve become jaded to school shootings, and these measures that would have seemed dystopian in the early 90s have become just another day at the office.
I’d argue it was all over after America collectively shrugged after Sandy Hook, where 26 people (20 of them children under seven years old) were murdered by a crazed gunman with a stolen automatic rifle. When we as a whole deem that level of abject horror palatable…
I had a lockdown drill once or twice a year in school and my high school had one security guard but honestly, most of what she did was hang around the cafeteria (because it was in the atrium) and say hi to people and occasionally break up fights. I wonder how much of that is because Canada collectively freaked out after Virginia Tech? I don’t remember any before that.
But really, I’d be surprised if ‘school shooter on bail’ didn’t make at least local news. Or even just a university alert.
I graduated in the mid-2000s, and we had none of that. Columbine was still a recent memory, but all that really came out of that tragedy in my area were “zero tolerance” punishment guidelines. (Those were ineffective at best and counterproductive at worst, but that’s a rant for another day.)
Too young for Duck and Cover, too old for lockdown drills. #justxennialthings?
Yeah, I think my school only started after Virginia Tech. I can’t remember them before that. I was in 6th or 7th grade my first time.
Guys, scary thought: Could they possibly mean getting him out on bail again?
I really doubt it. Mostly because that would mean that The Toe is back where he belongs, rather than outside.
If the church actually intended to bail him out after he has done violence again, I really hope there is a special hell for them to burn in.
Unfortunately, that idea has more merit to them than to me, and as they are sure they are right, they will not consider it.
Though I like the idea of some random deity providing a hell for people who go out of their way to enable violence.
I don’t think they would have had the time/opportunity to try to post bail again. Amber’s dad had made up the difference the first time. Seeing how much of a tightwad he is, I can’t see him fronting a second round of bail money on Toedad.
That would mean he’s been arrested and the church group rallied in the last 12 hours. I don’t think it’s likely.
Hank probably doesn’t know he’s already out on bail, just suspicious the church group’s trying to make that happen.
Both. Both is good.
No, Sarah, they’re looking at you because you’re older than them and, because a part of them are still children, they’re looking to you for reassurance, a plan and, on a certain level, protection. Not the answer you wanted, I’m sorry about that.
That said, I do wonder if Sarah might actually accept such a burden. It fits in with her self-image a bit.
Sarah has a bat. Lotta things you can do with a bat.
Like hit something?
Yeah, lotta things you can hit with a bat.
I like bats. They’re really useful. And sometimes cute.
I can answer that question. The fact they can’t is sad.
I’m smelling flashback. That’s why nobody’s talking about Mike.
There are coloring conventions Willis usually uses for flashbacks. They are not present. Mike would have disappeared last night. Someone might notice he wasn’t in class, but the only person positioned to miss him was Walky and Walky spent the night at the party using a pizza box as a pillow.
Also, it’s Mike. Would you miss Mike enough to go looking for him?
I would miss Mike, but I get to enjoy his shenanigans without being a target of them.
God dammit
Not the neckless criminal.
either we jumped forward and nothing happened after the fight…or Amber split personality is way more split than we thought before, and everyone will find out that Mike´s corpse is somewhere in campus…dark
It has not jumped forward, this is the day after the ‘Mike Fall’. Amber’s DID has been shown before to have reached the point where they are not sharing memories. Anxiety seems to be leaking through though as she is aware something important happened and she should be doing something, but has no idea what because no memory of it.
And Willis explicitly referred to the memories not being shared as a Chekhov’s Gun that was going to get fired eventually over on Twitter when Amber woke up, not remembering things.
He’s doing the Mike thing deliberately (and picked a character who would go unnoticed for a while by most of the main cast, while arranging things where the characters who WOULD notice and care are positioned so they won’t yet – and note that Ethan was tagged at the start of the Evil Daddening in the window but hasn’t been seen since.) This is just the latest in the long-running saga of DAMN YOU, WILLIS,
how many weeks has it been in this comic again
It is now Monday, October 18th, Current Year. The first strip took place on Sunday, August 29th, Current Year. 7 weeks have passed in total.
all Im gonna say is my life isn’t a 1/10th as eventful as the ones in this fucking comic
I think that we’re in sort of October-November (ish) of the main cast’s Freshman year.
“yes.”
“Well, let’s not find out what happened to him at all. It’s almost certainly fine.”
Of course it is. No “Damn you, Willis”‘s are possible.
I’m wondering if it’s possible to call someone (the local jail I guess? Or the court system?) and find out someone’s current bail status, or if that’s not a thing that’s shared, or if it’s more complicated than that, or what.
These last strips left me very confused about Hank’s character and his relationship with Carol. I’m afraid by how this is going that the Browns will not appear again until 2022. My only hope now is Jocelyn decides to tell family stories to Joyce.
What is confusing about Hank and Carol’s relationship? He is her husband and so as a good Christian woman she honors him and obeys him in all things.
That would be totally not-confusing, but it does not seem to be happening. If she is just doing what he tells her to do, why all the phone pantomime? It looks like Hank and Carol have a disagreement about Toedad and what to do about him, and it’s not clear how they are dealing with it.
Carol is a good christian who believes she’s a good human being whereas Hank is a good human being trying to be a good christian but failing because those two things are often in conflict (as he has found with the situation both Becky and her mom found themselves in); plus he has a wife who delusionally believes that being a good christian trumps (Trumps!) being a good human being, despite the cruelty that inflicts.
It’s pretty straightforward, actually. Willis probably has personal experience here, and American Fundangelicals have been making it abundantly clear to the entire world for the past 4+ years. 🙂
Hank looks sad and fearful about Carol. Is he sad about her delusional nature and fearful of the consequences this is having for their marriage? Or is he in fear of Carol herself, of what she can do (e.g. to Joyce) and sad about his powerlessness to confront her (and the church)?
Hank is suffering what Jesus and many of his followers did in the attempts to be a Good Christian conflict with being a “good member of the ruling class of society.”
Also: DoA Book 10. That Couldn’t Actually Happen, Right?
Church has moved faster than they think.
Oh he doesn’t know he’s out yet?! The tension continues.
PS: Am I the only one who thinks that Dorothy is on a sharp learning curve with respect to the real levels of eagerness on the part of the enforcers of the law to protect the innocent?
No, you are not, and not just on that. Dorothy’s going to have a REAL rude awakening on how the whole system works, including politics.
Not unrealistic for someone her age.
Unfortunately, society.
I want to give you special kudos for “Unfortunately, society.”, which so succintly and effectively conveys my thoughts on a great deal of things.
I mean, I’m still amazed how she can think a woman atheist jewish Democrat is ever going to do well in US politics.
Bernie seems to be doing pretty well despite the bias against him in even the left wing media! (And yes, i know he hasn’t said he’s an atheist; it’s just that i strongly suspect he’s one)
And now compare his current results with Warren’s, who has much of the same policies (as every ideological compatibility quiz I’ve taken suggests) but is of the female persuasion.
Sexism is definitely a factor but the irony may be that Bernie or Warren isn’t completely dominating the field now because they both are running. If Bernie had endorsed Warren, she’d probably be the nominee.
I’m voting Bernie over her only because he promised to dissolve ICE.
She knows the odds, but she wants to try anyway.
Our state has an offender lookup site, and it looks like Indiana does too. In which case they’re gonna know in about five minutes that the toe is on the street…
Unless they update the site once a week.
…”The Toe is On the Street”… wow, if this were still the ’80s, that would make a great song to play as underscore on an episode of Miami Vice. I’m already hearing a collaboraton between Phil Collins and Glenn Frey.
how long ago in-universe time did the whole kidnapping/shots fired stuff happen? my poor old brain has enough trouble remembering to put on pants let along what happened when.
That was September 27th. This is October 19th.
So, just over 3 weeks.
and put on your pants
So say we all.
If only there was a superhero you knew and could talk to!
IIRC, Walky is the only person who knows that Amber doesn’t remember what she does as Amazigirl (aside from Amber herself). I suspect Dorothy is going to talk to Amber about this situation and find out.
By the way, i think it needs to be said that the whole “bail bond” system is biased against poor people. I remember watching a documentary about it somewhere. They made the case that a poor person is unlikely to have any spare money to post bail (or even pay a bail bondsman), with the result of loss of job, vehicle, home, etc. that can cause a spiral into homelessness.
Doing away with the whole “bail” thing is probably best. If you are suspected to be a flight risk (or the state had to do a hell of a lot to grab you in the first place) then they hold you until your trial. If not, then you’re free to go because “innocent until proven guilty.” And if you miss a court appointment, they throw you in jail until trial because you’re a flight risk.
Basically, what i’m saying is that ‘justice’ shouldn’t be a for-profit business.
TECHNICALLY, the bail amount should be adjusted according to the defendant’s means. This isn’t so much a case of “the law is fucked up” as much of “the people in charge of applying the the law aren’t doing it”. Contrast with theeeeeeee… I wanna say 15th? ammendment, where the law is fucked up from the get-go.
Bail exists because of the desire for poor people not to spend their entire pre-trial experiences imprisoned like they were in Victorian Times. It’s also why Bail Bondsmen exist and while the companies have been sensationalized with bounty hunting, they serve a valuable purpose that nonviolent offenders can end up paying a much-much lower fee to the Bail Bondsman.
Remember, Bail is returned to you after you show up for trial.
More that bail exists because of the desire for everyone not to spend their entire pre-trial experiences locked up. Bail Bondsmen exist to profit from the system.
As you say, bail is returned to you after you show up for trial, but the fee you pay the bondsman is not. He puts up the money for the court and he gets it back if you show. Essentially you’re just paying a fee the bondsman to get out of jail until the trial.
Why is any of this necessary? If I have to pay a fee to get out of jail, why not pay it to the court directly? That would be obviously counterproductive, so why not abandon the system entirely?
Essentially, because its a form of blackmail. The idea of bail is that you have the money paid to the court so you don’t run away or not bother to show to court. Going away with bail pretty much would mean that either plenty of people don’t show up to court (and huge numbers don’t even if they get bailed out) or they are in jail.
I’m not certain what another system would look like.
I can’t really believe that you would even be able to get bail when you commit that kind of crime…
According to commenters who have the misfortune of living in the US, Indiana allows bail for anything short of actual, successful murder.
As an aside, I never understood why there’s a smaller penalty for “attempted X” than for “X” – it’s like we’re giving awards for being incompetent.
It’s so that there remains an incentive not to try again.
The presumption of innocence actually. The big thing is Ross is guilty as fuck but say, To Kill A Mockingbird, with a random black guy fingered for an assault is another matter entirely.