By CARL STROCK I have been attending the Schenectady jail guards civil trial in Albany, and I must say the picture that emerges of the jail under the administration of former Sheriff Bill Barnes and his undersheriff (now sheriff) Harry Buffardi is a gripping one. It's one you could scarcely believe if you weren't in the courtroom yourself to hear the testimony of employees and former employees regarding the trouble that occurred seven years ago when some inmates were allegedly beaten by guards and a federal investigation ensued. It's a picture not just of vindictive guards brutally whomping on cuffed and shackled prisoners, curled naked on an elevator floor, but of a whole jailguard culture, led by the sheriff and undersheriff themselves, solidifying in defense of those guards. Indeed of those guards having been set loose in the first place by the sheriff and the undersheriff, in order to teach some mutinous prisoners a lesson, or to show them who's boss, which Barnes has acknowledged to me in conversation any number of times, even though he continues to deny there was any excessive violence. And it's a picture of a few more-or-less conscientious guards, upset by the beatings, agreeing to cooperate with federal investigators, or at least not lie to them, and there upon being harassed and threatened by their coworkers with the apparent acquiescence if not downright encouragement of Barnes and Buffardi. Testifying at the trial, for example, was Chris O'Connor, a member of the team that dragged the previously mutinous prisoners from one part of the jail, down elevators, through a basement corridor and up other elevators to the punitive older part of the jail. He acknowledged hitting one recalcitrant inmate with his forearm but said his comrades punched and kicked them viciously in full view of Sheriff Barnes, Major Bob Elwell and a union representative. He testified that the team was briefed in advance by Buffardi, who told them, regarding dealing with the inmates, "More or less, whatever happens, happens. If they fall, they fall." Later, when the investigation loomed, he claimed Barnes told him, "As long as everybody sticks together, nobody's got anything to worry about." When the investigation started, however, O'Connor was the first to cooperate, in return for which he was given immunity from prosecution. The result? He was all of a sudden "on the burn," in jail-guard parlance, meaning his coworkers set out to get him. They would "step on" his radio communications - breaking in so he couldn't call for help in an emergency. They posted signs and posters depicting him as a rat, which was a common tactic against all those who cooperated in the investigation. They ostracized him. Also testifying was Stanley Marchinkowski, a member of the sheriff's road patrol at that time. He didn't see any beatings, but he testified that he did see "a large pool of dried blood" on the floor of the elevator where the inmates had been transported, and a guard trying to remove bloodstains from his shirt. He said he didn't particularly cooperate with the federal investigators, because he had little to contribute, but when he was summoned, he went to their office, stayed about one minute, and left. Nevertheless, he testified, word got out that he was one of those talking to the investiga- tors, and pretty soon he too was "on the burn." Rat posters went up around the jail with his name on them. His attempts at radio communication were "stepped on." A cardboard gravestone inscribed "R.I.P. Wojo" (his nickname) was left in the entrance to the civil office of the Sheriff's Department. A body bag and a toe tag with his name on it were left in his vehicle. His time card was smeared with what looked like blood, and he testified that when he showed that to Barnes, Barnes replied cryptically, "As it was written, it shall be." (This is the Schenectady County Jail, I remind you.) Also testifying was Kathy Woytowich, formerly known as Kathy Rafferty, who was the jail nurse at the time of these ennobling events. She didn't see any beatings, but she did see inmates with bruised faces, she was denied permission to treat those inmates, and she was contacted by the FBI for any information she might have. You can guess the rest - the posters, the "snitch" sign with her name on it at the dispatcher's window, the phone calls to her home telling her that her children would be hurt, the taunts of "b**ch" and "snitch" over the intercom system, eventhe invitation of one the guards who supposedly took part in the beatings for her to join him upstairs in the sheriff's office to discuss what she planned to say when she eventually testified at the guards' criminal trial. Also testifying was John Broderick, one of the guards attacked by inmates in the original uprising, the event that precipitated the next day's alleged retaliatory beatings by the guards. He suffered a concussion and a chipped tooth in the assault by inmates, but played no part in the alleged paybackNevertheless, he got caught up in things when he tried to protect his friend, Lt. Chris Jeffes, who was widely (and accurately) suspected of being the whistleblower who had appeared disguised on Channel 6 news. Broderick wrote a memo to the sheriff advising him that Jeffes was being fingered, with the idea that this would be dangerous to Jeffes but little suspecting that the sheriff himself, along with Buffardi, was doing the fingering. He testified that Barnes told him he was not a team player and busted him from sergeant down to ordinary corrections officer. An attorney asked him at trial yesterday if he had not heard about the jail's code of silence. "If I had," he said, "I'd probably still be a sergeant." And finally there was David Monroe, who for me gave the most stunning testimony of all, since he in effect admitted that he was guilty of the crimes of which he was acquitted at trial five years ago and gave evidence that his codefendants also were guilty. Monroe was a lieutenant at the time of the alleged beatings and was charged with failing to stop them. Very true, he said this time. "I didn't take action when I should have . . . I should have stopped what happened." And what exactly happened? For one thing, David Hungerschafer (the lone guard to plead guilty in connection with this business) kicked a naked prisoner lying on the floor so hard in the small of the back that the prisoner defecated. For another, Donnie Williams, the union president, repeatedly punched the same prisoner. For another, William Leguire, a 280-pound guard, stood on the head of a prisoner lying on the floor of an elevator - full weight on one foot - and declared, "If you ever threaten another officer again I'll [expletive] kill you." (Both Williams and Leguire were acquitted of criminal charges.) And that is not even to mention Monroe's claim that Barnes and Buffardi got him to accept a demotion, and then leave his job, by threatening him with a trumped-up statement by a prostitute, concocted by Barnes himself, that would have embarrassed him and his family. I will get into that later. The point is, when you sit in a courtroom and listen to this stuff, you feel like you're listening to a description not so much of a sheriff's department as of a secret society of thugs. It really is stunning. Red-face dept. Commenting on these events the other day I said Major Bob Elwell and then-Undersheriff Harry Buffardi had driven to Griffiss Air Force Base for help in identifying the disguised voice of the whistleblower who appeared on television news, and I now wish to correct that statement. It was the jail's training officer, Gordon Pollard (now undersheriff), who accompanied Buffardi on that intelligence mission. It was not Major Elwell.
COUNTY BILL FOR JAIL SUITS $1.3M KIM MARTINEAU Staff writer Section: CAPITAL REGION, Page: B1 Date: Thursday, May 10, 2001
The alleged beating of seven inmates by guards at the Schenectady County Jail will cost county taxpayers more than $1.3 million by the time the latest settlement is paid out to three guards who claim they were harassed after they spoke out against the misconduct. Jerry ``OJ'' Carlos, John Keenan Jr., and Christopher Jeffes sued the county after they were retaliated against by fellow guards for their cooperation with federal agents and prosecutors in an investigation into the April 29, 1994, incident. Details of the harassment they faced for breaking an unwritten ``code of silence'' at the jail unfolded over seven days of trial in U.S. District Court. The three men claim they received crank phone calls, were depicted in hand-drawn signs as rats and had their radio transmissions interrupted by other guards, often with a ratlike twittering in the background.
The trial ended abruptly Tuesday night after Schenectady County lawmakers agreed to give the men $650,000 to settle their claims against the county, William Barnes, who was sheriff at the time, Harry Buffardi, who was undersheriff at the time, and Maj. Robert Elwell. The case was scheduled to go to the jury on Wednesday.
A team of correction officers allegedly roughed up the inmates, who were stripped and shackled, as the guards extracted the prisoners from their jail cells and transported them to solitary confinement on the afternoon of April 29. Two of the inmates were injured seriously enough that blood showed up in their urine and stool, according to trial testimony. The inmates were being transported into solitary confinement to restore order to the jail, after two guards were injured earlier and the inmates had flooded a jail tier with water and feces by clogging their toilets with clothing.
Four guards were indicted in connection with the alleged beatings and ultimately acquitted after a jury trial in 1996. A fifth officer pleaded guilty to assaulting one of the inmates and served no jail time. The inmates later sued the county, reaching a settlement for $655,000 in 1999.
The $1.3 million total doesn't include legal fees. County officials said it would take a week to determine how much the county spent defending both cases. The county is responsible for paying both Richard Gershon, the lawyer who defended the county, and Michael Koenig, the lawyer who represented the jail officials in their individual capacity. Kevin Luibrand, who represented the plaintiffs, declined to discuss how the $650,000 would be divided among his clients and himself.
Changes have since been implemented at the jail because of the incident, said Buffardi, who became sheriff in 1999.
While Buffardi said he did not personally witness any guards assaulting inmates, he believes something happened and that more oversight was needed. An independent group of citizens now inspects conditions at the jail, which houses 325 inmates, and also reviews prisoner complaints.
``If this is an open atmosphere where misdeeds can be reported openly, then no one's a rat anymore if they're a witness,'' he said.
Trial testimony painted a stark picture of what happened on April 29. Lt. David Monroe, who was ultimately acquitted of all criminal charges stemming from his failure to intervene while three officers under his command allegedly beat the inmates, testified last week that he saw inmates kicked and dragged and that he regretted not taking action. ``I'm not a brave person,'' he confessed. ``What happened that day was wrong.''
The trial also provided a window into the intrigue that rocked the jail when news of the alleged beatings first emerged on a television newscast, featuring an inmate and a correction officer, concealed by darkness, describing the incident. The beatings were so bad, the disguised guard alleged, they made ``Rodney King look like a walk in the park.''
Rather than investigate whether the allegations were true, Barnes ordered Buffardi to find out who the guard was, according to testimony. Both Barnes and Buffardi were upset that someone they suspected to be Jeffes had come forward with his complaints days before Barnes was up for re-election. Throughout the trial the defense painted Jeffes as a man with an ax to grind after his wife, a co-worker, was fired for failing to report a past felony conviction on her job application and because Jeffes himself was demoted from major to lieutenant after failing the civil service exam. Jeffes, 48, was not on-duty during the alleged beatings.
Throughout the trial, the defense attacked the plaintiffs' credibility. Jeffes, 48, was portrayed as a man acting out a political vendetta, while Carlos, 48, was painted as someone who exaggerated and was out for money.
The defense also seized on inconsistencies in Keenan's testimony, as to when the harassment occurred in relation to his leaving the jail. Both Keenan, 50, and Jeffes were fired when they failed to return to work after a hearing officer rejected their request for disability retirement.
``It wasn't about the money,'' said Keenan after the trial. ``It was about getting the truth out.''
``At least now, the public knows what the three of us went through,'' Carlos agreed, ``and what we were telling was true.''
GUARDS' EX-BOSS TESTIFIES AT TRIAL KIM MARTINEAU Staff writer Section: CAPITAL REGION, Page: B1 Date: Wednesday, May 9, 2001
Former Schenectady County Sheriff William Barnes denied observing any guards roughing up inmates as they extracted the prisoners from jail cells and transported them to solitary confinement in the wake of an inmate uprising. ``Did you see any inmates punched, kicked, or slapped or anything like that?'' defense lawyer Michael Koenig asked Tuesday in U.S. District Court.
``No sir,'' Barnes replied.
Barnes also denied knowing anything about a campaign of harassment that allegedly began when the FBI launched its investigation into the incident.
Several guards complained about receiving prank phone calls, being depicted in hand-drawn signs as rats and having their radio transmissions interrupted by other guards, often with a ratlike twittering in the background.
Barnes' remarks were made Tuesday in a civil rights trial involving three correction officers who claim they were threatened and harassed after they cooperated with federal authorities in their investigation into the alleged beating of seven inmates on the afternoon of April 29, 1994.
Christopher Jeffes, John Keenan Jr. and Jerry Carlos, the only officer who still works at the jail, claim the retaliation came after they violated an unwritten ``code of silence'' that keeps guards from reporting abuse of inmates by other guards. Barnes' testimony lies at the heart of the trial because he was sheriff at the time and because several officers have claimed the sheriff watched as inmates were thrown into the elevator naked and shackled, and appeared to condone the abuse.
The three officers who came forward to complain about the alleged beatings are suing Schenectady County, Barnes, Sheriff Harry Buffardi, who was undersheriff at the time, and Maj. Robert Elwell.
Like Buffardi who testified earlier in the trial, Barnes said the first time he learned that his officers had potentially violated procedures was when he saw a television newscast in November 1994. An inmate appeared in the newscast, describing the alleged beatings, as did a correction officer, who was cloaked in darkness to protect his identity. Statements were read by two other officers corroborating the incident.
Rather than investigate whether the allegations were true, Barnes ordered Buffardi to find out who had blown the whistle, according to testimony. Both Barnes and Buffardi were upset that a guard, whom they suspected to be Jeffes, had come forward with his complaints days before Barnes was up for re-election.
The defense has painted Jeffes as a man with an ax to grind after his wife, a co-worker, was fired for failing to report a past felony conviction on her job application and because Jeffes himself was demoted from major to lieutenant after failing the civil service exam. Jeffes was not on-duty at the time of the alleged beatings.
Barnes' quest to identify the snitch ultimately led the department to Rome, N.Y., where Buffardi was able to verify, with the help of the U.S. Air Force, that Jeffes was the guard who gave the interview.
Four guards were indicted in connection with the alleged beatings and ultimately acquitted in a jury trial in 1996. A fifth officer pleaded guilty to assaulting one of the inmates and served no jail time. The inmates later brought a lawsuit against Schenectady County, which the county agreed to settle for $655,000 in 1999.
Under cross-examination, Barnes sometimes trailed off into long rambling answers.
``That wasn't my question,'' Kevin Luibrand, the lawyer representing the three guards, said at one point.
``Well that was my answer, counselor,'' Barnes replied.
``The FBI came in and did a thorough investigation, and guess what?'' Barnes said at another point. ``It wasn't Bill Barnes as some people wanted.''
UNDERSHERIFF RECALLS JAIL TENSIONS KIM MARTINEAU Staff writer Section: CAPITAL REGION, Page: B5 Date: Tuesday, May 8, 2001
Inmates had slickened the floor with shampoo and made other signs they were planning an uprising the day after two guards were injured transporting a group of prisoners from solitary confinement to the main population area of the Schenectady County Jail, according to trial testimony on Monday in federal court. ``The situation was spiraling out of control,'' Harry Buffardi, who was undersheriff at the time, testified. ``I knew the inmates basically had nothing to lose.''
The following afternoon, Buffardi ordered guards to remove the inmates who were inciting their peers and put them back into solitary confinement. During the transport, seven prisoners were allegedly stripped and beaten while the sheriff at the time, William Barnes, watched in approval. Buffardi testified Monday that he heard no reports of misconduct, or of Barnes being present, until at least six months after the April 29, 1994, incident when he viewed a TV news report of the incident.
A second week of testimony began Monday in U.S. District Court in the trial involving three correction officers who claim they were threatened and harassed after they cooperated with federal authorities investigating the alleged beatings. Christopher Jeffes, John Keenan Jr. and Jerry Carlos, the only officer who still works at the jail, claim the retaliation came after they violated an unwritten ``code of silence'' against reporting abuse of inmates by guards.
The three officers who came forward to complain about the alleged beatings are suing Schenectady County, Barnes, Buffardi, and Maj. Robert Elwell.
On the TV newscast in November, several days before Barnes was up for election, Jeffes, cloaked in darkness to protect his identity, alleged that the guards beat the inmates to teach them a lesson. The night before, five inmates had rebelled on their way to the main jail and, later that night, flooded the jail with water and feces by clogging toilets with clothing.
Four guards were indicted in connection with the alleged beatings. A fifth officer pleaded guilty to assaulting one of the inmates and served no jail time. The inmates later brought a lawsuit against Schenectady County, which the county agreed to settle for $655,000, in 1999.
Buffardi described to the jury, for the second time, how he focused his attention on determining whether Jeffes was the whistleblower, rather than investigate whether the allegations on the newscast, made by one inmate and two other guards, were accurate. He also admitted Monday that while he ultimately cooperated with federal agents, he did so against his boss' orders.
``(Barnes) said don't speak to the FBI, right?'' asked the plaintiffs' lawyer, Kevin Luibrand.
SHERIFF: NO BEATING PROBE MADE KIM MARTINEAU Staff writer Section: MAIN, Page: A1 Date: Wednesday, May 2, 2001
Sheriff Harry Buffardi acknowledged Tuesday that allegations of inmates being stripped, shackled and beaten by correction officers at the Schenectady County Jail, the day after a prisoner uprising, were never investigated internally. Buffardi, the undersheriff at the time, had planned for the five inmates involved in the uprising to be transported from the main section of the jail to an older wing. During the move, officer Jerry Carlos claims he saw inmates being punched and dragged on the floor, but when he complained to William Barnes, sheriff at the time, no action was taken.
``(Barnes) told me, `Well you know, things happen and we have to take back the jail and we need to show them who's in charge,'' Carlos testified Tuesday in U.S. District Court.
Carlos and two other officers who came forward to complain about the alleged beatings are suing Schenectady County, Barnes, Buffardi, and Maj. Robert Elwell for retaliating against them after the incident was made public.
The second day of testimony in their civil trial unfolded before Federal District Judge Thomas McAvoy. The trial comes one month after Buffardi called for an internal investigation into claims that an 18-year-old inmate was beaten at the jail. The 18-year-old claims the attack is linked to a fight he had with his former girlfriend, whose father works as a correction officer at the jail.
A federal investigation into the alleged jail beatings in April 1994 was launched several months later. Four officers were subsequently indicted; Carlos testified against his colleagues both before the grand jury and later, at their criminal trial in 1996. The four officers were acquitted while a fifth officer pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge and served no jail time.
Carlos claims he has been harassed and ridiculed by his colleagues from the time he started cooperating with federal authorities to the present, and that Barnes and Buffardi have been aware of the abuse but have taken no action to stop it. To this day, Carlos carries his time card in his pocket, to prevent co-workers from defacing it, he testified. He endures cartoon signs posted around the jail showing his face on the body of a rat. He has been brought up on bogus charges, he says, and his radio transmissions are frequently interrupted by rat noises and insults.
``It would be a tweaking sound on the radio,'' he said. ``Rat, rat, snitch, twit, twit, twit.''
As guards were transporting five inmates from solitary confinement to the new section of the jail on April 28, 1994, the inmates rebelled and two guards were injured. Later that night, the inmates flooded the jail by clogging their toilets and sinks with clothing.
While Barnes and Buffardi acknowledge that an operation to transport inmates, including the five involved in the uprising, to the old wing of the jail occurred, they deny knowing of any wrongdoing. In fact, Buffardi testified, the first time he became aware of the beating allegations was in November 1994, several days before Barnes came up for election.
An inmate recounted the abuse to a TV news reporter, and on the newscast, his claims were corroborated by a disguised correction officer who said the beatings made ``Rodney King look like a walk in the park.'' Buffardi instantly suspected Chris Jeffes, a guard who he says had an ax to grind.
Buffardi immediately launched an investigation, to verify that the reporter's source was Jeffes, who had also violated department rules by talking to the media without the permission of the sheriff.
``The person on the tape certainly did not receive that permission,'' he said.
``It was important to determine who this person was, to see if they could be a primary witness,'' he added later, ``or a non-witness in the case of Chris Jeffes.'' Jeffes, a plaintiff in the case, was not on duty at the time of the alleged beatings.
Buffardi tried to confirm the individual's identify, first by playing the tape to officers, then by asking for help from a local TV station and the State Police. He had no luck until he turned to the Griffiss Air Force Base in Rome, where lab experts were finally able to conclude that Jeffes was the reporters' source, based upon a voice sample Buffardi provided. The tape contained conversation from a retirement party Jeffes had attended. By that time, after making up to three trips to Rome to confirm Jeffes was indeed the whistle-blower, Buffardi learned the feds had already started their investigation.
``I could not investigate at that point by interviewing witnesses and taking information especially when me and Barnes could have potentially been the focus,'' he said. Trial testimony continues today.
"While Foreign Terrorists were plotting to murder and maim using homemade bombs in Boston, Democrap officials in Washington DC, Albany and here were busy watching ME and other law abiding American Citizens who are gun owners and taxpayers, in an effort to blame the nation's lack of security on US so that they could have a political scapegoat."
Indeed of those guards having been set loose in the first place by the sheriff and the undersheriff(Buffardi), in order to teach some mutinous prisoners a lesson, or to show them who's boss, which Barnes has acknowledged to me in conversation any number of times, even though he continues to deny there was any excessive violence. And it's a picture of a few more-or-less conscientious guards, upset by the beatings, agreeing to cooperate with federal investigators, or at least not lie to them, and there upon being harassed and threatened by their coworkers with the apparent acquiescence if not downright encouragement of Barnes and Buffardi.
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Buffardi tried to confirm the individual's identify, first by playing the tape to officers, then by asking for help from a local TV station and the State Police. He had no luck until he turned to the Griffiss Air Force Base in Rome, where lab experts were finally able to conclude that Jeffes was the reporters' source, based upon a voice sample Buffardi provided. The tape contained conversation from a retirement party Jeffes had attended. By that time, after making up to three trips to Rome to confirm Jeffes was indeed the whistle-blower, Buffardi learned the feds had already started their investigation.
And people at Town Hall thought FDG was a tyrant...I wonder if the first thing Buffardi would instate if he won would be the "code of silence"? Buffardi might go to the Air Force base to find out who's posting the Agenda Meeting on this website. You might get the Jeffes treatment, using the total force of the government to intimidate you and root you out.
I think I need to take a shower after reading this!!
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Also testifying was Stanley Marchinkowski, a member of the sheriff's road patrol at that time. He didn't see any beatings, but he testified that he did see "a large pool of dried blood" on the floor of the elevator where the inmates had been transported, and a guard trying to remove bloodstains from his shirt. He said he didn't particularly cooperate with the federal investigators, because he had little to contribute, but when he was summoned, he went to their office, stayed about one minute, and left. Nevertheless, he testified, word got out that he was one of those talking to the investiga- tors, and pretty soon he too was "on the burn." Rat posters went up around the jail with his name on them. His attempts at radio communication were "stepped on." A cardboard gravestone inscribed "R.I.P. Wojo" (his nickname) was left in the entrance to the civil office of the Sheriff's Department. A body bag and a toe tag with his name on it were left in his vehicle. His time card was smeared with what looked like blood, and he testified that when he showed that to Barnes, Barnes replied cryptically, "As it was written, it shall be." (This is the Schenectady County Jail, I remind you.) Also testifying was Kathy Woytowich, formerly known as Kathy Rafferty, who was the jail nurse at the time of these ennobling events. She didn't see any beatings, but she did see inmates with bruised faces, she was denied permission to treat those inmates, and she was contacted by the FBI for any information she might have. You can guess the rest - the posters, the "snitch" sign with her name on it at the dispatcher's window, the phone calls to her home telling her that her children would be hurt, the taunts of "b**ch" and "snitch" over the intercom system, eventhe invitation of one the guards who supposedly took part in the beatings for her to join him upstairs in the sheriff's office to discuss what she planned to say when she eventually testified at the guards' criminal trial. Also testifying was John Broderick, one of the guards attacked by inmates in the original uprising, the event that precipitated the next day's alleged retaliatory beatings by the guards. He suffered a concussion and a chipped tooth in the assault by inmates, but played no part in the alleged paybackNevertheless, he got caught up in things when he tried to protect his friend, Lt. Chris Jeffes, who was widely (and accurately) suspected of being the whistleblower who had appeared disguised on Channel 6 news. Broderick wrote a memo to the sheriff advising him that Jeffes was being fingered, with the idea that this would be dangerous to Jeffes but little suspecting that the sheriff himself, along with Buffardi, was doing the fingering. He testified that Barnes told him he was not a team player and busted him from sergeant down to ordinary corrections officer. An attorney asked him at trial yesterday if he had not heard about the jail's code of silence. "If I had," he said, "I'd probably still be a sergeant." And finally there was David Monroe, who for me gave the most stunning testimony of all, since he in effect admitted that he was guilty of the crimes of which he was acquitted at trial five years ago and gave evidence that his codefendants also were guilty. Monroe was a lieutenant at the time of the alleged beatings and was charged with failing to stop them. Very true, he said this time. "I didn't take action when I should have . . . I should have stopped what happened." And what exactly happened? For one thing, David Hungerschafer (the lone guard to plead guilty in connection with this business) kicked a naked prisoner lying on the floor so hard in the small of the back that the prisoner defecated. For another, Donnie Williams, the union president, repeatedly punched the same prisoner. For another, William Leguire, a 280-pound guard, stood on the head of a prisoner lying on the floor of an elevator - full weight on one foot - and declared, "If you ever threaten another officer again I'll [expletive] kill you." (Both Williams and Leguire were acquitted of criminal charges.) And that is not even to mention Monroe's claim that Barnes and Buffardi got him to accept a demotion, and then leave his job, by threatening him with a trumped-up statement by a prostitute, concocted by Barnes himself, that would have embarrassed him and his family. I will get into that later. The point is, when you sit in a courtroom and listen to this stuff, you feel like you're listening to a description not so much of a sheriff's department as of a secret society of thugs.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
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