Kershaw County Sheriff and Federal agent Jim Matthews claims tactics save lives, continues to build police state
by Jeff Mattox
Kershaw County Sheriff Jim Matthews is claiming his tough tactics are the reason for a 70% drop in DUI related deaths in the rural South Carolina County. 70% decline sounds like a major victory for this former DEA agent and is being used by the sheriff and his media guru wife Heather Hoopes to tout what a great thing he has done for the county but things are not always as they seem. Last year there were 4 DUI related deaths in Kershaw County, out of 62,000 residents, and the sheriff claimed there was an epidemic of drunk drivers in Kershaw County even as the numbers clearly show that there is little problem relative to the total residents in the county.
This year there are a total of 4 DUI related deaths and yet the sheriff wants to ignore two of those and claim a great reduction. This is just a tactic used by law enforcement to justify their actions and their jobs. If we see a drop from 7 to 5 deaths the percentage drop is great even though relative to the total population it is insignificant. State wide there were 26,000 DUI arrests out of a total population of 3.2 million which is 0.008125% of the population hardly an epidemic but does make some great headlines for the government propaganda machine.
DUI deaths fluctuate with each passing year as does the total number of highway deaths and can be attributed to many factors including weather, what day a holiday falls on, or even how many squirrels are on the roads, but there is little to prove that anything the sheriff or SCHP does effects these numbers. For fun let’s take the 12 deaths in Kershaw County from last year and divide that by the number of residents within the county, 62,000. This easy math problem shows that the percentage of residents killed in accidents is 0.0001935% of the entire county population. The sheriff says there was an epidemic of drunk driving deaths but with a total of 4 alcohol related deaths the percentage of residents killed is small, around 0.0000645%.
Of course Matthews, along with almost every law enforcement officer, will never talk about these numbers because it makes their jobs seem insignificant and the cost benefit does not add up. That is why they use the total number of deaths, whether higher or lower, as the starting point because any change at all gives greater credence to either how good a job they are doing or why they need more money, cops, and heavy handed tactics to battle a boogeyman that really does not exist.
This is not to say I advocate driving while intoxicated it is merely to point out that law enforcement plays with the numbers in order to justify anything they do and secure more funding. The fact is drunk drivers are a very small percentage of the overall population and law enforcement along with all their proponents have created an illusion that there are drunks in almost every vehicle on the road.
Politicians, media, and law enforcement use statistics to baffle the public with bullshit.
It is important to recognize that whenever government itself enters into policy debate, it has the ability to drown out all other voices, and has done so in the law enforcement arena here.
As the NHTSA web site shows Law enforcement is well versed in these tactics. They use them to great effect when talking about drugs, DUI’s, Rapes, robberies and many other scenarios. The federal government is law enforcement’s best friend providing anything needed to sway public opinion, influence judges, and even prosecute cases.
Sheriff Matthews and his Media propaganda are touting his use of aggressive tactics as a reason for lower death rates and a great accomplishment even though they know it has nothing to do with law enforcement in general. Had the number gone up Matthews would be touting an epidemic and calling for more money and cops to defend against the tide of DUI’s. Every media outlet around Kershaw County promotes the law enforcement line while all voices in opposition are ignored or demonized as radicals or extremists.
Whenever you hear law enforcement use statistics grasp a large box of salt to take with what is being espoused because hidden behind these statistics is the underlying truth. They are playing with the truth to promote their own agenda. Remember it this is a game for money and power, it is that plain and simple.
“We’re out to change behavior”, Matthews said,” We’re not out to ruin someone’s day.”
The administrator of the KCSO Facebook page said this about checkpoints,” Kershaw County Sheriff’s Office @ Tim Taylor: I am not a fan of those checkpoints, but the courts have ruled them legal. Not the old drug checkpoints which are not, but the DUI checkpoints are. I don’t even like the term “checkpoints.” It has a sinister connotation. I would rather have officers out patrolling.”
Then in an article on the KCSO page SC trooper Kelly Hughes states, “We will have a lot of DUI checkpoints; we’ll have saturated areas where we see most DUI crashes occurring and we’ll have some nighttime safety belt enforcement.”
Matthews has never denied the use of checkpoints, just that he does not like them. His deputies regularly participate in partnership with the Highway Patrol in order to give him some sort of plausible deniability.
Fear is the tool of law enforcement and Matthews’ officers are under “orders” to make traffic stops for any infraction no matter how minor and to gain the driver’s permission to search the vehicle. This is done by intimidation and threat. Usually the officer will say something like, “do you mind if I look inside the vehicle?” If the driver questions the officer the response will be along the line of,” If you have nothing to hide why don’t you want me to look in the vehicle?” They may even say something like this,” It will be a lot easier on you if you cooperate.” They may even threaten the driver with a warrant but the whole stop was in fact made to garner a contact and make a search, what is known in the realms of the DEA as” fishing for gold”. The idea is twofold, first to make every person afraid of police and two, increase tickets and arrests to make it look like they are really making a difference and raise revenues. These tactics border lining on terrorizing the population and in particular the youth of the county should not be tolerated.
If we are going to tolerate these kinds of actions then why not have checkpoints at all intersections? Why not install breathalyzers in all vehicles? Remember, if it is fair to all and it is for the safety of all why should you mind if every time you get in your car you must blow into a tube before starting it? Now that is going too far you say? What’s the difference between checkpoints and in car sobriety checks other than the frequency of the check? And, would it make the roadways even safer? And, if you don’t drink and drive what do you have to hide? Is there something that you are not telling us? “I have been stopped many times” stated one 19 year old man,” They always want to search my car. I have gotten only one ticket and that was for a seat belt but it always comes down to the search.”
I refused to let them search my car and the guy started threatening me and yelling” said another young driver,” They target all us young people. All my friends hate them.”
One older man from Kershaw County stated, “Matthews and his goons have a rob and pillage policy.” They claim that all this ticketing saves lives but people still speed down the interstate and they keep writing tickets. I think it is about money and power and less about safety.”
“All he wants is his face on the TV” said another “He cannot prove that his gestapo tactics have changed anything except people don’t trust them anymore.” The 40 something, mother of three said.
“Matthews won’t even talk to someone who complains, he has some guy named Templar that runs interference for him.”
“His town hall meetings reminded me of something that the Nazis would have. You had to submit written questions and the sheriff went through them and only answered those he wanted to and ignored the others. He is a coward; I think he is a small man scared of his shadow.” stated yet another Kershaw County resident.
Force and intimidation are the tools of tyrants no matter if it is for good or evil.
To place a population under perpetual state of fear is the mark of a tyrant and to force those same people to pay for its application is despotism. With every passing year the American surveillance police state becomes increasingly powerful and over reaching. Each time the public allows these tyrants another encroachment on the rights of individuals the Constitution fades in its importance.
Each and every step of the way the excuse given is it is all for the safety and security of all and we, as individuals, must give up a little more of our rights in order to protect us all.
Where do we draw the line in the sand? When is enough, enough? The past one hundred years has seen the growth of a police force that looks and feels more like an occupying force rather than a sheriff elected to protect the rights of the individual from majority rule.
We have become a nation in living in fear, promoted and kept alive by those who swore an oath to uphold the Constitution and the rights contained within. Government and law enforcement have partnered together, each standing to gain power and control, at every infringement of individual rights, and grow their respective organizations.
DUI related deaths in Kershaw County are not down 70% yet the sheriff is painted as a hero, but the king has no clothes.
Their lie is they are providing security; the truth is they are taking away freedom.
Sheriff Matthews has been well trained in police state tactics, as his web site shows, including media propaganda and public information training (Edward Béarnaise would be proud) from the DEA as well as airport Interdiction at the NWO’s Denver Airport again under the DEA.
Matthews and his lovely wife, Miss Heather, are now seeking a major increase in funding as he continues to use the federal playbook to justify his vision of a world of safety by force.
In what can only be characterized as self- promoting conceit Matthews blames, county council, and the people themselves for not providing him with everything he wants for his police state.
“The powers that be and the public have allowed this problem to increase over time and now we are faced with an expensive fix.” Matthews wrote in an article in the Camden based Chronicle and Independent, a longtime supporter of Matthews. The “expensive fix” he is referring to is revealed as he compares his department with the adjacent county of Lancaster who has 12 deputies per shift while Kershaw County has either 6 or 4 depending on the time of day.
He writes that both departments responded to “approximately” 43,000 calls for service over the course of last year. “They (Lancaster County) have about 10,000 more residents. The difference is they handled this with 12 deputies per shift. As a result Lancaster’s response times are significantly shorter and ours remain unacceptably long. Lancaster can prevent crimes while we are relegated to simply responding to them after they occur.”
There are many things about this statement that are revealing and so I will take each in order.
First, Matthews plays on words when he writes 43,000 calls for “service”. As 911 calls come in the are routed to the proper service, law enforcement, EMS, or fire and one may respond while another may not, in fact most calls are for EMS services according to sources in the Kershaw County Emergency services department. So the truth is Matthews has exaggerated the case load of both departments to again push his agenda.
Second, Matthews claims the Lancaster is able to prevent crimes even though they respond to the same amount of “calls for service”. How does Lancaster prevent crime? Are the phone calls coming in coming from psychics or do they have some kind of pre-crime squad intervening? The fact is cops rarely, very rarely prevent anything. Response time is rarely critical as by the time a call comes in the crime has already been committed and the police are there to clean up and make a report.
Matthews wants a massive increase in funding estimated, if fully implemented, to be a $2.5 million increase in addition to the doubling of the KCSO budget since 2009 which was primarily funded through a solid disposal waste fee passed by Kershaw County Council in 2012 raising $1.5 million half of which went to the KCSO.
Sheriff Matthews may actually believe his rhetoric after all he has spent his entire adult life within the halls of the federal government’s law enforcement indoctrination centers and has been trained in the art of propaganda. Matthews is a government agent, one of the best, and he is doing his master's bidding.
Slowly one step at a time, hidden behind the cloak of safety and security, Matthews is building, with the help of his friends, the Fed and local politicians, a brutal, massive, expensive, police state.
Matthews is not alone. Across the nation police departments and sheriff offices are being infiltrated with federal agents like Matthews. They come in on white horses, armed with honors galore and once in office they start to build their little part of what will ultimately become a full-fledged totalitarian police state where citizens will be subject to stop at any time day or night.
They promise security but what you get is tyranny.
As the New Year begins Kershaw County citizens, as many across the nation, will be forced to pay for their own enslavement by those who claim the opposite. What is up is down. Lies have become truth and right has become wrong.
The people will be subjected to another massive propaganda assault by the government and promoted by media outlets across the land.
Will the people be fooled again? Of course and Kershaw County residents will move one step closer to 1984. The big question is, how much more will they take? The sad answer appears to be, whatever their masters dictate.
Feel free to make your own voice heard by contacting the Kershaw County Sheriff’s Department. Their contact information is listed below:
Would you want government agents listening to your phone calls? Looking at your email? Spying on your online activity?
Chances are they have, and you didn't even know it.
The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was originally designed to protect American citizens from having government wiretap their phones and eavesdrop on their conversations.
But in 2001, the Bush Administration amended FISA through the Patriot Act to allow warrantless wiretapping.
In 2008, the Obama administration further loosened these restrictions.
Today, we have a federal government that can go through citizens' private communications-telephone, email, Facebook-you name it.
We know that the federal government has looked at over 28 million electronic records since the FISA Amendment Act.
We know it has gone through 1.6 million texts.
When I was given a classified briefing this summer to investigate the extent to which the federal government is spying on citizens, I was required by law not to disclose the discussion.
But in determining how many times this has occurred, I can give you a fictitious number-gazillions.
This is not hyperbole. I can assure you, it is quite accurate in describing the number of times government has snooped though American citizens private information.
We now have a federal government that is unrestrained by law.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is looking to ram through FISA reauthorization before Christmas.
He has made it clear he certainly expects it to be done by year's end.
I don't want FISA reauthorized before Christmas. I don't want it reauthorized before the New Year.
I don't want FISA reauthorized-period.
If Reid intends on making sure government cronies can spy on private citizens without a warrant, I am intent on introducing the "Fourth Amendment Protection Act," which states:
The Fourth Amendment right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures is violated when the government acquires information voluntarily relinquished by a person to another party for a limited business purpose without the express informed consent of the person to the specific request by the government or a Warrant, upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
It is amazing that I even have to introduce this as an amendment because it already is an amendment-to the Constitution of the United States.
And make no mistake-the Fourth Amendment is every bit as important to preserving our freedoms as the entire Bill of Rights.
I hope you'll join me in fighting Harry Reid and Barack Obama to protect our right to privacy.
We can't have government stepping into every aspect of our private lives without some level of judicial restraint.
This has been a core principle of American freedom and individual rights for as long as there has been an America.
It is a basic value that has long defined who we are as a nation and has separated us from less free nations.
Will you join me in helping to fight FISA reauthorization?
Neither Senator Reid nor anyone else has the right to take away the constitutional protections that have always been our birthright.
The current FISA Amendment gives a blank check to government to spy on any American, at any time and for any reason.
It goes against everything this country stands for.
It goes against every principle we fought a revolution for.
It goes against the Constitution every one of my Senate colleagues took an oath to protect.
For freedom's sake, FISA cannot stand. It should not survive.
I hope you will join me in fighting to defeat it.
In Liberty, Senator Rand Paul
P.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is looking to ram through FISA Reauthorization before the end of the year.
You and I can't allow the trampling of our Fourth Amendment rights to continue!
If Jake Knotts & Co. are not prosecuted, it just goes to show how corrupt the entire system is and not that there's nothing to it. If you're in Lexington County and have been paying attention and asking questions, you know Knotts is involved and that the accusations have some truth behind them. It's just that no one in critical positions of power, including Knotts' buddy, Alan Wilson, is willing to go after them--so far. We'll see what happens.
If members of the general assembly didn't have an iron grip on the judicial system and had been subject to the law the rest of us are, I think we'd have seen Knotts and others in jail by now. The fact that nothing is happening so far is just a very bad sign on how bad things still are and probably will remain for quite some time.
Knotts going into the position of lobbyist makes perfect sense due to the fact that he's admitted investigating and getting dirt on his enemies. The reason his shenanigans have been tolerated in the statehouse for so long is that he's got the goods on quite a few men in power there. He'll use extortion, or the implied threat of extortion, as leverage to get bills passed to his advantage and enrichment. Same game the corporate welfare fascist pig has always been playing. He's just changed positions.
Video: The U.S. Air Force suspended Reaper drone operations in the Seychelles after two crashes in the past year. The Washington Post’s Craig Whitlock has obtained previously unreleased photographs from Air Force investigative reports showing what happened to the drones involved.
An inexperienced military contractor in shorts and a T-shirt, flying by remote control from a trailer at Seychelles International Airport, committed blunder after blunder in six minutes on April 4.
He sent the unarmed MQ-9 Reaper drone off without permission from the control tower. A minute later, he yanked the wrong lever at his console, killing the engine without realizing why.
As he tried to make an emergency landing, he forgot to put down the wheels. The $8.9 million aircraft belly-flopped on the runway, bounced and plunged into the tropical waters at the airport’s edge . . .
Fox News' establishment mouthpiece, Bill Kristol, recently stated his support for what many fear will happen during the lame duck - both parties agreeing to a smoky backroom deal to hike taxes.
See for yourself . . .
Sadly, that's not all the caving that's happening right now.
Less than 24 hours after the election, Speaker of the House John Boehner said that "ObamaCare" should be taken off the table and signaled he's open to a "compromise" to keep up the big spending, Big Government status quo.
Worse, with Congress back in session, these fights are going on right now!
For the establishment of BOTH parties, limiting government isn't a solution. Cutting spending isn't an option.
Hiking taxes on one group or another is A-ok, so long as these policy "wizards" can look into their Kristol Ball and think they will get away with it.
It was both parties' out-of-control spending - combined with the Federal Reserve's print-now, ask-questions-later policies - that sent our economy nose-diving off a cliff in the first place!
Today, you and I are saddled with more than $16.2 TRILLION in national debt. That's more than $141,000 per taxpayer!
But Congress still can't make ends meet. In fact, there's another debt ceiling hike right around the corner.
If you and I want to ensure our freedom is protected, we need to send some loud-and-clear messages to Congress.
Our federal government is too big. Congress spends too much.
Tax hikes are not the answer.
The solution can be found in cutting spending, limiting government, and ending the Fed's manipulation of our economy.
And you and I are going to have to FIGHT to make sure these common-sense ideas carry the day.
So I hope you'll leave a message with your elected officials this weekend urging them to oppose ANY tax hikes and instead work to CUT the size of government and LIMIT its spending.
You can find your representative's contact information here and your senators' information here.
Also, take this chance to remind your senators to push Harry Reid to hold a vote on the Audit the Fed bill (H.R. 459/S. 202) during the lame duck.
The ugly truth is the tax hikes being talked about right now in Washington, D.C. don't have anything to do with fixing our fiscal mess.
Hardly anyone even bothers to make the claim.
Sure, they talk about limiting any hikes to higher income earners (even though they couldn't pay off the debt if they took ALL of the higher earners' income), but once that door is open, nothing will stop them from grabbing more from the paychecks of the rest of us.
In fact, a 2011 piece from economist Walter E. Williams pointed out that even if Congress took 100% of the income from those who make $250,000 or more a year, it would only run the government for 141 days.
For the establishment, this is about POWER. Raw government power to control the economy, our paychecks, our property, and our lives.
And the establishment's power must be broken if our liberties are to be saved.
For that, I'm counting on you.
In Liberty, John Tate President
P.S. The ugly truth is the tax hikes being talked about right now in Washington, D.C. are really about POWER. Raw government power to control the economy, our paychecks, our property, and our lives.
So I hope you'll leave a message with your elected officials this weekend urging them to oppose ANY tax hikes and instead work to CUT the size of government and LIMIT its spending.
You can find your representative's contact information here and your senators' information here.
Also, take this chance to remind your senators to push Harry Reid to hold a vote on the Audit the Fed bill (H.R. 459/S. 202) during the lame duck.
