
A six-part story of a PTA-president mother, framed for drug possession - M2Ys4U
http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-framed/
======
rdtsc
This is a very good example of psychopaths taking advantage of government's
irrational response to hurt others.

Irrationality here is the War on Drugs. I think that should be talked about in
more details in this case. Granted, if it was shorty after a terrorist attack
they said she was making bombs in her basement, maybe sprinkle some fertilizer
residue on her car.

This always happens, it is a common pattern. I remember being told how during
Stalin's time it wasn't uncommon for neighbors to rat on each other and say
"so and so is against Stalin and making jokes", and magically the whole family
disappears after an early morning visit from NKVD. Well they shouldn't have
been letting the cows graze that close to the fence, that'll teach them.

If War On Drugs wasn't there and cops and society wasn't twitchy and
irrational about it, the criminals would have a harder time. This just made it
all too easy (and the real reason this is news is because she got way and by
strange coincidence the detective wanted to look deeper into the story).

~~~
dredmorbius
I've been thinking for a while now that police overresponse and internal
surveillance and control are similar to immune disorders: a hyperactive
defense mechanism turns against that which it ought be protecting in the first
instance.

I'm suspecting this is a general systems problem.

------
nerdponx
This is sort of tangential to the rest of the article, but I'm glad it was
mentioned:

> Duff considered the possibilities. In so many places, he thought, it would
> have gone differently. If the attempted frame-up had happened in one of the
> gang neighborhoods of Los Angeles where he used to prosecute shootings,
> rather than in a rich, placid city in Orange County ... if the cop who found
> the stash of drugs in Kelli Peters’ car had been a rookie, rather than a
> sharp-eyed veteran ... if she had been slightly less believable ...

I know there's a lot of talk about inequality and such on HN lately, but if
you're from the US and this paragraph doesn't catch you for a second, in my
opinion you need to reexamine your values.

~~~
emcrazyone
yes, for sure, totally agree. Which reminds me of the number one rule - don't
talk. Shut up and ask for your attorney. She got lucky and is a prime example
of an exception to the norm as many of us know what that means. Again, don't
talk to cops. She was foolish to consent to the search without a warrant.

~~~
awongh
Refusing to talk wouldn't work if you were black or brown though. Either the
cop would have looked in the car and found the drugs anyway, or they would
have gotten the warrant and found the drugs.

At which point you would be threatened with a trial that might not even be
that winnable by the prosecution, but that they'd use as a stick to bully you
into taking some kind of plea bargain, maybe even without jail time, but now
at least you're on probation and/or have a criminal record.

~~~
emcrazyone
simply not true. refusing to talk removes the cop's ability to use what is
said against you. Talking to them gives them ammunition. Don't take it from
me. See what a lawyer and a cop both say:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik)

------
Aloha
Holy Shit.

This is the kind of reporting I grew up with from the LAT - normally I
wouldn't think of Irvine as a place of righting wrongs, or even justice - but
clearly more than just wealth prevailed here.

If more peoples interactions with the justice system went like this, we'd be
better off.

(To be clear I'm an Orange County Native - one does not think of South Orange
County as a place of great crime - largely speeding tickets, and minor
violations.)

~~~
bigtones
Yes, it was a brilliantly written article and very engaging right to the end.
A great read and I had a real sense of justice done against those two by the
end of the piece. That Easter woman was insane.

------
gomijacogeo
The 911 call claimed his name was 'Chandraskhar' (I assume a vowel got dropped
in there and they meant Chandrasekhar), which isn't a name I'd expect someone
to produce at random. But it's a pretty notable one if you have a physics
background; Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar won the 1983 Nobel Prize for physics
and the 'Chandrasekhar limit' is a well known number in astrophysics. So, I
was wondering if someone in all of this would have some connection to
astrophysics and lo and behold the crazy wife's dad is an astrophysicist.
Makes me guess who wrote the script for the 911 call.

~~~
jlubawy
It said at one point in the article that Easter had made the name up based on
his Indian neighbor's name.

~~~
gomijacogeo
Oh, I must've missed that.

~~~
qb45
Well, it's not clear if they actually checked if he really had such neighbor.

------
abysmallyideal
That PTA lady was fortunate. This kinda thing happens all the time with class
divides, power struggles, etc.

The world ain't civil, and the US simply changed the methods people use. There
is so much tit for tat, eye for an eye, you wouldn't be wrong to think it is
still the old testament.

The story itself is exceptional because she was fortunate there were 20
detectives with nothing better to do. Try to tell a story like this in any
other neighborhood. In most cases, police are just trying to prevent those
kinds of people from getting violent, and that is if that department is even
functional.

~~~
icebraining
_> That PTA lady was fortunate._

That reminds of Orwell's account in "Homage to Catalonia" of being shot in the
Spanish civil war:

 _“No one I met at this time -- doctors, nurses, practicantes, or fellow-
patients-- failed to assure me that a man who is hit through the neck and
survives it is the luckiest creature alive. I could not help thinking that it
would be even luckier not to be hit at all.”_

~~~
abysmallyideal
People can be selfish, delusional, and cruel. If you take the Western ideals
of individualism, a person would be lucky not to have to deal with people like
the easters. Matter of fact is, everyone will have to at one point in their
life or another.

------
dmoy
Man this reads like something out of a TV drama. Some people I guess can go a
bit overboard, maybe borderline delusional when their kids are involved.

~~~
cperciva
_Man this reads like something out of a TV drama._

I don't think that's a coincidence. People copy what they see -- even if only
unconsciously and because it's the first idea which comes to mind -- and for
people who have no direct experience with crime, TV dramas make up most of
what they have seen about it.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
I'd guess it's the other way round. I see a lot of fiction which is ripped
from the headlines. People are endlessly creatively crazy and ripping off real
life is a lot easier than making stuff up.

------
rabboRubble
I'm struck by the following sentence...

"Duff was struck by how thoroughly the Irvine police had investigated a crime
in which the victim had suffered no physical harm."

She definitely suffered the threat of physical harm. As we've seen over and
over, contact with the police can have fatal consequences for the civilian.
Furthermore, being jailed and incarcerated is a physical harm.

It's like the investigating police actually recognized this!

------
solidsnack9000
I hope we'll find out if they are hiding any money and they'll have to pay
eventually.

~~~
spacehome
I'm not so sure that's justice in this case, or in general. If someone has
already spent time in jail and has a felony on their record, erasing the
possibility of utilizing their law degree, do we need to punish them further?
What does "paying one's debt to society" mean?

~~~
solidsnack9000
The civil penalty would hopefully go to the woman they harmed and not to
society in general. It's not about paying their debt to society in the
abstract but rather about making their very concrete victim whole.

------
icantdrive55
"The sociopath next door"

I read this, and I was honestly shocked anyone could be so petty.

That said, I have a weird story about a neighbor.

I'll keep it short, and change some of the details. I don't think they would
ever be on this site, but who knows? They weren't bad people, but they just
suprised me. Here goes--

Years ago a young couple moved in to a house adjacent to ours. Nice young
couple. They even brought over a gift. I thanked them, and said, "If you need
anything, I'm here a lot. I'm self-employed right now."

They seemed to want me to know they were both Architects.

They must have told me three times they were both Architects--in a few minute
conversation?

They were definetly a differnt generation than mine, and I remember the "What
do you do" introductory questions. I never liked them. I remember really
tiring of them them in the bar scene. "And what do you do?" I once told a
young lady, I was a Proof reader in the pornography industry. Another, "A
professional Drinker." Her, "Ewe", or something like that.

Back to that first encounter, I figured they were just glad to be finished
with school, and trying to network. They were proud of their professions, and
that's fine.

I knew right away I had nothing in common with the male Architect. We were
just two different people. I remember I was working on my car, and my hands
were filthy. I knew he wasen't the type of guy who ever got his hands dirty.
That's fine, I'm just one of those guys. I try not to pay people for stuffI
can do myself, and I was always just getting by financially. I couldn't afford
to hire anyone for anything.

There was just something about him, but I couldn't put a finger on it.
Outwardly nice, but something seemed phoney. I was inwardly hoping they
wouldn't invite me over for any socials. It turned out they weren't social.

Anyway, I never gave them much thought.

In my neighborhood, we don't know eachother. It might sound weird, but you get
used to it, and kinda of begin to like it.

We shared a property line. One day he wanted to replace a fence, but he
claimed I was encroaching on his property line--by a few inches. I was kinda
shocked. I asked him, "How do you know?" Oh---I can just tell. You know, "I'm
an Architect?" Yea--I was shocked. I felt like telling him, "I'm an inactive
general contractor", but dummied up. He caught me off guard. (I knew new when
these houses were built, the set back linewas 5 feet, and 6 feet for two story
homes. He was in a one story ranch style home. If anything, he was on our
property?)

I told him get a survey, and put the fence wherever the line is. I walked away
thinking, that was kinda weird?

A few years went by. He got a survey. Never heard from him.

They had a kid.

Maybe five years went by, and I honestly forgot their names.

The then got another survey. I think it was a friend of his, because he was
helping--holding the markers, etc.

I knew I wasen't on his property, but he seemed determined to get a survey
proving me wrong.

A few more years went by.

They had another baby.

In all the years I lived next to them, we would wave, say hi on garbage day,
but we really didn't know eachother.

I just knew his wife worked, and he took care of the kids. I thought that was
great. I thought he was a great father. They were a great couple! They seemed
so normal. Never a fight. Just a quiet couple. He liked to wear a tie though.
Never got that one. Why wear a tie around the house?

One day, I was walking home from work, and saw a sign.

"Free baby monitor. It works."

I thought of my next door neighbors, and picked it up.

I knew I wasen't going to knock on their door, but I might just put the
monitor on their driveway. Plus--I like to fix disgarded electronics, or see
how they are made. I was thinking of taking it apart to see how it was built,
or maybe scavage any caps, resistors, etc. They didn't seem the type to have
anything used, and I get that, but this baby monitor still had the stickers on
it. It didn't look used. Put shrink wrap on it, and it would be new. I decided
to keep it. They probally would want it.

So, I'm at my workbench, and device this is just too nice to take apart. I
decide to give it to my neighbors. I did want to test it before I put it one
their property though.

It's about 6 in the afternoon. I turn it on, and I hear people talking.
"Wow!!" I was startled. It literally scared me. Then it kicked it; they must
have a baby monitor, and it's on the same channel? Horrid security though!

I immediately turned it off, but I couldn't help myself. It was just so clear.
I was impressed with the radio's frequency power.

So---I turned it back on. I thought I will just listen a little bit. I then
heard my name. I thought they couldn't be talking about me. We have talked
maybe three times in 10 years?

But they were talking about me. I heard, "If he doesn't shut that dog up, I'm
going to call the humane society." "Did you see his hair lately?" "Who's that
new girl that comes over late?"

I was floored. I didn't think they knew my name.

I thought, what are the odds they just happened to be talking about me at that
point in time? They must dislike me? Or, they are people I will never quite
"get".

I honestly didn't want to know, or listen.

I turned that radio off. It really did hurt my feelings though. I actually
thought they liked me.

Well--I threw the baby monitor away.

They ended up moving. They see me sometimes at Safeway, and both have huge
smiles. I wave back--hoping my hair looked o.k.. I get in my car, and try to
smooch down my poofy hair.

Crazy people--crazy world?

~~~
icebraining
There's an episode of American Dad ( _I Can 't Stan You_) where he goes
through the same experience, and like you, ends up thinking that others
dislike him. Until he realizes that everyone talks smack about everyone else,
and that it doesn't really mean anything except that people like to gossip.

Like him, you just happened to stumble upon something that happens every day,
everywhere.

