Shot to Death by Police for Betting on a Football Game? The Rise of Paramilitary Force in America

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http://www.alternet.org/shot-death-police-betting-football-game-rise-paramilitary-force-america



Excerpted from "Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces"
Sal Culosi is dead because he bet on a football game — but it wasn’t a bookie or a loan shark who killed him. His local government killed him, ostensibly to protect him from his gambling habit.

Several months earlier at a local bar, Fairfax County, Virginia, detective David Baucum overheard the thirty-eight-year-old optometrist and some friends wagering on a college football game. “To Sal, betting a few bills on the Redskins was a stress reliever, done among friends,” a friend of Culosi’s told me shortly after his death. “None of us single, successful professionals ever thought that betting fifty bucks or so on the Virginia–Virginia Tech football game was a crime worthy of investigation.” Baucum apparently did. After overhearing the men wagering, Baucum befriended Culosi as a cover to begin investigating him. During the next several months, he talked Culosi into raising the stakes of what Culosi thought were just more fun wagers between friends to make watching sports more interesting. Eventually Culosi and Baucum bet more than $2,000 in a single day. Under Virginia law, that was enough for police to charge Culosi with running a gambling operation. And that’s when they brought in the SWAT team.

On the night of January 24, 2006, Baucum called Culosi and arranged a time to drop by to collect his winnings. When Culosi, barefoot and clad in a T-shirt and jeans, stepped out of his house to meet the man he thought was a friend, the SWAT team began to move in. Seconds later, Det. Deval Bullock, who had been on duty since 4:00 AM and hadn’t slept in seventeen hours, fired a bullet that pierced Culosi’s heart.

Sal Culosi’s last words were to Baucum, the cop he thought was a friend: “Dude, what are you doing?”

[malaise]

1. WTFF?????

They are out of control - is it fascism yet?

[ileus]

2. but...but we approve of the police state.

It's normal and harmless.

[Junkdrawer]

3. The more our overloads screw us, the more paranoid they become....

the more paranoid they become, the more vicious the guard dogs

[deutsey]

6. Culosi's family got a $2 million settlement in 2011, apparently

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/18/AR2011011805125.html

[AnotherMcIntosh]

9. Good to know. Thanks.

[Orrex]

5. Culosi was probably running a dangerous Fantasy Football league, too

Honestly, who can blame the cops for wanting to take out this vicious kingpin?

[blackspade]

7. Why is it that taxpayers pay out for mistakes murders that cops commit?

And the cops walk?

Who polices the police?

[davidn3600]

8. This is what you get when you have a population that is obsessed with being "tough on crime."

Privatized prisons. Militarized police. So many laws that it's impossible to live your life without breaking a few. Highest incarceration rate in the world. We execute mainly minorities, several of which are mentally disabled.

And people still don't think our justice system is severe enough.

[Iggo]

10. Yay, Cops!

They're the best!

[marble falls]

12. This is where someone wheels out a "cop is nice to little old lady" story.

[Jerry442]

11. Remember those people on the wrong side of the tracks?

You know, when you were a kid, the ones that were always having run-ins with the cops and we all wondered, what is wrong with those people anyway?

Now we're all on the wrong side of the tracks.

[Jackpine Radical]

13. The cops used to have a much more expansive sense of "us"

and a much smaller category of "them."

Now we're all "them."

[greiner3]

14. On an upbeat note;

Sal's student loans are now 'paid off'.

[heaven05]

15. nothing

surprises me anymore. SWAT, yeah they're really drunk with 'power and authority.' Sad that sports could could cause this to happen to an individual.

[NBachers]

16. What a slimeball

[Dustlawyer]

17. When I 1st saw this I was wondering why it took so long, even for a legal battle.

After reading how much BS they had to fight I understand. People get f'ed over by the government frequently get nothing due to governmental immunity. I am glad the family finally got something. Having worked with cops it is sad that this guy was the only cop that had a problem with betting on football. He could have hung out with his mates and probably busted them all for betting on football.