Today is the anniversary of Jimmy Carter's pardon of Vietnam draft evaders

In 1977 on this day Jimmy Carter pardoned Vietnam Draft evaders. My cousin left the United States after his draft number came up. I remember the FBI contacting my father to find out where my cousin was. He spent time in Canada and the Virgin Islands. When we are at war again, it seems that large parts of our society are isolated from this war in way that were not true for Vietnam. I remember sitting in a friend's living room watching the draft birthdays role on TV and we both fell over dead when our birthdays came up. Maybe a draft would be a way for all of us to share in the sacrifice. I am completely opposed to war but a war fought with those with few alternatives other than military service is not the way to go. If we all had some "skin in the game" as they say, I dare say that the war in Iraq would be over already.

It is official Carolyn Gammicchia will not be a Shelby Township Police Officer again

The people in this picture are Carolyn Gammicchia and her husband. In the picture you will see she used to be a police officer. "Used to be" being the important words. Carolyn was caught doing a lein check on me and my wife. The rules for police officers are very clear you can only use the lein system for police business.

Unfortunately for Carolyn she decided to check up on me and my wife without a proper police reason. She has stated different reasons at different times why she did this including stating at one point that she was doing the right thing.

Not sure what that means exactly but the Shelby Township Police Department didn't buy it and now we have learned an independent arbitrator didn't buy it.

She was fired and pleaded no contest to two misdemeanor courts of illegal use of the lein system (she could have been charged with two felony). Not being one to take no for an answer she appealed her termination with the Shelby Township Police. Today we learned that the independent arbitrator determined that she was properly terminated. Carolyn will likely not be a police officer ever again and that is a good thing.

I wrote a while ago about this story see.

Coverage of the story at the time can be found here and here.

The story started because Yvonne was the executive director for the Autism Society of Michigan and Carolyn was on the Board of Directors and Carolyn was not happy with some of the decisions Yvonne made. As a result she made Yvonne's life miserable. In the middle of this Carolyn tried to force Yvonne out as ED of ASM and also ran the lein checks apparently in an attempt to find something to use against Yvonne sadly for her she didn't find anything. A meeting of the board of directors was coming up in the next few days.

Yonne ended up leaving ASM and reached an out of court settlement.

After Carolyn was fired, Yvonne and I sent out some emails to people who Carolyn worked with telling about the story. Trying to be open about what we were doing and so Carolyn would know what was being said about her, we copied her on these emails. In an ridiculous attempt to play the victim, Carolyn filed a PPO against Yvonne. Notice she never claimed that the information was not true just that she was threatened by Yvonne contacting her. The judge did not order the PPO and we agreed to not have any contact with her (like we would want to) and to not send any more emails until the arbitration was decided. The arbitration is now finished and decided. So we are once again free to tell anyone who will listen about this story.

Carolyn spends a lot of time advocating for people with autism and some of the work she has done has been pretty impressive but when she is crossed in my opinion she is very dangerous she put my wife through hell and deserves everything she got. People who work with her should know this story and be aware of what she is capable of.

Michigan Bean Festival

Yes the Michigan Bean Festival.  My wife grew up in Fairgrove Michigan.  

See map here.  

For those of you not in Michigan it is in the "thumb" of the lower peninsula.  Every Labor Day they have the Bean Festival.  It is a true immersion in small town living.  The highlights are the crowning of the Bean Queen, the carnival rides, and the demolition derby.  My mother-in-law is in charge of the casino tent.  So every year she gets me to deal blackjack.  

The kids love the carnival rides and end up exhausted on the first day of school but it is all worth it.

Telling my daughter Hillary won't be president

My daughter woke up this morning and asked who won the primaries yesterday. This is cool for so many reasons. My daughter has been really interested, in large part because there was a woman in the race. When I told her it was pretty much official that Hillary will not be the nominee, she was really disappointed. I am sure she is not the only female that was excited by this race because she could see herself in a contender for the first time.

Criminal Action Against My wife's Antagonist

You may know that my wife has had an ongoing battle with the person who was the president of the board of the orgaization she worked for. The woman was a police officer. A while ago we found out that she had done criminal background checks on us in an attempt to dig up dirt against my wife. In Michigan this is illegal. She used the LEIN (law enforcement information network) to do the check. As a result, she was fired from her job and has now plead to two misdemeanor charges. Here is the artice describing the filing of the charges.

Here are the highlights:

Shelby cop accused of illegally disclosing info

She allegedly used LEIN for personal matters

By Frank DeFrank

Macomb Daily Staff Writer

A Shelby Township police officer was charged Tuesday with illegally disclosing information she obtained from a police computer network.

Carolyn Gammicchia, 48, faces two counts of unauthorized disclosure of information from the Law Enforcement Information Network (LEIN). The 13-year department veteran appeared in 41A District Court in Shelby Township to answer the charges.

The charge is a misdemeanor offense that carries a maximum penalty of 93 days in jail. Gammicchia was released on personal bond. No date was set for her next court appearance, officials said.

Gammicchia was fired Jan. 12 for violating police department policies, said Chief Robert Leman. The officer has filed a grievance challenging the dismissal.

"It is obviously extremely disappointing," Leman said. "But I can't treat something like this lightly. The public holds us to a higher standard. The public expects us to police our own."

Telephone messages left Tuesday for Gammicchia and her lawyer were not returned.

Gammicchia is accused of using the LEIN information for personal, non-police reasons. Leman said the charges stem from Gammicchia gathering information on a person whom the officer knew from an organization outside the workplace.

"Based on the investigation, it appears she was attempting … to show that a person (in the organization) had some problems with her background," Leman said.