May 13, 2019

The stupid prisoner idea that they can talk in "code."

"I’m going to make sure something happens. I’m going to make sure I have a pizza delivered to him. He’s going to get that f------ pizza."

Said Billie Allen, quoted in "A prison gang member was overheard plotting a ‘pizza party’ for a prosecutor. He didn’t mean food" (WaPo).

19 comments:

Clyde said...

It's prison, not the Ivy League where the bright boys are. Just sayin'.

rhhardin said...

Shining Through (1992) Melanie Griffith

L: Please report that my wife Sunflower and I and her... new dog Rover just returned from the seashore, where we saw a flock of birds-sea birds. A flock of 14 sea birds diving for fish.

M: Excuse me, are those pelicans? You said they were diving.

L: I've asked you not to interrupt me.

M: Sorry, Mr Leland, but the German language is very specific. You wouldn't say seabirds, you would say pelicans. Unless, of course, this is all just some kind of code, in which case you should just tell me, so I'd stop bothering you

L: Why would you say something like that? No, I'm curious.

M: Why? Well, your wife's name is not Sunflower. You don't even have a wife. I mean, not one that I know of anyway. Therefore you assume that this is all a code.

Tom T. said...

The twist comes when the henchman, who's even stupider, actually has a pizza sent over. "But boss, you said..."

Fernandinande said...

Allen was arrested April 30, 2018, outside of a downtown Greeley hotel and booked into the Weld County Jail on suspicion of illegal possession of a handgun and narcotics.

He's got pretty good hair for a libertarian.

tim maguire said...

You mean the prosecutor didn't believe the criminal he was prosecuting was really going to throw him a pizza party?

Everyone's so cynical these days!

Fernandinande said...

I think it's stupid to believe the story as published.

Darrell said...

That's why they bribe a guard to smuggle in a burner cellphone.
Talking in code makes you hungry.

tim maguire said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
tim maguire said...

rhhardin said...

L: Please report that my wife Sunflower and I and her... new dog Rover just returned from the seashore, where we saw a flock of birds-sea birds. A flock of 14 sea birds diving for fish.

M: your wife's name is not Sunflower.


Really? That's the part that caught M's attention? Not the part about how L thinks it's worth reporting that while walking his dog he saw a bird eat a fish?

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Well of course it's code. The only question is why is he having child sex traffickers send an underage prostitute to the prosecutor...

Nichevo said...

Paywall

MayBee said...

Hahahaha, Ignorance is Bliss. I was just going to say "Pizzagate!!!"

Fen said...

I was arrested once for failure to appear over failure to present registration. It was my screwup, I blew the court off and paid for it.

So, I'm sitting in the tank about 4 hours and several others are put in while we wait to be processed. There's a phone in the room with bail bondsmen listed. Above it is a sign that reads: "all phone calls are monitored" or something close to that. Obviously, you don't want to call your lawyer and confess to their tape-recorder.

Now, in The Stainless Steel Rat our hero deliberately gets caught by police because he wants a "criminal education" and believes the best school for that is prison. But he quickly discovers most criminals are stupid (which is why they got caught to begin with).

So the guys in the holding cell start asking each other what they got arrested for. One guys goes into detail about how he bought a list of skimmed credit cards and went on a shopping spree. I look at the sign over the phone, then overhead at the spyglobe in the cell, and I just KNOW the cell has to be bugged. Or at least that there isn't any expectation of privacy, or any right to it in jail. And I just imagine the policemen in the next room laughing it up as this guy unknowingly confesses to a whole list of crimes he wasn't even arrested for.

Fen said...

Shining Through (1992) Melanie Griffith

That was a great movie. Did it get the praise it deserved?

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

The problem with speaking in code.

billo said...

Fen:
" I look at the sign over the phone, then overhead at the spyglobe in the cell, and I just KNOW the cell has to be bugged. Or at least that there isn't any expectation of privacy, or any right to it in jail. And I just imagine the policemen in the next room laughing it up as this guy unknowingly confesses to a whole list of crimes he wasn't even arrested for. "

A number of years ago, I consulted as a forensic pathologist on a quadruple homicide in a nearby state. A guy had gone on a killing spree with his girlfriend in the car. Some months later, I was asked to come and testify. While in conference, the ADA pulled out a sheaf of papers. They were all letters from the girlfriend to the defendant while in prison, in which she detailed how sexually excited she got when she saw him kill the victims, how they all deserved killing, etc. Worse, the defendant responded in kind. Apparently nobody got the memo that mail in prison was surveilled. It did not go well for him at trial.

As to talking in code, I think the problem is that folk are too concrete. It's one thing to say "I'm going to deliver him his f**g pizza." It's another to say "In the works of Spelling, a predominant concept is the distinction between without and within. In a sense, Sartre uses the term ‘submodern deappropriation’ to denote the common ground between sexuality and society.
Neocapitalist theory implies that culture is capable of significance. " (taken from the Postmodern paper generator page). With the appropriate key, that's unbreakable. If done right, nobody will know what you are saying even if it's decoded.

Yancey Ward said...

On prison mail- I was an alternate juror during the first trial in this case. The defendant had written letters to his girlfriend during his pre-trial incarceration in which he confessed to the armed robbery in which the victim had been shot. The letters were used as evidence against him. Criminals are not very bright.

Michael K said...

So the guys in the holding cell start asking each other what they got arrested for.

I had exactly the same experience when I was in my early 20s. One guy said he broke into a house and made himself a sandwich, then sat and watched TV until the homeowner came home. He figured he would be in for about 3 months and by that time it would be summer.

narciso said...

Did we slip into an alternate timeline:

https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/05/13/defense-attorneys-for-navy-seal-accused-of-war-crimes-say-prosecutors-spied-on-them/#.XNnqVmkIF18.twitter