Posted by Jack
After reducing his bail, Superior Court Judge Lewis Davis told Barry White Jr., “I hope you don’t prove me wrong.” White, 23, had been charged with assault with a deadly weapon in connection with a confrontation with Antioch police officers, who reported that they had to shoot White after he tried to run them over.
The officers had been investigating reports that White and two friends had threatened a club bouncer with a pump-action shotgun.
White was released on $125,000 bail in that case, records show. But at a preliminary hearing, he was taken into custody again for allegedly approaching an officer testifying against him with clenched fists, prompting bailiffs to restrain him.
White faced a new charge of threatening police, with an additional $120,000 bail. But Judge Davis lowered it to a mere $5,000 and White immediately posted bail. At the time, Contra Costa County Deputy District Attorney Kevin Bell argued that White deserved a higher bail because he had displayed a pattern of threatening behavior. (I’ll say!)
Steve Taxman, White’s attorney, said that White was “not a threat” and that the extra charges against him were enough to keep him from misbehaving. Trying to run over officers with his car and threatening the life of a police office in court and pulling a shotgun on a bouncer is misbehaving? Taxman went on to say, “I think Mr. White knows that he’s on a thin leash until this has been resolved and even after it’s been resolved. He will be in court, and he’s not going to be committing new offenses.”
A thin leash, what does that mean? Thin ice, I understand, hanging by a thin rope I get, but a thin leash implies one can break free at any moment! Maybe that’s exactly what he meant? This guys criminal history says he’s learned absolutely nothing.
Shortly after his release Barry White viciously murdered two female cashiers in cold blood by slashing their throats and shooting them. A 3rd male employee at the store survived despite being shot and stabbed.
White is now doing life in prison, costing the taxpayers about $175,000 a year. He’s 23 and if he lives to an average old age he will have cost the taxpayers of CA $11, 200,000. I don’t understand how we can justify that? 80 years ago a guy like White would have been dead shortly after his conviction. Times have sure changed, haven’t they?
Maybe we’ll get lucky and this scumbag will be murdered in prison. I better not say what I think should happen to the judge and White’s attorney.
As a victim of a violent crime, I know full well the failings of our “justice” system. I have been in chronic pain (severe nerve damage) my entire adult life as a result of some scumbag idiot whom I did not know come out of the blue and shoot me. Evidently he thought I was someone else. He got off scot-free.
I am lucky to be alive as the bullet nicked my aorta before smashing through my left brachial plexus and coming to rest in fragments next to my spine.
Glad you survived, Pie. Your comments here are always relevant.
Judge Davis needs to be removed from the bench for incompetence.
Thank you J. I have bad days and not so bad days. It is something you get used to but really never get used to. The older I get the more my tolerance for pain wears away. Three years and a ten thousand tears ago I got so desperate I went to a physician and explained my situation (which had gotten worse due to more nerve damage from surgeries.) He prescribed some heavy duty opioids.
BIG MISTAKE. They drove me not only dysfunctional but completely insane. So I threw them out. The momentary and slight vacation effects were nice but the side effects completely sucked donkey dicks.
I should have known better having given up any medications for pain since 1975. The only drug that truly releases me from the grip is large amounts of morphine and we all should know how untenable that is.
Consequently I have lived my life as drug free as possible and the experience with pill form synthetic opioids only served to convince me more of my reluctant attitude towards chemical solutions is the right thing to do.
I actually got so desperate that I gave “medical marijuana” a try in candy form. (The idea of sucking acrid smoke into my already scarred lungs was not appealing.) Another BIG MISTAKE. It made the pain worse when I did not pass out! I think this whole “medical marijuana” thing for pain is complete bullsh*t, and I am an expert on pain from personal experience. Personal empirical evidence. I believe that folks who can tolerate marijuana without immediately passing out like I do are simply seeking to get high, period.
I have found the only reasonable thing to do is meditation. When feeling particularly bad I concentrate and focus on the pain. Then, somehow, I reach this place where I know I cannot do anything about it and relax into it by letting it completely absorb me. I know this sounds a bit ridiculous but it really is my only release when I get very tired and down. Usually a couple hours does the trick but I have spent days doing this until I find some meager respite and just let the pain flow through me.
I have said too much here and I am not seeking sympathy. I just got on a roll and went with it since I am having a bad day. It won’t happen again. Pie out.
Pie, I’m hoping that we are right on the edge of some medical break-through’s with a couple of non-narcotic pain relievers. These offer relief to chronic pain sufferers, but without the dangers of addiction. Check this out…
UCL-led research team has identified a rare mutation that causes one family to have unusually low sensitivity to pain
University College London
A UCL-led research team has identified a rare mutation that causes one family to have unusually low sensitivity to pain.
The researchers hope the findings, published today in Brain, could be used to identify new treatments for chronic pain.
They studied an Italian family, the Marsilis, which includes six people who have a distinctive pain response that has not been identified in any other people.
“The members of this family can burn themselves or experience pain-free bone fractures without feeling any pain. But they have a normal intraepidermal nerve fibre density, which means their nerves are all there, they’re just not working how they should be. We’re working to gain a better understanding of exactly why they don’t feel much pain, to see if that could help us find new pain relief treatments,” said the study’s lead author, Dr James Cox (UCL Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research).
One in ten people experience moderately to severely disabling chronic pain,* but treatments beyond common painkillers remain elusive. Understanding the causes of congenital analgesia, a rare inherited condition that reduces the capacity to feel physical pain, is one of the main areas of research that could lead to new pain relief therapies.
Two other mutations causing congenital analgesia are being actively explored by researchers alongside pharmaceutical firms, but have yet to yield any breakthrough drugs. https://eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-12/ucl-gmc121317.php
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-03/ucl-wwn032619.php
Next… Researchers from the University of Texas at Dallas have created an RNA-mimicking molecule that blocks the series of pain sensitization reactions that normally follow an injury.
Could this ‘decoy molecule’ help to create better drugs for pain?
They believe that what they have discovered about their “decoy molecule” will pave the way for a new class of drugs that prevent pain at the outset without risk of addiction.
A study paper published in the journal Nature Communications describes how the “synthetic RNA mimic reduces pain sensitization in mice” by blocking the creation of pain-signaling proteins.
“We’re manipulating one step of protein synthesis,” explains senior study author Dr. Zachary Campbell, whose laboratory specializes in researching the molecular mechanisms of pain.
“Our results indicate that local treatment with the decoy can prevent pain and inflammation brought about by a tissue injury,” he adds.
Thanks Jack but at my age I could not give a crap about becoming addicted. Morphine (in large amounts) is wonderful but it shuts down your gut and turns you into a zombie. Not a nice place to be.
The pill form of synthetic opioids make me crazy dysfunctional. I could not care less if I were to be addicted if they actually worked without driving me insane. The pain relief is all not that much and the side effects are, well, not worth it.
Marijuana for pain relief is a joke. All it does is f*ck you up and make the sensation of pain worse. Never again.
The only true recourse for me is meditation. It does not stop the pain but it helps me accept it so I can remain somewhat functional. It somehow reminds me to let the endlessly screaming nerve damage pain flow through me and provides calming respite to think about other things. I’ll stick to that.
Writing for Post Scripts also helps. The focus required is an excellent distraction. Fly fishing once also served that function. The intense concentration in the construction of flies and the selection and presentation in the act of angling in itself served as a relief. But due to nerve damage throughout my spine (arthritis) and the attendant peripheral neuropathy in my legs makes navigating any stream impossible these days. I used to be such an animal.
Oh well. I am an old and beat up sob and so it goes. That is it, I shall never revisit this personal subject again in these pages. I’m not sure why I did go down this road to begin with other than to whine about poor me. Not a good reason. Marion Morrison taught me that. I forgot it momentarily.
Pie, so sorry to hear about your pain. I too suffer from four collapsed lumbar disk with radiating pain down both legs. Taking care of a disabled 200+ lbs son for 31 years took its toll on my back.
I did the PT, massage, acupuncture and pain pills. Nothing helped with the pain that allowed me to function, since I’m apparently very sensitive to various medications.
Then one day after an MRI and a surgeon telling me I needed to have two surgeries, spend a week in the hospital, a month in rehab and a year to recover I chose to try the pain management alternative with a procedure called RFA/Radiofrequency Ablation.
After two Medicare required tests using novacaine shots into the facet joints I was pain free for about three hours and passed the test to qualify for the RFA treatments.
It’s done at Enloe outpatient facility in Calif. Park. Takes about an hour and a half total. They give you a pill to relax you so you can’t drive, but you’re awake and working with the doctor to locate the nerves. I have eight sites, with four on each side of my spin treated.
After my first treatment I was almost pain free, but needed PT to deal with the pain in my legs and a muscle spasm in my lower back. The nerves will eventually grow back over time.
I went in for my second treatment about 9 months later. I just had my third treatment two weeks ago, which was just short of a year span from my second treatment. And I am pain free for the first time in over 20 years. Back and leg muscles are still a little weak, but now they get tired from using them while doing yard work, which I enjoy, and not from the radiating pain that prevented me from enjoying so many things.
Anyway, I know nothing is one size fits all, but am hoping this will help you as much as it has me. Life is good again since I can now do what I want and not struggling to do only what’s needed. The doctor’s name is Dr. Podduturo. He’s located in the Enloe Rehab facility on East Ave. I could not not mention this treatment in the hopes that it may help you.
Here’s some info.
https://www.google.com/search?q=radiofrequency+ablation&rlz=1CATTSD_enUS765US767&oq=radiofrequency+ablation&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.13671j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8