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December 06, 2004
Magazines beget magazines . . .
Not long ago, a young man wearing a baggy T-shirt with an image of the German Iron Cross knocked on my door while twitching and sweating. While he appeared to be high on drugs, he was waving a little plastic sheet which said something about "American Community Services." Perhaps because he noticed the NRA sticker on my door, the first words out of his mouth were "Don't shoot, man!" Then he asked me about buying magazines, but he'd already lost the sale because of his general attitude. When he left, I thought I should watch him, and he proceeded to zigzag erratically and impatiently from one side of the street to the other, not seeming to spend enough time for people even to answer the door. I soon forgot about it, but in this morning's Inquirer I read about a 77-year old woman murdered by a representative of the same company. (Better story here.) This fascinated me, because I have a friend in the Midwest whose home was burglarized the day after she refused to buy magazines. So I Googled the company and found instances of their employees doing all kinds of way-out things, all over the country. . . Police say 19 year-old Dangelo Langford assaulted an 80-year-old woman at her Menlo Park home Wednesday night. another magazine salesman was making more mischief in another Bolton neighborhood. Another pair of solicitors had been reported on Kettlehole Road, but was gone when police arrived. It was all fairly routine. According to Nelson, police encounter such groups from time to time, out-of-state magazine subscription outlets in town with a van full of young door-to-door solicitors. The solicitors, usually young adults and teenagers, make their rounds from house to house until police respond to tell them to stop, said Nelson. American Community Services has been especially busy in Tennessee with THREE notable incidents in the Knoxville area alone: KNOXVILLE — Two years ago, a door-to-door magazine salesman raped and stabbed to death a Knox County grandmother, but area lawmakers were unable to persuade their colleagues to regulate the industry.Lest anyone imagine that bolting the door will save you, bear in mind that these thugs are also a menace on the highways, leaving a trail of fatal accidents in their wake. Des Moines, Iowa – A driver with no license and very little driving experience piloted a van that hit the median and overturned after midnight on Interstate 80 west of the city, ejecting nine people. Five agents killed and six injured. May 3, 1992. Crew known as Total Dedication Inc., linked to American Community Services, both of Michigan City, Ind.That last web page, while mostly about traffic incidents, also lists a few more non-traffic capers like these: more 8. Boston – A 76-year-old retired beautician was stabbed to death by a Detroit sales agent with American Community Services of Indiana. The salesman, who had a prior rape conviction, had sold a subscription to the victim earlier in the day in suburban Woburn. July 13, 1990.Personal injury attorneys who imagine that American Community Services has a deep pocket should bear in mind that their insurance company resists paying claims: DeBorde’s children, H. Elizabeth Noffisinger and James Michael Potts, are suing American Community Services Inc., an Indiana magazine clearinghouse, for damages in connection withher death. Lloyds provides insurance for ACS.(In a later story I can't bring up, it was apparently reported that the insurance company did not have to pay.) In what was described as another magazine company's "industry trick," one horrendous driver was supplied with a fake birth certificate to get him back on the road. I can't spend all day Googling this stuff, but it just goes on and on. Why, there's even a memorial page to the victims of these "traveling crews." This is not meant to be a crime fighting blog, but it seems to me that the reason these organizations get away with hiring itinerant young thugs is because the crimes they commit are written off as "local crime" when no one has the time or resources to look for any sort of national pattern. I'm sure the vast majority of the crimes they commit are simple home burglaries that attract little to no attention, and are just written off as "unsolved." When the federal RICO Act was passed, I thought it was unconstitutional, because it was written so broadly. (Originally intended to go after the Mob, RICO has been used for things like the prosecution of anti-abortion protesters.) So why can't RICO be used to prosecute purveyors of interstate carnage and put them out of business? Until something like that happens, I think the best thing to do is to keep an eye on these "direct sellers" of magazines, while keeping all magazines loaded. posted by Eric on 12.06.04 at 08:38 AM |
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