Austin sergeant fired for fatal shooting

Tony Plohetski wrote an article November 27. 2007 about the chief of police department named Art Acevedo firing Sgt. Michael Olsen for fatally shooting a man(Kevin Brown)during a foot pursuit outside an East Austin nightclub in June, saying in a blistering 10-page report that Olsen unnecessarily fired a second shot into his back as he lay facedown before giving him a chance to comply with an order to show his hands. Acevedo said " Olsen demonstrated poor judgment, showed a lack of common sense and failed to follow his training in the moments before the June 3 shooting" In response, Olsen answered that he was investigating a report that Brown had a gun and that Brown began to flee. He said he fired when Brown reached toward his waist, as if drawing a weapon. After reading this I believe what Art Acevedo did was in the intention of good and justice was served as he fired Olsen from the police department. Olsen has had a poor history of mistreating minorities for a while now and it took this young black male for people to finally see that he does not fit as an officer. As of this year the citizens of Austin has made a good choice of picking this new chief of police from California.

reply to "Texas Standardized Testing"

Reading this post about standardized testing really got me and I totally agree because teachers these days basically all they do is get the students ready for the test. I believe that teachers need to structure their lesson plan to teach the curriculum and at the same time prepare the student to put all of that knowledge in pencil when it comes down to testing. The state of Texas seems to think that Standardized testing is the answer for showing the progress of the students and their ability to comprehend the curriculum set by Texas standards. The problem with this is that some students don’t really have good test taking skills and end up doing bad even though they really knew the subject. I also agree that standardized testing can make a student feel that he is not measuring up to the standards and that they are not as smart as their fellow classmate because they failed. I know this for a fact because I happen to be this student in middle school but still passed that grade because of practice. Basically standardized testing is to me is not really the answer on measuring a student’s knowledge on different subjects, but its required you pass this test before you can move on to the next grade or even get your diploma. Texas needs to develop or improve this system of testing a student’s knowledge on various subjects.

Why you should be registered to vote....

You live in a democracy and that means that you get a say in who runs your country and by way of this privilege you also get a say about how your country is run. The whole point of the voting system is so that our government won’t get “corrupted” and so we can nominate the right people to take care of our country. I’m taking history right now and in the old days people fought for what our government is today, for our government to be based on a voting system. Basically people like Thomas Paine said that if the government had too much power then it would eventually become corrupted. That’s why it should be based on “common wealth,” which meant we the people should have a say in what is going on. Right now elderly people are the most reliable voters. They have the highest percentage of voters of any age group. And because of that, old people get what they want. This is why we need more voters that are young. If you're running for public office, you better be protecting the interests of old people because old people will vote you out. On the other hand, young people don't vote in large numbers and it's not worth a politician’s time to put a lot of effort in courting the young vote. Not that youth isn't important, but if politician A focuses on the young voters and politician B focuses on the old voters, politician B wins, because old people turn out. Turn out is very important because the people who turn out and vote are the ones that rule. If you don't turn out, you lose. If you show up and vote, and get your friends to show up and vote, you are doing a service to the interests of young people. Voting is a tremendous gift. Believe it or not, young people just like you in other countries actually fight and even die for this right; a right that so many youth in democratic nations take for granted. You should vote because you can!