Update: Houston Daycare Operator Arraigned In Deadly Fire That Killed 4 Toddlers

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Sir, I have given this post some thought and I do not aim to stir the pot but I do have this to say. Even working in emergency services and paying taxes you do not use the fire department or EMS everyday. Sure your taxes go to them and you live within certain health and safety codes, it is not everyday that your house catches fire, you crash your car or need to go to the ER. However, every citizen, resident and individual must always abide by the laws that govern the land all day everyday. Even within the confined of your own home, the law, and law enforcement follows you inside. If your house is on fire, or you need to go to the ER, these are choices we make where no one says you must call EMS or you must have the fire department, we follow what our desires at the time are. This is not the same for laws, we must follow all laws and regulations where ever we go, we can not choose which laws we want to follow and which ones we don't. With this in mind, individuals need to know their rights, the laws and the limits of powers of those in authority positions if we are to continue to live in a harmonious society. While you can choose to ignore the topics on this board and in real life that deal with fire fighting or EMS, that is your choice. With that being said, I can not ignore the topics of law and order or else I am going to thrown in jail. Laws are not always fair and they are not always right, but I still must follow them, and if I must follow them well then I need to know how to use them, how to protect myself from them and how they will be used against me. I am not claiming to be a law enforcement officer or a lawyer, or even a legal expert, but I do claim to have a working knowledge of the law. This working knowledge allows me to both use the powers of law to my advantage and to protect myself behind them. If your house catches fire you can claim ignorance of firefighting, but if I steal a car I can not claim ignorance of the law. What I am saying, if I was not clear is that the law is around us at every turn, it governs where we live, where we walk, how we interact with people it is part of our daily lives that we all have a part in, other topics are not this way. Firefighting and EMS does not touch everyone in the same way that laws and their enforcement do.

This is just a musing, it is not to incite conflict and I am not trying to insult or demean anyone. I am just pointing out that there are two very different topics that impact people in very different ways. It would be totally natural to me to have an opinion on this matter even if I was not qualified to have one simply because the law affects me day in and day out in the same way that it affects you, I am not totally sure you can say that same thing about firefighting.

Well, I can honestly say I'm not 100% sure what your talking about, or where your going with your thoughts, so it's difficult for me to respond to your post. So with that said, I'm not even going to try.

From a more overall perspective, my point was, to anyone, as we have no shortage of "locker room lawyers" on this board, please don't authoritatively cite laws and regulations that are in fact, erroneous. Posting your opinion about something is fine, but take great pains to make it clear it is your opinion. In my five years on this board, I have seen so many (wrong) laws cited as nothing short of "facts", and I guarantee you this. Somewhere along the way, someone has read a post and took what they read as fact and later relied or repeated this "fact". This does each of us a disservice and I don't believe that's in the spirit of this forum. Remember, there is a huge difference between asking a question in order to learn more about a topic and putting forth incorrect details, colored as "facts."

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Jessica Tata reportedly surrenders to authorities

Her brother, Ron Tata, 26, said Saturday that Jessica turned herself in around 11 a.m. According to his relatives in Nigeria, workers at the U.S. Consulate in Lagos traveled to her location in Port Harcourt, he said. “She planned to do it a couple days ago and they came over to pick her up, after she called them and said she wanted to turn herself in, basically,” Ron Tata said.

The U.S. State Department, local officials with the U.S. Marshals Service, U.S. Embassy in Abuja, and local officials could not confirm Ron Tata’s report. One official close to the investigation confirmed that Tata is in custody, but could not provide any details.

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Sir, I have given this post some thought and I do not aim to stir the pot but I do have this to say. Even working in emergency services and paying taxes you do not use the fire department or EMS everyday. Sure your taxes go to them and you live within certain health and safety codes, it is not everyday that your house catches fire, you crash your car or need to go to the ER. However, every citizen, resident and individual must always abide by the laws that govern the land all day everyday. Even within the confined of your own home, the law, and law enforcement follows you inside. If your house is on fire, or you need to go to the ER, these are choices we make where no one says you must call EMS or you must have the fire department, we follow what our desires at the time are. This is not the same for laws, we must follow all laws and regulations where ever we go, we can not choose which laws we want to follow and which ones we don't. With this in mind, individuals need to know their rights, the laws and the limits of powers of those in authority positions if we are to continue to live in a harmonious society. While you can choose to ignore the topics on this board and in real life that deal with fire fighting or EMS, that is your choice. With that being said, I can not ignore the topics of law and order or else I am going to thrown in jail. Laws are not always fair and they are not always right, but I still must follow them, and if I must follow them well then I need to know how to use them, how to protect myself from them and how they will be used against me. I am not claiming to be a law enforcement officer or a lawyer, or even a legal expert, but I do claim to have a working knowledge of the law. This working knowledge allows me to both use the powers of law to my advantage and to protect myself behind them. If your house catches fire you can claim ignorance of firefighting, but if I steal a car I can not claim ignorance of the law. What I am saying, if I was not clear is that the law is around us at every turn, it governs where we live, where we walk, how we interact with people it is part of our daily lives that we all have a part in, other topics are not this way. Firefighting and EMS does not touch everyone in the same way that laws and their enforcement do.

This is just a musing, it is not to incite conflict and I am not trying to insult or demean anyone. I am just pointing out that there are two very different topics that impact people in very different ways. It would be totally natural to me to have an opinion on this matter even if I was not qualified to have one simply because the law affects me day in and day out in the same way that it affects you, I am not totally sure you can say that same thing about firefighting.

Sorry, but I have no idea what you said. You should run for Congress.

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Generally speaking...

I'll say this about the issue of laws and the Constitution being thrown around in general and this forum specifically. It is very easy to misinterpret the applicaiton of laws and the bill of rights without formal training and experience working with them and within the criminal justice system. This is why we have lawyers, courts, appeals courts, federal courts, federal appeals courts and the Supreme Court. If it were so clear, there wouldn't be a

Talking about laws and purported statements of fact concerning what is and isn't legal does suggest a greater knowledge of the subject than is often manifested in posts here.

There should have been an application to have the suspect's passport surrendered to the court given that she was the subject of a major investigation. This happens often and would haven't be an infringement on anyone's rights. Had she refused, she could have been surveilled, arrested, or otherwise monitored to avoid this extradition nightmare. Her very cooperatirve attorney evidently wasn't quite so cooperative or honorable. Shocking.

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She is now in the Houston justice system, and has been formally arraigned:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7486863.html