Torrance Police officer Evan Dahl was arrested on Friday for uploading child pornography. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received a tip back in March that someone had uploaded child sexual abuse material (CSAM) to a social media platform from a computer in Torrance, California. The tip led the LAPD's Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force to the Torrance home of Officer Evan Dahl. Dahl was still employed by the Torrance Police Department (TPD) at the time of his arrest. He was cited for possession of CSAM in violation of California Penal Code 311.11(a), but later RELEASED. Based on what we know of the case so far we think that Dahl's release was made possible in part by under charging him under circumstances that appear to illustrate a conflict of interest between local law enforcement and their job descriptions which technically say they're charged with pursuing criminals to the fullest extent of the law.
The tip received by authorities alleged possession and distribution of child pornography. As a former federal convict whose hobby and occasional job it was to help the rest of the general population find out what people were in for, this author knows that distribution of child pornography is a separate and more serious offense than simply possessing the stuff. In prison this distinction doesn't matter because those in there for any type of CSAM offense are considers weirdos either way, but it makes a huge in the eyes of the court at sentencing. This author has seen weirdos get off with probation for possessing child porn while those convicted of far less serious offenses (ex: bank robbery, drug conspiracy, assaulting a federal officer) receive far more time. That is one reason why a lot of guys that are doing decades behind bars make it their missing to protect society from sex offenders by making sure the only way they get out is in a bag. Unfortunately, prisons created "protective custody" programs which allow people like Dahl to escape justice by doing their time in special housing units (SHUs) kept separate from other inmates under 23 hour lockdown, but at least the PC program makes their time much worse which isn't a bad consolation prize for the rest of us.
Disclaimer: This author did not make it a hobby and occasional job to lookup people's charges for the purpose of causing anyone physical harm, but rather because prison was a boring place and learning fun facts could really liven the place up. Just because somebody stirs the pot doesn't mean they are trying to physically harm anyone. It just means they realize how easy the pot is to stir and the high probably of that stir making at least one day more entertaining than just watching TV all day again. On top of that, this author being a nerd serving a short sentence meant the likelihood of him being asked to put in work in such cases was slim to none which meant that figuring out what people were in for would at worst give him something else to do and at best give everyone a show. Most of the stuff on basic cable is either boring, something this author has seen before, or both. Providing fellow inmates with true facts pertaining to sex offenders was an easy way to find something to do and something new to watch at the same time. The potential for violence was obvious, but due to the nature of those potentially on the receiving end of such things their safety is not terribly important to this author. It is not that this author ever tried to specifically incite violence, this author simply gave people information without caring about sex offenders anymore than the rat this author's cat dragged in the other day.
To give justice a better chance of being served in this case, this author emailed the LAPD press release to the last Assistant United States Attorney assigned to his case. The proposition being that they put people in prison for far less, the locals obviously are not zealously pursuing this case, and better remedies exist at the federal level. For the record, this author was in federal prison for making threatening communications in violation of 18 U.S.C. 875(c) and then for assaulting a federal employee in violation of 18 U.S.C. 111(b) while serving a 24 month sentence for the threat. This author was released from USP Victorville in the spring of 2016 where he served his time for the assault. While serving a violation for hacking computer monitoring software he was supposed to be running on his computer and posting a guide online to help others do the same for the purpose of discouraging probation from using IPPC Impulse Control which was so easy to hack that the government should have thanked this author for exposing the vulnerability (https://copblaster.com/hashtag/ippc-technologies/), but rather than try a less vulnerable program that doesn't use high amounts of system resources they acted as if he personally was to blame if anyone they were supervising used his advice to thwart computer monitoring. While awaiting sentencing on the violation this author threw chips in a deputy's face and pled guilty to a count of assaulting a federal officer in violation of 18 U.S.C. 111(a). In every case this author was held without bail as a danger to the community. Holding people until trial without bail indefinitely for any charge other than murder is something only the feds can do. They can do that because there is no bail in federal court. Scenarios that would normally require the posting of bail result in the defendant being detained pre-trial as a flight risk or a danger to the community. That is especially true if circumstances exist that would require "enhanced" bail in state court. Such pre-trial detention is a blatant violation of the Eighth Amendment prohibition on excessive bail because no bail is more excessive than no bail at all, but the Supreme Court has since proven its own illegitimacy by ruling that no bail is not excessive because the Constitutional prohibition on excessive bail cannot be applied to scenarios involving no bail because no bail is technically a bail amount of $0 which cannot be considered excessive.
We feel that Officer Dahl should be treated no better than this author was treated for conduct far less serious. This is especially true when you consider the fact that this author was morally justified assaulting corrections staff due to his initial prosecution being a First Amendment violation and that it is simply not possible for federal correctional officers to both honor their oath to protect the Constitution and assist the federal government with holding people whose prosecutions were motivated in part by protected speech. Speech that was protect, but offensive to most. When one of those offended people started stalking this author those actions were met with a death threat for which the prosecution threw the book even thought they knew the first person to break the law in that case was the one reporting the threat. A legitimate government would not arrest a stalking victim for threatening to kill his stalker and continue to prosecute the person after it was revealed that the stalking was motivated only by protected speech posted online by a third party and this author's refusal to remove it. Instead, our illegitimate occupational government used the stalker's motivation to justify employment and computer restrictions on the grounds that without them they felt it was only a matter of time until someone started stalking this author and this author learning from his mistake would not issue a warning next time. It was a classic heckler's veto (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heckler%27s_veto). It is what happens when law enforcement view their oath as an obstacle to getting what they want when what they want is not compatible with their oath. To sum it up, we reject the idea that an officer is just doing their job when doing that job results in them violating the Constitution or assisting others in doing so. This applies to correctional officers because without them there would be nowhere to hold people that don't deserve to be held in the first place. We won't say they are just as responsible as those that prosecute people, but they still bear responsibility for blindly assisting with the mass incarceration of people with no regard for whether they actually deserve to be in prison. When it becomes a near statistic certainty that there is at least one innocent person in every prison, every correctional officer bears some blame for keeping that person there. Unfortunately, they seem to think it is more important to have places to warehouse people than it is to make sure they are not keeping anyone innocent in that warehouse. As long as that remains the case there can be no such thing as an innocent officer. Perhaps if the courts required evidence proving beyond scientific certainty that people are guilty they could become legitimate institutions of government, but as long as they let anybody say just about anything on the witness stand and allow lay people the freedom to say that people are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt even when the . How could that be fixed? Replace all juries with judges, require all judges back up their decisions with written explanations as to why there is no scientific possibility of the defendant being innocent, and promptly fire any judge found to have made an unconstitutional ruling. This would surely result in most judges losing their jobs, but isn't that point? The point being that the current system is too failure prone to be reliable for something as important as deciding whether or not to take someone's freedom away.
The flip side to the last paragraph is the common belief that without police officers nobody would be there when people are seriously harmed. That is not true. While it is true that police officers routinely perform necessary functions (ex: arresting Evan Dahl and other sex offenders) those functions are almost always performed by some segment of any community worth living in. Therefore it is safe to say that if the police were abolished that somebody would step in the fill those shoes. In prison those shoes were filled by inmates. Inmates that smash people off the yard for things like stealing from other inmates or giving information to law enforcement. Now, if inmates perform police functions are we not hypocrites for supporting them and not police officers for doing the same thing? The answer is of course "no" because the inmates are setting up their own government as an alternative to the occupational government. Going to the staff is like inviting Russian troops to perform police actions on American streets because anyone that goes to the staff is essentially betraying their fellow inmates by endorsing a rival government. By creating their own separate superior government within the prison, inmates establish a legitimate claim of right to police the prison themselves. They certainly have a more legitimate claim to do such things than United States government does. If we had the resources we would overthrow the federal government, replace all current LEOs with fresh blood, and repeat the process on an employee by employee basis whenever any police officer, prosecutor, or judge is caught to have engaged in a Constitutional violation. Some have called for this process to include a firing squad to be used, but we don't think it would be necessary simply because usually all you must do to neutralize the threat a bad cop poses to the community is take their badge away. Most of those people are nothing without a badge. Those that present threats to society that taking away a badge cannot neutralized (like Evan Dahl) can be put in prison where they belong.
Under federal law, CSAM distribution is governed by 18 U.S.C. 2252 (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2252) which carries a mandatory minimum of 5 years in federal prison. That minimum is for mere possession of CSAM. Like many federal criminal statutes, the one at issue here covers a wide range of offenses ranging from simple possession to distribution and production. We believe that 2252(a)(2) applies to Officer Dahl. We also know that the United States Sentencing Guidelines (USSG) feature a wide range of enhancements designed to make sure that distributors get significantly more time (https://guidelines.ussc.gov/gl/%C2%A72G2.2).
The United States often considers available remedies at the state and local level before deciding to take a case. Usually, there are two reasons for the feds to take a case. The first being jurisdiction either geographically or legally and the second being the inability of local law enforcement to serve justice. Geographic jurisdiction is pretty self explanatory, but there are things lay people probably don't know like there being some jurisdictions for which only federal prosecutions are available (ex: Indian reservations, military bases, the District of Columbia, and "maritime or territorial waters of the United States") and that any nexus to interstate commerce no matter how small can establish federal jurisdiction. In CSAM cases, like most cases involving computers, the likelihood of downloading or uploading anything to the internet without data being transmitted across state lines somewhere is slim to none. That transmission is all the feds need to charge someone with using a mechanism of interstate commerce to distribute CSAM. Legal jurisdiction simply means that there are federal statues which cover federal crimes regardless and not all federal crimes require things to cross state lines. Drug manufacturing is a good example because all one must do to end up in federal prison for manufacturing methamphetamine is get caught running a meth lab. There is no additional requirement that the product of the lab be shipped across state lines. The main non-jurisdictional factor seems to be the inability of locals to deal with a case competently due to insufficient local laws or incompetence. We know that California has a separate and more sever offense for those that distribute CSAM (see California Penal Code 311.2 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=PEN§ionNum=311.2.), so we know lack of local laws does not explain why Dahl is under charged. The remaining explanation is incompetence. That incompetence can be willful or in the traditional sense of the word. In the traditional sense, the locals in this case appear to know that Dahl distributed CSAM, but are not charging him with distribution. Given the high profile nature of the case, we doubt this to be due to an oversight by the prosecutor's office. This leaves willful incompetence as the last possibility. Willful incompetence runs rampant in law enforcement, especially when allegations are made against fellow officers. Fellow officers are reluctant to investigate their friends and colleagues just like most people are reluctant to help law enforcement investigate their friends and colleagues. There is always a conflict of interest. That conflict often results in officers being under charged or not charged at all. We suspect willful incompetence to be the most likely explanation for the lack of a distribution charges in this case.
According to public records, Evan Dahl is a 23 year old resident of Torrance, California. The last known home address we could find for him is 4431 West 234th Place . We are exempting Dahl from our usual courtesy of censoring home addresses of police officers because he has been formally charged with a sex crime against children. We make this exception because we think we would be doing the public, especially parents and kids living in his area, a disservice if we did not allow them the opportunity to know that there might be a sex offender at this location. There is also a good chance that people doing research on properties in the area will find this article and learn than an address near the location being research is linked to an alleged sexual predator. We ask that people avoid this residence, make sure their kids do the same, and avoid any contact with the man photographed above. Nobody has ever been physically harmed as a result of Cop Blaster with the lone exception being this author whose arm was broken by a correctional officer after he threatened to post his information on this site if given a disciplinary write up. The message that this author intended to imply was something like "sure, you can write me up, but I can write you up too, my audience is bigger than yours, and I bet I can find information about you the publication of which would be far worse for you than the embarrassment of letting me tell you how to run the jail." Realizing they had no statutory recourse, they managed to given themselves recourse by taking this author to a secluded part of the jail where no cameras could record (no body cams and surveillance did not record because the sheriff says they're for observation only) and the only non-staff witnesses were too psychotic to ever provide a court with credible testimony. The deputy then broke this author's arm before the supervising sergeant shoved this author's head into a mattress and said "I run this f*cking jail not you!" This was quite shocking for someone that went from being a recent college grad and mostly law abiding entrepreneur to being an inmate overnight just a few years before. Like most academics, this author considered risks based mostly on the written law with little thought given to how far less intelligent and less educated people could find ways around the written law when they're the ones charged with enforcing it. People that spend most of their life being told that they are smarter than most people can at time find themselves appearing stupid to the common man because they do things based on what they've learned in school that defy common sense. Things like telling an officer they know their rights and what the consequences for the officer will be if those rights are violated often result in excessive enforcement against those that law enforcement institutions were never created to oppress in the first place. This can leave such people at a disadvantage because their segment of society is not used to such treatment and doesn't have the resources to fight back the way communities which are used to being abused by police do. This might sound far fetched to educated people with no history or run-ins with the police who think that surely if they were abused in such ways they would have legal recourse. Then they learn the hard way that most personal injury lawyers don't want to take cases against law enforcement and they certainly won't take cases in which the plaintiff pled guilty to assaulting the defendant even if the assault did not legally justify the officer's response. This can remain the case even after independent experts have reviewed a case and sided with the plaintiff because lawyers know how stupid jurors are, that they probably can't get past the conviction even if the transcript from the plea hearing does not legitimize the officer's conduct, that jurors in general find experts too confusing, that people too stupid to get out of jury duty have a tendency to be more conservative, conservatives are more likely to blame detainees for whatever happens in jail just because they broke the law due largely to the simple fact that they're too closed minded to ask whether the law being broken is just in the first place, and even if a jury sides with a plaintiff on the issue of how the arm was broken they could just as easily chose not to reward that plaintiff any money if they think doing so might send a message to obey the law and not fight back at all. Such jurors have a tendency to go home after the trial and tell their family that they empathized with the defense due to the circumstances created by the plaintiff, that they would have wanted to break this author's arm too or worse, and that this author's threats were so provocative that if anyone deserves a break its the deputies that didn't want their addresses posted online for everyone else they write up to find when they get out. This is at least the message this author got when trying to sell the case to lawyers most of which only take such cases on contingency if at all and are not willing to represent someone with a history of attacking law enforcement unapologetically in a lawsuit against law enforcement. This has essentially left this author in the position of being a person denied equal access to the courts by virtue of lawyers serving as gatekeepers. It seems some people are considered unrepresentable and therefore must pursue civil matters as their own lawyer unless they have an extra $100,000 sitting around which few recently released ex-cons have. That is why this author remains self-represented.
Again, please do not do anything to property or people at the address previously listed. If a pattern ever emerged of people getting physically hurt after being posted on this site we might not be able to do this anymore. When the feds floated the idea of charging this author with unlawfully making publicly available personal information of protected persons in violation of 18 U.S.C. 119, some interesting facts emerged. Facts like it always being a defense to a charge of violating that statue that the information was already publicly available. Since this author got all the addresses from an online background check service, no charge of making such information publicly available cold be sustained simply because nobody can make publicly available that which is already publicly available. Furthermore, the government cannot legally ague that there exists a compelling state interest to suppress information that the government itself made publicly available. To do otherwise would require the government to accuse themselves of regularly engaging in conduct contrary to compelling state interests. However, the freedom to legally post cops' addresses could vanish if a pattern ever emerged of people being physically harm after being posted on the site. We learned about a seminal case called Planned Parenthood v. America Coalition for Life Activists (https://www.aclu.org/legal-document/planned-parenthood-v-american-coalition-life-activists) which involved a lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood accusing the pro life group of violating the same threat statue this author was convicted of violating without posting or transmitting any threatening language. The activists simply posted profiles of abortionists on a website called Nuremburg Files in reference to Nazis conducting abortions on Jews and other "undesirables" they considered threats to the "purity" of Aryan bloodlines. Eventually people listed on the site started getting killed. The repeated pattern of homicides was enough to get the Ninth Circuit to say that posting another abortionist on the site after that pattern emerged was all it took to constitute a threat under federal law. The court's logic was that the people posting the profiles knew or should have knew that that the act of posting alone would likely put the subject in fear for their life due to the previous killings, so the threat allegation could be sustained without a finding that the defendants made any threatening statements. Due to the Planned Parenthood case we would probably have to stop posting addresses if such a pattern were to emerge. However, the Planned Parenthood case also involved a ruling that the pro-life activists posted the profiles with the intent to incite the harm feared which is why their speech was not protected by the First Amendment. No such intent exists here. Even if a pattern of people reacting to articles like this one in ways we do not intend were to emerge, that still would not amount to an attempt to incite anything on our part or inflict fear of such incitement. If someone were to apply Planned Parenthood to us we would argue that although we are aware that someone could read our articles and react violently, that such behavior would be the result of others reacting inappropriate and not the result of any intentional incites from us. This could create a need for the Ninth Circuit to clarify that one must intend for the reaction to actually take place not simply that they were merely aware of a risk and just didn't care due in part to simply not caring about those claiming to be at risk. Planned Parenthood was also a civil case with a much lower burden of proof than had the feds charged the pro-lifers with a crime. In a lawsuit one only needs to show by a preponderance of the evidence that the pro-lifers intended to make the abortionists fear for their lives which could be established with the patterns, how obvious it was the the activists knew of the pattern, and their decision to keep posting anyway. That would not suffice in a criminal case because there would always be reasonable doubt as to the specific intent of the activists. Preponderance of the evidence on the other hand only requires a finding of it being significantly more likely than not that the defendants intended to restrict access to reproductive healthcare by making murders of the unborn fear for their lives.
Conclusion
Evan Robert Dahl of Torrance, California should be arrested by the FBI and held without bail for distributing child pornography. Until then we will do all we can to help those in his community stay safe while he is out on bail. We do not want anyone to physically harm Dahl while he is free in the community because if a pattern of people being physically harmed after being posted here were to emerge we might have to face a legal challenge based on the common prosecutorial presumption that being aware of a substantiated risk and doing something anyway equates to intentionally subjecting other to fear of that risk. The truth is that intentionally doing something likely to result in another fearing such risk and doing it anyway because you simply don't care about their reaction is not the same as intentionally provoking the reaction. It simply means you know how most people react to some things, that you consider the common reaction to be inappropriate, and that you consider the only people to blame for such reactions to be those reacting inappropriately even if the inappropriate reaction can be attributed to psychological responses common among those considered "normal" by the psychiatric community.