Before becoming the new leader of MISSOULA’S Salvation Army, Ty Baze was finishing up his tenure in California with a false arrest for possessing child porn. That arrest happened in April and, by July, Ty Baze and his partner were getting settled in Missoula.
Hmmm.
A man who worked for the Santa Monica Salvation Army as a captain has been arrested for the possession of child sexual abuse material, the Santa Monica Police Department told NBC4 Investigates exclusively.
Ty Michael Baze, 54, of Santa Monica was taken into custody on April 10 without an incident, police said.
Baze faced felony charges, including the possession of obscene matter depicting a minor in sexual acts.
Jail records showed Baze’s profession was noted as a pastor.
He was held on $250,000 bail as of Thursday afternoon.
The Salvation Army told NBC4 Investigations that as soon as it learned about Baze’s arrest, he was placed on leave pending the outcome of the investigation.
NBC Los Angeles reached out to Baze but did not hear back.
When no criminal charges from this arrest materialized, Baze kept quiet at first, but eventually spoke with MISSOULA’S local media, who did him a solid by calling into question his arrest and tepidly asking a simple question: what happened?
Ok, so what’s the name of the investigator? And the investigator’s boss? And the jurisdiction and/or task force involved? Because that would be helpful to know if any effort to investigate the investigators were to happen, since these investigators have the power to destroy someone’s life with a false accusation and should be held accountable when they fuck up this bad.
Since Ty Baze is in Missoula now, helping the homeless, the Missoulian is helping him clean up his reputation by sort of investigating the investigators or, at least, asking some critical questions:
While the Missoulian reporter, David Erickson, does some helpful reputation-repair for Ty so the shadow of his arrest doesn’t influence his new job in Missoula, I’m still curious about the kind of entities in California that are tasked with investigating and arresting child abusers:
I’m not a lawyer, so maybe I’m just being dumb on the logistics of getting arrested, but don’t authorities have to have an arrest warrant articulating probable cause to take someone into custody? Why, then, did no charges materialize?
If you think that local media in Santa Monica would be interested in a story like this, think again.
Since the court of public opinion, run by the media, doesn’t seem to care if a man has his reputation destroyed and loses income for months based on false accusations, what other options might Ty Baze have? If Ty has MONEY and wants to spend LOTS OF IT on a lawyer, like Greg Peacock, then I’m sure Greg Peacock will EAGERLY take that money to roll the dice on civil litigation.
If you don’t have the budget to spend thousands of dollars pursuing “justice” then you’re relegated to begging for narrative scraps, like Ty Baze did, because he wasn’t the type of victim who warranted the kind of pro-bono help now offered by the ADL to victims of the tiny hat faith:
The ADL and powerhouse law firm Gibson Dunn have launched a nationwide network of attorneys to provide free legal aid to Jewish Americans facing antisemitic harassment, vandalism, and violence — with organizers citing a record surge in anti-Jewish hate across the country.
The new ADL Legal Action Network, announced Wednesday, brings together more than 40 of the nation’s top law firms — including Cooley, Covington & Burling, Morgan Lewis, Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer and Lieff Cabraser — to offer pro bono legal services to victims of antisemitism.
Together, the participating firms represent some 39,000 attorneys across 35 states.
For a more visceral description of this capacity, here’s a clip from Broken Simulation that put this legal behemoth on my radar (audio levels might be a bit harsh, apologies):
While I can’t offer a network of lawyers willing to provide free legal attacks against the First Amendment, what I can and do offer is sticking with local stories to the best of my un-paid ability, like talking directly with someone I initially judged a bit too harshly after watching the local effort to shop this incident of police brutality around for larger impact.
After speaking with Taylor I think NOT filing a POST complaint was the right thing to do because, without stronger local support, there is a significant cost/benefit analysis one must weigh individually before doing something that will make you a larger target for people with more power than you, and I don’t think Missoula currently has that kind of support for a target like Taylor.
Prove me wrong, Amy Roeber from #406revolution!
If people in MONTANA want to be effective advocates for MONTANANS, like the people behind 406Revolutionized claim…
What began as a personal search for answers quickly evolved into a statewide advocacy effort focused on helping families navigate Montana’s criminal legal system, access reliable information, and find community during some of the most difficult moments of their lives.
…then stay focused on what’s happening in MONTANA, like Great Falls law enforcement barely being able to handle a tough weekend while their community enables Janicki Industries to build a massive new facility with a little help from Tax Increment Financing.
Things are changing quickly in Great Falls and one thing is clear: as we continue to grow, so will the need for public safety. Over the weekend our officers were stretched thin while responding to two separate incidents.
“Both incidents stretched response capabilities causing GFPD to prioritize an ’emergency only’ response for the remainder of the night,” Great Falls Police Department said on their Facebook.
How do we fix shitty investigators, incurious media, and social media advocates as more and more people get economically squeezed? How about…
Commissioners on Thursday approved spending up to $55,000 to hire a consultant to conduct a study on the workings of tax increment and how it impacts other taxing jurisdictions.
“We have heard concerns regarding the impact of TIF on taxing jurisdictions that have boundaries that overlap our districts,” said Flanna McLarty. “We have learned that we lack a shared understanding of how the process works from start to finish.”
Ok, I’m done.
Until tomorrow, that is, when I write about the likelihood of the Mineral County Courthouse being bugged.
Thanks for reading!