About a year after I left the B.P.D., this happened. 324 car got firebombed. Some locals didn’t like the officer driving it because he could outrun and catch anybody in the district who tried to run from him. Somebody led him on a foot chase while his friends torched the car. It was our best car, too. The only one…
Something strange is going on here. There are important details not reported. No matter, I’m glad the officer is alive. The rah-rah part of these stories bothers me. If the bullet was anything but a graze, odds are this officer will never patrol again. City officer shot by gunman who was hiding in bushes By Ruma Kumar 12:06 PM EST,…
I just stumbled across “Murder I Wrote” (from a link related to Bradford Pulmer’s blog). In 1997, David Simon, producer of The Wire (the best TV show ever), wrote in The New Republic how corner boys were recruited for a day to be slinging extras for the TV show Homicide(not the best show ever). The boys complained about how unrealistic…
In his blog, Bradford Plumer writes a thoughtful analysis of one chapter of Cop in the Hood (scroll down to “Call a Cab Cause a Cab Will Come Quicker,” and the comments in particular). I learned of a 911 operator in Detroit criminally convicted of negligence for failing to take a call from a 5-year-old boy seriously. The boy’s mom…
Sean Bell, an unarmed black man, should not have died. But the officers on trial won’t be convicted of anything major. The police certainly make mistakes. We all do. Like it or not, mistakes aren’t usually crimes, especially for police. After any high-profile police shooting, there is the hope that time will reveal the truth and truth will lead to…
There’s a great article in Timeby Ed Burns, Dennis Lehane, George Pelecanos, Richard Price, and David Simon. They’re the writers for the best show ever, The Wire. It’s a powerful piece and you should read the whole thing. Needless to say, they write well. Interestingly, they argue that for jury nullification, a concept I have long loved. “If asked to…
Another good review. From Publishers Weekly, a trade magazine: Cop in the Hood: My Year Policing Baltimore’s Eastern District Peter Moskos. Princeton Univ., $24.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-691-12655-5 A Harvard-trained sociologist, Moskos set out to do a one-year study of police behavior. Challenged by Baltimore’s acting police commissioner “to become a cop for real,” he accepted. During his six months in…
What would you do when you get shot? Get a Slurpy? Shut your mouth! From today’s Baltimore Sun. Can you dig it? Man gets shot, takes cab to convenience store He hailed taxi, went to S. Baltimore 7-Eleven By Gus G. Sentementes Sun reporter 8:33 AM EST, March 5, 2008 A man who was shot several times in South Baltimore…
*…for anybody I policed with. Or if you were in the academy class of 99-5. Odds are I don’t have your contact information, so email me at pmoskos@jjay.cuny.edu. I’d certainly prefer it if you bought your own copy. I don’t get my own book for free. I have to buy it from Amazon.com just like everybody else. But if you…
A 13-year-old girl in Tucson was strip-searched by school officials who suspected her of possessing ibuprofen (prescription-strength Advil). She didn’t have any. You can read her affidavit here.