States with higher gun ownership rates and weak gun laws have the highest rates of gun death: Louisiana, Alabama, Alaska, Mississippi, and Nevada. Ranking last for gun deaths were Hawaii, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New York. If you want to argue that increased gun deaths are a small price to pay for freedom… well, I respectfully disagree. But let’s…
Month: May 2009
Witness Intimidation
Witness intimidation is nothing new. But it usually doesn’t happen from the defendant to the witness while the witness is on the stand. Melissa Harris writes in the Sun: On the 10th day of the 17-day trial, as the lawyers huddled at the bench with their backs turned, the jury watched the 29-year-old defendant lock eyes with the witness, hold…
37 Arrests, then a Killing
A witness identified Anderson, of the 4300 block of Seminole Ave., as one of the kidnappers…. Anderson has been arrested and charged at least 37 times, mostly with drug possession charges…. Most were dropped by prosecutors before they reached trial. He was also charged three times with attempted murder and five times with handgun charges, dropped each time by prosecutors.…
Fly Over Follow-Up
Len Levitt’s NYPD Confidential talks more about the fly-over fiasco.
In Defense of Dutch Socialism
If you’re a right-winger who wants to call the European social-welfare state “socialism,” so be it. Use whatever word you want for a system that provides housing and health care and education, helps poor people, and keeps the streets safe. I’ll take it. Take the Netherlands, as Russell Shorto does in an excellent article in the New York Times Sunday…
Balto Patrol Short Handed
Peter Hermann reports in the Baltimore Sun. Top brass always says patrol is the backbone of the police department. They lie. Roughly half of the police department is assigned to the patrol. When you need officers, you take them from patrol. Backbone my ass! What kind of organization knocks out its own vertebrae? When officers are taken from patrol, of…
NYPD Stop and Frisks
Al Baker reports in the Times: Any officer stopping a person in the street must tell the person “the reason, or reasons, why it occurred,” according to a letter from Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly. The policy took effect April 23, according to a departmental order to revise the police patrol guide.…Street stops jumped to 508,540 in 2006, from 97,296…
Bent MetroCard Is Forgery
So says New York State’s highest court, the Court of Appeals. Sewell Chan of the Times reports. Unfortunately for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Judge Graffeo’s decision contains details that can be used as instructions for bending MetroCards to get free rides. The judge devoted her entire first section, more than two pages, to explaining the magnetic coding of the cards,…