Police

You want to step outside, Mr Gates?

Leave it to me to have to read another blog to find out about stuff that I’ve already written. See, there’s this book I wrote, Cop in the Hood. I hear it’s pretty good. It’s also, uh, for sale. Anyway, on pp. 117-118 I describe how officers can invite a person outside in order to arrest him for disorderly. I…

Continue Reading

Police

Henry Louis Gates Jr. Arrested

Apparently for pissing off a Cambridge cop who responded to a burglary call. Gates had sort of broken into his own house because the key didn’t work. A witness called police. Words are exchanged and Gates gets cuffed for dis con. It’s hard to overstate just how esteemed of an intellectual Harvard Professor Gates is. If you’re a police officer…

Continue Reading

Police

The future with legal marijuana

There can be a future with legal and regulated drugs. A drug deal plays out, California-style: A conservatively dressed courier drives a company-leased Smart Car to an apartment on a weekday afternoon. Erick Alvaro hands over a white paper bag to his 58-year-old customer, who inspects the bag to ensure that everything he ordered over the phone is there. An…

Continue Reading

Police

Two officers shot

Two officers down in Baltimore. Supposedly in stable condition. Supposedly returned fire, which is a good sign.

Police

That’s the way it was

Walter Cronkite died Friday. He was 92. On his 90th birthday he told the Daily News, “I would like to think I’m still quite capable of covering a story.” He was known for knowing a failed war when he saw one. Not just Vietnam. He was against the War on Drugs and a friend of LEAP.

Police

Four-week police-officer training

I may be mistaken, but what is going on in Portland sounds like a very good idea to me. Give cops four weeks of training: defensive tactics, firearms and the law. Then let them ride with FTOs. And then when the academy class begins, they join the class. Remember, it’s not like a class is starting every week or even…

Continue Reading

Police

“Excited Delirium”

Can you die from it? Does it exist? The Taser company, not surprisingly, says yes. Because if and when people die from “excited delirium,” there seems to be a good chance it will happen after being Tasered. Laura Sullivan of National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” has a good report on this. Here’s part one and part two. (Thanks to…

Continue Reading

Police

The Wire Comes to Brooklyn… sort of

Fatal gun battle outside party for wife of Jamie Hector, who played Marlo Stanfield on ‘The Wire’ The story by Kenny Porpora, Alison Gendar, and Samuel Goldsmithin in the New York Daily News.

Police

Double lock your handcuffs

In the academy we were taught to always double lock our cuffs. Usually I didn’t. But I should have. And so should you.