“U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal determined the policy violated no state, federal or constitutional rights and dismissed the lawsuit Sept. 3.” That may or may not be true. But I’ve never understood why beards are banned by most police departments. Why do police departments care? Are we still living in 1960? Are people with beards inherently untrustworthy? Are we afraid…
Month: September 2009
Comments moderation activated
Alas, because of my disagreement with onereader, I have now activated “comment moderation” (see the preceding post and the comments to the post below that. What this means is that there will be a delay between when you post comments and when they will appear. I’ll try to keep this delay to a minimum. But don’t worry, you can still…
Dear “Frequent Poster”
This is a letter to just one person who posts by the name “Frequent Poster.” Dear Frequent Poster, You are the first and only person whose comments I have deleted. The first from hundreds of comments and thousands of readers. I suppose it is a coming-of-age experience for a blogger to have to delete a comment. But it is unfortunate.…
911 is a Joke
But not usually when police are under fire. Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weis on Friday denounced as “reprehensible” — and demanded severe punishment against those responsible for — a 911 dispatch delay that left an off-duty police officer to fend for himself while being shot at from a car filled with alleged gang members. … The Chicago Sun-Times reported this…
Wrigley Field
Oh, look! The Oniondid a feature story about me. Just for the record, I do not have a Cubs jacket nor do I bring my transistor radio to games. But, uh, yeah, I do have a little radio shack transistor radio. And I like keeping score when watching a baseball game. Is that so wrong?
More on Jonathan Ayers
As time goes on, I’m liking this shooting less and less. I love how some conspiracy anti-police folks were saying there was never a woman in his car and the police made all that up. There was. Stephens County court records now indicate the woman riding with Ayers the day he was shot was Kala Jones Barrett, whose home is…
Drug Tests
I wrote about my drug test a few days ago. Tonight I asked my students if they had ever been drug tested. Approximately 2/3 of my masters students (n ~ 55) and all of my undergraduate students (n ~ 30) have been through a drug test. Every single one. That shocked me. It also bothers me. It also bothers some…
Police Suicide
Buried in a story about an LAPD narcotics officer killing herself is this information: “Between 1998 and 2007, 19 LAPD officers committed suicide.” That’s a lot. More, in fact, that the 11 LAPD officers who have died in action.
This Modern World
Tom Tomorrow’s “This Modern World” is my favorite political comic. He’s liberal. And it’s better for me to read his comic and laugh smugly than bash my head into a wall over conservative hypocrisy. Here’s his latest winner over at Salon.com. Not that you asked, but my other favorite comics are Doonesbury, Pearls Before Swine, Monte, and Get Fuzzy. Hard…
Officer Down
Sometimes you get criticized for shooting too fast. Sometimes you don’t shoot fast enough. Here’s to North St. Paul police officer Richard Crittenden. While protecting someone else, Officer Crittenden was killed with his own service weapon. Rest in Peace. Crittenden reportedly pushed the woman out of harm’s way but in the process left himself vulnerable for the man to ambush…