This is the guy shot 20 times by the police. One week later, he’s out of the hospital. How is that possible!? From the Times: The police have arrested Mr. Alvarez on charges of attempted murder, attempted assault in the first degree, criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree and criminal use of a firearm in the second…
Month: August 2010
Ghetto Mortality
In the course of writing Cop in the Hood, I researched what I thought was the bombshell statistic that, conservatively estimated, more than 10 percent of the men in the Eastern District are murdered between the ages of 15 and 35 (pp. 219-220). That bomb sure was a dud. Maybe everybody already knew. I like to think that. Because the…
ICE Agent Almost Gets It
The key to combating [Mexican Drug Cartels], said Alonzo R. Pena, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deputy assistant secretary for operations said, is to go after their money — money used to corrupt officials and to buy weapons. William J. Hoover, executive director of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said “We have to get to…
“Ethnographic Chutzpah”
Horn tooting time. Just two-and-a-half years after the publication of Cop in the Hood, (the academic world can move at a glacial pace) the American Journal of Sociology reviewed Cop in the Hood. Well worth the wait, I’d say, as the review by Profesor Andrew Papachristos is very favorable: “Ethographic chutzpah…. Perhaps the best sociological account on what it means…
Like Father Like Son?
It’s yesterday’s news that Adrian Schoolcraft is suing New York and the NYPD for $50 million. It turns out, amazingly, that this isn’t the first Schoolcraft vs. P.D. lawsuit. No, it’s not the first. It’s not even the second. Turns out that Adrian’s father, Larry Schoolcraft, was also a police officer. In Fort Worth, Texas, I believe (though the Village…
The New Republican Bill of Freedom
With all this talk of changing the constitution for this and that (and yes, it’s strange that supposedly anti-big-government politicians always want to violate the explicit purpose of the constitution that protects the rights of citizens from big government), I’ve never quite understood the ultimately vision of conservative Republicans. What do they actually want? What if they weren’t restricted by…
Meanwhile, Mutiny in Juárez
“A bunch of angry, fed-up federal police in Juárez launched a mini-rebellion against some of their commanders Saturday, accusing them of corruption…. The bottom line is that nothing seems to be able to stop or even lessen the violence in Juárez.” So says the El Paso Times, just across the border, in the peaceful twin city of El Paso. Probably,…
“Presidente Fox? There are men here to see you”
The crack research-librarian staff here at Copinthehood Incorporated (aka, my wife) reminds me that President Vicente Fox tried to do something about drug legalization as president but then backed down under US pressure. Indeed, I dug through the basement archives here in at 1 Copinthehood Plaza and dusted this off from the L.A. Times on May 3, 2006: Mexican President…
Legalize Drugs, Says Former Mexican President
Reuters reports: “Legalization does not mean that drugs are good … but we have to see (legalization of the production, sale and distribution of drugs) as a strategy to weaken and break the economic system that allows cartels to earn huge profits,” Fox wrote in a posting over the weekend. “Radical prohibition strategies have never worked.” Newsweek adds: Fox, a…
Al Baker steps to the plate… It is high, it is far…
…It is gone! Al Baker clears the bases and the New York Timesis back on top! Al Baker is a man I don’t know. Never met him. Never spoken to him (at least I don’t think I have). But I know his name because the man is good reporter on the police beat for the New York Times. When I…