Shot and killed. Ambushed in their car in Brooklyn. Earlier the killer shot his ex-girlfriend in Baltimore.
Month: December 2014
“If you point a gun at a police officer…”
I mention this article by Peter Katel in CQ Researcher (alas, behind a pay wall) because, along with lots of good stuff, there’s a quote I wasn’t expecting coming from my man Norm “a liberal critic of much police strategy” Stamper: A video of the [Tamir Rice] shooting — showing a police car driving up next to the boy, who…
High security walls may increase violent crime.
This is interesting, albeit about South Africa. But the basic idea is this: Walls are actually making things worse. “No one can see what is happening in your home so no one can help,” she told the [South African] Daily News. They keep people from being each other’s natural lookout. And they are an even bigger barrier to social cohesion,…
The real Michael Brown
Yesterday I had a nice walk and dinner with a good group of cops who were to appear on CNN’s Cops Under Fire about cops who have been involved in shootings. I also met Darren Wilson’s lawyer. So I asked him a few things about Officer Wilson and Michael Brown. The decisive evidence? Brown’s actual skin on the slide and…
What about “fruit of the poisened tree”?
From NPR: The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled that police officers don’t necessarily violate a person’s constitutional rights when they stop a car based on a mistaken understanding of the law. The court said the officer made a “reasonable mistake.” Hence it’s not an unreasonable search and seizure. The case involved drugs found after a traffic light for one…
Pot is in the news
From the LA Times: Tucked deep inside the 1,603-page federal spending measure is a provision that effectively ends the federal government’s prohibition on medical marijuana and signals a major shift in drug policy. The bill’s passage over the weekend marks the first time Congress has approved nationally significant legislation backed by legalization advocates. It brings almost to a close two…
Baltimore Officer Down
From the Baltimore Sun: Groman and another officer approached the car from the driver’s side and another officer approached from the passenger’s side, police say in charging documents. Officers directed the driver, Tavon Sullivan, to get out of the car, police say, and he sat on the sidewalk. Police say Jones, sitting in the back seat, refused Groman’s orders to…
“Why aren’t more Christians speaking out against Lindsey Blansett?”
Lindsey Blansett killed her 10-year-old son by stabbing him and bashing him a rock so he could “go to heaven” rather than face a life full of “suffering and pains.” I haven’t heard anybody blame Jesus Christ for this woman’s actions. But I’d bet she was driven by her own mistaken perception of Christian ideology. I suspect that she considered…
“To say it’s all the fault of racist cops is letting the system off the hook”
A quote from me in an interesting article by James Reinl in Al Jazeera. I go on to say: “Some people honestly believe that cops don’t shoot white people and don’t give tickets to white people for minor issues. This view is demonstrably false,” Peter Moskos, a former Baltimore lawman and academic at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told…
Well done NYPD. Well done NYC.
Once again the NYPD shows it can get the job down and keep the city safe. All in all, went off pretty well yesterday. Some protestors were chanting: “What do we want? Dead cops! When do we want it? Now!” And one police officer had his nose broken when he tried to stop a protester from throwing a garbage candown…