Police

Who speaks for the rapist?

Apparently, in the Stanford rapist case, the judge. If you’re still in denial that our justice system can be mean and even racist, would you at least consider that it often benefits the rich and privileged? And then can you see that these two statements are essentially one and the same? Here’s very interesting take from Ken White, a defense…

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Police

Legal summary of the Baltimore trials

This isn’t new, it was just hard to figure out. And I wanted to add it to my Baltimore Primer. What exactly was argued in the acquittal of Officer Nero was hard to figure out. Mostly because the State’s Attorney, Mosby, has repeated changed her story. Initially she claimed the stop of Freddie Gray illegal and the arrest was illegal.…

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Police

Is this what the Ferguson Effect looks like?

Take this fightat North Avenue Beach in Chicago. Seems like mostly a bunch of stupid frat bro’s, one wearing an SAE tank top. (“These people” also have problems.) Why does does this have to do with the Ferguson (or “Viral Video”) Effect? Well, if you’re looking for an example of how fear or negative publicity can impact policing and create…

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Police

All in the Family

Here’s another one for the record books. This isn’t the first time somebody has been shot at a funeral. Kevin Rector and Justin George of the Sun observe, “Gunfire has marred other services in recent years to mourn deceased victims of violence in Baltimore.” And this is probably not even the first time a father has been shot at his…

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Police

The New York Times goes to the Hood

I applaud any effort to focus on the victims of violence in America. Too often nobody knows or cares about this real carnage in this country. So over Memorial Day weekend the New York Times went to the bad parts of Chicago to sightsee: [We] dispatched a team of reporters, photographers and videographers to virtually all of the shooting scenes…

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