An article by Peter Hermann in the Sun on an important but little talked about subject, the effect on police of police-involved shootings: Union leaders say city police do a good job of providing counseling to officers in the immediate aftermath of a shooting, but fall short in recognizing long-term psychological effects. Psychiatrists and police officials interviewed all caution that…
Category: Police
Good guys win one in subway shootout
Denis Hamill writes in the Daily News: For all the criticism the cops are taking these days for the out of control stop-and-frisks, for the questionable shooting of Ramarley Graham in the Bronx, let’s take a deep breath and not lose track of the vital, life-risking work these guys do every day in this big scary city. And kudos to…
What they think I do
There are a lot of these “what people think I do” versus “what I do” gags going around. Some are pretty funny. Here’s one on policing. The intellectual in me thinks of the Rashomon Effect. The kid in me just giggles at seeing Lou Costello in a police uniform. [thanks to Stef the Greek] [Hey all you folks, consider buying…
Poor Greece
Well the bastards burnt down my favorite movie theater in Athens. Perhaps in the big picture of cultural destruction, it doesn’t rank up there with the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan, but man, those red seats were comfy. Supposedly the theater will be rebuilt. (And supposedly a train will once again connect Athens and Patras). Meanwhile minimum wage in…
Misquoted in Salon
Not me. But my father. And he died in 2008. Linda Hirshman seems to have a bone or two to pick. She writes in Salon.com: If any evidence of this [“warfare is the business of heterosexual men, the penetrators”] agenda were needed, the same person who created and defended the dreaded “don’t ask, don’t tell” — military sociologist Charles Moskos…
Congrats to Officer Brennan
Who left the hospital today after being shot in the head. He too, was just doing his job.
Round up the Usual Outrage
An officer, who heard over his radio that a drug suspect was armed with a gun, kicks down the door of his apartment, finds the suspect hiding in the bathroom (probably trying to flush weed down the toilet), thinks the suspect is going for his gun, and shoots and kills the suspect. The problem is that the suspect, according to…
Those were the days… The Evanstonian
This isn’t about policing in the old days. It’s about me. Or more specifically, my old high-school newspaper, the Evanstonian, in the late 1980s. I was just cleaning house (which, admittedly, is a rare activity) and stumbled across my old bound collection of Evanstonians. Sara Agahi (nee Rubin), my former student editor (before I became one), still likes to take…
Teaching Chicago Police How to Write
And not just reports. Monica Davey writes an interesting story in the New York Times.
Ethical Imperialism
A quick shout-out to Ethical Imperialism: Institutional Review Boards and the Social Sciences, 1965-2009. It’s exactly what it says it is. And it does it well. It’s a book about the IRB. If you don’t know what an IRB is, it’s not your fault, it just means you haven’t done research at a university. (Trust me, then the book isn’t…