Go to qualitypolicing.com

Category: Police

  • Back to the Future

    Back in 1829 London, Robert Peel and Company said that every police officer, “should be able to see every part of his beat, at least once in ten minutes or a quarter of an hour.” That’s a pretty good “response time.” Craaazy, I thought. But is it?

    I think there are 6,000 miles of streets in New York City. I know there are about 8 million people, and 35,000 police officers. Could we not just give every police officer 1,000 feet of street and 230 people to be responsible for? For some beats this would be less than one building. Any crime that happens on your1,000 feet or to or by one of your230 people would be your responsibility.

    Sure, make it bigger or smaller for population density and crime rate and whatever else you want. And I understand that while on duty each officer would have to patrol six beats to make up for officers not on duty. But with beats that small, is it too much to ask for? Or if you prefer, just work with existing patrol officers and double the size of the beats. Still doesn’t seem like too much.

    I know it’s crazy and would never work…. but why not?

    Seriously, where have all the officers gone? And wouldn’t it better to have a police officer take responsibility for me and my block rather than have two strangers show up 20 minutes after I call 911?

  • RIP Peter Figoski

    RIP Peter Figoski

    From the New York Times:

    Officer Figoski, a father of four daughters and the brother of a retired city police officer, was shot with an illegal semiautomatic weapon, Mr. Bloomberg said. He had made over 200 arrests, nearly half of them felony arrests, Mr. Kelly said. He worked out of the 75th Precinct, one of the city’s most crime-ridden, where has has spent most of his career.
    …
    [The murderer] has five prior arrests and was wanted in North Carolina on a warrant for aggravated assault.

  • The more things change… December 11, 1829

    Sick days and line-of-duty injury.

    The Secretary of State for the Home Department has directed that, in future when a Police Constable is certified sick by the surgeon, from that day till he is again certified by the surgeon fit for duty, “a deduction of 1s. shall be made from his pay each day.” In certain cases, however, of wounds received in the execution of their duty, and certified by the surgeon to that effect, orders will be given for the amount of stoppages to be returned when the man returns to his duty.

    Source: Metropolitan Police. Instructions Orders &c. &c.1836. London: W. Clowes & Sons.

    [I’m on break. Regular blogging will resume in February.]

  • More on UC Davis Pepper Spray

    You can watch the 45 minute version here. This may not be thedefinitive version, but if you care about this issue, you owe it to yourself to at least take 45 minutes from your busy life and watch a version of the whole thing.

    Some have said the cops are surrounded. That is after-the-fact rationalization (at best). Perhaps it was true in a technical sense, though I’m not even certain of that. The police seemed to be able to walk freely over the students. The police were certainly not acting as if there were surrounded; they made no effort, even after macing some of the students, of breaking out. I do not believe that police used force because of any perceived threat to their physical safety. And if there was a threat (I wasn’t there), it wasn’t coming from the people who were maced.

    If you think police acted out of necessity here — as opposed to legal, justified, or even acceptable behavior — if you real believe it was tactically necessary for the safety of the officers to mace the people sitting down, you probably can’t ever conceive of a situation where police did the wrong thing. That’s your right, but… well… you’ve got nothing to add to any talk of bettering police.

    Here’s my take:

    Except for the use of mace, it all seemed to be handled pretty well. Seriously — and I know it’s a bit like saying, “other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the show?” — most police officers and most protesters deserve a star for staying cool in a potentially hot situation. This includes the initial police arrests.

    Now whether the students needed to be dispersed and/or arrested is an issue I’m going to pass over because it’s not relevant to analyzing the behavior of the officers on scene following lawful orders. There were no students being clubbed. There were no bottles lobbed at police. There was no vindictive pepper-spraying of students on the way out. There was no riot. This was not Kent State. All that is good.

    Everything was just fine until somebody made a bad (not illegal, mind you) decision to use O.C. spray against passively resisting non-threatening students.

    In the end, the police retreated and the students chanted “you can go.” And police did.

    It gets me thinking, people have been upset about the militarization of police for years. Seems like nobody listens or cares until a few college students get maced by cops in riot gear. I guess better late than never. But the smell of mace in the morning is so minor compared to what is going on elsewhere in this country. For instance, innocent people continue to get killed in drug raids.

    People are actually fighting and dying for real freedom in other countries (Egypt comes to mind). I’m happy our standards are higher. But we should all be a bit thankful for the (mostly) civil society in which we Americans live. I can write this. You can disagree. And nobody is going to knock on our doors and arrest us. God bless America.

    Finally, a few minor points:

    Am I the only one, but chanting crowds always bug me. Something about the mindlessness of chanting always rugs me the wrong way. Is there not a certain dignity to silence?

    And since when did college students start referring to themselves as “children”? What ever happened to “I am a man”?

    And before some huffy cop corrects me, I know that police do not technically “mace” people. Police use O.C. (Oleoresin Capsicum) spray, which is a related to hot peppers (hence the “capsicum” of O.C.). I think mace is actually another chemical. But many people, including myself, always use mace as a generic term for anything that comes out of spray can and hurts like hell. Besides “stop or I’ll administer a chemical O.C. spray” does not have the same ring to it.

    Finally, on the lighter side of pepper spray, of course there’s a tumblr blog.

  • The war on drugs and your police career

    There’s an article in the New York Times about officers who question the drug war… and get fired for it. LEAP, an organization I’ve been part of almost for almost nine years, is well featured.

    Hard to imagine a cop being fired for questioning the rationality of any other law. But the war on drugs has always been a bit of an odd crusade that tolerates no dissent. Did officers during Prohibition get fired for saying it didn’t work?

    Police are asked all the time to enforce laws they don’t agree with. I did. I see no problem with wanting to end the war on drugs and being a good police officer. I arrested drug dealing while wanted to see drug legalized… in which case public drug dealers would stillbe arrested (there would just be a lot fewer of them).

  • In Defense of the Straight Baton

    I think I’m fighting a lost cause here, but I still like the straight baton. Expandable batons are all the rage. But let me explain why I think the straight baton is better.

    When I was a cop, I had a 29-inch straight baton (think big stick or small baseball bat). I also trained with the expandable baton, which most cops like more. Not me. Here’s why (from least to most important):

    1) The expandable baton is more expensive (not my problem, but somebody has to pay for it).

    2) The expandable baton is less intimidating when extended. I know they try and sell it by talking about the intimidating effect of whipping it out. But that is no greater than simple taking the straight baton out of its belt-grommet. I also believe a straight baton has a air of authority — not intimidation — when holstered that then expandable baton lacks. I suspect, but do not know, that officers with expandable batons use them more. As the expression goes, “once you open that can of whup-ass, it’s hard to put it back in the can.”

    3) The straight baton does notget in the way of anything (except, for some reason, climbing through a window) if worn properly, at the side. And it fits nicely in the space between car seat and door.

    4) Yes, officers have to remember to take it with them. I never found that hard (but it can be an argument in favor of the expandable).

    5) The straight baton has more stages of escalation (and deescalation). You can take it out, hold it flush with the arm, hold it in front, and so on. When you pull out the expandable, there’s no middle ground. You can’t “activate” the expandable without escalating the scene. You can access the straight baton and almost do it secret like. This is important. You can also put away the straight baton easily while it’s a bit more of a show to holster up the expandable.

    6) The straight baton has more uses defensively. It is better at parrying a blow.

    7 and 8) The straight baton both looks better, in use, and isbetter. You strike two-handed with a straight baton. It is powerful. And you strike, generally, at the thigh. You strike one-handed with the expandable and you strike repeatedlyin a downwardmotion. The head is too close. It will get hit. On video the expandable baton looks like Egyptian security repeatedly beating somebody in the head. It looks (and kind of is) brutal. Wack wack wack wack wack. And a cracked skull is not the goal.

    With the straight baton you use it once and that is it. Threat is gone. In many ways the expandable is more about pain compliance, something best avoided both for tactical (it doesn’t work that well) and PR (looks horrible) reasons. The straight baton better removes the threat. One good wack (I believe the technical term is “strike”) in the leg and the person goes down. Game over. Time for coffee and paperwork.

    I’d love to hear from those who disagree.

  • Christie speaks some sense

    I know as a liberal Democrat I’m not supposed to like Chris Christie. But I do admire that he speaks honestly. [I say the same about Ron Paul on war and drug policy, but Paul is a little too extreme on everything else, being a through-and-through libertarian.]

    I disagree with Christie on a lot of the issues, but the guy does seem to have a fair amount of common sense. Coming from a politician, it’s incredible refreshing. (Even if I am setting the bar too low.)

    Here’s Christie on drug policy. Is it to much to ask for Republicans (and Democrats, but it seems to be a more of an issue now with the Republicans) not to be loony, ignorant, or completely flip-flop based on the political expediency?

  • Evanston Decriminalizes Marijuana

    Evanston, Illinois, is where I’m from. Getting caught with less than 10 grams of weed will not be an arrestable offense and won’t go on your criminal record.

    “It does not say that it’s okay to smoke pot, but it does say that they don’t have to live in fear of having a record follow them the rest of their life if they are caught,” [said] Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl.

  • “Beware of the Risen People”

    “Beware of the Risen People”

    In Dublin, these neighborhoods with their uniform rowhomes remind me of Baltimore.

    The grittiness of Dublin was a bit of a refreshing shock after the pastoral beauty of rural Hampshire. Even though I have nothing but nice things to say about the English, in Ireland I felt like I was back on home ground. From where I’m from (Chicago, Boston…) England feels more like a foreign country.

    My friend in Dublin lives next to Aubourn Prison.

    “Holds pedophile priest,” she assured me (but not, I should note, from the Greek church next door).

    A short walk past leads to the old Kilmainham Jail. It closed in the 1920s and stands today as a museum, but less to prisons than to the “Heroes of 1918” and Irish independence. Suffice it to say my knowledge of Irish history is a bit thin up top. 1918? Revolution? Civil War? Indeeeeed…

    But I was keen to go to this prison because it claims to feature a Panopticon.

    Actually it’s not a Panopticon because it’s not, well, round with a centrally located guard post designed to provide constant potential surveillance inside each prison cell….

    But Kilmainham Gaolwas, with its multi-tiered layout, inspired by Bentham’s evil concept. And the architecture is cool.

    Typical of early prisons, starvation was used as a tool in place of corporal punishment. More humane, said the Progressive thinking of the time. In 1884 C.S. Parnelltestified at the Royal Commission on Prisons in Ireland:

    One thing that struck me in Kilmainham was the semi-starved aspect which all the convicted prisoners presented. They seemed to be utterly dejected and weak, and unable to undergo any amount of physical fatigue…. I do not think that we are entitled to enfeeble the bodies of prisoners in order to reform their minds, or with a view of maintaining discipline amongst them.

    Unlike contemporaneous American penitentiaries like Auburn and Sing Sing (which, unlike Kilmainham, are still operational), Kilmainham’s cells didn’t have plumbing. So prisoners in Ireland had to “slop out.” Even more amazing, today, in 2011, the practice of slopping out is still practiced in at least one Irish prison.

    Meanwhile, from the museum at Kilmainham, I’m always a sucker for revolutionary propaganda.

    Johnny-come-lately lately Republicans:

    I didn’t see ye out there fightin’ in 1921, now did I?

    And Irish Mothers, Do You Want Your Children Kidnapped?:

    “Beware of the Police”The highlight of the trip, however, unrelated to prison, must have been hearing Travelers sing while we were “on the Batter.”

    Beware of the Risen People.

  • What day is it?

    “I don’t think we have the right to Monday-morning quarterback the police,” said Bill O’Reilly of Fox News.

    OK. But can’t we at least Saturday-evening quarterbackthe police? See, the problem is that these police did notmake bad split-second decisions in the heat of the moment. Technically, tactically, and legally they did nothing wrong (which doesn’t make it right). (Of course had students rioted and attacked them, maybe it wouldn’t have been such a tactically harmless maneuver.)

    Using force against passive-resisters is a logical decision based on their training. It can, will, and shouldn’thappen again.

    And, uh, also, anybody who dismisses pepper mace as a “food product” is an idiot.