Police

Seattle Police Union to Cops: Lay Low

Seattle Timescolumnist Danny Westneat has a worrisome article in the paper: “You are paid to use your discretion and there are many ways to do police work. Recent events should show us that many in the city really don’t want aggressive officers who generate on-view incidents. They want officers who avoid controversy and simply respond when summoned by 911.” ……

Continue Reading

Police

40 killed over weekend in Ciudad Jaurez

In response, lawmakers in Mexico have called for the banning of… a video game. Meanwhile, the NRA kills a law aimed at limiting gun running to Mexico. If the rising death toll was a sign in 2009 that drug gangs were weakening, what does the rising death toll say about how weak the drug gangs must be in 2011? 40…

Continue Reading

Police

Non-violent drug offenders don’t end up in prison…

…except when they do. Patricia Marilyn Spottedcrow, who is serving 10 years in prison, has been taken away from her four young children and husband, and has ended her work in nursing homes because of $31 in marijuana sales. On Dec. 31, 2009, Spottedcrow and her mother, Delita Starr, 50, sold a “dime bag” of marijuana to a police informant…

Continue Reading

Police

The Racial Reality

Using the Baltimore Sun’sfun interactive homicide chart, these are the sad and politically incorrect totals for 2010: 223 homicides: 202 black (91%), 13 white, 5 Hispanic, 1 Asian, 2 unknown(?). Overall, the 2009 population of Baltimore is estimated to be 63% African American and 33% white. So roughly, the black homicide rate (50) is eight times the white homicide rate…

Continue Reading

Police

Move cops to higher-crime districts

So say the Chicago ministers. Generally, such a move would a good idea. You certainly wouldn’t want to move the cops to lower-crime district. But if this happens, don’t be surprised next year when more blacks are arrested and more tickets are given to blacks. For what’s it’s worth, one Rev. Marshall Hatch of New Mount Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church…

Continue Reading

Police

Fewer Cops in San Fran

The usual. State and federal tax cuts. Local budget cuts. Union workers get screwed. The full story is here. Because of the city’s ongoing budget woes, no police academy classes are scheduled for next year, which means that instead of the 1,861 sworn officers who were working for the department in July 2010, retirements and resignations will drop that number…

Continue Reading

Police

Username and Password, please

I got this over the transom: A police “accreditation manager” (whatever that means) is revising his “social networking policy” so that potential applicants, as part of their background investigation, must sign an affidavit listing any social networking sites (Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, LinkedIn) they belong to and give their passwords to these sites so the department can snoop. Is this becoming…

Continue Reading

Police

Immigration and Big Brother Government

Maybe you want the government to crack down on immigrants. And maybe you don’t like Big Government all messing in your personal business. Well you probably can’t have it both ways. Because in the name of cracking down on criminal immigrants, well, the Feds are getting a bit more involved in local law enforcement: “By September, they were weighing ways…

Continue Reading

Police

Got Raw Milk? Get raided.

It’s like a new drug! “He wondered aloud why the state won’t let him pursue his preferred way of life.” That’s an Amish guy s talking about his illegal product… raw milk. When police, guns drawn, raid raw milk producers, it’s enough to make me a Libertarian. Here’s the story by Jordan Heller. Nolt’s resistance, which has been well-documented, has…

Continue Reading

Police

On the downside…

“Marijuana farming in Calif. forest harms animals, pollutes water.” That’s not good. Of course the problem, once again, is that it’s illegal. We could make it legal.