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  • Immigrants in Arizona (II)

    Nothing about this law is good. It is even worse that I first thought. When I wrote the previous post, I didn’t realize that individual police officers are being required to enforce that law. That certainly makes no friends in police circles. It is stupid to limit police discretion.

    Police are supposed to demand proof of legal residency from any person they lawfully contact and have “reasonable suspicion” that the person is an unlawful alien. Then it states that all illegal immigrants are criminals (being present makes them trespassers [see correction below]).

    How is this different that Nazis criminalizing the Jews and them rounding them up for their crime of being present? If the best you can answer is, “well, we’re not going to send Mexicans to the gas chambers,” then you really need to raise your bar of morality.

    How the hell can so-called anti-government conservatives and tea-party people (and John “I used to stand by my principles until I lost an election” McCain) support such a totalitarian big-government law? Oh, because they’re not anti-government. They’re just anti this government. The democratically elected government. I mean, if you’re really just anti-government, there are libertarians out there you can rally around and vote for.

    Warning to Republicans: if you haven’t already, you’re slipping off the deep end. On the plus side, if this is considered conservative, it makes liberals (or “libs” as you like to say) look good.

    I don’t think there’s any chance this law will pass constitutional muster. But God save us if it does. And regardless, that test is years away. Reasonable suspicion? Oh, it’s come such a long and scary way from Terry v. Ohio.

    In 1968, Terry made frisking a person for weapons based on “reasonable suspicion” constitutional. This decision introduced the “reasonable suspicion” concept and said it is what is needed for a stop or frisk (the Fourth Amendment’s “probable cause” is needed for a search or arrest). Terry was an eight-to-one decision.

    Justice Douglas was the one. It is too bad that his dissent has become more and more prescient:

    To give the police greater power than a magistrate is to take a long step down the totalitarian path. Perhaps such a step is desirable to cope with modern forms of lawlessness. But if it is taken, it should be the deliberate choice of the people through a constitutional amendment. Until the Fourth Amendment, which is closely allied with the Fifth, is rewritten, the person and the effects of the individual are beyond the reach of all government agencies until there are reasonable grounds to believe (probable cause) that a criminal venture has been launched or is about to be launched.

    There have been powerful hydraulic pressures throughout our history that bear heavily on the Court to water down constitutional guarantees and give the police the upper hand. That hydraulic pressure has probably never been greater than it is today.

    Yet if the individual is no longer to be sovereign, if the police can pick him up whenever they do not like the cut of his jib, if they can ‘seize’ and ‘search’ him in their discretion, we enter a new regime. The decision to enter it should be made only after a full debate by the people of this country.

    [Linda Greenhouse has an excellent op-ed in today’s New York Times.]

    [I based my info on the New York Times, which was wrong: “An earlier version of this Op-Ed essay referred incorrectly to the provisions of the new Arizona immigration statute. The version of the bill signed by the governor no longer includes a section under which undocumented immigrants would be guilty of trespassing for being on Arizona soil.”]

  • Good shooting

    Officer with good aim, lucky to be alive.

  • Immigrants in Arizona

    I try and face most issues objectively. But not this one. I am pro-immigrant. My mom is an immigrant (from Germany) and my father’s parents were immigrants (Greeks from the Ottoman Empire on an Italian passport from what is now Albania).

    New York was founded on illegal immigrants (hell, America was founded on illegal immigrants). Nativist bastards hated your immigrant ancestors, too. Especially if you are Irish. Don’t forget that. And no, the immigrants of today are not so different from your parents, grandparents, or great grandparents. They were good people, most of them. And you turned out OK. And the difference between legal and illegal is just a matter of law. I’m for amnesty. Does that mean open borders? No. But we could be more open.

    I do think native-born manual workers have a legitimate gripe. Nothing is clear cut. And I think there is a legitimate argument about immigrants in border states being a burden on local schools and hospitals. But no, I don’t think we have an immigrant “problem.” We need more immigration, not less.

    If an immigrant, legal or illegal, commits a serious crime, I’m all for deportation. That’s a luxury we have. But perhaps what bothers me most about anti-immigrant sentiment is the idea that immigrants are a crime threat. Immigrants commit lesscrime than native-born Americans. Many people don’t know that. Some people are just so filled with racism and hate that they refuse to believe it. Shame on you.

    About 10 percent of my students have two American-born parents (I ask). I assume some if not many are illegal (I don’t ask). I live in a city where 40 percent of people are foreign born. 40 percent!And that’s not even counting their children. That’s what makes New York great. That’s why I live in Queens, which is majority immigrant.

    Maybe I’m biased growing up in Chicago and now living in New York. And neighborhoods with immigrants (legal and illegal) can be a bit seedy and poor, but they’re generally interesting, safe, and have great food.

    Messed-up cities and states, usually without too many immigrants, tend to be the most anti-immigrant. But for messed-up areas (and yes Baltimore, I’m thinking of you) immigrants are the solution, not the problem. Part of the reason they’re messed up is because there are no immigrants!

    And living in New York, a pro-immigrant policy is a security issue. Crime gets solved and terrorism gets prevented because people talk to police (and rat out the criminals). If police enforce immigration laws, immigrants get pushed underground. Nobody snitches. Crime goes up. New York gets bombed.

    I hate to say it, but I imagine your average Arizona cop loves this new law. If you’re filled with hate for immigrants, it’s a gift. But even if you’ve got nothing against illegals per se, it’s a tool.

    For now I’m happy to just say, “f*ck Arizona.” If Arizona doesn’t want illegal Mexicans? Let Arizona stagnate. I hope all the Mexicans there pack up and move to my neighborhood. But if the anti-immigrant spirit spreads, I’ll get more passionate. Rounding up people for not having their papers in orders in most definitely not American.

  • Putting the coke back in cola

    Or in this case Coca Colla.

  • Perlman Place Demolition

    The Baltimore Sun has a video.

    It’s always a bit sad to see people cheer the destruction of a city block. Of course this block was already destroyed. Now it’s just a matter of tearing down empty shells of brick. Everything of value has been stripped. Now it’s just a place for trash, wild animals, and crime. As sad as it is, for residents and police, a vacant lot is much better than a vacant building.

    One-block streets in the Eastern have always been a pain in the ass. It’s like where the gangrene starts. Just mention these names to police and watch them wince. There was the 2300 block of Crystal Ave, Henneman Ave, N Register, the 2000 block of Ellsworth, the 2200 block of Prentiss Place. Some of these places aren’t even named on Google Maps. Next time you’re driving though Baltimore, just try and finding 1611 Hakesley Place. First you need to find Iron Alley.


    View Larger Map
    Oh, there it is. That’s Iron Alley (RIP Vincent Adolfo). And it’s the only way in or out of Hakesley Place. Just go up there and make a left. I dare you. God save the officer who calls a Signal 13 in the rear of 1600 Hakesley Place, odd side.

    Looking at a better map, I can even see names I don’t recognize. Maybe I’m getting old, but I guess they were already vacant when I was there. I don’t remember ever getting a call for Terrell Place, Eareckson Place, or Lancing Ave.

    And even though it wasn’t a one-block street, I’ll just throw in the 700 block of N. Port for good measure. What a pain that block was. East of N Rose things got better. But I didn’t police east of Rose.

    And the alley streets (at least that’s what I called them) weren’t much better. Here’s the 900 Block of N Duncan on a beautiful Spring day:


    View Larger Map
    And that’s the street. Then there’s the alley (pan to the right). And best of all (God bless Baltimore) the alley off the alley. My front door used to be in an alley off an alley. I had a PO Box and no chance of newspaper delivery. Hell, the 2000 census never found me. And I wasn’t exactly hiding.

    When I rummaged around vacants in the Eastern or watched the sun rise and trains go by from the 1300 Block of N Dallas (my favorite spot at dawn), I couldn’t help but think, “there used to be families here.” If you squinted really hard you could even make out ghosts of normal family life in some of the ruins: leftover broken furniture, tacky wallpaper, and console TVs (funny how those became worthless). There was almost never anything left of value. Just rubble and trash.

    Though if anybody could scavenge me a marble stoop and a Formstone plaque, I’d be much obliged (I’m not kidding about the Formstone plaque).

  • How Not to Pass a Sobriety Test

  • RIP Daryl Gates

    RIP Daryl Gates

    The career of Gates should not be celebrated. My sincere condolences to his family and those who loved him. Seriously. But LA Police Chief Daryl Gates didn’t like to give breaks to other people. So why should I give him one?

    Gates is still popular among conservative law-and-order types. Drugs on a block? Send in an armored tank. Casual drug users? “Taken out and shot.” Oh, he later said those words were just “calculated hyperbole.” You know, to get attention. Well he got mine.

    I wonder what Daryl Gates’s position would be when a 16-year-old punk punched one of his police officers? Probably charge him as an adult and throw away the key. If only that had happened to Gates when Gates was a young cop-punching punk we might have been saved from his rule. But Gates did not live by the Golden Rule.

    Gates got a lot of breaks in life. It’s not like Gates was born on third and thought he triple. It’s more like he got on first after being hit by a pitch. Then advancing to second on a passed ball and stole third. Thenhe thought he hit a triple.

    After not being charged with assault after punching a cop (break #1), Gates got his life in order. Military veteran Gates gets hired as a cop because of an affirmative action program for veterans (break #2). Soon, because of some unknown connections (at least unknown to me), he becomes the driver for Chief Parker (break #3).

    There’s no merit exam to become the chief’s driver. Gates must have had a very good hook. The funny thing about commissioners’ drivers is that they very often go on to become police commissioners. “Well,” goes the joke I heard years ago from Bill Bratton, “Commissioners sure know how to pick the best drivers. That’s why they always end up rising so quickly in the ranks!”

    Based on Gates political connection (break #3), he becomes police chief (break #4). Now let’s look at some of the lowlights of his 43-year police career, the last 14 of which he was in charge:

    1) Gates pissed off just about everybody who wasn’t white and conservative (which explains a good part of popularity among those who are).

    2) Gates was a racist SOB. Exhibit A is his observation that black people’s arteries don’t open like “normal people.” His apology, something about cardio-vascular disease, was even weirder. But there’s more to his racism than just this one line.

    3) Operation Hammer.

    4) Gates set armored cars into troubled minority neighborhoods to “send a message.” I’m not exactly certain what that message is.

    5) Gates helped establish SWAT and police reliance on military weaponry. The jury is still out on whether a SWAT-like more-militaristic entity within police departments is good or bad, at least for small departments.

    6) Gates helped establish D.A.R.E. The jury has settled this one. D.A.R.E. does not work. It actually increases drug use. Gates could not keep his own children drug free. Please don’t trust him with yours.

    7) He established C.R.A.S.H., the unit that gave Rampart a bad name and led to the worst police corruption/brutality/murder scandal in police history!

    8) When the L.A. Riots broke out, Gates was nowhere to be found. I guess he had somewhere more important to be.

    9) Many people, myself included, blame Gates for the LAPD’s leaderless withdrawal from the initial trouble at Florence and Normandie. It was this withdrawal that almost killed Reginald Denny. It was this withdrawal that let much of the city go to hell.

    Fifty-three people were killed and thousands injured. Hundred of millions of dollars in property destroyed. I think we’ve kind of forgotten just how big this was. The whole nation was on edge. This riots certainly had a big impact on me. On the day of the verdict I got out of the subway in Manhattan and saw a crowd of scared women running through the street holding their shoes in their hands. Somebody had gotten aggressive with a garbage can half a block away. I had thought we had left this “burn down our city” thing back in the early 1970s. The LA Riots woke me up and were one of the reasons I became interested in police.

    10) Gates gave police “professionalism” a bad name by somehow convincing many people that only clean-cut white guys could be “professional” police. And also effed up the entire LAPD. He left a city in ashes and a police force mired in corruption and brutality. It took him 14 years as chief to accomplish all this.

    The riots also broke the tacit agreement Gates had with the public. “You give me free reign to do what ‘needs to be done,’” Gates basically said, “and I’ll keep you safe by keeping ‘them’ in line.” But the L.A. riots ended any charade of effective leadership. The Christopher Commission was pretty damning.

    And once things did settle down, people wanted Gates out. It was only then that we learned he couldn’t be fired. Such was the final ignominious legacy of the so-called “professional” movement in policing. The police had managed to completely separate themselves from the public and from politics. Hey, politics ain’t perfect, but it’s better than a Dictator Gates. And dig this irony: when the riots broke out, Gates was at a politicalfund raiser!

    I’m not certain how the city finally got Gates to resign. I suppose they gave him a golden parachute or something (break #5). He never did apologize or accept any blame for his bad leadership. The closest he came was saying, “Clearly that night we should have gone down there and shot a few people…. In retrospect, that’s exactly what we should have done. We should have blown a few heads off.”

    L.A.’s mayor said Gates had, “brought Los Angeles to the brink of disaster just to satisfy his own ego.” Gates later dismissed Rodney King as, “a no-good S.O.B. parolee who has never been able to find himself ever since.”

    HadGates been a successful police leader, perhaps we could then debate the merits of his horrible public posture. No matter how good his get-tough hate-filled rhetoric makes some police feel, if you want the politically incorrect truth, here it is: Gates was a bad police chief; he failed at crime prevention; he failed at preventing scandal. His tough-talk tough-action approach never worked. It didn’t work in his personal life (two failed marriages and a son lost to drug abuse). It didn’t work in the city of Los Angeles.

    When Gates became chief in 1978, there were 678 murders in L.A. After 14 years at the helm, homicides increased 61 percent (1,092 murders in 1992. The population increased about 20% during this time).

    Gates was a racist, hypocritical, egoistical, affirmative-action baby. Worse than that, he was ineffective. Let me put it another way. Over the past 40 years the average number of murders per year without Gates in charge, 522. With Gates in charge? 876. Well done, Sir! Way to keep our city safe.

    Daryl Gates is best remembered as a warning and not a role model. He didn’t tell the truth other people were afraid to say. He misled the public, misled the police, and stoked hatred and racism.

    Since Gates departure, homicides have gone down every year. In 2009 there were 315 murders.

    “Just the facts, Sir. Date of birth and description of the looters?”

  • Daryl Gates dies

    Forgive me if I don’t send flowers to his funeral. What an SOB.

  • Dog bites car

  • A billion here and a billion there…

    A study by Daryl Fischer shows that 94 percent of Arizona state inmates are repeat or violent offenders. That “or” is important. “The myth that we’re filling our prisons with first-time drug offenders is not true.” Well sort of. It is generally true (with some notable exceptions) that people don’t do prison time for non-violent drug possession.

    But this hardly supports a lock-em-up mentality, which seems to be the goal of the study: “The state is getting its money worth for every tax dollar it spends on the prison system.” I find that hard to believe. About 2,000 Arizona men and women are in prison for first-time non-violent offenders. And only 52 percent of state inmates have been convicted of violent offenses. That’s nothing to be proud of. Not when the state’s correctional budget is one billiondollars.