Drugs is a dirty world.
Too bad we put police into a battle they can’t win.
Category: Police
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Baltimore Mayor Dixon’s trial starts
The story in the New York Times.
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Greek Police Attacked in Terrorist Attack
Six shot. The AP story by Derek Gatopoulos: “Gunmen on a motorcycle fired on a suburban Athens police station with automatic weapons late Tuesday, wounding six police officers.”
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Update from Seattle. Funeral of Officer Tim Brenton.
Seems like they got the guy! Right in the middle of the police funeral. “Largest regional response to a scene ever.”
The story in the Seattle Times and from a comment left below:
Today, was a very long and emotional day starting at 9 AM with a 1500+ LE, fire, emergency vehicle procession from the UW to the Key Arena to memorialize Officer Tim Brenton.
It was probably the largest LE funeral procession in recent memory.
It took 3 hours for the entire procession to reach and fill the arena. The memorial service started at 1 PM, and ended at apprx. 3:15. The entire process was covered end-to-end by all 3 local news networks.
At 3:30 PM – all networks broke news that an officer-involved shooting had taken place. LE cars from throughout the region converged on that spot. Largest regional response to a scene ever.
Seattle detectives were following a citizen lead on a possible car linked to the officer’s death. Person of interest encountered; fled, brandished a weapon and detectives responded, bringing down the person. Wounded but still alive, he was airlifted to the hospital.
It’s an irony and providential occurrence if in fact this person turns out to be the main suspect – just in timing (funeral), LE presence and response, and the incredible pall this awful officer death has cast over the many hearts of this community.
We, the entire community, hold our collective breaths a little longer until more and final info is known and verified.
“3 George 13, Officer Timothy Brenton, 9:50. ‘Gone but never forgotten’”.
Thanks for posting this thread.
~A SPD officer’s proud sister~
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Lack of Gun Control
Nice to know that all those places with right-to-carry and relaxed gun laws, like military bases and the state of Florida, are safe from gun violence.
Florida, for some strange reason, is often held up by gun-righters as an example of a good state. Yet Florida is violent and has become more so since gun control was relaxed.
Here’s my logic:
The problem with people who don’t believe in gun control is that Cell #2 is impossible to achieve so they choose to live in Cell #1.Gun haters believe that Cell #4 is theoretically possible (and desirable), but it isn’t politicallypossible in this country.
So we’re left with either Cell #1 or Cell #3. And either way we’re left with some gun carnage.
And though it certainly may seem that Cell #1 the better of the two (“if criminals and crazies have guns, better for us to, too!” …Assuming we’re not crazy, of course).
The problem is that there is a correlation between the general availability of guns and the odds that a criminal or crazy carries a gun.
I’d prefer to live in Cell #3 than Cell #1 because they’ll be less carnage and I’ll be safer, even though I would have to give up some feeling of control over my environment. That’s why we have police.
Speaking of which, can somebody tell me why it takes a civilian police officer on or near an army base to shoot somebody? Don’t the soldiers have guns?
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Three Cheers for Police Sergeant Kimberly Munley
She did her job. And then some. And more.
Update(November 12, 2009): Seems that Senior Sgt. Mark Todd did a lot of what was first credited to Munley. Oh, the fog of war.
Regardless, three cheers to both of them.
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Oh, the stink!
If an adult is missing, there’s little for a police officer to do. Adults are adults; they don’t have to come home for bed time. And if they’re drug addicts, they might just choose to “disappear” from prying family members. And besides, the last thing you want to do as a cop is serve as some stalker’s private dick.
But 11 adults killed and decomposing in a house and backyard in Cleveland? This is a failure of the system.
Here’s the story in the New York Times and the by Mark Puente in the Plain Dealer.
I’m more skeptical of officers who went to that house and smelled death. Officers know that smell and while the first reaction may be to get far away, the second reaction should be, “why does the house of a convicted sex offender smell like dead bodies?”
Probably every officer who took a call for a missing women did a minimally proper job. Each one got a 911 call for a missing adult drug addict. Each one had little sympathy and besides, what can you do? They’re adults. What should you do?
But where was the neighborhood beat officer? Where was the officer on foot that neighbors could talk to? Where was an officer who was in a position to put two and two together? One missing adult addict isa non-event. A half-dozen might just make you go, hmmmmmm. Eleven missing addicts and house smelling like death? This seems like a puzzle that shouldn’t have taken Sherlock Holmes to figure out.
But apparently nobody was ever in a position to see the big picture because the police department isn’t set up that way. In a rush to handle incidents, nobody ever noticed the problem.
So the public saw an uncaring police department while police saw an uncooperative public. This is inevitable when a system wants cops in cars instead of on foot and favors rapid response over slow deduction.
Police can zoom to an incident (not that you would zoom to a missing-person call) but to see the big picture, to recognize the problem, you need the insight and community input you’ll never find inside a patrol car.
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Foot Patrol: The Colonel Speaks
Continuing my conversation with Colonel (Ret.) Margaret Patton of the Baltimore Police department, I recently received this email:
I read your added chapter[the new chapter in the paperback edition of Cop in the Hood].You should be a police chief. The term “Policing Green” is very catchy and, more important, very smart.
Foot patrol is a key to addressing crime and working with the community in a positive manner. The idea of using a monetary carrot for the officer and linking it with the reduction of the use of gasoline was brilliant.
My husband, before he made sergeant, was a foot officer in south Baltimore before it was a trendy place to be but he loved his foot post. Cross Street Market was on his post and he still remained friends with many of the people he met during that time. I remember meeting the “Chicken Man” who sold chickens (of course) at the market soon after we married. Several of his friends from his foot post came to his funeral as well as his fellow foot officers from “way back when”.
My husband always said that he was sorry that he ever took the sergeant’s test because he enjoyed his foot post so much. He said that a foot post was one of the department’s secret gems (“gems” may be my word but you understand).
We speak, but who listens?
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CIA agents convicted in Italy of kidnapping
The story in the NYT.
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The family that robs together…
Marc Perrusquia in the Memphis Commercial Appeal has a good story about the extensive criminal activities of one very criminal family.
Over seven decades, Porterfield and several members of his extended family have been a violent, drug-peddling, thieving scourge on Shelby County. They’ve been involved in at least 14 shootings, four murders and countless break-ins and assaults.
In all, 407 arrests.
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Breaking the cycle is a daunting, and costly, proposition. Yet, given the alternative — states are spending $50 billion a year to imprison offenders — it’s a challenge worth taking on, said Oregon social scientist J. Mark Eddy.