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Category: Police

  • Everybody must get stoned

    Raționalitate asks a very good question: How much marijuana is consumed in the US?

    Of course, thanks to drug prohibition, we really have no idea.

    Some 100 million Americans would admit to having smoked marijuana, but that is most certainly a low estimate.

    The New York Timescites a congressional report stating that Mexico seized around 9.3 million pounds of marijuana in 2007.

    Raționalitate then, out of necessity, plays a bit fast and loose with the numbers, but the end result boils down to this: let’s assume that marijuana seizedin Mexico represents 1/4 of total U.S. consumption.

    IfUS consumption is 37.2 million pounds or 2.38 billion quarter ounces. Raționalitate says a quarter is enough to get one person high about 15-40 times, depending on quality and tolerance (does that ring true?). Let’s go with 20.

    That’s 144 highs for every American man, woman, and child. Duuude… That’s just gotta be too high. Right?

    So perhaps the Mexican figures are bogus.

    So what other figures are out there? In 2004 the 1.1 million kilograms of marijuana were seized at the border. And in 2005 there were 4,046,599 plant seizures in the US. And let’s also assume that you get 2 ounces of smokeable marijuana per plant. (oh, web research, how easy and unreliable you make data!).

    So we got 157 million quarter ounces at the border seized and about 32 million quarter ounces of plants destroyed. And let’s say that these seizures represent, I don’t know, 20% of total consumption? Do we have any idea? It could be 25%. It could be 2%. More likely to be the latter. But let’s say 20%, because it makes the figures more conservative. That means there are about 1 billionquarter ounces of marijuana consumed in America each year. That’s 3 quarters or 60 highs for every American per year.

    Duuuude, that’s still a lot of weed!

  • Tasers Kill

    Rogueregime sent me this link to Electronic Village documenting 36 taser-related deaths in 2009. That’s far more than I suspected.

    I repeat my position: the taser is an excellent less-lethal weapon, an alternative to lethal force. The taser is not acceptable as a “less-than lethal” weapon because it, well, kills.

  • Terror Case Serious

    The New York Timesreports:

    Documents filed in Brooklyn against the driver, Najibullah Zazi, contend he bought chemicals needed to build a bomb — hydrogen peroxide, acetone and hydrochloric acid — and in doing so, Mr. Zazi took a critical step made by few other terrorism suspects.
    …
    “The ingredients here are quite scary,” and the government’s statements have had none of the bombast and exaggeration that accompanied some previous arrest announcements.
    …
    “You don’t manufacture homemade TATP explosives unless you want to kill people and destroy infrastructure.”
    …
    In some earlier investigations, federal officials seized on what were widely viewed as marginal cases in an apparent effort to show results and justify aggressive steps being taken in the campaign against terrorism. As a result, people in and out of government have become dubious about assertions of the grave danger posed by any particular group of defendants.

  • Bedbugs!

    John Jay College pretty much closes for nothing (Jewish holidays excepted). We’ve never had a snow day since I’ve been there. I’m not even certain if classes were canceled on Sept 11, 2001. So this came as a major surprise.

    Classes in North Hall are canceled. Luckily, I rarely enter North Hall. My classes continue as scheduled.

    Bedbug are a big problem here in NYC. I’ve never had them (knock on wood), I’d like to keep it that way.

  • Officers Down

    Four officers shot, one very seriously. In a “no-knock” drug raid in New Jersey.

    Wayne Parry of the A.P. reports:

    Lakewood Patrolman Jonathan Wilson was shot in the face during the raid, and was in critical but stable condition at a local hospital. Authorities said they were cautiously optimistic he would survive despite being grievously wounded.
    …
    As soon as they got inside, a suspect identified as Gonzalez opened fire on them from atop a staircase, striking the four officers, authorities said.

    Gonzalez was also shot. Many times.

  • Balto Murders

    Baltimore is number two in murders, after Detroit. (Brings to mind that old t-shirt… you Baltimore cops know the one I’m talking about.)

    Peter Hermann writes:

    The 107 people charged with murder last year had accumulated a combined 1,065 prior arrests – 380 related to guns and 99 related to drugs.

    The 234 people killed last year had a combined 2,404 prior arrests – 162 related to guns and 898 related to drugs.

    That’s an average of 10 arrests per suspect and 10.3 arrests per victim.
    …
    Police repeatedly complain that the people they put in handcuffs only return to the streets to do more harm. Here are the number of times some murder suspects and victims from last year had been arrested: 74, 71, 49, 40, 38, 34, 29. … The list goes on.

    These numbers don’t say anything about conviction rates, and there’s a sad tale behind each case, a book-length reason why someone can get arrested 74 times before dying on a street corner or get arrested 71 times before being charged with murder.

    Many are hopelessly sick addicts arrested on petty charges, such as loitering, or involving small amounts of drugs, which tend to pile up but don’t result in much jail time. Cases fall apart in Baltimore for a myriad of reasons that include an overwhelmed court system, distrust of police, jury nullification and witnesses and victims who are too scared or just don’t care to testify.

  • Dirty money

    Cops stealing from a drug house. Too bad the FBI was watching. Now one is going to the Federal Penn for a couple decades. Such cases are inevitable with the war on drugs. All drug cops are not corrupt. But almost all corrupt cops deal with drugs. It’s just too easy to rationalize stealing dirty money.

    26 pending major-felony cases have been dropped as a result.

    Jon Murray has the story from Indianapolis.

  • A gun bill and state sovereignty: A two-fer

    At least for conservative in the Tennessee legislature. For me it’s just a one-fer. I like states’ rights. And though I don’t like guns, I think the gun folks here are absolutely right.

    Perhaps those who support medicinal marijuana and other states’ rights issues should appreciate the parallels.

    “An effort by the federal government to regulate intrastate commerce under the guise of powers implied by the interstate commerce clause could only result in encroachment of the state’s power to regulate commerce within its borders.”

    Richard Locker writesin the Memphis Commercial Appeal.

    “This bill simply asserts that if a firearms and/or ammunition is made totally within the state of Tennessee, then the federal government has no jurisdiction over that item in any fashion, so long as it remains in the state and outside of interstate commerce,” Sen. Mae Beavers, R-Mt. Juliet, the bill’s sponsor, said on the Senate floor when it passed there in June.
    …
    [The ATF says no:] “It’s analogous to a speed limit. If the speed limit on the interstate is set at 70, a city along the interstate can’t come along and say there is no speed limit on the interstate through our city. The highway patrol could still enforce the speed limit,” he said.

    Er, that’s a horrible and unfortunate analogy, since it actually makes the opposite point. The feds don’t make speed limits. States do. That’s the 10th Amendment. Plus there’s the 2nd Amendment, which says nothing about driving speed.

    Realistically, though, the interstate commerce law is viewed so broadly that it covers everything. At least in the war on drugs.

  • I love a parade!

    I love a parade!

    Two police officers who chased and Tasered a 76-year-old man driving a tractor in [Glenrock, Wyoming’s, annual Deer Creek Days parade] have been fired.
    …
    Police say Grose, who was driving an antique tractor in the parade, disobeyed Kavenius’ traffic command. That led to a short pursuit and the Taser use.
    …
    Grose, a retired truck driver, said he’s unlikely to participate in future parades. “I think I probably have retired from parades,” he said.

    Read the whole story by Matt Joyce here. And Joyce has more details here:

    The fracas at the annual Deer Creek Days arose from confusion over whether members of the tractor club could deviate from the parade route shortly before it ended.

    Grose wanted to head directly to the town park for a tractor pull like in previous years. But the police department had a different plan, which apparently was not communicated to the tractor drivers.

    As a result, Grose encountered a Glenrock officer attempting to direct the tractors along the regular parade route. Grose said he drove around the officer. The officer said he was struck by the tractor and injured his wrist, according to a state review of the incident.

    “He, for some reason, said no, and I, for some reason, thought to myself yes,” Grose recounted.

    [thanks to Sgt. T]

  • The Day the Police Came Crashing Through His Door

    In the Washington Post, Cheye Calvo, the mayor of Berwyn Heights, MD, writes about his experience:

    I remember thinking, as I kneeled at gunpoint with my hands bound on my living room floor, that there had been a terrible, terrible mistake.
    …
    In the words of Prince George’s County Sheriff Michael Jackson, whose deputies carried out the assault, “the guys did what they were supposed to do” — acknowledging, almost as an afterthought, that terrorizing innocent citizens in Prince George’s is standard fare. The only difference this time seems to be that the victim was a clean-cut white mayor with community support, resources and a story to tell the media.

    What confounds me is the unmitigated refusal of county leaders to challenge law enforcement and to demand better — as if civil rights are somehow rendered secondary by the war on drugs.
    …
    As an imperfect elected official myself, I can understand a mistake — even a terrible one. But a pattern and practice of police abuse treated with utter indifference rips at the fabric of our social compact and virtually guarantees more of the same.

    You know what they say: a liberal is a conservative who’s been raided (actually I just made that one up).