This is encouraging news reported in New York Times: The number of chronically homeless people living in the nation’s streets and shelters has dropped by about 30 percent — to 123,833 from 175,914 — between 2005 and 2007. […] The officials attribute much of the decline to the “housing first” strategy that has been promoted by the Bush administration and…
Category: Police
Officer assaults bicyclist
Luckily somebody was filming. Uh, officers, you should always police like people are filming. Especially when you know they are. As a former cop and current bicyclist, I don’t get is why the NYPD is so hellbent against Critical Mass. Other cities manage just fine. Police escort. A little traffic disruption. A lot of bicyclists have a good time. Nobody…
Ed Norris Show
I’ll be on the Ed Norris show (via phone) tomorrow (Tuesday) 5pm. Listen in.
Club 101: Baltimore Club Music Appreciation
Since they say that writing about music is like dancing about architecture, I’ve got some audio tracks so you can hear the Baltimore Club sound and the work of K-Swift, who died a few days ago. First and foremost, Baltimore Club Music is a beat. If it ain’t got this beat, it’s not club music (the droning note is a…
RIP K-Swift, the Club Queen
You should really play some of her music while reading this post I’m very sad to read about the death of my favorite Baltimore DJ, K-Swift. The poor girl was only 28 and died in a swimming pool accident. And when she started mixing a decade ago, she really was a girl in a man’s world. There are three stories…
I’m just sayin’…
Cocaine Sustains War Despite Rebel Losses in Colombia …this is what drug prohibition does. From the New York Times.
You will not do that shit on my porch!
I just chased two junkies off my stoop! This is, as they say, not that kind of neighborhood. Plus this block has something like four active and former cops living on it. I’m sitting here writing about drug legalization in my basement office, and I hear two guys outside the window. One goes on my stoop. I go upstairs to…
So I was battling the Drug Czar
Me and Lee Brown (former Houston mayor, New York Police Commissioner, and federal Drug Czar) mano-a-mano in a no-holds-barred cage match! (Also known as 700 words in U.S. News & World Report.) I think I kick his ass. But then I would think that, wouldn’t I? And it’s not really a fair cage match. He is 70. Drugs Are Too…
The Eastern District and Iraq
During any given year, a 15- to 34-year-old man in the Eastern District has about the same chance of being killed as a U.S. soldier stationed in Iraq. That’s just wrong. The Eastern stats are from page 203 of my book. The Iraq stats are taken from DonHodges.com. I bring this up because of an interesting comment from a good…
Baltiore homicide by the numbers
Back in January, the Baltimore City Paper published a good simple analysis of homicide numbers in 2007. I was just looking at it again. As we all know, violence is not equally spread out in society. It may not be politically correct to talk about race and violence, but homicide in America is disproportionately a problem of black-on-black young male…