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Category: Police

  • Tasers

    Here’s more evidence that Tasers are bad. Or at least overused. The story is in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

  • 156 Die Drinking Tainted Liquor

    You don’t see headlines like this much in America anymore. But we used to (google “Jake Leg” if you’re interested in a tragic little footnote in American history). Fewer people die when drugs are legal and regulated.

    Prohibitionists in India wanted to protect poor people from themselves. So, in an entirely predictable bit of failed prohibitionist logic, they made liquor drunk by poor people illegal. The New York Times reports:

    The hooch deaths, as they are called, are occurring a year after the government prohibited the sale of arrack, or country liquor, arguing that it was ruinous to the poor, but left other kinds of alcohol untouched. Since then, plastic sachets of illegal brew have turned up occasionally in Bangalore’s poorest neighborhoods.

    It used to be like that here, from 1920 to 1933. Then we wised up. But not before a lot of people had died. Now we do it with other drugs. And a lot of people still die (33,541 American in 2005 alone). And then we have the gall to blame the poor and powerless for killing themselves rather than arrogant prohibitionists for passing bad laws that kill other people.

  • NYPD pay raise

    It’s still all too low, but finally, just a few years too late, starting NYPD officers are getting a raise from a criminally low $25,100 to the embarrassingly low salary of $35,881. The top base pay is $65,382.

    The Daily Newshas this story.

  • Officer Pete says (rule 18):

    Don’t believe he’s innocent just because you’re related.

  • Getting away with murder in B’more

    The Baltimore City Paper tells the story. Well, one guy did get 5 years.

    Here’s their first story.

    Here’s the concept:
    The Murder Ink column in the print edition of City Paper tracks homicides in Baltimore, giving details on each murder in the city. But what becomes of those homicide cases after we’ve reported the murder? Recently, we started looking at old cases to see whether those arrested for murders were ever convicted of the crimes they were accused of committing. For most murder cases, that information is not reported in the press. So, starting with this post, we’ll follow up on old homicide cases, beginning with murders in 2006, to see what happened.

  • Meanwhile, in the NYPD

    The brass is throwing the book at the officers involved in the Sean Bell shooting.

    What’s so unsatisfying about this, is that such discipline makes cops paranoid, and for good reason. What’s the moral? For police, it’s that if the department wants to get you (if Al Sharpton shouts loud enough), they will. Obviously the order had been given that heads must roll. But at the same time the anti-police public won’t be satisfied. Anything less than jail, being fired, and perhaps a public flogging in considered a slap on the wrist.

    The New York Times reports:
    If the charges, known as administrative charges, are upheld, the officers could face discipline ranging from loss of pay to retraining to firing. But the internal investigation has been suspended as federal prosecutors weigh civil rights charges in the case.
    If you think 31 bullets was obsessive, go for that guy. Clearly, as I have said, mistakes were made. Do I think police were criminally guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. No. Do I think punishable things may have been done. Yes.

    But to charge someone with “failing to thoroughly process the crime scene”? That’s bullshit. Don’t go after the guys who showed up after the bullets stopped flying. The idea of crime-scene integrity is a myth. You try and preserve a crime scene with multiple shooting victims. I have. It’s not easy. The O.J. trial set the bar too high.

    CSI it’s not. Police and paramedics have jobs to do and lives to save. Do you order your commanding officer to stay out of the scene? People and cars and belonging are searched. Somebody steps on some blood or kicks a shell casing. I know I have. And you know what, it doesn’t really matter. It’s policing. Policing in the real world with real people. Get real.

  • Police Units

    I gotta say, many of these don’t really ring true to me. But some of them do. No matter, I still find them amusing. A friend sent them to me. It’s out there on the web. If anybody knows the source (or can think of more), let me know.

    Narcotics units:

    Immediately grow facial hair, tell everybody you were ordered to.
    Start watching every episode of Monster Garage.
    Buy a biker wallet with a big chain. Get numerous tats.
    Make every case involve overtime $$$.
    Buy bunches of boats, RV’s, and motorcycles with that overtime.
    Learn to play golf drunk.

    SWAT units:

    Wear team T-shirts that are 2 sizes too small, Oakley sunglasses and boots everyday.
    Try to fit the word “breach” in to every conversation.
    Have a mirror handy to check hair, if you have hair.
    Have 3 knives concealed about your person at any given time.
    Never say hello to anyone who is not an operator, just practice your SWAT head nod, and flex your biceps at any opportunity.
    Subscribe to Soldier of Fortune and Muscle and Fitness.
    Learn to play golf wearing a gun.

    Community Service units:

    Hate SWAT.
    Work to make everybody love you.
    Paint your office in pastel colors.
    Think Feng Shui.
    Subscribe to Psychology Today.
    Learn to play miniature golf.

    School Resource Officers:

    Starbucks before work, show up on campus at 0800 hrs.
    Knows every coffee pot location on campus.
    Sits behind his desk pretending to work, but really surfing the net.
    Really hates kids but loves the hours.
    Only talks to the cute teachers.
    Only works at night when there is a football game.
    Drives a golf cart all day on campus.

    Traffic units:

    Write tickets to EVERYBODY.
    Spend every weekend cleaning your bike and polishing boots.
    Annoy everyone on the radio calling out your T-stops.
    Talk about nothing but how many tickets you wrote in one day.
    Ride by a building with big windows to see your reflection.
    Golf is lame, motor rodeos are cool.

    Administrative Units:

    Three-hour lunches everyday, tell everybody it’s a “meeting”.
    Always carry a manila folder with you, so it looks like you are working, even if it is empty.
    Upgrade department cell phone every month.
    Tell everybody you have been published in a national law enforcement magazine.
    Update your revenge list on a weekly basis.
    Golf Rules! Play lots of golf, especially with the “higher ups.”

    Patrol Units:

    Have nerves of steel.
    In a terminal state of heartburn from department politics.
    Inability to keep mouth shut.
    Has defining tastes in alcohol.
    Is respected by peers.
    Beats the crap out of his caddy on any bogeyed shot.

    Investigators:

    Come in at 0800.
    “Breakfast” from 0815 to 1030.
    Work from 1030 to Noon.
    Work out and Lunch to 1400.
    1400-1700 Sit in CID and talk about how many girlfriends you have and how the wife doesn’t know.
    Plan your next RV, fishing, motorcycle trip.

    Patrol Sergeant:

    Remembers very well “how we used to do it.”
    Always willing to tell his officers the above.
    Tries to fit the word “liability” in to every sentence.
    Talks about “what he’s hearing from upstairs.”

    Trainee:

    Unable to grow facial hair.
    Watches every episode of Cops.
    Worships the ground the SWAT guys walk on.
    Wears black leather gloves at all times.
    Arrives for work three hours early.
    Thinks the sergeant is thrilled to see him.
    Won’t drink on the golf course because it violates the open container ordinance.

  • 4 Philadelphia Cops Fired for Beating

    The ax has started to fall in response to the Philly police beatings. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that four officers have been fired, others have been demoted and/or disciplined.

    Maybe this beating was an aberration, but given the mass involvement, it’s hard to imagine that this wasn’t part of the informal Philly police culture. Two of the officers were just months out of the police academy. That’s not a good sign. Nor does it reflect well on their academy. I guess Philly is still hiring old-school police.

    As I wrote before, there’s no excuse for police acting like they did. They should be fired. And some criminally charged. And yet, part of the cop in me also can’t help but feel sorry for the officers.

    I wish the Philly brass had done more to confront and change a culture of police brutality before this happened, rather than ruin the lives of a half a dozen men simply because this time their bad deeds were caught on tape. Do you really think that Commissioner Ramsey was shocked, shocked!?

    In 1958, Everett Hughes coined the concept of “reality shock.” The bigger the gap between what you’re supposed to do and what you have to do, the more likely you are to dismiss all of what you’re supposed to do. Academy trainees are sequestered away for the realities of policing in an idealistic bubble of what some people think police shouldbe. The goal of the police academy should be to minimize “reality shock” by closing the distance between police training and police reality.

    There’s a great Ali G Show episode that shows this. He spends a day at, of all places, the Philadelphia Police Academy. I show it in my classes because it illustrates some of the absurdity of police training. I also show it because it’s funny. At one point Ali G gets reprimanded for swearing at a man with a [fake] gun. You know what, when lives are at stake, an officer really shouldn’t be thinking about his mouth. There’s nothing wrong with swearing at a man with a gun.

    In the Netherlands, police training last two years. That’s probably too long. But what I like about the Dutch system is that police officers spend those two years alternating between school and the street. They spend half the time in each, in three-month intervals. That way school relates to the street and on the street you can apply what you learn in school.

  • Officer Pete says (rule 19):

    I don’t stop people because they’re black. Everyone I stop is black because there are no white people where I work.

  • Officer Pete says (rule 20):

    Nothing keeps the hoodlums inside like a little rain.