In the just published Greek Americans, I wrote that when multiple identities are listed and Greek is one of them, Greek is listed first “two-thirds of the time.” This is wrong. The actual number is 60 percent (which is still significant, but it’s not two-thirds). I regret the error.
Category: Police
The NYPD is a-changin’
Bratton Tells Chiefs He’ll Stop Sending Rookies to High-Crime Areas And, as you probably know, DeBlasio is dropping the city’s appeal to the stop and frisk lawsuit. But hoping to limit a federal monitor to 3 years. In response: “Four unions representing NYPD officers have filed appeals and motions opposing dismissal of the city’s appeal, which are pending.” Good times.…
Keeping the homeland safe from bike bombs
While in Rwanda, as we entered some place, the underside of our car was getting “mirrored” by some old guy with a mirror on a stick. I rolled my eyes and said to my friends: “Like he was any clue what a bomb looks like. This is just what we call in America ‘security theater.’” My friend pulled out his…
“Why do some police officers seem arrogant?”
Justin Freeman in Slate well answers this question. The short answer: “Because they have different priorities than you do.” Note this a related but different question than “Why are cops such assholes?” No doubt soon this psychoanalysis of negative police traits will be done.
Real community policing
The National Police Week 5K Run is coming up and hell no I won’t be running. But a friend of mine is and looking for a running partner. She posted this on facebook. I think it’s sweet and serves as a good reminder as to how good police can be when they’re not sitting alone in a car, in an…
DNA is not infallible…
…Science never is. On the plus side, science can improve on its errors. From the New York Times: “If we say there is a 1-in-10-quadrillion chance that someone else might have the same DNA profile, but there is also a 1-in-10,000 chance that there was a mistake in generating the profile, the only number the jurors should be paying attention…
You can’t make this stuff up
Life imitates art, after art imitated life. In the Baltimore Sun: “arksdale, ‘Wire’ inspiration, pleads guilty in drug case”
In Defense of Rent Regulation
It’s not about police, but my piece in City Limits just came out: “Arguments Against Rent Regs are Vacant of Facts — Some say New York could relieve high rents by removing rent regulations. And other people say the world is flat.”
The strange and wonderful world out there…
I’m back. It’s cold. Rwanda was great, Addis Ababa interesting, and Bangkok was as nice as always. Stop 1: Rwanda If you don’t know Rwanda (and we didn’t), you wouldn’t know what to expect. I knew nothing about Rwanda except for a history of genocide, the Iwawa Island reform school (not, I should point out, a prison), a ban on…
Happy New Year
I won’t be posting for a few weeks because the missus and I are off on adventures to Rwanda, Ethiopia, and Bangkok. Why those countries? Well, not that it’s your business, but two years ago I befriended a Rwandan police officer when I was a visiting scholar at the National Police College in England. So why not? And I’ve always…