Police

Movies: Adjustment Bureau & Precious

Not that you asked (you didn’t), but here’s what I thought of two movies I just saw: “Adjustment Bureau.” Good stuff. I liked it. Cool. Great concept. Good New York movie. But really I’m here to tell you about the other one: “Precious.” What? “Precious”? Isn’t that so 2009? Yes, but I didn’t see it till 2011. Why? Because every…

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Police

Broken Windows (or booze bottles)

This type of crime bothers me far more than it should. Known (at least to the cognoscente) as the “Broken Bottle Scam,” some S.O.B. bumps into somebody (usually a tourist), drops a bottle of booze, and confrontationally demands $40 for a replacement. That’s old-school New York and it’s wrong. Crap like that preys on the weak, makes people afraid of…

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Police

The DEA and the Death Penalty

Good ol’ Radley has the most interesting take I’ve read. The subject is the DEA seizing death-penalty drugs in Georgia because they were… bought illegally from a foreign country.

Police

“My name is Frunk-en-steen”

That’s a “Young Frankenstein” reference, for all you kids out there. That’s from back in the days when Mel Brooks was funny. Or at least funny to a seven-year-old. I watched that from the family Datsun with my dad and brother at the old Sunset Drive-Inon McCormick Blvd in Skokie, ILL. Man, I sound like I’m getting old… Maybe I…

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Police

NYC Marijuana Arrests Cost City $75 mil

So reports the Daily Newsabout a new reportby the Drug Policy Alliance. In response, Commissioner Kelly says if you don’t like, call your state senator. Of course, that’s a bit disingenuous because the law is already pretty clear: small-scale possession of marijuana in New York State is not an arrestable offense. The problem is how the NYPD enforces a violation…

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Police

Mistaken-Identity Police Shootings in Black and White

The death of a Nassau County police officer got me thinking about cases of police officers shot by other cops. There’s the belief out there that black officers are much more at risk of being mistaken for suspects than are white officers. It’s also been said (by me?) that such accidental mistaken-identity shootings almost never happen to white officers. Officer…

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Police

RIP Officers Breitkopf and Schaberger

Nassau County Officer Geoffrey Breitkopf was killed in case of mistaken identity. In Brooklyn, NYPD Officer Alain Schaberger was killed trying to arrest a violent man, who pushed him over a stoop railing. “Mr. Villanueva had been arrested at least three times on charges of domestic violence against the same woman he was accused of threatening Sunday.”