John McWhorter on the developing taboo of using the phrase “black-on-black crime.” (Spoiler alert: “We need to nip the burgeoning of this new and useless taboo in the bud with all deliberate speed.”): “What’s wrong is to refer to black on black crime as evidence of something uniquely pathological about black people. … [But] to instead classify the term “black…
John Timoney
A nice homage to John Timoney in the New York Times. Among other things: In 1972, New York officers fired 2,510 bullets and killed 66 people. By 2014, there were 288 shots fired and eight people killed. What happened? Mr. Timoney said that in 1972, the department put restrictions on when officers should shoot their weapons. Within a year, officers…
“Imma start a riot like it’s Baltimore”
Turns out the cop who once rapped “Imma start a riot like it’s Baltimore” turns out to be prophetic! But all joking aside, this cop who shot and killed an armed and dangerous man was from the community. More than 1,000 people have circulated a 2014 image, shared by the Milwaukee Police Department, identifying and lauding Officer Dominique Heaggan-Brown as…
“Policing is differentiated from other occupations by the use of coercion”
My colleague Eugene O’Donnell, former cop and prosecutor, writes in The Crime Report about “The ‘Post-Policing Era’ in America: How Will We Cope?” I don’t actually think we are entering “a post-policing era,” but it’s certainly likely we’re going to see police responding to forces asking them to do much, much less of the coercive actions that justify the need…
“The Light’s Better Here”
A nice critique of quantitative data over at City Observatory. It’s about transportation planning, but the lesson can be applied to anything, especially policing: Reliance on data to solve complex problems is subject to what’s sometimes called the “drunk under the streetlamp” effect: An obviously intoxicated man is on his hands and knees on the sidewalk, under a streetlamp. A…
“Three Years of Nights”
Very good piece by Peter Nickeas in Chicago magazine. “Three Years of Nights: Violence convulses the city after dark. Reporting on it leaves its own scars.” It sure does. Same for policing (though for some more than others). And just another 17 years of the same and he’s have the career of a copper: It was the beginning of a…
The DOJ is Right (4): The actual department is a mess (3/3)
Update: The links have changed (oops!) since these were first published. Here are links to all my August 2016 posts on the DOJ report on the BPD. 1 https://copinthehood.com/initial-thoughts-on-doj-report-on-2/ 2 https://copinthehood.com/the-doj-is-wrong-1-2/ 3 https://copinthehood.com/the-dojs-war-on-broken-window-2/ 4 https://copinthehood.com/cant-you-take-joke-2/ 5 https://copinthehood.com/the-doj-is-wrong-2-n-word-2/ 6 https://copinthehood.com/the-doj-is-wrong-3-that-damn-kid-on-2/ 7 https://copinthehood.com/the-doj-is-wrong-4-on-diggs-dig-2/ 8 https://copinthehood.com/the-doj-is-right-1-2/ 9 https://copinthehood.com/the-doj-is-right-2-actual-department-is-2/ 10 https://copinthehood.com/the-doj-is-right-3-actual-department-is-2/ 11 https://copinthehood.com/the-doj-is-right-4-actual-department-is-2/ F) And then there’s the problem of recruitment and retention: It…
The DOJ is Right (3): The actual department is a mess (2/3)
Update: The links have changed (oops!) since these were first published. Here are links to all my August 2016 posts on the DOJ report on the BPD. 1 https://copinthehood.com/initial-thoughts-on-doj-report-on-2/ 2 https://copinthehood.com/the-doj-is-wrong-1-2/ 3 https://copinthehood.com/the-dojs-war-on-broken-window-2/ 4 https://copinthehood.com/cant-you-take-joke-2/ 5 https://copinthehood.com/the-doj-is-wrong-2-n-word-2/ 6 https://copinthehood.com/the-doj-is-wrong-3-that-damn-kid-on-2/ 7 https://copinthehood.com/the-doj-is-wrong-4-on-diggs-dig-2/ 8 https://copinthehood.com/the-doj-is-right-1-2/ 9 https://copinthehood.com/the-doj-is-right-2-actual-department-is-2/ 10 https://copinthehood.com/the-doj-is-right-3-actual-department-is-2/ 11 https://copinthehood.com/the-doj-is-right-4-actual-department-is-2/ C) It’s not like most police don’t want to make things…
The DOJ is Right (2): The actual department is a mess (1/3)
Update: The links have changed (oops!) since these were first published. Here are links to all my August 2016 posts on the DOJ report on the BPD. 1 https://copinthehood.com/initial-thoughts-on-doj-report-on-2/ 2 https://copinthehood.com/the-doj-is-wrong-1-2/ 3 https://copinthehood.com/the-dojs-war-on-broken-window-2/ 4 https://copinthehood.com/cant-you-take-joke-2/ 5 https://copinthehood.com/the-doj-is-wrong-2-n-word-2/ 6 https://copinthehood.com/the-doj-is-wrong-3-that-damn-kid-on-2/ 7 https://copinthehood.com/the-doj-is-wrong-4-on-diggs-dig-2/ 8 https://copinthehood.com/the-doj-is-right-1-2/ 9 https://copinthehood.com/the-doj-is-right-2-actual-department-is-2/ 10 https://copinthehood.com/the-doj-is-right-3-actual-department-is-2/ 11 https://copinthehood.com/the-doj-is-right-4-actual-department-is-2/ Mixed in with questionable methodology, intentions, and anecdotes, there’s some of…
The DOJ is Right (1): Too many illegal stop and searchs (though sometimes just without written articulation)
Update: The links have changed (oops!) since these were first published. Here are links to all my August 2016 posts on the DOJ report on the BPD. 1 https://copinthehood.com/initial-thoughts-on-doj-report-on-2/ 2 https://copinthehood.com/the-doj-is-wrong-1-2/ 3 https://copinthehood.com/the-dojs-war-on-broken-window-2/ 4 https://copinthehood.com/cant-you-take-joke-2/ 5 https://copinthehood.com/the-doj-is-wrong-2-n-word-2/ 6 https://copinthehood.com/the-doj-is-wrong-3-that-damn-kid-on-2/ 7 https://copinthehood.com/the-doj-is-wrong-4-on-diggs-dig-2/ 8 https://copinthehood.com/the-doj-is-right-1-2/ 9 https://copinthehood.com/the-doj-is-right-2-actual-department-is-2/ 10 https://copinthehood.com/the-doj-is-right-3-actual-department-is-2/ 11 https://copinthehood.com/the-doj-is-right-4-actual-department-is-2/ Too many officers in Baltimore conduct searches without being able to…