I would love it if we could distinguish between quotas and what happened to Adrian Schoolcraft. Just because the NYPD has (as Schoolcraft says) quotas (or at least something that line officers feel are quotas) does not grant legitimacy to Schoolcraft’s media-hungry self-serving whining about how he was treated by the NYPD. There is a quota issue in the NYPD.…
Lawsuits against Chicago police down 50%
Because the Chicago Police Department isn’t providing cash payments to settle out of court. Once that incentive goes away…
Zimring on the NYPD crime drop
Frank Zimring has always been one of the better criminologists out there. This nine minute video from the Vera Institute of Justice hows some of the reasons why.
DEA funds terrorism
Of course that’s meant to be a sensational headline… but it’s actually true. And God only knows how the DEA would flip the tables if some anti-drug-war group was guilty of the same thing. According to the Times: [The DEA] sent David C. Headley, a small-time drug dealer and sometime informant, to work for them in Pakistan months after the…
It’ll never work…
The suspect is an armed and crazy and racist murderer. He’s killed before. He has multiple weapons. After a tip-off you get a warrant for his arrest. You know where he lives. A surveillance unit outside confirm his presence. Plan B is to send in the SWAT team and bust down the door in a carefully rehearsed show of surprise…
Mehserle sentenced to 2 years
Seems about right to me. Not everyone agrees. Mehserle is the BART cop who (apparently) accidentally shot Oscar Grant in the back and killed him. Mehserle has already served most of his time.
COPS & Opera
From my favorite comic strip, Stephan Patsis’s Pearls before Swine:
Because it’s a sin!
A SWAT team busted up a poker game of seniors. One cop and one gambler were shot. This is not what SWAT teams are for. Actually, unfortunately, it is what SWAT teams are for. So let me rephrase: this is not what SWAT teams shouldbe for. The shot 72-year old reportedly said, “Why didn’t you tell me it was the…
I didn’t know…
“…marijuana use is associated with voluntary treatment admissions for addiction, fatal drugged driving accidents, mental illness and emergency room admissions.” So says Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske. Come to think of it, so is life. There’s more on Pete Guither’s blog. Regardless, thanks God we’re still safe from this reefer madness. I don’t think marijuana makes you crazy. But I’m started…
Exceptional Clearance
“The presumed slaughter of 20 tourists in Acapulco — apparently has been solved by thugs who captured the alleged killers, posted their confessions on the Internet, then murdered them and directed police to the crime scene.” From the Houston Chronicle.