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  • Our Evening Constitional Past the Mosque

    We went on a “hidden harbor” tour Tuesday evening that went through NY Harbor and down to Port Elizabeth (by Newark Airport). Industrial decay… working harbor… good stuff! It was a beautiful evening. But as a harbor, compared to Rotterdam, it looks like Single-A. The guide said the biggest six harbors in the world are now all in China.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Everybody thank the French for the Statue of Liberty. And for french fries.

    Afterward, because it was so close to the boat–like I said, everything is close in lower Manhattan)–we decided to walk past the World Trade Center and mosque sites. The World Trade Center site is still an embarrassing lack of actual building. But hey, it’s only been nine years. On the plus side, at least there are more cranes there actually lifting things.

    A few block away is the site of the mosque and center. Of course there’s a TV truck outside.

     

    The site already is used as a mosque, by the way. But now they pray in the basement.

    The building in question, next door.

     

    More interesting is the graffiti on the ground. I wasn’t expecting this. Not even in New York.

     

     

    Pro-mosque, pro-tolerance, and pro-Obama graffiti. And some lefty-fliers and a few books.

    It turns out that what kills at the location is not Islam, it’s dog feces and urine! I suspected that all along.

     

    Meanwhile, a few doors down, the AT&T sign made me think of the Constitution (a bit hokey, I know, but that’s what I thought of!)

     

    Walking back to the subway, another shot of the WTC site. The figures on the construction wall in front of the church are walk signs from cities around the world.

     

    And the gas lights and fountain at City Hall Park at night, one of New York City’s not so secret gems.

     

    Finally two candid shots of the subway, just in case you’ve never seen it. This is what New Yorkers look like when they are no TV or movie cameras around.

     

     

  • Tasers equal fewer injuries

    That’s the result of a study by Bruce Taylor and Daniel J. Woods of PERF in Police Quarterly.

    You can’t read the whole article without a subscription, but here’s the abstract (CED = taser, to you and me):

    The Conducted Energy Device (CED) weapon holds the potential to reduce injuries for officers/suspects. However, the dearth of research on CEDs makes it difficult to make informed decisions about its deployment. We conducted a quasi experiment to compare 4 years of data from seven law enforcement agencies (LEAs) with CED deployment with six matched LEAs without CED deployment. Compared with non-CED sites, CED sites had lower rates of officer injuries, suspect severe injuries, and officers and suspects receiving injuries requiring medical attention. Our results suggest that CEDs can be effective in helping minimize physical struggles and resulting injuries in use-of-force cases.

  • $4.9 million for the estate of Kathryn Johnston

    Four years after it happened. One of the worst happenings in the War on Drugs.

  • Not Ground Zero Mosque

    I wasn’t going to post on this… perhaps other than to say it’s absurd that we’re debating the right of a people in our country to build a house of worship. It’s kind of like debating legal segregation. Haven’t we moved past this a long time ago? (Or not so long ago in the case of racial segregation.) I don’t want to debate freedom of religion any more than I want to debate slavery.

    But I do mention this because my wife said that a friend of hers on facebook didn’t even know that this mosque is not being built at the World Trade Center site. Really? Do people really not know this? Are people getting all huffy over a moot point?

    45 and 47 Park Place. You can punch it into Google and see where it is. It’s nearwhere the World Trade Center was. Two blocks away, to be precise. So is the Hudson River. So is City Hall Park. I mean, in lower Manhattan, everything is close. If people really want to create a “no-mosque zone,” at want point exactly would it be OK to build a mosque?

    See, since the mosque and cultural center isn’t at Ground Zero, I see this much more as an issue for people who hate Islam. That’s not a debate I care to enter. Even though I like pork and drinking, I try not to hate. Islam is not terrorism (and if you don’t know that, you must learn. — But Wahhabism spread by our Saudi [pause for quotes] “allies”? That might be another story.)

    So is this “hallowed ground”? No. But why don’t you judge for yourself?

  • Alvarez released from hospital, arrested

    This is the guy shot 20 times by the police. One week later, he’s out of the hospital. How is that possible!? From the Times:

    The police have arrested Mr. Alvarez on charges of attempted murder, attempted assault in the first degree, criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree and criminal use of a firearm in the second degree.

    Is it just me, or does anybody else think that perhaps you should just get a free pass if you’re shot twenty times by police… and live.

  • Ghetto Mortality

    In the course of writing Cop in the Hood, I researched what I thought was the bombshell statistic that, conservatively estimated, more than 10 percent of the men in the Eastern District are murdered between the ages of 15 and 35 (pp. 219-220).

    That bomb sure was a dud.

    Maybe everybody already knew. I like to think that. Because the alternative is that nobody cares. It’s a sad thought that such a rich and powerful nation doesn’t mind that so many, thanks mostly to the bad luck of being born in a shitty place and/or to a shitty family, are more likely to be shot and killed than are soldiers at war.

    Do those murdered make some bad choices and do some bad things. Of course. But only in the ghetto does a bad choice or two lead so certainly to destruction and death. And only in the ghetto, even if you make good choices, do you so routinely get nothing for your efforts but a beat down.

    Anyway, I was thinking about this again because the New York Timeshas a bittersweet feel-good story about a cop running a boxing program in St. Louis. One of the kids seems to be making it.

    But overall the odds are horrible.

    Of the 30 children from the 1995 team, Cunningham, now 45, believes that nine may be dead (at least six are confirmed), with the rest roughly divided among prison, the Bloods and the Crips.

    One-third dead. One-third in prison. Most of the rest in gangs. Clearly, if I might restate the obvious, something isn’t working.

  • ICE Agent Almost Gets It

    The key to combating [Mexican Drug Cartels], said Alonzo R. Pena, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deputy assistant secretary for operations said, is to go after their money — money used to corrupt officials and to buy weapons.

    William J. Hoover, executive director of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said “We have to get to the source of the money.”

    That’s all from the El Paso Times.

    Gosh. How can we take the criminal profit out of bootlegging… I mean drug dealing?

    It’s also worth looking at the comments to the article at PoliceOne to see some of the stupidest police officers who know how to type. “Invade Mexico and smart bomb the terrorists!” “Bring the fight to them.” I really find it tough to believe that some people still think that is the answer. No doubt because after 28,000 deaths there we’ve all been playing this too soft. I guess we just need to go in and take out the Osama Bin Laden of Mexican drug dealing. Problem solved. Man, if only it weren’t for liberals who hate freedom, we’d be winning all our wars.

    Effing idiots.

  • “Ethnographic Chutzpah”

    Horn tooting time.

    Just two-and-a-half years after the publication of Cop in the Hood, (the academic world can move at a glacial pace) the American Journal of Sociology reviewed Cop in the Hood. Well worth the wait, I’d say, as the review by Profesor Andrew Papachristos is very favorable: “Ethographic chutzpah…. Perhaps the best sociological account on what it means to police a modern ghetto…. Tells a great story.” Of course it’s deeper than that:

    WhileCop in the Hoodcontributes to several debates within urban sociology and criminology, the book’s greatest contribution is the demystification of police and police culture. Moskos describes his fellow officers not as power-hungry, thrill-seeking bullies, but as a well-meaning yet frustrated lot who marshal their own foibles and strengths to cope with unique job conditions and ambiguous political and legal decrees.

    Like any author, I’m always very pleased to have my book praised for what it is rather knocked down for what it isn’t. But I really appreciate how very well Papachristos (I’m assuming he felt no undue pressure from the Greek mafia, but I do owe him a souvlaki) captured and appreciated exactly what I was trying to do. It’s an extremely well written and concise review.

    In fact, I think he makes some of my points better than I do.

    Full access to police sources leaves readers with a simple yet important finding: just like those neighborhood residents whom they “serve and protect,” police devise complex ways to administer formal and informal social control as they negotiate social mandates, individual morality, professional obligations, and personal networks. To be sure,Cop in the Hoodis no apologia for police, nor does it dismiss the harsh consequences of the war on drugs. Instead, it offers a candid investigation of the day-to-day arenas in which legal policies are enacted as well as the power afforded to those charged with enforcing the law. The end result is perhaps the best sociological account on what it means to police a modern ghetto.
    …
    The interesting point here is that while academics might wish to employ our chic cultural rhetoric to make sense of police behavior, cops have a rather clear notion of culture and crime that they use to explain both crime and their individual and professional responses to it. The task for the academic reader, then, is to figure out ways to rectify our own valued nomenclature with the empirical reality described by Moskos.

    If you couldn’t follow that (yes, Gotti, I’m thinking of you), don’t worry. But you can read the whole review here.

  • Like Father Like Son?

    It’s yesterday’s news that Adrian Schoolcraft is suing New York and the NYPD for $50 million.

    It turns out, amazingly, that this isn’t the first Schoolcraft vs. P.D. lawsuit. No, it’s not the first. It’s not even the second.

    Turns out that Adrian’s father, Larry Schoolcraft, was also a police officer. In Fort Worth, Texas, I believe (though the Village Voice says Dallas). It seems that, like Adrian, after seven or eight years, Larry didn’t leave the police department on good terms, either.

    Schoolcraft v. City of Fort Worth was filed in 1999. Whatever it was about, it must have been for pretty big bucks because the city first budgeted $145,000 and then another $65,000 (1,2,3) for its legal defense. In 2000, Schoolcraft’s petition for review was denied by the Texas Supreme Court. I guess Larry lost.

    The Schoolcrafts have suffered a lot of loss.

    Larry Schoolcraft moved to upstate New York. Adrian Schoolcraft joined the NYPD in 2002 and hit the streets in 2003. A few months later his grandfather, Larry’s father, died. Soon after that Larry’s wife, Suzanne, died, either in 2003 from cancer or in 2004 from a stroke.

    A few years pass.

    Then in 2007, police got a call for a drunk man at a convenience store. Officers respond and decided the man, Larry Schoolcraft, can’t drive. Being a small town, they drove him home. Two or three days later, power company employees saw Larry passed out on his porch. It was cold. They called 911. Subsequently Schoolcraft sued the police. The local paper, the Leader-Herald, reported:

    The lawsuit filed April 15 claims Schoolcraft suffered permanent injuries because he was left outside in the cold.

    Schoolcraft’s attorney, James. W. Bendall, said his client had to be hospitalized and required surgery. Some of Schoolcraft’s muscles were permanently damaged because of exposure, the suit claims.
    …
    Schoolcraft, who is in his 50s, was groggy because of some medication he had taken, his attorney said.
    …
    The lawsuit claims deputies simply brought Schoolcraft to his porch [and left him there]. … Deputies claim they brought Schoolcraft into his home.
    …
    Schoolcraft… had no memory of what occurred… [and] found out what had happened when his son, a New York City police officer, came upstate after receiving a call that his father was in the hospital.

    Out for two or three days in freezing weather? That’s some medication.

    No matter, after the 2007 incident, Larry went to live with his son Adrian in New York City. In February, 2008, Adrian’s maternal grandfather died. Two days later Adrian’s paternal grandmother dies, too.

    A very rough month. It might even be enough to push me over the edge.

    Two months after the death of his mother, Larry Schoolcraft filed his lawsuit against the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office. Six days after the Leader-Herald wrote about the lawsuit, the paper ran another story, this one about how Larry’s home had been broken into eight months earlier, back around September, 2007, after Larry went to live with Adrian in NYC. Among the stolen goods, Larry Schoolcraft says, were the ashes of his wife and the couple’s infant son, who he says died shortly after being born in 1988.

    If it weren’t for bad luck, they’d have no luck at all. But at least they had each other for support. Through thick and thin, through all their misfortune, father and son, living together, probably spent a lot time talking, mourning, recovering, and perhaps the subject of police departments came up and just how unfair life can sometimes be.

    On June 1, 2008, just six weeks after Larry files his last lawsuit against the police, Adrian starts secretly recording conversations that will become the basis for his first lawsuit against the police.

    Maybe it’s all just coincidence. Who am I to say? But I’d love to know what Larry’s lawsuit in Fort Worth was about. I mean, wouldn’t it be something if Adrian’s lawsuit against his police department in New York just happened to be similar to his father’s lawsuit against his police department in Fort Worth a decade earlier? Wouldn’t that really be something?

    (Update with working links to all the posts on Schoolcraft.)

  • The New Republican Bill of Freedom

    With all this talk of changing the constitution for this and that (and yes, it’s strange that supposedly anti-big-government politicians always want to violate the explicit purpose of the constitution that protects the rights of citizens from big government), I’ve never quite understood the ultimately vision of conservative Republicans. What do they actually want? What if they weren’t restricted by politics, common sense, or the slightest sense of human decency? If the Bill of Rights is for commies, what are constitutional amendments that “real Americans” could rally behind?

    Let’s pick up a newspaper in the year 2013:

    WASHINGTON — Supported by super-majorities in both houses on Congress, the Republican president fulfilled a major campaign promise and sent The New Bill of Freedom to the states for constitutional ratification. Surrounded by senators, representatives, and five Supreme Court Justices on the steps of the Capital, President Palin marked this historic event with a speech to thousands of supporters:

    This Bill of Freedom reflects the original intentions of our Founding Fathers. The old Bill of Rights [boos from crowd] was all about Big Government protecting big terrorists [more boos].

    Oh, yes. No longer will terrorists and drug dealers and flag burners and abortionists and immigrants and sodomites and mainstream media — no longer will [making air quotes] “those people” be allowed to run amok because of — what do those big-L liberals [boos] call them? — technicalities! Today we get the rights we want. Today we get the freedom we deserve! [cheers]

    The new conservative Bill of Freedom [applause] fixes the Bill of Rights — or should I say [winks] Bill of Lefts? [laughter] — that were so easy for activist Democrat judges to misinterpret [loud boos]. One hundred years is big-G government and big-S socialism is enough! [mixed boos and cheers]

    With this New Bill of Freedom, America is ready for the twentieth century to bring real freedom to real Americans! [cheers] Eighty-seven years ago President Herbert Hoover stood right here and said:

    When we are sick, we want an uncommon doctor; when we have a construction job to do, we want an uncommon engineer, and when we are at war, we want an uncommon general. It is only when we get into politics that we are satisfied with the common man.

    Oh yeah well today he’d have to be politically correct and say [winks] “woman” [light laughter]. Well today, lipstick and all [chuckles], I am that common woman! [applause]

    It is for us to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which Hoover and Reagan fought for. It is for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that this nation, under God [brief moment of silence], shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, will not perish from the earth! [loud applause, crowd breaks into spontaneous singing of campaign theme song, “We could use a man like Herbert Hoover again!”]

    The New Republican Bill of Freedom

    Amendment I: Congress shall make no law prohibiting people’s right to pray, in either the Judeo or Christian tradition, in public or private; or abridging the freedom of spoken speech or the rights of corporations to give money to politicians.

    [No more separation of church and state. Brings back school prayer. And without naming any religion in particular, limits “others” from building houses of worship like they belong here. Also sensibly limits the liberal press and expansive interpretation of “speech.”]

    Amendment II: The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

    [No more grammar debate here.]

    Amendment III: Marriage shall be defined as a union between one man and one woman.

    [Banning gay marriage is much more important than whatever the Third Amendment used to say. You don’t know the Third Amendment anyway.]

    Amendment IV: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects shall not be violated but upon reasonable suspicion, supported by oath or affirmation.

    [Probable Cause is too high a standard. And why bother with all those other “technicalities”?]

    Amendment V: No innocent person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself; nor shall private property be taken for public use. In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy trial.

    [Why protect the guilty? The innocent have nothing to hide. And who miss grand juries?]

    Amendment VI: The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States.

    [Rights of the criminals again. Blah blah blah.]

    Amendment VII: Only persons born to US citizens are citizens of the United States.

    [That’ll fix the Fourteenth Amendment. Besides, a jury trial for common law disputes in excess of twenty dollar? Get real. The Seventh Amendment has been obsolete even since we abandoned the gold standard.]

    Amendment VIII: Punishment shall be appropriate to the crime.

    [Like we want liberal judges defining cruel and unusual. That’s how they ban the death penalty.]

    Amendment IX: The right to life of the unborn is paramount.

    [The old amendment was just some constitutional mumbo-jumbo anyway.]

    Amendment X: Respecting the rights reserved to the states respectively, or to the people, Amendments Thirteen through Sixteen are hereby repealed.

    [If you gotta look them up, how important could they be?]