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  • Here’s a no brainer: Clean needles

    Clean needles save lives. Clean needles make policing less dangerous because 1) it limits the spread of HIV and and hepatitis, and 2) which would you prefer to get stuck with? So logically, police are big supports of clean needles and needle exchange (oh, wait, I just made that last part up).

    There have been countless studies on the matter. There’s really no doubt that giving out clean needles saves lives and does not increase drug use. So the feds have finally repealed a 21-year-old ban on federal funds going to clean needle programs.

    Here’s the story in the S.F. Chronicle.

    Robert Martinez, chief of drug policy under President George H.W. Bush, said government funding for clean needles “undercuts the credibility of society’s message that drug use is illegal and morally wrong.”

    If only I could get a clean needle, I’d shoot up my Christmas smack!

    Ohhh, that makes me so mad. Nothing like death to send the right message. Nothing like bastard political flunkies preaching about morality. Nothing like admitted illegal drug use from the past three presidents to send the right message.

  • Handcuffed man gets tased, dies

    Despite my strong opposition to the taser as a compliance tool (I much prefer old-fashioned force), this is a tricky case becausethe guy was handcuffed. He got squirrelly and started fighting.

    [Hey, once I was rolling on the ground with a handcuffed man. What could I do? He already had his hands tied behind his back and I still couldn’t get him back under control.]

    If you strike a handcuffed man, you’re begging for a lawsuit and assumptions of police brutality. That’s why departments love tasers. It makes it seem more legit. But if they just hit the guy, he’s still be alive. Damned if you do. Damned if you don’t.

  • Murder is Good

    Sgt T sent me this, related to the previous post: “Metro Atlanta may get a little bloodier. Call it a sign of success.”

    They use a bastard version the same retarded thought process here in the states. Early last year the head fed in Atlanta was crowing about how their success in the war on drugs was driving up street violence. To which we could only offer a hearty, “Thanks for the help, assholes!’ Ten years in patrol and I can count one hand, with fingers left over, how many times the feds were willing to help on a major case. But, as we used to say, some people just investigate for a living and some people actually police.

  • “The rising death toll is a sign the drug gangs are weakening”

    Of coooourse.

    Washington says the rising death toll is a sign the drug gangs are weakening under President Calderon’s military crackdown, which has seen some 49,000 extra troops deploy across Mexico.

    You see the rising death toll in Mexico is always a sign that the drug gangs are weakening because, well, when the gangs are weak, they lash and kill lots of people. And when the gangs are strong, then they don’t kill anybody. So we want to attack the drug gangs so they become weak and kill more more people, which is how how we know we’re winning the war on drugs. Or something like that.

    Logic like that makes my head hurt.

    I do know we’re notwinning the drug war. In Mexico 14,000people have died in drug-prohibition violence in the past four years. You know, ever since President Calderon started his military crackdown to win the war on drugs. And they must be winning, because a whole lot of people are getting killed.

    Anyway, one of Mexico’s bad guys, a most wanted, a “boss of bosses,” he was killed by the good guys. Another stirring victory. Keep up the good work. Drive safely. Sleep well. Tip your waitstaff. War is Peace! Ignorance is Strength!

    And there’s another sure sign the drug gangs are weakening:

    Separately, the severed heads of six policemen were found near a church in the north of the country, police said.

    [Update: And more about prohibition murder in Mexico, if you needed it.]

  • Five years in jail before trial

    And then you’re found not-guilty. After being behind bars for five years.

    Now granted, as the guy’s lawyer says, “Ikoli was carrying an unloaded gun” and “there’s an awful lot to not like about what he did.” But he was not guilty of murder and acquitted by a jury. His friend, who he was with, plead guilty at the start of the trial and is serving a six-year sentence. So I guess he’ll get out any day.

    Innocent or guilty, good or bad, there is no excuse for a trial to take five years to get started. What ever happened to the 6th Amendment’s right to a speedy trial?

    The story in the Daily News.

    You know what would make me really happy? Is if, five years from now, he isn’t with his friend in prison.

  • Cops shoot bad guys with guns

    Mostly I just like the headline.

    But as usual, Peter Hermann has interesting things to say. Particularly about suspended sentences. That’s the crazy concept where you do a crime, get caught, get convicted, get sentenced, and then don’t serve time. Not even in theory.

    Guest, when was 15, he shot another youth in the head and pleaded guilty, but spent just under five years in prison. Guest [now 32] died later at a hospital [after being shot by police].

    Guest had a convoluted series of prison stints. In 1994, a judge delayed imposing a 13 year sentence for the murder and instead put him away for three years for a handgun violation to give him a break. He served one year for the gun but in 1999 he got arrested on a drug distribution charge. Another judge then reimposed the 13 year sentence for the killing and folded an 8 year term for the drugs into that. The judge suspended four years, meaning Guest’s total sentence was nine years. He got out after serving 4 and a half years because of credits earned while incarcerated. Later, he got sentenced to another three years on a drug conviction but was out in one.

  • Really?

    I’m not too hard to reach. But if you’re going to prank call me, please be sober enough so I can understand you!

    The only really strange thing is that the caller ID comes back as a not-in-service number: (212) 237-2546. I’m not quite certain how you do that…

    Here’s the transcription, best I figure out:

    Caller: [garbled] Please leave a message. Peter Mosko was never a police officer. He was a homo to begin with. All right. Poisoning the minds of little students over at John Jay.

    Probably slobbers his bosses’ knob for police [?].

    But does he think that equal rights for gay because [garbled] can do it, too [unintelligable].

    Fucking butthead.

    Of course my wife’s first thought was that it was one of my friends from Baltimore, but she noticed this sounded a little creepier. And his voice is strangely deep, which makes me think he’s altering it.

    Oh, he just called back from a different (718) number. I answered and talked to him a bit. He insisted it’s nothing personal (uh, really?).

    He claims he read my book (doubtful) and implied he had been a student of mine (no way). But in the end said I wasn’t such a bad teacher.

    Seems like he’s just your average run-of-the-mill racist (he calls himself a “realist”) idiot who doesn’t like liberals or professors at John Jay. Particularly those who say that “Black people are never wrong and all that liberal-biased bullshit.” It seems he has a particular problem with me and one other professor mentioned by name at John Jay.

    You know, I had a listed phone number as a cop in Baltimore (not many people knew this) and never got a strange or prank phone call. But write one lousy book…

  • Prisons of Our Own Making

    Crediting prisons and not mentioning police for the crime drop is a bit misguided, but there are still some very good points in Ross Douthat’s New York Times column.

  • Pay police more?

    Stilgar, in a comment, raises some excellent questions:

    Claims about the quality of pay are irrelevant without context. Rather than shout past each other, it might be worthwhile to ask:

    1. Based on the backgrounds of the cops you have worked with, would you say that many of them were well-paid in policing compared to what they could have made in other jobs?

    2. If you believe that police should be well-paid, it makes sense that a lot of people will be paid less than cops. Who? Mental hospital orderlies don’t get shot at, but they do get spat on and attacked as much as many cops, and they have to spend time looking up junkies’ asses. Most of them also don’t have sweet pension plans. That, of course, is just one of many possible examples.

    3. Peter, in your book you try to demythologize police work: pointing out that most cops don’t get shot at, that the job is usually boring, and that the majority of people of average intelligence, temperament and physical ability can do the job competently. Given that you don’t seem to think policing requires specialized skills or extensive previous education, why should cops be paid more? (I know you haven’t made that point in this conversation, but it’s your blog, I figure I should make a question just for you- though others are certainly welcome to answer).

    4. Okay, another in response to something Peter has said. You’ve written that you believe cops should be paid better in order to attract better candidates. But given the budget situation in most American cities, the fact that most people here will argue that most current cops do their jobs just fine, and the law of diminishing returns, isn’t this throwing money down a hole?

    I have thoughts but really need to grade papers. In the meantime, I’m curious what others have to say. What do you think?

  • Balto City and Police reach tentative deal

    It includes 5 days of furlough and 2 more days of paid vacation. I would have liked that. I suspect most police do not.

    Comp time (at 1.5 : 1) instead ofovertime for court? The number of arrests will plummet!

    Given that most police want to work more hours, not fewer, and this contract is designed to give police less money, it won’t go over well.

    One nice change is the “officers will no longer be forced to work six-day weeks.” Six on and two off was just about the worst conceivable way to work 40 hours/week. What’s the new system?