The maker of Taser stun guns is advising police officers to avoid shooting suspects in the chest with the 50,000-volt weapon, saying that it could pose an extremely low risk of an “adverse cardiac event.” The advisory, issued in an Oct. 12 training bulletin, is the first time that Taser International has suggested there is any risk of a cardiac…
Gunshots or Firecrackers
Justin Fenton writes about a gunshot detection system in the Eastern. An interesting concept. Mixed results at best. Cops, after a little while, get pretty good at telling the difference between gunshots and firecrackers. They’re very similar, but gunshots are kind of a shorter, tighter bang. It’s kind of hard to describe. But you would think a computer could better…
Hard Core in Brazil
Just a week or two after Jon Lee Anderson’s excellent article in the New Yorker on drugs and favelasin Rio de Janeiro, drug gangs shoot down a police helicopter. That’s hard core. I mean, I’ve thought about shooting down police helicopters, but luckily I lack the .30-caliber anti-aircraft gun used to bring that baby down. Three police officers were killed.…
Good news for states’ rights…
…and stoners. The Feds say they’ll lay off medicinal marijuana enforcement in states where it’s legal. This seems like a no-brainer.
US Marshals: TV
I’ve got nothing against US Marshals. Or maybe I do. I just got off a flight from San Francisco to New York on my favorite airline. Why do I like Jet Blue? Because they have TV. I love TV. And Satellite TV turns a 6-hour flight into a dream. I mean, I love being in a seat with nothing to…
Ethan Nadelmann Profile
In Newsweek.
No doctor without a police officer’s note
I just heard on the radio that Nigeria has changed its law that required a police report from the victims of gunshot injuries before these same victims could be treated for their wounds in a hospital. Apparently one of the factors leading to this change was a high level of gun deaths. Imagine that.
Failing His Way to Higher Office
Radley Balko writes in Reasonabout P.G. County Sheriff Michael Jackson. He’s the guy who, among other things, led and defended the police actions in the set up and raid of Mayor Calvo.
A strike against “zero tolerance”
Discretion is good. In schools. In society. And in policing. Here’s an example of why it doesn’t work so well in school. The law was introduced after a third-grade girl was expelled for a year because her grandmother had sent a birthday cake to school, along with a knife to cut it. The teacher called the principal — but not…
Small-town values
Just so you don’t get to thinking that cities and ghettos have a lock on stupid senseless crimes. “The seeming senselessness of the killing of Kimberly Cates – hacked to death in her bed last week in Mont Vernon, N.H., allegedly by teenagers who chose her at random and didn’t know who she was.” The storyby Sarah Schweitzer in the…