Alton Sterling was shot and killed by police yesterday. Maybe you’ve watched the video. I have. And I’ll tell you what: Other than a tussle and Sterling being shot, I have no friggin’ clue what is going on. And I’m what they call a so-called “expert” on these things. So I really don’t know how everybody else has it all…
Low Police Morale (or: the more things change…)
Last night a police captain said: I’m in the Department and had better keep my mouth shut. But I must candidly say that I have never known the Police Department to be in such a bad state as it is it right now. One day we receive one imperative order, and on the next another quite different, so that we…
“My Four Months as a Private Prison Guard: A Mother Jones Investigation”
Shane Bauer researched and wrote an amazingly important article for Mother Jones. (It’s a book really, at 35,000 words.) Bauer because a prison guard for a few months, took notes, and wrote about it. It can be that simple. You really should read all this. It’s gripping. And big props to Mother Jones for doing real investigative reporting. He became…
10 shootings a day: This is the homicide problem
The Chicago Tribune has an excellent articlethat starts on the West Side [2 miles from this house]: To understand Chicago’s violence, start at Kostner Avenue and Monroe Street and walk west up a one-way stretch of graystones and brick two-flats. There on a boarded-up front door you’ll see the red stain of gang graffiti. On the cracked sidewalk below lies…
Drug legalization is out of control
From my fellow Greek, Stephan Pastis, Pearls Before Swine:
Lor Scoota got killed
Yeah, I had never heard of him either. But apparently he was a big deal to a good number people in Baltimore. They liked his music. So what does he stand for? I don’t know. Google and read up if you want. What’s amazing is all the tears shed by some people who had never heard of him. I wrote…
“An Enduring Heroin Market Shapes an Enforcer’s Rise and Fall”
The contrast between this well written piece about a murder victim in the Bronx and that BS pieceabout a murder in Baltimore is striking. Not surprisingly, Al Baker is on the byline of the good piece (Benjamin Meuller is first on the byline): Over nearly three decades, Mr. Perez held court on this block of East 157th Street off Melrose…
Police just “perpetuating an already vicious cycle”
Sometimes the police-are-bad set can be so casual in their negative assumptions about police you just might miss it. But it’s worth calling out, because accepting these lies is damaging, potentially lethal if you’re in a high-crime neighborhood. This is buried in Kate Crawford’s article in the New York Timesabout artificial intelligence: Police departments across the United States are also…
“Who’s really to blame in the Freddie Gray case”
My piece over at CNN: Those who have not been following the trial assume there was some justification to the state’s charges. This assumption may be too generous. The prosecution not only failed to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt, but as presented, the facts failed to show even evidence of a crime.
“The people ride in a hole in the ground”: Subway Broken Windows
One point of Broken Windows policing is that it requires police discretion and intelligence. Yes, rules are important so police act without the bounds of the law, but just because something is against the rules doesn’t mean it’s a Broken Window worthy of police attention. Similarly, just because something is a Broken Window wouldn’t necessary mean it’s against the law.…