Is this man the dumbest criminal in Pennsylvania? There’s so much competition. Here’s the story in the BBC: Retired police chief John Comparetto was attending the meeting of 300 officers when he was allegedly held up at gunpoint in the men’s toilets. … He described the suspect as “probably the dumbest criminal in Pennsylvania”. The suspect said, “I’m smooth.”
Rockefeller Drug Laws
It’s official. I don’t like them. See it says so right here: Professor Peter Moskos, a former Baltimore police officer who teaches law enforcement classes at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said the Rockefeller laws “don’t make sense from a legal level or a moral level. They treat every problem as if prison was the answer.” “Nobody leaves…
Police converge in Oakland for funeral
The Oakland Tribunereports on this as does the San Francisco Chronicle: “The funeral will be unprecedented in at least one other respect – all 815 members of the Oakland Police Department are being allowed to attend.” It is set for 11AM.
He was a monster
I spend a lot of time defending the media. That’s an unpopular position among 90% of police officers. Well I’m not going to defend the S.F. Chroniclehere. Just yesterday the paper decided they needed to report “both” sides of the cop killings in Oakland. In their story, to my great dismay, they did what what lazy or dumb journalists do…
Smart Cop
I love smart cops. And I love cops than can write. After all, a lot of policing is about what you can articulate in writing. Here’s an op-ed in the New York Daily News from NYPD Captain Brandon del Pozo. He’s smarter than your average bear. The bailout: What would cops and firefighters do to save the economy? If companies…
The Failure of Juvie Homes
The story in the LA Times: Most children who enter group probation homes in Los Angeles County remain in lives of crime and drugs years later, according to a new Rand Corp. study. … The think tank’s researchers began tracking nearly 450 youths who entered group homes in 1999 and 2000. The final survey, taken in 2007, located 395 of…
Save our Prison? Shame!
“This is a major impact on a small community,” said Paul Lashway, a Norwich resident and prison guard at Camp Pharsalia for the past 10 years. He is also a steward for the local corrections officers’ union. “I thought we were trying to save jobs,” he said. “Here, they’re trying to take ’em.” Here’s the story in the Washington Post.…
Drug Cartel Violence Spills Into U.S. From Mexico
Surprised? You shouldn’t be. It’s just another sign of the failure of the drug war. What’s our exit strategy? Here’s the story in the New York Times.
Gangsta Rap, Yo-Boys, and B-more.
So I’m trying to write and Schoolly-D’s “A Gangster Story” comes on. I hear him say “B-more” and “yo-boy” and perk up. I’ve always liked slang and wondered about the term “yo-boy” because it’s so common in Baltimore’s ‘hood but I’ve never heard it outside of Baltimore (what’s a “yo-boy?” You gotta read my book. You have, right? If not,…
Shoe-Leather Research
It’s a lazy journalist and an incompetent academic who writes a story based on the anecdotes of cab drivers, bartenders, and shoe shiners. But… I was getting my shoes shined Friday afternoon in Baltimore’s Penn Station and the shoe shiner and I were chatting. He was a black man, a bit older than me. Baltimore born and bred. West Side.…