Police

How the iPhone Changed the Way We Do Ethnography: A Methodological Note

In my partial blog-writing absence (though in case you’re worried, all is well here in Astoria, Queens, post storm — we’re high and dry and with electricity) I wanted to feature a few promising up-and-coming researchers I’m excited about. The first of the young-upstart rising-star whipper-snappers is Jan Haldipur (his email). Jan, an ethnographer from upstate New York,is a PhD…

Continue Reading

Police

What a news day!

If Cannibal Cop is a minus point or two (you just don’t see headlines like this too often)… there’s “hero cop” to counterbalance the bad (or, as one of my students said while watching the video of him holding his bullet wound while shooting the criminal: “Damn, he’s going O.G.!”) I guess, for the NYPD, that makes the day kind…

Continue Reading

Police

We Got Another Kingpin! (10)

And this one is a big one. Heriberto Lazcano, the founder and the principal leader of the Zetas. Perhaps he’s even the big one. The real kingpin. I guess we won. Ten times is the charm. Let’s savor our victory and bask in a new drug-free world. Update: the body was stolen.

Police

A police officer is…

Great description of a police officer, from a student’s paper: “An individual that does things at his or her own pace while trying to make the job interesting for sanity’s sake, all the while not getting killed by doing it.”

Police

We Got Another Kingpin! (9)

Since I’m still keeping track, I thought I’d share. A Colombian woman known as “the queen of cocaine” was murdered earlier this month. But she was murdered, not killed or captured by the good guys. (Plus technically, she would be a Queenpin, which sounds kind of funny.) So I’m not counting her. So it’s been awhile since the wheels of…

Continue Reading

Police

Keep on keeping on…

As you may (or may not) have noticed, this blog has been on long-term hiatus. For now, not writing blog posts is more fun than writing them. Besides, I have other things to write, some of which might actually get me paid. Speaking of which, Cop in the Hood is still selling (just topped 20,000 to date), and In Defense…

Continue Reading

Police

Good Ideas from the Baltimore FOP

Maybe I’ve become a bit cynical after my time in New York, but I don’t normally think of the police union as a good source for rational and cost-effective advice on better policing (though protecting workers’ rights is an important part of the union). But I’ve got to hand it to Robert Cherry, president of my old Baltimore Fraternal Order…

Continue Reading

Police

Behave! (Big Brother is Watching)

I was interviewed by Videosurveillance.com about my thoughts on video surveillance’s effect on crime. I’m skeptical. (But impressed that a company such as theirs is willing to print my unadulterated skepticism.) Cameras are no substitute of cops.