In some ways this is yet another too typical police-involved shooting (not that police-involved shootings are typical — these kind of calls get handled in the thousands “without incident”). But it’s all here: a man with a gun, mentally disturbed, confronted by police. And not for the first time. The man is black, unlike the previous one I wrote about,…
I’ve read this so you don’t have to. But you should. This is put out by Baltimore City FOP #3. So sure, take it with a grain of salt. But FOP #3 isn’t like some other unions that tweet ill-advised statements that hurt the image of policing and their members. [cough NYPD’s PBA SBA!] In 2012 FOP #3 released “Blueprint…
Well done, Officer Rogers! “An officer was actually on this block on another call and actually heard the shots being fired, said T.J. Smith, Baltimore City Police Spokesman. “That officer gave pursuit.” How often does that happen? And what exactly happened? An edited and shortened version of the bodycam footage had been acquired by WMAR, which made me go, “damn!”…
Yesterday the verdict came out. I wrote this op-ed for the Washington Post: This current scandal is more than a case of a few bad apples, though bad apples they were. These officers acted with impunity until the FBI caught wind of their actions through an unrelated criminal investigation in Pennsylvania. A specialized police unit cannot survive for years as…
Justin Fenton of the Baltimore Sun has tweeted a crazy accountof testimony in today’s trial of corrupt Baltimore cops. Crazy testimony in federal court just now by former Detective Maurice Ward, outlining illegal tactics used by Gun Trace Task Force Officers … They’d regularly drive fast at a larger group of people, slam brakes and pop their doors to see…
Detective Suiter’s funeral was today. I was fine. Until I clicked on this audio. RIP Detective Suiter. EOW 11/16/17 pic.twitter.com/U1rXU6C788 — BmoreBreakingNews (@BaltimoreBNN) November 29, 2017 At least in New York City it’s OK to cry in public. An NYPD friend just told me they don’t have do this in New York. It’s a BPD thing. And I’m proud of…
Baltimore City Detective Sean Suiter was shot and killed two days ago while doing his job. I didn’t know Sean, but he also came up in 1999. He had 18 years on. Were I still a Baltimore Police Officer, that could be me. His killer has not been arrested. After his shooting I glued online to KGA, Baltimore police radio…
A new episode of Quality Policing is out. Check it out. We talk about many things including the DC body cam study that seems to show body cams don’t change anything. We beg to differ. Body cams just don’t change what people think they do. We don’t, however, talk about the details of the dirty gun squad in the Baltimore…
Data presentation fascinates me because it’s both art and science. There’s no right way to do it; it depends on both hard data, good intentions, and interpretive ability. Data can be manipulated and misinterpreted, both honestly and dishonestly. And any chart is potentially yet another step removed from whatever “truth” the hard data has. Where I’m going isn’t exactly technical,…
Last postI talked about what didn’t cause the 2015 riots in Baltimore. Well, what did? Macro theory too often assumes happenings and history are per-ordained, that leadership decisions don’t have consequences, and that individuals have no free will. But what if the buses kept running? What if police continued to disperse crowds in the street instead of retreating? What if…