As predicted, the killing of unarmed Trevon Cole in Las Vegas, based on bad tactics, a bad warrant, bad flashlight batteries (?!), a bad track record, misinformation, mis-identification was found to be justified. Despite contradictory statements by nearly everyone else who testified, Yant stood by his story that he fired the fatal shot only after Cole stood up, turned and…
Tag: militarization of police
Daryl Gates dies
Forgive me if I don’t send flowers to his funeral. What an SOB.
Disband SWAT?
In this era of tight budgets, smaller cities and towns should consider disbanding the local SWAT team. They’ll save money on training, equipment and overtime. They’ll be returning to a less aggressive, less militaristic, more community-oriented method of policing. And though there always will be crime, it seems unlikely that should they do away with SWAT, towns like Eufaula will…
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.…
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…
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.
The Day the Police Came Crashing Through His Door
In the Washington Post, Cheye Calvo, the mayor of Berwyn Heights, MD, writes about his experience: I remember thinking, as I kneeled at gunpoint with my hands bound on my living room floor, that there had been a terrible, terrible mistake. … In the words of Prince George’s County Sheriff Michael Jackson, whose deputies carried out the assault, “the guys…
Police Helicopters Cramp My Style
When I was in Baltimore, Foxtrot was down. Foxtrot was the police helicopter. It had crashed. Since then, they got another up in the air. I just stumbled across an old email I wrote my brother back in July, 2002, after a trip to L.A. I was in LA for 2 days…. We went to bed in West Hollywood at…
SWAT team reform
The Sun talks about SWAT-like teams.
Sheriff Leon Lott is an Idiot
Lott is the guy who wants to lockup Michael Phelps, the Olympic swimmer, for smoking mari-ju-wana in his county. That at least made me suspectthat Lott is an idiot. But this picture, of Lott in front of his new “peacekeeper”, confirmed it. Talk about putting the war back in “war on drugs.” What a dope. Thinking that a tank is…