Police

NYPD Aims Better in 2012

It’s being reportedthat fatal NYPD police-involved shootings were way up in 2012. They are, but it’s a non-story. Indeed, fatal police-involved shootings increased from 9 to 16, but better aim and luck were probably the reasons why. Police-involved shootings were only up by 2, to 30. (And this even though the average distance from which officers shot was further away…

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Police

Five charts Ray Kelly Doesn’t want you to see!

(Can you guess I was just on buzzfeed? A better headline would be “Murders way down in NYC. And so are stop and frisks. And nobody seems to care.” But what kind of clickbaite would that be?) 1) Breakdown of NYC stops by race. Indeed, as often reported, 83% of stops have happened to black and hispanic people. 2) Breakdown…

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Shira Scheindlin Stop & Frisk Smackdown

I’m in beautiful Sydney. Spring is in the air and the birds make funny sounds just to remind me that I’m on the other side of the planet. Despite my focus on the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, I couldn’t help but notice that everything Judge Scheindlin decided regarding stop and frisk has been put on hold! The New York Times…

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Police

The Intellegence of the NYPD’s Demographics Unit

I am a day late and a dollar short on this, because these AP reportson the NYPD Intelligence Division “Demographics Unit” came out in 2011 and 2012 (mostly when I was out of the country). The reports are from 2006, but only now am I fully appreciating them. Here’s New York Magazine’s more recent take on the whole operation. Of…

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Police

This is a big deal

This is far more radical than anything Judge Scheindlin ruled in her well publicized stop and frisk decision. In a 3-2 decision (People v. Johnson is not long and worth reading in its entirety) the court managed to rule the following unconstitutional: In a New York City Housing Authority building, which the testifying officer characterized as a “drug-prone” location, the…

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“Police work is a thinking person’s game”

It’s worth highlighting this excellent comment to a previous post, from a anonymous police officer. You can file this under “if you don’t work, you can’t get in trouble.” What I’ve learned over my career, and what has frustrated me as a life-long progressively inclined citizen, is that despite all common sense and evidence to the contrary, well-meaning liberal types…

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Police

Stop & Frisk: They Had It Coming

A (cop) friend in Baltimore asked me with regard to stop and frisk: “What the hell is going on?” I emailed back: You know, leaving aside the decision was entirely predicable based on the judge not exactly being a friend of police, her decision is actually kind of mild. All she f*cking asks is for cops to stop making illegal…

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Police

Tic-Toc Like Clockwork

Jeanmarie Evelly of DNAInfo.com writes about a “massive drug sweep” in the Queensbridge* and Ravenswood Homes in Astoria/Long Island City. 28 people indicted; 23 others arrested for selling drugs to undercover cops on “hundreds of separate occasions over an eight month span from 2012-2013.” Well, slap my back and declare victory. Just like we I wrote about in 2009. And…

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