The career of Gates should not be celebrated. My sincere condolences to his family and those who loved him. Seriously. But LA Police Chief Daryl Gates didn’t like to give breaks to other people. So why should I give him one? Gates is still popular among conservative law-and-order types. Drugs on a block? Send in an armored tank. Casual drug…
An excellent essay by Chicago Police Officer Martin Preib in Chicago’s Newcity. The dead seek the lowest places in Chicago: We find them in basements, laundry rooms, on floors next to couches, sticking out of two parked cars or shrubs next to the sidewalk. It is more than gravity that pulls them down, for in every dead body there is…
I recently received this from a (black) Baltimore police officer: If you want to know what an Eastside drug dealer feels when confronted by Baltimore Police, show BPD ID to Montgomery County police. They tossed me out of a restaurant in Bethesda because my shirt rode up and my holstered weapon with the badge adjacent were visible. According to the…
Karen Schmeer, a friend of a dear friend, was killed on January 29 while carrying groceries home on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. She was killed by a speeding car filled with drug-shoplifting hoodlums fleeing the police. The impact knocked her out of her boots and flung her through the air, half a city block. Karen’s death is more than a…
Dan Baum wrote an excellent, award winning, best selling book about New Orleans, Nine Lives: Death and Life in New Orleans. He first spent time there as a reporter and writer for the New Yorkerin the days after Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent devastating flood. A few years ago I cold-called (or email) Dan after my wife realized that we…
A recent report of retired New York City police officers warns that the NYPD is playing fast and loose with the numbers. Knowing when and where crimes occur is essential to good policing and Compstat, a system of crime-data analysis created in 1994, played a large role in bringing down crime in New York City. But ever since, numbers have…
Like they do every day. But this time there was more snow.
Everybody is talking about it… …so here’s my two-cents: For a cop, having a gun out isn’t such a big deal. Pointing a gun at someone is a big deal. Waving it around would be a big deal (and would also show a lack of professional training). I understand others may see any display of a gun as a shocking…
Good shooting. Good riddance. Former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper has a good analysis: Clemmons, nursing a two-day old bullet wound to the stomach, having killed four cops already and facing at least life in prison, frantically searching for a way out of the state if not the country, and packing one of the dead officers’ sidearms, would have beyond…
Seems like everybody in the NYPD is doing it. And so what? The whole concept is strange to this former Baltimore police officer. So is the language. I had three real badges when I was cop. They give you one, for your shirt or jacket. You need to pay for others. One other you need, for the wallet. I also…