The Oakland police captain who runs the department’s SWAT unit has asked to be reassigned because of the team’s resentment over his decision to console the families of two officers slain by a parolee rather than lead what became an ill-fated raid for the killer.
Jaxon Van Derbeken reports in the San Francisco Chronicle.
Now I haven’t witnessed this first hand, but it’s no great secret in the police world that every now and then somebody very troublesome may be picked up and dropped off far from home. Alas, this glorious police tradition may be on the way out, at least in Baltimore. Such is the usual fate in the light of media publicity.
This gambit–I don’t know what it’s called, but there’s got to be some good slang. I propose “going on a field trip. This gambit has probably been on the decline for a long time, and certainly at least since the spread of cell phones. But the basic concept, a long lost late-night walk home, is a classic.
Peter Hermann reports:
And we still have to figure out why two city officers on a violent crime task force drove a teen-ager to a park in Howard County and left him there without shoes and his cell phone. … I’m hearing he was [a drug lookout and] warning friends the cops were coming.
Regardless, cops can’t abduct citizens and leave them places…. If he’s really obstructing, then arrest him…. Both officers are under investigation. It boggles the mind.
Not really. More mind boggling is how Hermann, a smart and savvy crime-beat reporter, could argue that arresting a lookout is a valid option. It’s hard to imagine a lookout even being chargedin CBIF (must less prosecuted). You think the state’s attorney will take an obstruction-of-justice case based on a report that says a guy shouted “hootie-hoo” every time po-po rolled by? Have you not heard of the 1st Amendment? Not to mention tourette syndrome.
There’s nothing police can do. Does that justify abduction? Not usually. But under extenuating circumstances, I’m willing to tolerate it and laugh about it later. I’ve been there. It’s too easy to understand officers’ frustration.
If abduction of lookouts isn’t the answer–and admittedly is probably isn’t–the only realistic alternative is to do nothing. Them’s the facts in the war on drugs.
A witness identified Anderson, of the 4300 block of Seminole Ave., as one of the kidnappers….
Anderson has been arrested and charged at least 37 times, mostly with drug possession charges…. Most were dropped by prosecutors before they reached trial.
He was also charged three times with attempted murder and five times with handgun charges, dropped each time by prosecutors. He was found guilty of various charges in nine cases, never sentenced to more than two years in jail and typically receiving suspended sentences.
Waddell [the victim] had a long criminal record as well. He was indicted in January 2008 on five counts of drug possession, which were dropped March 31, three weeks before he was killed.
Seems like the Baltimore Police were doing their job. Can the State’s Attorney’s Office say the same?
Justin Fenton wrote the story in the Sun.
Two good posts by Pepper Spray Me.
Talking Yourself to Jail.
And Hire a Lawyer, Please.
Almost a decade ago a colleague told me “You’re the first liberal I’ve met with a sense of humor.” Granted he didn’t have too many liberal friends. But that’s not the point.
Liberals have a sense of humor. Most of the great comedians are liberals. Many if not most of the world’s great jokes have their origins in liberal Jewish New York. If you took away Jewish humor and African-American humor, there wouldn’t be much left. I mean hell, I can count the funny Greek comedians on one finger.
But no, my friend wasn’t talking about the history of humor. He was talking about our ability to laugh and not take offense. Have we really become so politically correct that we can no longer laugh? Apparently so, as the Erie police officer discovered (see post below).
As my father once said to a large sociology class at Northwestern University: “I’ve heard plenty of jokes that don’t make fun of a person’s race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, physical or mental impairments…. [pause] The trouble is they’re just not funny!”
Of course there is a line were racial becomes racist. There is an area where Jewish jokes become anti-semitic. There is a point where “gay” becomes homophobic. There is a place where “retard” is just plain mean. But that doesn’t mean we should keep our mouths shut, afraid to make people laugh.
And there’s a good rule of thumb to know when you’ve crossed a line: if you’re telling a joke about a person or group, you better be able to tell it tothat person or group. If they laugh, you’re in the clear. Insight based on stereotypes? Funny. Insults based on stereotypes? Not so funny. Picking on a specific person? Risky. And doing so based on false stereotypes? Now you’ve crossed a line.
I believe in free speech. I though I might not approve of it all, I’ll defend your right to say it.
Regardless, here’s to humor! The thought of a humorless world is terrifying indeed. If we can’t laugh, what can we do? I’d just as soon “take one to my head.”
That’s just about as exciting a headline as “dog bites man.”
I joked about murder victims. Of course you joke about murder victims. I mean, you do try and wait till you’re away from from the murder scene before joking about murder victims (though I didn’t even always pass that test).
So after work — after seeing another person take his last earthly breath, after looking at a dead criminal’s brain spatter all about, after seeing the bastard’s family break down over the death of their “baby,” after hearing witness after witness say they “didn’t see nothin’,” after sorting through the guy’s bloody and dirty clothes for evidence collection — after all that you go have a few beers with your buddies and you tell stories. You laugh. You try and make sense out of world that makes no sense.
This is what police do. Doctors and nurses and paramedics and firefighters do the same same thing. I bet undertakers have a wicked sense of humor, too. Why? Because they do it day after day. What are workers of death supposed to do? Cry every time they see a dead body? Workers who have to deal with trauma day in and day out need to be able to be a bit callous to trauma. It’s literally a job requirement. And humor and sharing are coping mechanisms.
We literally police to come across horrible scenes at random and also observe minute details. And sometime we require them to take pictures. And then you we expect them to… what exactly? Buy flowers and the first silk-screened t-shirt in memory of the dead guy?
It’s called gallows humor. And I support it. It’s cheaper than a shrink. Often times it is more effective, too. People who deal with murder victims need to be able to joke about murder victims. Otherwise they’d go crazy.
Now an Erie police officer, James Cousins II, is being suspended for doing just that.
Sure, this cop had a few too many. But we all have.
So what exactly is the crime? He was off duty. Is the crime to think such things? or to say such things? Or to be recorded and posted without your consent on youtube? We all gossip and think and say insensitive things in private and to our friends that are not appropriate for public broadcast.The appropriateness of speech changes according to time and place. If he gave this speech to a news camera for the evening news, then that would be inexcusable. Even in semi-public environments like bars we deserve some protection of privacy and free speech. This wasn’t a racist tirade. He didn’t use the N-word (neither of which would be appropriate in any context). He’s a drunk cop telling a war story.
And for the record, it is funny, even hilarious, to see a picture of a guy shot dead in the head right under a malt-liquor sign that says, “Take it to the head”! Swear to God. But yeah, you had to be there. Whether you wanted to be there or not.
And that’s the thing.
Next round is on me.
More lights and sirens in L.A. But in this case it’s a good thing. And former Chief Bernie Parks shows once again why the rank and file hate him.
The story by Joel Rubin in the L.A. Times.
I just happen to be in Pittsburgh. And I just happened to bike by mile after mile of police cars from around the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the nation. I asked an officer where the service was and decided to pay my respects to officers Paul J. Sciullo II [pronounced Shullo], Eric Kelly, and Stephen Mayhle.
The service was in the U Pittsburgh basketball arena. It’s been seven years since I’ve been at a police funeral. I don’t miss them at all. I sat and stood with other police officers.
I felt I got there late, since I hadn’t really planned on being there at all. But it was still hours before everybody finished filing in. Everybody is standing. Last came the Pittsburgh police. And then came the fife and drum brigades.
I’ve been to a half dozen or so police funerals. When I walked into the arena I didn’t even know the officers’ names. This won’t be a big deal, I thought. But I’ll be damned if I can stay dry-eyed as bagpipes play and I salute the coffins as they pass below.
There were four different bagpipe troupes, one for each officer plus the NYPD (damn the NYPD has a lot of officers who can play the pipes). The first was Pittsburgh. The second was Cleveland. I missed where the third was from.
I left at around 3:15pm as the mayor was saying things that mayors do. I had paid my respects… and there was still time to see the Warhol Museum before it closed at 5pm.
I didn’t bring my camera on this trip. But I asked a stranger on the street to email me some pictures she was taking of police cars on Forbes Street. Hopefully she will.
Rest in Peace.
Coverage in the Post-Gazette (photo above by Steve Mellon).
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review has excellent photo coverage.
Paul Bacon’s Bad Cop: New York’s Least Likely Police Officer Tells All is a good book. It’s a quick read and a nice look inside the NYPD.
My problem is that the hits a little too close to home. Bacon is a self-professed liberal who only stayed in the police department a few years. Errrrr… Sounds like me. But I quit because I wanted something better. Bacon quit because he couldn’t hack it. Bacon was, as he readily admits, a bad police officer. And by the end of the book, I was convinced.
That doesn’t sound like me. At least I hope not. Even worse, Bacon seems to blame his lack of policing ability on being a (gasp!) Liberal. I couldn’t disagree more. I’m generally of the belief that a lot of people could make good police officers. Paul Bacon does not help me make this case.
Bacon’s problems didn’t come from his political beliefs, it is the fact that deep down he’s a slacker. A beach bum. His general mellowness and belief that everybody can just get along if just left alone is not liberal. It’s lazy. It turns out Bacon is a good at hanging out on the beach and being a dive-instructor. Perhaps it is those very qualities that made him a bad cop.
All that said, I really liked the book. It’s a great read, if a bit “lite” (but a hell of lot deeper than most other lite cop reads). Bacon (and yeah, he already knows that’s a funny name for a cop) has a wonderful perspective on the daily life of police officers and some of the absurdities of policing in the NYPD. Plus it’s only $10 on Amazon. How can you go wrong?
The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that, “A Philadelphia police officer has been put on desk duty after he was quoted spouting his disgust for the black residents in the community he patrolled.” And people wonder why cops don’t trust outsiders.
The officer is said to have used the “N word” (though not at somebody). I won’t defend that. But I will defend other things the police officer supposedly said:
“People in this neighborhood don’t care about each other,” Thrasher was quoted as saying. “They’ll shoot each other for drugs, for money, for bullshit. All they care about is their reputation. They want to look tough.” True.
At another scene, where a man was shot in the back of the head by his daughter’s boyfriend, Thrasher said: “These people are . . . disgusting. It’s like they’re animals.” Sometimes.
My book, Cop in the Hood, is filled with quotes like this. It’s not a white thing; it’s not a black thing; it’s a police thing. Police are coming across dead people with the brains blown out. People acting like fools. People killed for no good reason. What are we supposed to think?
So what’s the bad part? To see these things? To think these things? To say these things? Or to say these things in front of a Temple University graduation student and then get quoted out of context.
Is it not enough that we ask police to police in these neighborhoods while dodging bullets? But now police have to act like the B.S. they see is normal or acceptable behavior? And you wonder why police hate outsiders and the press? This is politically correctness gone haywire.
The Guardian Civic League, an organization of black Philadelphia police officers, called for Thrasher’s firing. Maybe Thrasher is a mean S.O.B. I don’t know. I’ve never met the guy. Maybe he’s a good police officer. Maybe he’s not. But I guarantee you one thing: every member of the Guardian Civic League has said or thought the same things at some point.