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Friday, January 27. Think your community has problems? Consider Trenton, New Jersey, pop. 85,000, which according to CQ Press has the fourth-highest crime rate in the nation for a city its size. Trenton laid off one-third of its cops last September, causing havoc with patrol coverage to say nothing of the impact on morale. Now the mayor’s come up with an “all hands on deck plan” that would recall off-duty officers via Blackberry when crime spikes. But the union insists that being forced to keep the phones on 24/7 is like being on duty. In any event, with the fiscal year only half over the department’s already burned through three-quarters of its overtime funds, so any form of intensive policing may be out of reach...
Wednesday, January 25. Moviegate? Things are getting curioser and curioser in the Big Apple, where Deputy police commissioner Paul Browne suddenly remembered (that is, after being confronted by reporters with e-mails) that he had urged Commissioner Kelly sit for an interview in “The Third Jihad,” an appearance that his boss now deeply regrets. Mayor Michael Bloomberg was more direct, calling the decision to show the controversial documentary to 1,500 officers “terrible judgment”. But laying it all off on Browne hardly seems fair. After all, Kelly’s the one who forcefully moved to position NYPD as the FBI’s counter-terrorism equal, going so far as to run its own sting operations and station cops overseas...
Tuesday, January 24. Now that elaborate rope-a-dopes have corralled dozens of would-be domestic terrorists it should finally be safe to come out and play, right? Apparently not in New York City, where a “wacky” documentary warning that Muslim extremists are preparing to violently overthrow the U.S. government (an Islamist flag is depicted flying over the White House) was shown to 1,500 cops as part of their training regimen. Produced by a small, obscure firm and financed by murky sources, “The Third Jihad” features a past interview with NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly, who is prominently featured on the film’s website...
Monday, January 23. Police Issues is two-for-two! Like we guessed, the Supremes ruled in U.S. v. Jones that using a GPS device to track a vehicle is a “search” under the Fourth Amendment and therefore requires a warrant. While we’re not particularly crazy about the distinction that implies between GPS and beepers, which can be planted without a warrant, there’s no doubt that the surveillance of Jones went far and beyond what could have been accomplished with a conventional tracking device. In fact, a warrant had been obtained, but the GPS didn’t get planted until a day after the warrant expired. Click here and here for related posts...
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Catch and Release
POSTED 12/18/11 -- “If you’re talking about somebody who the rap sheet in front of you shows is potentially a dangerous person, has a gun, has a criminal history, common sense says don’t let him out until...” More
LAPD Got it Right
POSTED 12/4/11 -- “You have to agree that this is not your grandfather’s LAPD.” Connie Rice’s reaction undoubtedly perplexed some of her admirers. After all, only a short time earlier, during the early...More
L.A.S.D. Blue
POSTED 11/13/11 -- Sheriff Lee Baca was upset. “It’s illegal. It’s a misdemeanor and then there’s a conspiracy law that goes along with it,” he growled. But his anger wasn’t directed at the deputy who...More
A Delicate Balance
POSTED 10/30/11 -- “People across America were disgusted by what they saw here. Millions have been inspired by you because, the next night, you didn’t go away. You altered the national discussion.” More
Did Georgia Execute
an Innocent Man?
Part III – A Question of Certainty
POSTED 10/16/11 -- This much is certain. During the early morning hours of August 19, 1989 Sylvester Coles accosted Larry Young. Coles was soon joined by his gangster buddies Troy Davis and Darrell Collins...More
Did Georgia Execute
an Innocent Man?
Part II – Juicing it Up
POSTED 10/1/11 -- Jurors didn’t convict Troy Davis only for killing a cop. What’s been virtually ignored about this intriguing case is that...More
A Day Late,
A Warrant Short
POSTED 9/17/11 -- Thanks to a goof by the Feds and a friendly appeals court Antoine Jones is for the time being an extremely lucky alleged drug dealer. Whether his fortune will hold will soon be decided by the...More
The “Witches” of
West Memphis
POSTED 9/3/11 -- On August 19, eighteen years after their conviction for the gruesome murders of three eight-year old boys, three not quite middle-aged men walked out of an Arkansas prison. More
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