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Jay’s Blog Archive 2010 |
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Wednesday, September 1. Will wonders never cease! Following the Ceasefire model, Chicago PD and the Feds called in gang leaders to warn them and get their underlings to quit killing each other. After a while the gangsters walked out. See news clips... A tragic recent example in West Hollywood demonstrates that, yes, marijuana clinics are a supply point for illegal dealers. And mass shootings continue, with a man who was recently arrested for a restraining order killing five, including his estranged spouse. See news clips for details... Well, here’s the revamped PoliceIssues, sporting a somewhat cleaner look, a new font (Georgia) and a slightly different structure, which users won’t notice except for occasionally having to click on a navigation buttons to go across years. Too much information was accumulating to leave topics on a single page... If you notice any glitches -- and there are certainly more than a few -- please let me know! And fear not, we’re returning to our regular weekly postings this weekend... By the way, your blogger hasn’t noticed any local press coverage on the L.A. Sheriff’s nifty new heat weapon. Check out news clips for more...Weekend roundup. NYPD officers fed up with pressures to build up the “numbers” by making “chickenshit” arrests and stop-and-frisks, and to show that Compstat works by downgrading or not taking crime reports turned to the ultimate weapon: secret tape recorders. See news clips... It’s not just Minneapolis (see below.) Indianapolis officers are also in the hot seat over misconduct and use of force issues, so much so that the Indianapolis Star claims it’s dominated local news this summer... Thursday, August 26. Little-known outside Minnesota, the scandal surrounding the Minneapolis Gang Task Force, disbanded last year, has resulted in a proposed settlement of $3 million. An official report documented numerous instances of misconduct, including citizens being bullied from their property, false record-keeping and the misappropriation of valuables for the officers’ personal use. A federal investigation is under way... Wednesday, August 25. The judge’s decision is in, and it doesn’t look good for Troy Davis, the internationally celebrated death-row inmate who says someone else did the foul deed. Except that “someone else” isn’t talking. See news clips and our posting for more details... Is the Ninth Circuit living up to its well-earned reputation? Read U.S. v. Maddox and let us know what you think... Tuesday, August 24. Denver’s new public safety manager lasted just three months. Criticized for taking it too easy on the cops, former Secret Service executive Ron Perea failed to follow a new, hard-fought policy that requires firing officers who lie. See news clips for a link and more details... Meanwhile, in Minneapolis, they’ve finally got around to realizing that yes, criminals do get guns through straw buyers and at gun shows (see news clips). Natch, the NRA remains in denial mode... Monday, August 23. Watch out, America: here comes “predictive policing”! A new take on computerized crime pin-maps, it uses real-time and historical data about the characteristics of crimes and criminals to estimate probabilities that certain types of crimes will occur at certain places. Considering that there are only so many cops available, just how much real-world difference such technologies can make is up in the air. But with agency budgets pinched and Federal money to develop PP available, competition to be first out of the gate is intense...Weekend roundup. California legislators are once again trying to force police to track DNA collected from sex crimes and report each year how much is yet to be analyzed (see news clips). Victim groups laud the measure but police tend to oppose it, partly because of the record-keeping hassle, and partly because it’s expensive to process DNA and not always necessary. Schwarzenegger vetoed a similar bill last year... Friday, August 20. How many drunk-driving convictions does it take before they rip up your driver license forever? In Delaware there’s apparently no limit. Check out news clips... Just how much “discretion” do cops really have? And how should they use it? Watch for this weekend’s post, which was inspired by a sheriff lieutenant’s memorable memo... Thursday, August 19. A newly-released report paints a grim picture of the North Carolina crime lab, and particularly its suspended serology unit. Meanwhile Ronal Serpas, the new chief at New Orleans PD, tells USA Today that things are even worse there than he thought. Check out “Before JetBlue” for some historical tidbits about NOPD that will curl your hair... Wednesday, August 18. Reports about the Blagojevich trial lay most of the blame for the hang-ups on a single juror. Yet it’s clear that the panel was, as the chairperson suggested, uncomfortable with the lack of a “smoking gun.” One, a sophomore criminal justice student, said that the Government’s presentation “confused people. They didn’t follow a timeline. They jumped around.” You can bet that the prosecution’s case will improve with the next bite of the apple... Tuesday, August 17. How did a well-regarded police department get beset with internal problems? That’s what Glendale’s citizens want to know. Read all about it in news clips and “Not All Cops Are Blue”... Do you ever shudder when a ridiculous sentence gets handed down in, say, China? Well, a Los Angeles judge released a 48-year old homeless and mentally ill man who earned his third strike, and mandatory life term, for busting into a church, supposedly to look for food. That was thirteen years ago. The D.A. says he favored the release, but it took students at a Stanford legal clinic to make it happen... Weekend roundup. And the toll from senseless shootings goes on, with four shot dead and four wounded at a wedding party in an upscale Buffalo restaurant. Among the dead was the groom... An official report absolving L.A. Sheriff’s employees of wrongdoing fails to stem anger in the case of Mitrice Richardson, a bipolar young woman who was released from a Sheriff’s station in the middle of the night last September after being booked for not paying a restaurant tab. Her body was discovered in a remote area August 9... A sheriff’s lieutenant stirs a hornet’s nest with a memo urging deputies to consider the personal consequences to those they arrest... Friday, August 13. Despite promised Federal aid, police jobs throughout the U.S. continue to be threatened by the economic turndown. See news clips for a current example in New Jersey. You’ll also find a link there to the remarkable story of a Texas man who was freed after doing 27 years for a rape he didn’t commit... The long, sad saga of Thomas Goldstein, a California man who served more than two decades in prison for a murder he didn’t commit, has finally come to an end (see news clips.) Goldstein, who was railroaded with the help of notorious jailhouse informant Edward Fink, agreed to settle his lawsuit against the City of Long Beach for $8 million. Fink (there’s an appropriate name!), now acknowledged to have been a liar, had testified against Tommy Thompson in a different case. Thompson was later executed... Tuesday, August 10. A series of articles in the Raleigh News-Observer promises to paint a devastating portrait of the North Carolina Bureau of Investigation and of the state’s crime lab. Cautioning that “many agents don’t cheat,” the writers nonetheless argue that deep-rooted problems pervade the system. Today’s profile, of a severely retarded man who spent fourteen years wrongfully locked up for murder, is gut-wrenching... Monday, August 9. Sure it’s commonplace -- that’s the point. A Pittsburgh apartment complex for the elderly and disabled is the setting for the first known multiple-victim shooting by an “ordinary person” after yesterday’s posting. See the Updates section of Say Something for details... Weekend roundup. Yes, cops matter. From Oakland to New York City, our lousy economy has depleted police budgets throughout the U.S., forcing layoffs and corresponding cutbacks in everything from detectives to patrol. And as Flushing Township, Michigan demonstrates (see news clips), it’s the smaller jurisdictions where the impact has been the most dramatic. Counties and state police would come to the rescue, but they’re strapped, too. Some might applaud that the public sector is getting trimmed, but as the New York Times recently pointed out, putting government workers on the street has only added to the nation’s economic woes... Friday, August 6. No, it wasn’t just a problem in the “old days.” Recent news clips from Philadelphia, Chicago, New Orleans, Camden and a host of smaller cities suggest that forty years after the publication of Larry Sherman’s “Scandal and Reform” police misconduct and corruption remains a serious problem throughout the U.S. Watch for a posting on this issue in the forthcoming weeks. Thursday, August 5. Now that Chicago’s finally placed a Taser in every patrol car reports are that their use has gone up four-fold. Is that good news or bad? Hopefully it’s much more of the first. There’s no doubt that fewer cops will get hurt wrestling suspects to the ground and fewer citizens will get whacked with clubs, or possibly even shot. Of course, there are tradeoffs. The trick is for officers to keep seeking voluntary compliance and avoid abusing their new toy, which given the frustrations of being a street cop isn’t easy. Taking care in placing darts and minimizing the length of zaps are also crucial... Wednesday, August 4. Another stunning piece in the Los Angeles Times, this time about the more than 100 women, mostly black and poor, who were murdered in the 80’s and 90’s in south L.A. Until DNA fingered their killers, the victims were mostly forgotten. Click here for a related post... Tuesday, August 3. The AEDPA places strict time limits on filing a Federal appeal after a state death sentence is imposed. What happens if a lawyer accidentally lets the period pass without appealing? So far the Federal courts have ruled that their clients must suffer the consequences. Now the Supreme Court is being asked to correct what to non-lawyers seems a bizarre injustice... Monday, August 2. How many breaks does a misbehaving cop deserve? For one Louisville officer the sky’s apparently the limit. Click here for the startling account. (Thanks to the Crime Report for alerting us.) Friday, July 30. Bloodstain pattern analysis is now off-limits in North Carolina (see news clips.) Yet somehow the practice endures, with experts running around the country testifying about a technique that the National Academy of Sciences said is replete with “enormous uncertainties.”... No surprise here. As nearly everyone expected, the Supreme Court’s 2005 Booker decision, which made adherence to sentencing guidelines optional, has led to growing disparities in Federal sentences, most notably in cases of child pornography and major fraud. DOJ has asked the Sentencing Commission to investigate, but since their opinions don’t much count anymore, it’s unclear what that could accomplish. Check news clips for links... Thursday, July 29. “...reported crime in the eight major categories tracked by the FBI has decreased for 10 consecutive quarters in Milwaukee - every quarter since Police Chief Edward A. Flynn took over the department in 2008.” So says the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. Interestingly, this is the same chief who, to conserve on manpower, discontinued sending officers to every call (see July 26 blog entry)... Law enforcement isn’t happy, but Congress has approved reducing the Federal disparity between powder and crack cocaine. More crack will have to be sold or possessed for sale (28 grams instead of just 5) to trigger a mandatory 5-year minimum sentence. (Powder remains at 500 grams.) There will be no mandatory minimum for simple crack possession. Whatever the equity issue, slapping crack dealers with a minimum will be more difficult, as they’re going to have to be caught holding a far larger amount... Wednesday, July 28. With the heart of Arizona’s immigration law on hold, the battle moves to the appellate courts... Recent accounts of crimes committed by inmates granted early release (see news clips) are causing some to rethink the wisdom of saving money by dumping large numbers of convicts on the streets or exempting them from supervision. Unless we adequately fund the system so that parole agents have manageable caseloads and parolees get suitable reentry assistance all we can do is keep persons locked up as long as possible and hold our breaths once they’re released... Tuesday, July 27. The official report on the Cambridge fiasco is out. Its main conclusion was summed up by the title of our first posting: “When (Very) Hard Heads Collide.” However, nothing is mentioned about the contradiction between what the officer wrote in his report -- that the witness told him she saw two black males with backpacks -- and what the witness said she told him, which was basically nothing. For more on this see “He Said That She Said; But Did She?”... Monday, July 26. An article in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (see news clips) brings up an interesting issue: are citizens so fed up with poor police response that they’re not reporting crimes? Even if that’s true, criminologists doubt that accounts for falling crime rates, since underreporting has always been a problem. But Milwaukee’s chief says that to conserve manpower and have officers available for other duties and for emergencies the practice of sending cops on every call was discontinued some time ago. That can’t help but discourage reporting. If it reflects a trend, it could be another reason, along with pressures from Compstat and, perhaps, witness intimidation, why reported crime is down... Friday, July 23. A nationwide, years-long subsidence in gun violence may be coming to an end, with reports coming in from many areas, most recently in Minneapolis and Columbus, of substantial increases in shootings and homicides. There’s no question but that police will be responding more sternly; for example, as in Minneapolis, by implementing Project Exile (see news clips). At a time of decreasing budgets this may also mean the end of any programs that aren’t directly involved in crime suppression. That small-city chief who made $457,000 a year is out, as is the city manager who earned nearly $800,000. What’s more, they worked in one of the poorest municipalities in Los Angeles County. Read all about it in the Los Angeles Times.Thursday, July 22. At a time when shootings and violence are ticking up in many areas, budget woes have forced agencies to retrench, canceling academy classes, shutting down specialized units and limiting initiatives... Wednesday, July 21. Do you read John Jay’s The Crime Report News? It’s an excellent CJ news aggregator. That’s where we found links to the Tulsa debacle and the NLEOMF mid-year police officer deaths report. See news clips for links... Is a chief who oversees 33 cops worth nearly a half-million bucks a year? Bell, California apparently thought so... Monday, July 19. After laying off ten percent of its force Oakland PD says it can’t respond to property crimes without suspects. Citizens are still urged to come in to file reports or, better yet, do it online. Quietly, that’s been the trend in large cities for decades. Has it discouraged inner-city residents from filing reports? Might it have contributed to the “great crime drop”? (And please don’t trot out the NCVS, which may not accurately reflect what goes in in crime-impacted areas)... Weekend roundup. California and the ACLU are slugging it out before a three-judge Ninth Circuit panel over the state’s recently-instituted practice of collecting DNA from felony arrestees. A Federal judge refused to put the kebosh on it last December... This weekend’s post, the second of a two-part series on Arizona’s new immigration law, considers its potential consequences on police behavior... (Click here for the first post)... Friday, July 16. No recession, you say? Then why did Oakland just lay off eighty cops?... Long-running DOJ and Congressional inquiries into CIA torture are quietly coming to an end. Check out what the co-author of the infamous “torture memos” had to say about waterboarding... Thursday, July 15. If you get convicted of a crime, never, ever brag that you can do the sentence “standing on your head”... Wednesday, July 14. Jay’s letter to the editor, published in today’s Los Angeles Times, criticizes “overblown” concerns about the privacy implications of familial DNA... Tuesday, July 13. Considering the layoffs, furloughs, hiring freezes and reduced public hours that have been visited on L.A.’s jam-packed justice system, maybe it’s time to quit spending taxpayer dollars chasing around after the likes of Roman Polanski, Lindsay Lohan and Mel Gibson... Monday, July 12. Is the NYPD overdoing stop-and-frisk? Can officers really develop “articulable facts” over twelve-thousand times a year in an eight-block area? It’s not just the New York Times that’s wondering. Be sure to check out our recent posting on this topic, Too Much of a Good Thing? (May 16)... Sunday, July 11. While gun-toting poseurs parade around upper-crust Hermosa Beach carrying (unloaded) firearms, four are shot in a gang-related drive-by on the mean streets of Long Beach. Hey, maybe if that well-fed white guy with the rifle slung around his shoulder had been...nah, it’s too frightening to imagine... Saturday, July 10. In the Los Angeles Times, an op-ed contributor worries about the intrusiveness of familial DNA. Meanwhile an article details the extreme measures taken by the state to cater to such concerns... Move over, Mary Jane, here comes K2! See news clips... This weekend’s post examines the cases of Chester Turner, John Thomas and, most recently, “Grim Sleeper” Lonnie Franklin, the three -- that’s right, three -- alleged serial killers arrested in L.A. since 2007. Turner, who’s been sentenced to death, and Franklin, who probably will be once jurors rubber-stamp his all-but-certain conviction, are said to have murdered dozens of south-central area prostitutes, mostly in the 1980’s and 1990’s. And we’ve recently learned that Dallas prostitutes are willingly giving up their DNA in advance should they, um, disappear... Friday, July 9. DOJ announces it will investigate the Oakland BART shooting for possible civil rights violations... Thursday, July 8. In an apparent compromise verdict, jurors convicted ex-BART cop Johannes Mehserle of involuntary manslaughter. How Oakland’s rowdier citizens will react is anyone’s guess. (Friday addendum: well, not so much anymore.) Click here and here for detailed postings on the case... It was coming. Four citizens and a merchant just filed a Federal lawsuit challenging Chicago’s tough new handgun ordinance, which was enacted to replace a law whose provisions the Supreme Court recently ruled unacceptable. See news clips... Serial killer or not, to some the privacy rights of gun buyers are paramount. See news clips... Wednesday, July 7. A long-sought serial killer was done in by a familial match to his son, then by a slice of pizza. Moral: clean your plates! See news clips... Jurors are deliberating the fate of Johannes Mehserle, the ex-BART cop who fatally shot an unarmed man in Oakland last year. Mehserle claims he accidentally drew his pistol instead of a Taser. He can be found guilty of murder, an unlawful killing “with malice aforethought.” (The judge has restricted it to second degree.) Or he can be found guilty of a non-malicious killing, either voluntary manslaughter, killing “upon a sudden quarrel or heat of passion,” or involuntary manslaughter, killing during an illegal act that isn’t a felony, or while doing a legal act unlawfully or “without due caution or circumspection.” Or he can be acquitted. Click here for the statutes... Another cop saved by a vest, this time in a nightmarish incident involving a man handcuffed behind his back. See news clips for details... Tuesday, July 6. Juror replacements are forcing deliberations to begin anew tomorrow, so a verdict in the Mehserle case is still some days away. Even so, Oakland, fearing a riot should the ex-BART cop be acquitted, is already battening down the hatches... US Holocaust Memorial Museum establishes the Stephen Tyrone Johns Summer Youth Leadership Program in honor of the fallen special police officer murdered by a white supremacist one year ago. A Los Angeles jury begins its second day of deliberation in the murder case against former BART cop Johannes Mehserle, who fatally shot an unarmed man in Oakland last year, an incident captured on video. Mehserle claims that it was an accident caused when he mistakenly drew his gun instead of a Taser. Based on past experience it’s doubtful that jurors will convict Mehserle of murder. But if jurors they think he was negligent -- or don’t want to completely let him off the hook -- a manslaughter conviction (against defense wishes, the judge allowed that option) is possible. Venue was changed to Los Angeles because of publicity. Monday, July 5. L.A.’s love-hate affair with the evil weed has turned a new chapter as LAPD narc’s hit unauthorized pot clinics, dragging away employees and seizing pot and oodles of cash. Check out news clips for details... Sunday, July 4. Payoffs to news reporters manhandled by LAPD during the 2007 Mac Arthur Park incident continue, the most recent being a cool $1.7 million. Former Chief Bratton quickly conceded that his officers goofed and tried (unsuccessfully) to get several fired, so the question for jurors is not whether the city’s liable but whether individual plaintiffs deserve compensation and, if so, how much. With the city nearly bankrupt, all taxpayers can do is wince and soldier on... Friday, July 2. Inspired by the recent tragic deaths of five CHP officers, this weekend’s post will focus on accidental deaths, and particularly the risk of being struck down during traffic stops (see 6/28/10 news clip)... Maywood PD officers hang up their hats, turn in their badges. An L.A. Times photo depicts the poignant moment... While many brush off the Russian spy ring as a bunch of unproductive amateurs, sleeper agents can serve as points of contact and help orient spies who come over on special assignments, such as to liquidate turncoats; for example, the poisoning death of renegade Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko in Great Britain in 2006... Thursday, July 1. In a blow to the defense, jurors will be allowed to consider manslaughter charges against ex-BART officer Johannes Mehserle, who is on trial for murder in a killing that he said was caused by mistakenly drawing his pistol instead of a Taser. Wednesday, June 30. Remember the dust-up in Cambridge, where a police sergeant suspected a college professor of being a burglar, then, after he knew better, arrested him for mouthing off? A newly-released official report blames both for being hard-headed. Nothing is mentioned about the the sergeant’s police report, whose account of what a witness said seemed to us highly questionable. Click here and here for postings. Tuesday, June 29. It’s hard to sympathize, but Claude Jones, a paroled killer who was executed in 2000 for allegedly committing another murder, is having his DNA tested on the latter case. He could wind up being Texas’ second posthumous DNA exoneree. (Unlike Jones, the first, Timothy Cole, merely died in prison.) Hard to believe but true. A man on parole for a knife murder stabs and kills four more. Details in news clips. Did you know there was a California Crime Lab Task Force? Or that it had issued a comprehensive report on forensic science? Nope, us neither. Details in news clips. Monday, June 28. Precautions taken after a similar rash of incidents in previous years have apparently failed to keep CHP officers safe, with three struck and killed by cars this month alone, two on freeway shoulders during traffic stops, one on a surface street while waiting for a tow. See news clips for details and officer photos. As anticipated, the Supreme Court extended the Second Amendment to the states. But the decision isn’t all one-sided. See news clips for details. Weekend update. The murder trial of former transit cop Johannes Mehserle, who testified that he mistakenly pulled his pistol instead of a Taser, is coming to an end. Los Angeles, where the trial is being held, and Oakland, where the incident took place, are girding for demonstrations should jurors acquit. Click here for a detailed post. Friday update. Former transit cop Johannes Mehserle tearfully testified that he had intended to Tase the victim but mistakenly pulled and fired his pistol instead. He said that under the circumstances “the thought of using my gun never entered my head.” Friday, June 25. Just as L.A. is trying to enforce an ordinance cutting back on pot shops, workers at two dispensaries are shot dead. Click here for a prior post. After two days of testimony a Savannah Federal judge ended the habeas hearing for Troy Davis, a condemned inmate who won a last-minute reprieve from the Supreme Court. Davis’ prospects look bleak as the judge wouldn’t let any more witnesses testify that another person confessed to the murder for which Davis was convicted, calling it hearsay without that individual’s presence. He also chastised the defense for inexplicably waiting until the hearing to try to serve the man with a subpoena (they couldn’t find him.) Police officers strongly denied pressuring anyone to testify against Davis, as four witnesses who recanted their testimony alleged, while the prosecutor called evidence of Davis’ guilt “overwhelming.” A ruling is expected in July... Former BART officer Johannes Mehserle, on trial in Los Angeles (venue changed from Oakland) for the on-duty killing of an unarmed passenger, testified about the tumult in the subway station before the shooting. His lawyer said in opening arguments that Mehserle drew his pistol instead of the Taser by mistake, and today the defendant is expected to repeat that in court. A rigorous cross-examination is anticipated, particularly as Mehserle didn’t tell other officers right after the shooting that he hadn’t meant to fire his pistol. We believe him, but predicting what jurors might do is a fool’s game... On a lighter note, Boston PD has taken to posting mugs of gang-bangers to, um, “shame” them. Check out the news clips for details and a link to the article... Thursday, June 24. KNX-1070 radio got documents showing that LA Airport police occasionally leave, sometimes en masse, to backup cops in nearby cities. It undoubtedly breaks the monotony and provides hands-on experience, but when twenty-seven zoom out at once it’s cause to wonder whether they’re overstaffed... Just out, a detailed Special Master’s report to the New Jersey Supreme Court recommends that pre-trial hearings be held whenever eyewitness ID will be used... Also today the US Supreme Court issued a mixed ruling in the Skilling/Enron case, upholding the controversial honest-services fraud statute but limiting its coverage to cases involving bribery or kickbacks. Since Skilling was convicted of other offenses whether it will help him is hard to say. For the same reason the Justices also reversed convictions in the Hollinger case... An unusual drama is playing out in Federal court in Savannah. Troy Davis, a condemned man who won a last-minute reprieve from the Supreme Court, is trying to prove that he is “clearly” innocent of murdering a police officer twenty-one years ago. So far two former witnesses against Davis have recanted while two others pin the crime on a man whose whereabouts are unknown. Our posting on the case surmises that Davis is guilty, yet if there’s a retrial proving it anew might be impossible... Wednesday, June 23. Will wonders never cease? University of Maryland’s star criminologist John Laub was finally confirmed as NIJ Director, the first from academia. For more check out the news clips... Underway in Los Angeles, the trial of former San Francisco BART officer Johannes Mehserle provides fascinating insights into how cops fall apart under stress. Mehserle claims that he intended to Taser an uncooperative suspect but accidentally fired his gun instead. The Oakland D.A. didn’t buy it and charged him with murder. Our postings (click here and here) describe what happened and have updates on the trial... We seldom call what takes place at NIJ extraordinary, but those present at the opening plenary session of this year’s national conference got a rare treat. Introducing a panel on Texas’ much-criticized execution of Cameron Willingham, NIJ’s Mary Lou Leary called it an opportunity “to help us learn from our mistakes.” For a post and more click here... |
