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Thursday, February 2. “Broken Windows” might seem old-fashioned to some but it’s alive and well in the Big Apple. NYPD is celebrating a record number of arrests for marijuana possession - 50,700 in 2011, the most in a decade. Combatting disorder, cops say, is key to keeping violent crime down. It’s the same rationale that drives stop-and-frisk, another approach that NYPD has wholeheartedly embraced. Nay-sayers of course say no, but those who remember the city from the crime-plagued 80s and 90s find its transformation truly dramatic. Whether the new, peaceful ambiance is due to hard-nosed policing or to something else, like stiff sentencing, is a matter of debate. Click here and here for related posts...
Wednesday, February 1. And for this week’s believe-it-or not, we have...Milwaukee! That’s where a judge released a man charged with robbery-murder without requiring that he post bail. An error? Nope - it’s what his score in a brand-new “evidence-based” pretrial release program called for. Based on two years’ worth of data, it plugs in various factors, such as a defendant’s ties to the community, to assign a flight risk. Well, the “community” got up in arms, so the judge recalled the man - who showed up - and hiked his bail to $30,000 cash, which he couldn’t post. So at least for now everyone knows where he is. What the geniuses who devised the plan didn’t “plug in” was the risk to cops who inadvertently run across dangerous fugitives (we think robbery-homicide qualifies) or to the warrant squads that have to track them down. Think the threat’s exaggerated? Read our prior post...
Tuesday, January 31. House Democrats released a stinging report condemning ATF cross-border “gun walking” operations that let firearms fall into the hands of criminals and the Cartels. According to the report, it was all ATF’s idea, not the Administration’s. Agents said they turned to the tactic because U.S. Attorneys placed insuperable obstacles in the way of prosecuting guns to Mexico cases, including requirements that firearms be recovered before straw purchasers could be charged. The climate they describe is far worse than what your blogger experienced as an ATF agent in Arizona in the 70s. But it resembles what he at times encountered elsewhere. Click here for a related post...
Does a town of less than 30,000 really need its own police force? More to the point, can it afford one? That’s what the residents of East Haven, Ct. must be wondering after the arrest of four of their cops for civil rights violations. It’s rumored that DOJ, which recently concluded that the agency systematically discriminated against Latinos, may be preparing more indictments, and one could name the chief. An unindicted co-conspirator in this round, he’s just submitted his resignation, angering citizens who demanded he be fired. Meanwhile his buddy the mayor is also looking shaky, especially after announcing that he would eat tacos to make things right...
Keep going
Murder, Interrupted?
POSTED 1/8/12 -- “The Interrupters,” one of the season’s most acclaimed documentaries, follows three Chicago Ceasefire street workers as they seek to disrupt the cycle of violence and retaliation...More
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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