Year: 2008

Harlem Shootings (IV)–You read it here first

Now it’s officially in the news. The Daily News, to be precise.

Buy Cop in the Hood

It’s a great book. And I’m not the only one who says so. “Riveting…. An unsparing boys-in-blue procedural that succeeds on its own plentiful—and wonderfully sympathetic—merits.” —The Atlantic “Never mind ‘The Wire.’ Here is the real thing.” —The Wall Street Journal “[A] riveting tale of policing…. A must read.” —Sudhir Venkatesh “Hard-edged sociological analysis…. A…
Read more

Harlem Shootings (III)

Seems like you’ve officially entered the blogosphere when you’re quoted in other blogs. More on the Harlem shootings at Gothamistand NYC The Blog and great pictures at Harlem Hybrid. Seems like my initial report of 14 guns and 7 shot was right on the mark (at the time I hedged the shooting number with “give…
Read more

Harlem shootings (II)

I did find this buried in the Daily News. Maybe it’s all about location. Location, location, location. Or, as they said in The Wire, “wrong zip code.” The newspaper headline is “Fatal Gunfire on Westside.” One man was shot and killed. Then in the last paragraph it says this: The slaying came after a chaotic…
Read more

The way some live

This brings back memories. Bad memories. Cops deal with this sh*t all the time.

Willie Bosket

I recently finished reading Fox Butterfield’s excellent All God’s Children: The Bosket Family and the American Tradition of Violence. Amazingly researched (Butterfield is a Class-A journalist), this 1996 book follows a culture of violence and its transference over time from white slave owners in the historically f**ked-up county of Edgefield, South Carolina to Willie Bosket…
Read more

Florida Guns Increase Crime

OK you gun fans (and I know you’re out there), explain this to me: I read in the paper today that licenses for concealed handguns have almost doubled in Florida since 2005. “Interesting.” I thought. “I wonder what’s happened to crime.” So I checked. Murder, robbery, and burglary are all up. Now I know this…
Read more

7 shot in Harlem isn’t news

One of my students told me that police took 14 guns off the streets of Harlem last night. This after the annual African-American Day Parade. Seven people were shot (give or take one or two). This isn’t in any of today’s papers. Say what?! The parade ended in the afternoon. The tough kids come out…
Read more

Amazon Sales Rank

If you’re a published author, maybe you check Amazon.com sales rank (gosh, of course *I* never do). You can read this, this, or this. My book topped out at 500 (that’s pretty good) and is currently hovering around 15,000 [update: 50,000]. That means there are 14,999 books selling better than Cop in the Hoodat Amazon.com.…
Read more

Cop in the Hood now on Amazon Kindle

Hey, my book is now available through Amazon’s Kindle. I’m not exactly certain what that means. But I do know it makes me slightly hipper and more likely to be read by tech geeks commuting by train.