Year: 2009

The future with legal marijuana

There can be a future with legal and regulated drugs. A drug deal plays out, California-style: A conservatively dressed courier drives a company-leased Smart Car to an apartment on a weekday afternoon. Erick Alvaro hands over a white paper bag to his 58-year-old customer, who inspects the bag to ensure that everything he ordered over…
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Two officers shot

Two officers down in Baltimore. Supposedly in stable condition. Supposedly returned fire, which is a good sign.

That’s the way it was

Walter Cronkite died Friday. He was 92. On his 90th birthday he told the Daily News, “I would like to think I’m still quite capable of covering a story.” He was known for knowing a failed war when he saw one. Not just Vietnam. He was against the War on Drugs and a friend of…
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Four-week police-officer training

I may be mistaken, but what is going on in Portland sounds like a very good idea to me. Give cops four weeks of training: defensive tactics, firearms and the law. Then let them ride with FTOs. And then when the academy class begins, they join the class. Remember, it’s not like a class is…
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“Excited Delirium”

Can you die from it? Does it exist? The Taser company, not surprisingly, says yes. Because if and when people die from “excited delirium,” there seems to be a good chance it will happen after being Tasered. Laura Sullivan of National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” has a good report on this. Here’s part one…
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The Wire Comes to Brooklyn… sort of

Fatal gun battle outside party for wife of Jamie Hector, who played Marlo Stanfield on ‘The Wire’ The story by Kenny Porpora, Alison Gendar, and Samuel Goldsmithin in the New York Daily News.

Double lock your handcuffs

In the academy we were taught to always double lock our cuffs. Usually I didn’t. But I should have. And so should you.

John Jay College student’s killer get life without parole

“Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Abraham Gerges called Littlejohn, 44, an unrepentant ‘predator’ who should never taste freedom again.” The story in the Daily News

The Idea of “Juvenile”

The state has an archaic system in which we operate under the misimpression that everyone under 18 can be rehabilitated for repeatedly committing violent crimes. We must find a way to provide rehabilitation, but also accountability and punishment. That’s kind of hardcore coming from, of all places, the office of Baltimore State’s Attorney Patricia Jessamy.…
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Mexican Immigration Problems

Mexico Builds Border Wall To Keep Out US Assholes