Year: 2010

Off-Duty Chicago Cop Killed, killer shot by victim’s father

Tragic story with an unusual twist in the Sun Times. Too bad a good man is still dead.

Draw Mohammed Day

It’s Everybody Draw Mohammed Day! I love free speech. I also like South Park a lot more than I like religious zealots. I also like being able to write this without being arrested (or killed). This is the cartoon that started it all: Since I can’t draw, I’m just going to reprint the drawings of…
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Immigrants Save Cities

Not about police, but this article by Richard Herman does summarize my position on immigration very well.

Workplace Conflict Scenarios

There’s an article in the New York Times that isn’t actually supposed to about police. An academic study asked participants how often they experienced eight “workplace conflict scenarios.” These are: * Someone treating them unfairly * Someone blaming or criticizing them for something that wasn’t their fault * Someone failing to do the work that…
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Dutch Tea Party

This is so bizarre I first thought it was satire: A robbery victim gets arrested and the robber gets fed wine and cheese! Classy. But it’s not satire. Trots op NLmeans “Proud of the Netherlands” and is a fringe right-wing political party that is playing on racism and fear of crime. Is white people drowning…
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School[craft] Readings

The NYPD Tapes, Part 2, by Graham Rayman in the Village Voice. (And a link to my comments on Part 1) Commentary: “Oh, You Mean Those Quotas” by Radley Balko. “Those Schoolcraft Tapes” by Leonard Levitt. Update with working links to all the posts on Schoolcraft.

Right Wing Lies (II)

Harry Moskos–journalist and streetcar advocate (also my uncle)–writes in the Albuquerque Journal, “Obama’s Birthers Should Check Out My Daughters’ Papers.” Our two daughters, like Obama, were born in Honolulu. We lived in Hawaii from 1963 to 1969. … Obama was born at Kapi’olani Medical Center for Women & Children, the same hospital where our daughters…
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Right-Wing Lies: The welfare of Larmondo “Flair” Allen

Am I really the only person who is skeptical enough to check the basic truth of emails before forwarding them to my 140 closest friends? I mean, it doesn’t take too long to go to Snopes The thing about mass-forwarded right-wing emails is that they are almost always never true. They’re like the headlines in…
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Crime and arrests down in Baltimore

A good article by Ben Nuckols about crime in Baltimore and the good things happening under Police Commissioner Frederick Bealefeld. In a blighted west Baltimore neighborhood, Lt. Ian Dombroski turns his unmarked police car around a corner and sees several men standing outside a liquor store. They scatter immediately. Dombroski knows they’re probably selling drugs,…
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New York Black and Latinos Frisked 9 Times as Often as Whites

Ninety percent of those stopped by the NYPD are black and latino. So says the New York Times. Is this a cause for concern? I don’t know. Something certainly bothers me when my male black and hispanic students complain of being stopped by the police often (and often rudely stopped). But there is one touchy…
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