Great (and thus rare) legal discussion by Whet Moser in Chicago Magazine: “Why It’s Legal for Police to Shoot at Someone During a Car Chase: CPD officers who shot at Paul O’Neal may have violated procedure, but Supreme Court decisions set a high barrier for legal liability”: Perhaps the law could evolve. Police departments are…
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Did you see the headline in today’s New York Counterfactual?: “NYPD Kills Unarmed Man in Bronx”: Protests erupted after police killed a hispanic man in a Bronx bodega. Efraim Guzman, 30, was unarmed when he was shot and killed by police. One round entering Guzman’s back. Police allege Guzman was engaged in a dispute at…
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Lois Beckett in the Guardian: But black Americans in neighborhoods that see constant gun violence do try to make their voices heard, in protests like the one Truehill helped organize: community led, often small and largely ignored by news organizations. Thirty people showed up on Friday, most of them black men and women in their…
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Last week Paul O’Neal was fleeing from police in a stolen car. He crashed past one police car, and cops shot at him. He then veered head-on into another cop car, bailed, jumped over a fence (being more agile than any of the chasing cops), and was then shot at again. One (or more?) of…
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Marilyn Mosby said she is dropping all charges against the six Baltimore Police officers in the custody death of Freddie Gray. In the press conference she sounded like a petulant child who was caught out doing bad, and so blames everybody else instead. “Systemic issues,” she said. I think a voice of humility, noble humility,…
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From the Times: Two teenagers were killed and at least 18 people were wounded early Monday when attackers raked a crowd with gunfire outside a nightclub here that had been hosting a party for young people, the authorities said. Sound familiar? Yeah, because it is. But this isn’t even the main story of the day.…
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John McWhorter wrote this article about race and racial discourse. I doubt most readers here subscribe to the Chronicle of Higher Education. It’s behind a paywall, and you can’t access it back-door style through google. So though this excerpt doesn’t really do his whole argument justice, it’s better than nothing: After the horrific shootings in…
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From the New York Times: “Riding along with officers illuminated fears they confront, compassionate gestures from the public after two recent ambushes against the police, and varied responses to the Black Lives Matter movement.”
On July 22, 168 years ago, Thomas Lynch was the first police officer in America (at least best I can tell) to be fatally injured in the line of duty: Patrolman Lynch responded to 16 Dover street after receive a report of a large dispute. As he tried to mediate the dispute, he was struck…
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[Note: I wrote this back in March. It never ran. It’s no longer even relevant, since the Supreme Court ruled in June (Voisine v. United States) that you can lose your right to own a gun over a misdemeanor conviction. But I still thought I’d let it see the light of day.] On February 22,…
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