It makes homicide — which kills “just” 40 Americans a day — look positively benign. 47,000 Americas died from drug overdose in 2014. That’s a shocking figure. 47,000 is the number of US soldiers who died in Vietnam combat. And that was over 20 years. Heroin deaths have shot up since 2010: From the Times:…
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“The shot that struck and killed Detective Colson was deliberately aimed at him by another police officer,” Stawinski said. “It’s another tragic dimension to this unfolding story.” Ouch. A black cop in civilian clothes being killed by other cop? This is not exactly frequent… but it is all too regular. In 170 years of US…
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Here’s how Broken Windows works in real life. A “subway swiper” — a minor crime — causes disorder, and then swiper gets into a fight and is murdered. Herbert Burgess, the Metrocard swiper — “58 prior arrests and sent to prison in 1993 for 18 years after confessing to fatally strangling his roommate” — was…
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The ATF released a version of this photo taken during the April 27 riots. The guy (“repeatedly captured in photographs and other images on the day of the rioting”) was later identified as Donta Betts: He confessed to creating the explosion to ward off the cops “so people could finish … stealing whatever they was…
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Thinking about lobbies and public housing and policing…. Take the Jackie Robinson Homes, “an 8-story building with 189 apartments housing some 440 residents.” Last year there was an issue with kids raising hell. Residents were scared. So lets say there are 600 people living there in the Jackie Robinson Home (since many live off lease).…
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Benjamin Mueller and Al Baker in the New York Times describe one homicide in the Bronx. “To understand why killings persist in an era of historically low crime, The New York Times is reporting this year on each murder in the 40th Precinct.” This is the kind of in-depth story that informs. If we’re going…
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This came in over the transom from a Kimmie Lucas at Discovery Studios. Somebody out there may be interested. I know nothing else about it: We are a production company seeking Female Homicide Detectives for a potential new series. Detective can be working currently or retired. We want to tell your story! If interested, please…
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Kudos to the NYPD for moving up Compstat publicationby about 10 days. Now, on March 18 (who knows, maybe it was even there yesterday), I can learn crime data up to March 13! That’s like, just last week! In the past, because Kelly didn’t release data on principle, you could see on Monday what was…
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An emotional story in the Baltimore Sun — related to the “friendly-fire” death of Officer Jacai Colson — about another P.G. County officer who shot and killed his partner and best friend in 1988: “You’re not alone,” Sommers said he told the officer, who has not been identified publicly. “You can’t beat yourself up over…
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Stephen Morgan, my grad-school colleague, released his Baltimore report (co-authored with Joel Pally) that looks at crime and arrests pre- and post-riot. [The Harvard sociology cohort of 1995 always turned to Morgan as the quant guy when we needed help with stats class, which was often. So rather than blame my own limitations and laziness,…
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