Author: Moskos

Baltimore’s Bealefeld Calls It Quits

After 31 years on the force and 5 years at the top, Baltimore Police Commissioner Fred Bealefeld announced his resignation. I wish him well. Certainly Bealefeld was the best police commissioner Baltimore has seen in the past 18 years (I can’t talk about the pre-Frazier era). Five years on top may not sound like a…
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Happy May Day?

Destruction in Seattle. Destruction in Oakland. All pretty peaceful in New York, more or less. Kudos to all who kept the peace. And I like the one cop in this video who doesn’t even flinch when a guy kicks out the window of a squad car right next to him. Bad ass. Respect.

Happy May Day

Happy May Day! Union Power! (And please don’t attack your union police brothers.) And appreciate the mad skills of my neighborhood Ironworkers Local 580 training facility. That logo is all hand-worked. Respect. [thanks to Astoria Ugly]

Another Day at the Office (III) — Pain Compliance

This is news that shouldn’t be: officers arrest a resisting suspect and for their efforts get splashed on the news for alleged brutality. At least the B.P.D. didn’t flinch. I say eighty percent of videos that purport to show brutality involve people under arrest who won’t put their hands behinds behind their back. If you’re…
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Right-Wing Lies (VII) – Free Obama Phones for the Poor

A while back I started hearing rumors about “Obama phones.” You know, Obama taking our hard-earned money to give free phones to undeserving poor people in the ghetto. Really? I keep hearing about this, so I thought there must be something to it. Take this facebook post from a Baltimore cop friend of mine: Beautiful…
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Dutch Regulate Marijuana

In a stupid way, mind you. But what I love is that if the Dutch want to regulate drugs, they can! Our illegal drugs are unregulated. What’s ironic is that this isn’t actually about drugs. It’s much more about traffic and parking. Also, don’t count the kips (chickens) before they hatch. I’d be shocked if…
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Tiger Tiger Tiger, Siss Siss Siss, Boom Boom Boom, meh.

Caleb Kennedy wrote a nice feature on me for the Daily Princetonian. “I was not particularly happy at Princeton,” [Moskos] said, explaining that he felt much of the student body came from a “New England prep school culture” that he was not used to. But I loved my professors. And one of them called me…
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Occupy Federally

An interesting development in the Occupy movement is the presence on 25 protesters on the steps of Federal Hall on Wall Street (with live stream). Federal Hall is is policed by the National Park Service Police and not the NYPD. I assume the NYPD could have jurisdiction. But I’m not certain. And it’s not clear…
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I Don’t Care if Zimmerman is a Racist

I think there’s too much discussion about whether George Zimmerman is racist. I don’t care. I don’t think it matters. What matters is what Zimmerman did (and lest we forgot: suspect, pursue, shoot, and kill an unarmed and innocent Trayvon Martin). Part of the problem is the racism is too broad of a label. Since…
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Gotcha!

I’m always amused whenever conservatives get to play “gotcha” when some liberal says something politically incorrect, or expresses a belief more in tune with Republicans. Because you know those same conservatives don’t really care about the issue; it’s just a brief moment when they finally get to win a round in a game they never…
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