“An Angry Man Is Met by a Smart, Experienced Police Team” But this headline is real. And it’s not from the Onion. It’s from the New York Times. The story is by Al Baker. I did not know, as his bio says, that he’s the son of a police officer. Maybe that’s why his stories…
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A grand jury didn’t indict Angel Alvarez. This is surprising, given how they say a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich. Here’s what I wrote about his shooting back in August.
That’s the news from Camden. Though I should point out that were it not for the layoffs (almost half the department!), the chief would probably be boasting that homicides are down. But everything else is up, including shootings. Hmmm, maybe there’s a correlation between fewer cops and bad aim?
Here’s an interesting article by Meg Stalcup and Joshua Craze in The Washington Monthly. The subtitle is: “There aren’t nearly enough counterterrorism experts to instruct all of America’s police–So we got these guys instead.” Despite their different backgrounds, the counterterrorism trainers we interviewed have a remarkably similar worldview. It is one of total, civilizational war–a…
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Read this column by Thomas Friedman and this satire.
A level-heading analysis from David Leonhardt in the New York Times: Fat and happy government workers, however easy the caricature may be, are not the cause of our looming federal and state deficits. Neither are spineless politicians. The cause is Americans’ collective desire for low taxes and generous government benefits. We want our politicians to…
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Sez a study reported in the BBC.
Cops hate paperwork. Hell, everybody hates paperwork. But policing has more of it on a day-to-day basis than most occupations. And there’s an art to writing a good police report. I like to think my writing skills made me a better police officer. And it’s why as a professor I stress the importance of writing…
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Don’t I wish! Actually, the DEA is just out of money to help localities clean up meth labs after they’re raided. Cleaning up a meth lab costs $2,500. Last year the DEA allocated just $10 million to the cause. Obama’s new budget cuts this funding. I guess when you’re as lean and trim as the…
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Now that’s something you don’t hear every day!