Quality Policing Podcast and Blog

Five shot in Baltimore

Five shot during four-hour span. And the mayor wants to cut police pay.

The Open Case

If you like my blog (and why would you be reading this if you don’t?), you’ll love The Open Case. Not only are all my posts mirrored there, but they have other good stuff as well. It’s like Cop in the Hood, but more. Check it out.

Anonymous tips don’t give police probable cause

Not to stop drivers. Nor to search pedestrians. David Savage reports in the L.A. Times.

But they told me it was safe!

The maker of Taser stun guns is advising police officers to avoid shooting suspects in the chest with the 50,000-volt weapon, saying that it could pose an extremely low risk of an “adverse cardiac event.” The advisory, issued in an Oct. 12 training bulletin, is the first time that Taser International has suggested there is…
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Gunshots or Firecrackers

Justin Fenton writes about a gunshot detection system in the Eastern. An interesting concept. Mixed results at best. Cops, after a little while, get pretty good at telling the difference between gunshots and firecrackers. They’re very similar, but gunshots are kind of a shorter, tighter bang. It’s kind of hard to describe. But you would…
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Hard Core in Brazil

Just a week or two after Jon Lee Anderson’s excellent article in the New Yorker on drugs and favelasin Rio de Janeiro, drug gangs shoot down a police helicopter. That’s hard core. I mean, I’ve thought about shooting down police helicopters, but luckily I lack the .30-caliber anti-aircraft gun used to bring that baby down.…
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Good news for states’ rights…

…and stoners. The Feds say they’ll lay off medicinal marijuana enforcement in states where it’s legal. This seems like a no-brainer.

US Marshals: TV

I’ve got nothing against US Marshals. Or maybe I do. I just got off a flight from San Francisco to New York on my favorite airline. Why do I like Jet Blue? Because they have TV. I love TV. And Satellite TV turns a 6-hour flight into a dream. I mean, I love being in…
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Ethan Nadelmann Profile

In Newsweek.

No doctor without a police officer’s note

I just heard on the radio that Nigeria has changed its law that required a police report from the victims of gunshot injuries before these same victims could be treated for their wounds in a hospital. Apparently one of the factors leading to this change was a high level of gun deaths. Imagine that.