Quality Policing Podcast and Blog

Taxing Weed

Oakland votes to tax medical marijuana. It’s expected to raise about $300,000 a year and passed with 80 percentof the vote.

Question for Readers:

Should being an a-hole to police get you locked up? Seriously. Remember, being an a-hole isn’t technically a crime. But many people have talked their way into handcuffs. Police can always get you for something. I ask this because my wife seemed vaguely bothered by this concept. But it doesn’t bother me. John Van Maanen…
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You want to step outside, Mr Gates?

Leave it to me to have to read another blog to find out about stuff that I’ve already written. See, there’s this book I wrote, Cop in the Hood. I hear it’s pretty good. It’s also, uh, for sale. Anyway, on pp. 117-118 I describe how officers can invite a person outside in order to…
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Henry Louis Gates Jr. Arrested

Apparently for pissing off a Cambridge cop who responded to a burglary call. Gates had sort of broken into his own house because the key didn’t work. A witness called police. Words are exchanged and Gates gets cuffed for dis con. It’s hard to overstate just how esteemed of an intellectual Harvard Professor Gates is.…
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The future with legal marijuana

There can be a future with legal and regulated drugs. A drug deal plays out, California-style: A conservatively dressed courier drives a company-leased Smart Car to an apartment on a weekday afternoon. Erick Alvaro hands over a white paper bag to his 58-year-old customer, who inspects the bag to ensure that everything he ordered over…
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Two officers shot

Two officers down in Baltimore. Supposedly in stable condition. Supposedly returned fire, which is a good sign.

That’s the way it was

Walter Cronkite died Friday. He was 92. On his 90th birthday he told the Daily News, “I would like to think I’m still quite capable of covering a story.” He was known for knowing a failed war when he saw one. Not just Vietnam. He was against the War on Drugs and a friend of…
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Four-week police-officer training

I may be mistaken, but what is going on in Portland sounds like a very good idea to me. Give cops four weeks of training: defensive tactics, firearms and the law. Then let them ride with FTOs. And then when the academy class begins, they join the class. Remember, it’s not like a class is…
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“Excited Delirium”

Can you die from it? Does it exist? The Taser company, not surprisingly, says yes. Because if and when people die from “excited delirium,” there seems to be a good chance it will happen after being Tasered. Laura Sullivan of National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” has a good report on this. Here’s part one…
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The Wire Comes to Brooklyn… sort of

Fatal gun battle outside party for wife of Jamie Hector, who played Marlo Stanfield on ‘The Wire’ The story by Kenny Porpora, Alison Gendar, and Samuel Goldsmithin in the New York Daily News.