Quality Policing Podcast and Blog

Big bust in Australia

Australia police confiscated 15 million pills of ecstasy. That’s a lot of dancing! The ecstasy was hidden in cans from Italy, supposedly of canned tomatoes. What’s amazing about hauls of these huge sizes is just how little they matter. Why, what if all that ecstasy had gotten through?! I mean just think, every shipment before…
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Hit it!

Ha! “Apparently, McDonald’s didn’t realize something everyone else did, namely that the “I’d hit it” slogan adorning a banner ad means “I fancy it sexually” in the language of its target audience, and that the slogan sounds somewhat strange in the context of hamburger advertising.”

More on NYPD vs. bicyclists

If you need more proof that something ain’t right in how the NYPD handles Manhattan’s Critical Mass bike ride, you should watch this video on the blog, The Agitator. There’s an anti-police tone I don’t like. And overproduction. And half-assed legal knowledge (there is no Constitutional right you “wave” when you identify yourself to police.…
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Yes to Free Coffee

I always accepted free coffee. And I’m proud of it. There’s nothing wrong with that. The links I built over coffee helped me be a better patrolman. Accepting free coffee or a free meal should not be against the rules. But it is. People say it’s the start of corruption, but it’s not. I mention…
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Special delivery

If you want to keep a bad drug raid from hitting the papers, I guess you shouldn’t do it to prominent white folk (see picture). Doug Donovan in the Baltimore Sun reports: [The Mayor of Berwyn Hights, Prince George County, Maryland] Calvo’s home was raided by the county Sheriff’s Office SWAT team and narcotics officers…
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Inform the public

I got this in a email from a Baltimore Police Officer. I couldn’t say it better myself: At the end of the day, I hope more officers will see your book as a vehicle to inform the academic community and public about the many challenges of policing in a poor urban environment. I think the…
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Apologies in flex squad case

Annie Linskey writes in the Sun. The full story is here. City settles, calls supervisor a ‘law-abiding officer’ Two and a half years after allegations surfaced that an elite Baltimore police unit had become a rogue operation, the city did an about-face, agreeing yesterday to pay the squad’s supervisor a six-figure settlement and issuing a…
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A voice of reason

I was starting to think I was the only sane person in a crazy world. Then another email flew in over the transom: I read the “real” first edition of your book, before the publisher recalled it for typographical errors. I mention this not because it confers upon me any particular credibility, but to highlight…
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More crusty outrage

I received an email from a former commander of the Eastern District (he retired before I was there). He too refuses to read my book [everything below is edited and cut for length from the original emails]: Your apparent motivation for writing your book would indicate that it was successful, you have your new profession,…
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Germany hails ‘bullet-proof bra’

Or so says the BBC. It’s not a bullet-proof bra. It’s a bra designed not be dangerous when combined with the impact of a bullet on body armor. But I do love the fact it says “police” on the bottom. It is being dubbed the new “bullet-proof bra”, a new kind of Wonderbra which could…
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