Quality Policing Podcast and Blog

Officer Pete says (rule 30):

Don’t ask police for a ride. Despite what we say, we couldgive you a ride. We just don’t want to.

Talk of the Nation on National Public Radio

I’ll be on Talk of the Nation today, after 2pm, Eastern Time.

Officer Pete says (rule 31):

No, I don’t “know how it is.” You’ll have to explain.

Adapt or die

I just got an email from an academy classmate of mine. One of the nicest things about writing Cop in the Hoodis that I hear from people I miss, but with whom I had lost touch. So you know, I never left the Eastern District. I love patrol. I don’t know why, but I do.…
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Regarding Sean Bell

Clearly something wrong happened because an innocent man was killed,” Peter Moskos, author of Cop in the Hood, and a professor at New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told TIME. “But that’s not what the system was testing. They were testing if there was reasonable doubt. I think the verdict is fair, but…
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3 Detectives in Bell Shooting Acquitted

You heard it here first in my March 6 post. My gut knows the police did something wrong because Sean Bell is dead. But what should a reasonable police officer have done? I don’t know. I never had to shoot my gun on duty. My gun was never the only thing between me and an…
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“Hard” versus “soft” drugs

The Dutch make an interesting and useful distinction between “hard” and “soft” drugs. When a Amsterdam police officer says, “I think drugs should be illegal and dealers should go to prison,” they’re almost assuredly talking about “hard” drugs like crack and heroin. Marijuana and hashish are considered “soft” drugs and were decriminalized in 1976. The…
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A genuine “good guy”

Initially my presence was greeted with skepticism, especially from supervisors who believed, probably accurately, that nothing good could come from my writing. One lieutenant told me: “Moskos, I like you. But I don’t want anything to do with your book. I don’t want to be in it. I don’t want my name in it. I…
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Officer Down

It’s horrible anytime a police officer dies. It’s particularly horrible when it’s at the hands of another police officer. If the Baltimore Sun is correct, the officer who died had 44 years on. I didn’t know any officer had 44 years on. My condolences to the officer’s family.

From the Economist

This is from the Economist: Thursday I’M STANDING on a street lined with boarded-up shops—a popular haven for drug-dealers. A police officer is frisking a suspect whose trousers are nearly around his knees. The policeman didn’t pull them down; that’s how the suspect wears them. A bit impractical, perhaps, if his line of work requires…
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