The Drug War Rant and Stop the Drug War turned me on to a report by the Center for Disease Control. The just released “Deaths: Final Report for 2005” (hey, it takes a while to count all the dead folk) may not be the most uplifting title, but they do breakdown the two-and-a-half million deaths…
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New Jersey Governor Corzine signed “Patricia’s Law” mandating that police must accept—without delay—any report of a missing person. I would assert that no law named after a person has ever been good. This one sure isn’t. The Recordreports: Under Patricia’s Law, police cannot refuse to take on the case of a missing person — whether…
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The Timesreports that the NYPD is to shrink to its smallest size in 15 years. That’s a little misleading because the department in never at its budgeted size. The “size” of the department would “drop” to 36,838. But the actual number of officers today is 35,800. So the department could still grow despite this “drop.”…
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Alex Tabarrok and Tyler Cowen, the people behind Marginal Revolution, a respected and well read blog, have been very kind to me (or at least very kind to my book). Tyler Cowen posted about my book and the Amazon pre-sales rank got a big boost (not that I check these things, of course).
This one, if the Sunis to be believed, sounds wild. Though if the Sunis to be believed, this happened in East Baltimore (you know, where bad things happen). Best I can tell it started in the Central and ended in the Northern. Officer Anthony Jobst, 47, was in his patrol car in the first block…
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Too often, almost predictably, undercover vice units are involved in scandal. Even the Sean Bell shooting has a strong narc connection. The Night Club Task Force involved in the Sean Bell shooting was formed in reaction to the Chelsea abduction and murder of 18-year-old Jennifer Moore. These undercover vice and narcotics officers worked to establish…
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Occasionally I will repost op-eds of mine to give them fresh life and allow people to comment. The following was published in theWashington Post, August 2, 2004. You can read all my op-eds here. When you board a plane, both you and your carry-on bags are searched. A civilian employee of the Transportation Security Administration…
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There are many day-to-day things in the ghetto that start to seem normal, or at least routine, when you’re in too deep. These are things that would shock most outsiders. Take evictions. Every day you’d turn your police car into a street and see the insides of an entire home neatly piled up in the…
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New York Governor Eliot Spitzer slept with a whore. She was an expensive whore, as is befitting a man of his station. I believe once the price is more than $1,000 an hour, the word is “high class.” So there you have it: Man Pays for Sex. There really isn’t much else to say. I…
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About a year after I left the B.P.D., this happened. 324 car got firebombed. Some locals didn’t like the officer driving it because he could outrun and catch anybody in the district who tried to run from him. Somebody led him on a foot chase while his friends torched the car. It was our best…
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