A good piece of journalism in the Sun: In Baltimore, where there are an estimated 19,000 heroin users, including 9,500 chronic users, annual spending on the drug is estimated at least at $165 million. … When the brothers of one local kingpin were kidnapped, he came up with $500,000 for ransom. When investigators searched a…
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You’re a police officer in the big city. This was your life’s dream. You like to help people. Once on the job, you realize it wasn’t all you hoped, but you still do the best you can. You have a prisoner in the back in your vehicle. It was a minor offense. But the law…
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I still can’t believe this guy got shot down by a cop playing whack-a-mole with his service weapon. The D.A. said: The evidence in this case shows the shooting to be accidental, and possibly negligent, but not criminally so. “This shooting is not justified, but also not criminal.” I don’t know if I buy the…
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I don’t say that lightly. There have been some bad ones. Click on this link or you can jump to about 0:50 sec on this: Andrew Thomas, the victim, a drunk driver, is paralyzed. He is white. So is Paradise, California. 1:35: “I got a male in the car refusing to get out.” Maybe, you…
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Here’s a report with some numbers on the problem of untreated mental illness and police response. Bottom line, according to these numbers: About two percent of Americans have untreated severe mental illness. Those two percent of people account for 10 percent of police responses, 20 percent of those behind bars, and 25 percent of fatal…
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She’s the former prosecutor who has taken to writingabout her former office and its overreaching prosecution of the six Baltimore cops who in the neighborhood when Freddie Gray died in police custody. Here’s her latest: I said in my first blogon Freddie Gray, days after Mosby sensationally announced her charges, that she was setting up…
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This is what the War on Drugs looks like. Just another day. From the Chicago Sun-Times: One of Chicago’s most notorious informants — who provided drug tips to the police while secretly killing and robbing people and doing drug deals — was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for his information with the approval of…
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Porter’s trial ended on Dec 16 with a hung jury. The next trial, Caesar Goodson the wagon driver, is scheduled for Jan. 6, 2016. Goodson is charged with second-degree depraved-heart murder, manslaughter, second-degree assault, two counts of vehicular manslaughter and misconduct in office. Three officers, Porter, Sgt. Alicia White and Lt. Brian Rice face involuntary…
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Luke Broadwater and Ian Duncan summarize the issues in The Sun.
Hung on all four counts. That is not what I expected. I expected acquittal on the major charges, and perhaps a hung jury on the minor charge of “misconduct.” But no conviction is still a big setback to the prosecution. What does this mean? Since I’m no legal expert, best to turn to those who…
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