Police

Stories of the Eastern

I got Badges, Bullets & Bars in the mail and started reading it. I am amazed (maybe pleased is a better word) to find that one story — a police urban myth I constantly heard — is true. There are many crazy stories cops tell. And every squad has its own ghosts. Most of the stories are probably true (you…

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Police

The Good Old Days

It turns out you can fight City Hall. In 1857 they did. And won. It turns out that if you’re City Hall, you can’t fight the State House. The winner of this brawl at City Hall between two competing police departments got to be New York’s Finest! The mayor was arrested and New York State took over the police (before…

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Police

Give that man a medal!

Too bad a story about an honest Liberian customs officer is news. But hell, if I made $15 a month… I would probably take the $20,000 bribe. So I guess he’s a better man than me. And they did give him a medal. And $1,000.

Police

Bang bang, they hit the ground

Baltimore Crime turned me on to this: Spotcrime maps every shooting in Baltimore (City and County) for 2008. Hit ‘start’ at the top left. Whether you want Turning of the sound to hear the bang bangs is up to you. At the time of this writing, I’m still only in October. I can’t tell if this is sick or genius.…

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Police

The Epidemic That Wasn’t

The New York Times reports on crack babies… not! You know, for what it’s worth, one of my favorite students confided in me that he was crack baby. He was all right.

Police

Lol Cop

Pepper Spray Me led me this story in the Chicago Tribune about, Vincent Richardson, a 14-year-old who, apparently successfully, impersonated being a police officer for five hours. And not for the first time. And not just the normal pulling-over-cars-with-police-lights kind of thing. I mean this guy patrolled with a real live Chicago police officers and fooled him, too(!?). You would…

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