Police

Another Drug War Victim

Daniel Chongwas awarded $4 million after he was detained, told he wouldn’t be charged, and then left in a windowless cell in the DEA’s San Diego headquarter without food or water for four days. He drank his urine to stay alive and after being found spent three days in the ICU. Hey, mistakes happen. The DEA regrets the error.

Police

Worth Reading

Ta-Nehisi Coates on Stop and Frisk. It’s also well worth scrolling down to read his posts on Trayvon Martin and Zimmerman. Coates is one of the main reasons I haven’t written very much on the subject (another being I was on the road). Coates wrote what I was thinking. And he wrote it very well.

Police

We Got Another Kingpin! (11)

Why it was less than a year ago that we got Heriberto Lazcano, the founder and principal leader of the Zetas. And now the Times reports: The leader of … the Zetas, was captured Monday in a city near the Texas border, an emphatic retort from the new government to questions over whether it would go after top organized crime…

Continue Reading

Police

Stand your ground

Am I disappointed in the verdict? Yes. Is it inconceivable based on the idiodically written stand your ground law? Alas, no. And now that Zimmerman walks free, can we talk more about repealing this horrible law? Legal justice is not moral justice. I wrote this last year: The law is written in such a way that even if you are…

Continue Reading

Police

Zimmerman Trial (2): Justice vs. Stand Your Ground

I received this interesting and thought-provoking email from my friend Alan (bold added): It seems to me that if Zimmerman is convicted of a felony, then the Florida laws are apparently defensible. Sure, a guy is allowed to shoot someone in certain circumstances; in this case such circumstances did not present and so he’s going to jail. The laws did…

Continue Reading

Police

Zimmerman Trial (1)

Prof. Carl Hart on modern reefer madness: Harry J. Anslinger, commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (predecessor of the Drug Enforcement Administration) declared, “Marijuana is the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind.” Seven decades and hundreds of studies later, we no longer have an excuse for indulging the myth of “reefer madness.” It has no place in…

Continue Reading

Police

Happy 4th of July from Oakland

Just strolling around Oakland at midnight, as you do. Notice the cop car crashing into the donut O. As I took this picture a man stopped, looked at me, and said sternly… “Don’t miss the giant owl across the street.” I didn’t. It was big. But too big for a good picture with a phone camera flash.