Police

Progressive Misbelief

For well over a century, “progressives” have a proud tradition of not only exposing what is best for other people (often correctly, I might add) but also thinking they know what other people believe (often incorrectly). There’s a paternalism inherent to the progressive movement that can come awfully close to racism (or at least a white-savior complex) when it comes…

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Police

Van Dyke Guilty in Chicago

Former Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke was convicted of second-degree murder in the shooting of Laquan McDonald. This isn’t surprising. I think Van Dyke was found guilty because, get this, he was. I wrote this in 2015: The video is out. Finally. After long attempts to sweep it under the rugfailed. … It’s a bad shooting…. The officer who…

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Police

Why they carry illegal guns in Chicago

There an interesting studyby the Urban Institute on young men carrying guns in Chicago. This has already been misrepresented in the Chicago Sun-Timesas “1 in 3 young people surveyed in four Chicago neighborhoods say they carry a gun.” Factually true… but meaningless because they’re trying to survey people who carry a gun. 100% is the goal. It’s not trying to…

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Police

NYPD prostitution scandal

When ever corruption scandals breaks, I always notice two things: 1) The “blue was of silence” is more fiction than fact. Sure, cops in collusion won’t talk, at first. But that’s hardly a blue wall. I mean, given people’s natural inclination not to snitch on their friends and family, cops snitch on other cops quite regularly. Probably more so than…

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Police

Michael Wood Jr. took money from veterans

Michael Wood Jr, a former Baltimore cop, confessed many of his sins a few year ago. Because of that, he became a darling of the anti-cop left who mistook his confessing for whistle blowing. Pretty much everybody who ever worked with the guy has stories about him, and not favorable ones. I never met the guy, but I think he…

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Police

Every four or five years…

Just a brief note to commemorate the semi-decennial NYPD drug sweep at the Queensbridge Houses. I keep track of these things. (I live nearby.) 9 raids. 22 arrests. 4 handguns. Last time this happened was 2013. And that was preceded by similar raids in 2009 and 2005. Sometimes police get disparaged for conducting wack-a-mole policing. (In fact, sometimes *I’ve* disparaged…

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Police

Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder

Over on our Quality Policing podcast, Nick Selby and I hit the road and interview Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder Nassau County, if you don’t know, is the closer of two counties on Long Island outside of New York City. It’s largely a low-crime suburban community but has been in the news lately because of MS-13 and also a…

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Police

Suddenly It Became His Job

Well done, Officer Rogers! “An officer was actually on this block on another call and actually heard the shots being fired, said T.J. Smith, Baltimore City Police Spokesman. “That officer gave pursuit.” How often does that happen? And what exactly happened? An edited and shortened version of the bodycam footage had been acquired by WMAR, which made me go, “damn!”…

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Police

80 days around the world

80 days around the world, we’ll find a pot of gold just sitting where the rainbow’s ending. Time – we’ll fight against the time, and we’ll fly on the white wings of the wind. 80 days around the world, no we won’t say a word before the ship is really back. Round, round, all around the world. Round, all around…

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Police

Baltimore police trial: guilty

Yesterday the verdict came out. I wrote this op-ed for the Washington Post: This current scandal is more than a case of a few bad apples, though bad apples they were. These officers acted with impunity until the FBI caught wind of their actions through an unrelated criminal investigation in Pennsylvania. A specialized police unit cannot survive for years as…

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