There’s an article by Frank Main in the Chicago Sun-Times about the deadliest police district in Chicago. It’s a small area on the West Side of Chicago. My eyes went to the blue area, below. About 3 by 15 square blocks. Maybe 34 of those blocks are residential. Perhaps about 650 houses in all. Nice housing stock. Maybe 5,000 residents?…
Tag: crime prevention
What’s Up With Crime Being Down in Camden?
Let me start by saying I don’t know much about Camden, New Jersey. So if you know more, help me figure things out. The city of Camden is just across the river from Philadelphia. It’s part of Camden County. The city has a declining population of about 75,000. Camden is about half black and half hispanic. It is, by any…
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…
“You Get the Police You Ask For”
Since I’ve been remiss at writing anything here recently, I’m going to link to a piece from Jim Glennon at Calibre Press: [Baltimore] Mayor Pugh then thanked federal officials for their assistance in the arrest of a man who murdered a three-year-old in 2014. … The Mayor’s expectation that the FBI can assist in the day-to-day in Baltimore not only…
Milwaukee Chief Flynn: “We can predict who’s going to get shot. We do. If we could only predict where and when, we’d be doing a great job. We can’t do that.”
[See my previous post on Ed Flynn.] Flynn isn’t new at this. A few years back, Flynn was answering questions about a controversial police-involved shooting. At a community meeting, some criticized him for being “disrespectful,” because he was on his phone. His response is well worth watching. The cop involved in that shooting was later fired. Officers voted Flynn a…
Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn: “We’ve got to get beyond the finger pointing that does nothing except to depolice at risk communities”
Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn is smarter than your average flatfoot. Generally considered a progressive in the police world, he’s the type of chief who should at least be embraced by the political left. But Milwaukee is one of the latest police department to be sued by the ACLU for racially disparate policing. But Flynn refuses to de-police the city’s…
The best of times, the worst of times
Ah, the ol’ Tale of Two Cities trope. But the diverging homicidal paths of Chicago and New York City are striking. The New York Post has a surprisingly good (especially for the NY Post) article on homicide in Chicago and NYC. These are raw numbers and not a rate. Chicago is roughly one-third the size of New York City. [Notwithstanding…
“Do Not Shoot Anyone”: Policing J’Ouvert and the West Indian Day Parade
Yes, the NYPD and others politely asked people to not shoot each other at J’Ouvert this year. The New York Postquotes a police source as saying, “I guess this is the de Blasio crime prevention program.” In Brooklyn, pre-lent pre-dawn J’Ouvert is followed by the massive (like one-million people massive) Caribbean Day Parade (which has also had a few unfortunate…
“Policing is differentiated from other occupations by the use of coercion”
My colleague Eugene O’Donnell, former cop and prosecutor, writes in The Crime Report about “The ‘Post-Policing Era’ in America: How Will We Cope?” I don’t actually think we are entering “a post-policing era,” but it’s certainly likely we’re going to see police responding to forces asking them to do much, much less of the coercive actions that justify the need…
10 shootings a day: This is the homicide problem
The Chicago Tribune has an excellent articlethat starts on the West Side [2 miles from this house]: To understand Chicago’s violence, start at Kostner Avenue and Monroe Street and walk west up a one-way stretch of graystones and brick two-flats. There on a boarded-up front door you’ll see the red stain of gang graffiti. On the cracked sidewalk below lies…