Police Issues

BREAKING NEWS

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 18:45:26 GMT

* Ailing from cancer, top L.A. gang member tells a chilling tale of murder, robbery and extortion * Six Los Angeles gang members get life in Federal prison * Prosecutor blasts Michigan governor for rushed commutations * Three unrelated shootings in four and one-half hours leave three L.A. men dead, a fourth clinging to life * NYPD accused of fudging crime stat's to look good under Compstat * 250th. DNA exoneree fought to clear his name for 28 years after release * Wave of arsons hits Texas churches * Supreme Court Justice Kennedy calls influence of California prison guards in getting three-strikes passed "sick"

THE GREAT DEBATE (PART II)

Sat, 06 Feb 2010 22:56:46 GMT

“The three-strikes law sponsor is the correctional officers’ union and that is sick!”

Who said that? Here are three possibilities: (1) the ACLU president, (2) the ACLU executive director, or (3) Supreme Court Associate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, while addressing a gathering of lawyers on February 3, 2009, at Pepperdine University’s Odell McConnell Law Center, perched high on a spectacular bluff overlooking the shores of the Pacific.

Hmm...let’s see...

THE GREAT DEBATE (PART I)

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 17:57:43 GMT

On December 6, 2009 police in Culver City, a Los Angeles suburb, confronted Boneetio Washington, a transient on felony probation, on a complaint that he tried to break into a home. Officers didn’t feel there was enough evidence and let him go. His freedom didn’t last long. Two days later LAPD officers arrested Washington moments after he allegedly forced his way into an apartment and raped and murdered its occupant, a woman pregnant with twins.

TINKERING WITH THE MACHINERY OF DEATH

Sun, 24 Jan 2010 23:23:05 GMT

When ASC members opened their November 2009 issues of the society’s two publications, stodgy Criminology and the supposedly more real-world Criminology and Public Policy, they must have felt like Yogi Berra. In Criminology, Land, Teske and Zheng’s “The Short-Term Effects of Executions on Homicide” reported that capital punishment prevented between .5 and 2.5 homicides per execution, at least in Texas. Meanwhile, in Criminology & Public Policy, a study by Kovandzic, Vieraitis and Boots replied to the question posed by its title, “Does the Death Penalty Save Lives?” by firmly concluding that no, it didn’t.

SEE NO EVIL, SPEAK NO EVIL

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 07:28:34 GMT

“These rats deserve to die, right or wrong? . . . My war is with the rats. I'm a hunt every last one bitch that I can, and kill 'em.” (Extract from wiretap of Philadelphia drug lord Kaboni Savage, charged in 2009 with ordering seven murders.)

“If you see something, you better look the other way...Don't tell nothing unless you can take care of yourself, because the city don't have nothing in place to help you.” (Philadelphia resident Barbara Clowden commenting on the murder of her sixteen-year old son only days before he was to testify against the man who tried to burn down their home.)

IT'S NOW L.A.'S PROBLEM

Sun, 10 Jan 2010 19:55:55 GMT

In a few weeks the murder trial of former Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer Johannes Mehserle will get underway. As we reported earlier, Mehserle, who shot passenger Oscar Grant to death at an Oakland subway platform one year ago, argues that he meant to use a Taser but in the confusion pulled his pistol instead.

DOING NOTHING, REDUX

Sun, 03 Jan 2010 18:14:43 GMT

Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano’s pitiful attempt to deflect blame for letting a bomb-carrying terrorist board a U.S.-bound plane didn’t work. Only a day later, as Al Qaeda openly gloated about an operation that “penetrated all modern and sophisticated technology and devices and security barriers in airports of the world,” the would-be spinmeister was forced to concede that the system had really not worked, at least not in the way that really matters.

POLICE ISSUES' OINK-OINKS FOR 2009

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 00:16:20 GMT

This year there was truly an embarrassment of riches. With so much to choose from, we simply had to expand the list. In no particular order, here are the honorees...

Let ‘em Eat Corn Dogs trophy goes to...Morgan County, Alabama Sheriff Greg Bartlett, who for six years nearly doubled his salary by skimping on prisoner meals and slipping what wasn’t spent into his pockets (yes, that’s allowed in Alabama). He finally changed his tune when an exasperated judge locked up the lawman so that he could sample his own cuisine.

A VERY DUBIOUS ACHIEVEMENT

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 19:49:36 GMT

Being first is normally an honor. But when the FBI reported that Camden, New Jersey, pop. 76,182, had 1,777 violent crimes and 54 murders in 2008, yielding a sky-high violence rate of 2332.6 per 100,000 and a dismal murder rate of 7.1 per 10,000, it was hardly bestowing praise. Just like in 2004 and 2005 (and nearly 2007, when it was number two) Camden was once again the most dangerous city in the U.S.

AN ILLUSION OF CONTROL

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 06:02:51 GMT

Where once stood a young (16) year old misguided fool, who's (sic) own life he was unable to rule. Now stands a 27 year old man, who has learned through 'the school of hard knocks' to appreciate and respect the rights of others. And who has in the midst of the harsh reality of prison life developed the necessary skills to stand along (sic) and not follow a multitude to do evil, as I did as a 16 year old child.

Maurice Clemmons was eleven years into a ninety-five year sentence for armed robbery, burglary and other crimes when his words stirred former Arkansas Governor and one-time Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee to grant him clemency. Convicted when seventeen, Clemmons was paroled against the advice of prosecutors who feared that the explosively violent youth was still dangerous.