Police Issues

BREAKING NEWS

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 16:13:36 GMT

* North Carolina suspends blood pattern analysis, replaces state crime lab chief * Feds throw new laws, resources at crime and violence in Indian lands * Fretting that Federal sentencing is all over the map, DOJ asks Sentencing Commission to investigate * Florida establishes commission to review wrongful convictions * Congress excludes simple crack possession from mandatory sentencing * To save overtime Houston chief orders cops not to appear at muni court until 1 pm regardless of what subpoenas say * Arizona cops won't have to check immigration status of suspected illegal aliens

R.I.P. COMMUNITY POLICING?

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 18:50:05 GMT

Having suffered for years through the mind-numbing rhetoric of community policing, your blogger was thrilled to attend the panel entitled “A New Professionalism” at the June 2010 conference of the National Institute of Justice.

Sparks flew from the very start as Christopher Stone, Guggenheim Professor of the Practice of Criminal Justice at Harvard’s Kennedy School took on – hold your breath – community policing. Placing himself firmly in the ranks of the contrarians, he criticized its “cacophony” of purpose, uttering in public what many have whispered for years, that by absorbing (some would say, greedily) every other strategy that came along its proponents had blurred the concept beyond recognition.

EXTREME MEASURES (PART II)

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 23:35:24 GMT

Everyone knows that they can be stopped by police for a traffic infraction. What many don’t realize is that officers can detain them at length for other reasons, and with far less justification than is required for an arrest. Barring a last-minute decision by a Federal judge, Arizona cops will soon be taking that authority in an unprecedented direction.

THE KILLERS OF L.A.

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 21:17:21 GMT

From all the hoopla surrounding the arrest of the “Grim Sleeper” (so dubbed because after an unexplained hiatus he supposedly rose to kill again) one would think it marks the end of a decades-long quest to capture the city’s most murderous evildoer. Well, think again. Thanks to DNA, LAPD detectives have arrested three – that’s right, three – serial killers in the last four years, and Lonnie Franklin isn’t necessarily the most prolific.

WHAT'S MORE LETHAL THAN A GUN?

Sun, 04 Jul 2010 01:06:31 GMT

May and June were terrible months for the California Highway Patrol. On May 7 Officer David Benavides lost his life when his patrol aircraft crashed. One month later, on June 9, motorcycle officer Phillip Ortiz was on a freeway shoulder writing a ticket when he was struck by an errant vehicle; he died from his injuries two weeks later. On June 11 CHP motorcycle officer Tom Coleman was killed when he collided with a truck during a high-speed chase. On June 27 the toll reached five when two officers, Justin McGrory and Brett Oswald were struck and killed by vehicles in separate incidents, McGrory while citing a motorist and Oswald as he waited for an abandoned car to be towed.

IS IT WHEN TO CHASE? OR IF?

Sun, 27 Jun 2010 20:05:45 GMT

Kayla Woods won’t be enjoying a seventh birthday party. She’ll no longer be there to watch over her younger brother and comfort him when he’s sad. And she’ll never again play with her friends, like she was doing on June 10, when a vehicle fleeing from police sped through the Lake View Terrace neighborhood where she and her family lived. According to her grieving father Kayla was all of six years and ten days old when the speeding car crushed her tiny body, pinning her against a wall.

DOJ: TEXAS EXECUTED AN INNOCENT MAN

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 16:20:26 GMT

“It was a crock.” That’s how renowned fire expert John Lentini characterized the official investigation of a 1991 Corsicana house fire that killed three girls and led to their father’s execution thirteen years later.

A NATION OF LIARS

Sat, 05 Jun 2010 20:43:16 GMT

Four to six billion dollars. That’s what mortgage fraud costs the U.S. each year. And it’s not just our pockets that are getting picked. Effects from America’s financial meltdown have rippled around the world, spreading pain at the speed of the Internet and turning the Great Recession into a global event.

BIGGER GUNS AREN'T ENOUGH

Sat, 29 May 2010 17:32:23 GMT

“Brandon and Bill had no chance against an AK-47. They were completely outgunned.
We are dealing with people who rant and rave about killing. They want government
officials dead. We had a 16-year-old better armed than the police.”

Five days after a father-and-son duo of right-wing extremists opened fire during a traffic stop, killing West Memphis police sergeant Brandon Paudert and officer Bill Evans, chief Bob Paudert, the late sergeant’s father, came to roll call, grief-stricken yet anxious to help his officers deal with the deeply traumatic experience of losing two beloved colleagues.

CLOSING THE "TERROR GAP"

Sun, 23 May 2010 22:44:48 GMT

Moderator to panelists (at 17:50): Should people on the no-fly watch list be able to purchase a gun? Mr. Campbell?
Tom Campbell (pauses, then whimsically): No! (audience laughs)
Moderator: Mr. DeVore?
Chuck DeVore: Yes, if they haven’t been convicted of a felony.
Moderator: Ms. Fiorina?
Carly Fiorina: Yes.
Tom Campbell (feigns shock): Oh, my goodness! (audience laughs)

One would think that a five-term Republican congressman with an economics Ph.D and a Stanford law degree (he’s currently a visiting professor at Chapman Law School) would know better than to push that button. Yet there was Tom Campbell, Senator Barbara Boxer’s leading challenger, advocating gun control. His competitors in the Republican primary, State Assemblyman Chuck DeVore and former HP chairperson Carly Fiorina, could hardly contain their glee.