De-Prosecution?
What's That?
(#448, 4/27/24)

Philadelphia's D.A.
eased up on lawbreakers.
Did it increase crime?

Ideology (Still)
Trumps Reason
(#447, 4/9/24)

When it comes to gun laws,
“Red” and “Blue” remain
in the driver’s seat

Shutting the Barn Door
(#446, 3/19/24)

Oregon moves to
re-criminalize hard drugs

Houston, We Have
(Another) Problem
(#445, 2/28/24)

Fueled by assault rifles, murders plague the land

Wrong Place, Wrong
Time, Wrong Cop
(#444, 2/8/24)

Recent exonerees set "records"
for wrongful imprisonment

America's Violence-
Beset Capital City
(#443, 1/20/24)

Our Nation's capital
is plagued by murder

Are Civilians Too Easy
on the Police? (II)
(#442, 12/18/23)

Exonerated of murder,
but not yet done

Warning: (Frail)
Humans at Work
(#441, 11/29/23)

The presence of a gun
can prove lethal

See No Evil - Hear No
Evil - Speak No Evil
(#440, 11/14/23)

Is the violent crime problem
really all in our heads?

Policing Can't Fix
What Really Ails
(#439, 10/18/23)

California's posturing
overlooks a chronic issue

Confirmation Bias
Can be Lethal
(#438, 9/21/23)

Why did a "routine" stop
cost a man's life?

When (Very) Hard
Heads Collide (II)
(#437, 9/5/23)

What should cops do when
miscreants refuse to comply?
Refuse to comply?

What Cops Face
(#436, 8/24/23)

America’s violent atmosphere
can distort officer decisions

Punishment Isn't
a Cop's Job (III)
(#435, 8/1/23)

Some citizens misbehave;
some cops answer in kind

San Antonio
Blues
(#434, 7/20/23)

What poverty brings can
impair the quality of policing

Keep going...

5/17/24 Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. insists that he had nothing to do with the upside-down flag that was displayed in front of his house for several days preceding President Biden’s inauguration. Instead, the so-called “Stop the Steal” flag was placed there by his wife, who objected to a neighbor’s sign that referred to Donald Trump with an expletive. But “judicial experts” interviewed by the New York Times insist that the flag violated ethics rules. Justice Alito is regarded as the Court’s second-most conservative member (Justice Clarence Thomas comes in first.) Related post

Faced with an “overwhelmed immigration system” that can take years to process asylum claims, the Justice Department has announced a new process that more promptly removes “individuals who do not qualify for relief.” Single non-citizen adults whose claims “are ready to be resolved promptly” will be placed on an expedited docket, and immigration judges will render final decisions within 180 days. A rule to that effect will be published in the Federal Register. Immigration updates   Related post

Illinois requires that would-be gun owners get an FOID card, which confirms they are eligible to have a gun. But authorities have not checked on more than eighty-thousand card holders who had their rights revoked due to a felony conviction, mental health issue or other serious reason. Police are supposed to take their cards and insure they don’t have guns. Illinois has provided some funding for revocation teams, but resources  are lacking. Meanwhile gun misuse by revoked card holders continues. Related post

Police throughout the U.S. sell seized guns and used duty weapons to dealers, auction houses and their own officers. Ninety percent of agencies (n=145) that were contacted by reporters confirmed that they had resold firearms. Records of 67 agencies reveal that they resold over 87,000 guns during the last twenty years. Some police guns also get stolen. Since 2006, more than fifty-thousand firearms that were once in police custody were recovered from crimes. ATF gun trace report   Related post

5/16/24 A deep-dive by the New York Times into fatal shootings across the U.S. revealed substantially higher percentages during the pandemic years in the percentage of city residents who live within a quarter-mile of at least one killing. In large cities, the proportion rose from 31% during 2016-19 to 38% during 2020-2023. Cities with traditionally high rates of violence experienced the largest gains. In Atlanta the increase was from 36% to 58%; in Columbus, from 28% to 41%. Throughout, the residents of poorer neighborhoods were the most substantially affected. Related posts 1   2

Chicago man Gerald Reed did thirty years for killing two men in 1990. But in 2021 Illinois’ Governor commuted his sentence due to concerns that Reed’s confession was extracted through torture ordered by notorious one-time Chicago PD Commander Jon Burge. Reed was released. But although he couldn’t be sent back to prison for the murders, he was just retried. And a jury found him innocent. Still, he remains locked up. Reed committed a robbery in Indiana soon after he was freed the first time. That got him ten years, a term that he’s still serving. His lawyer, though, warns that a lawsuit is coming. Related post

With 37,370 arrests in April, San Diego County has become the most popular spot for migrants to illegally enter the U.S. Eighty percent aren’t from the usual places, Mexico and Central America. Instead, they came from more faraway lands, ranging from Colombia and Ecuador to Turkey and, in especially large numbers, China. Texas used to be a favorite entry point, but crackdowns in Mexico, plus the lone star state’s hostility to migrants, apparently shifted things West, to Tucson and San Diego. Immigration updates   Related post

5/15/24 According to the FBI’s just- released LEOKA report, 60 law enforcement officers were feloniously slain in 2023. That’s one fewer than in 2022, when 61 were killed, and 13 less than in 2021, when 73 fell victim. But the overall toll was the highest of any three year period in the last 20 years. Ten-year highs were reached in 2023 in two other rates: officers assaulted and injured (but not killed) with guns, and assaulted by any means. Of the latter, most involved responses to simple assaults on citizens, followed by drug violations. Related post

As part of a greater effort to deal with a burgeoning opioid problem and encourage users to seek treatment, in January 2023 British Columbia decriminalized the public possession and use of small quantities of hard drugs. That apparently caused open drug use to spread to previously unaffected neighborhoods, but police no longer had the legal means to respond. So while the possession of small quantities of hard drugs remains legal, their use in public was just re-criminalized. Activists, though, fear that penalizing users and driving them back into the shadows is precisely the wrong approach. Drug legalization updates   Related post

5/14/24 “Dressed in black and armed with a rifle,” a 16-year old male teen walked into an Abbeville, Louisiana Catholic church on Sunday morning, May 12, during a First Communion Mass for sixty children. Parishioners promptly grabbed the youth and held him for police. He was charged with “terrorizing” and underage gun possession and taken to a hospital for a mental evaluation. Related post

A detailed AP inquiry into 1,036 deaths of unarmed citizens who tangled with police during a ten -year period revealed that officers breached three or more guidelines in 45% of the cases. And in “about half,” medical reports indicated police “caused or contributed” to the deaths. A majority of the fatalities - 740 - involved citizens being pinned to the ground, face down, and often with considerable force. Of these, more than a third involved drugs or alcohol. AP database   Related post

5/13/24 In January then-LAPD Chief Michel Moore touted a 17 percent reduction in Los Angeles homicides, from 392 in 2022 to 327 in 2023. Robberies and nonfatal shootings were also down, and reported violent crime fell three percent. But according to LAPD’s 2023 use of force year-end review, officer-involved shootings (OIS) increased, going from 31 to 34, and major (“categorical”) uses of force increased from 53 to 70. And while five fewer suspects in 2023 OIS incidents were armed with guns, eleven more were armed with other weapons. LAPD report   Related post

Two Fontana, Calif. police officers pulled over Alan Metka for a traffic infraction. During what began as a casual interaction Metka, a large man, suddenly placed the female officer in a headlock. Her partner then shot Metka, who had a pistol in his pocket. Metka survived. He reportedly has “an extensive criminal history.” We confirmed through San Bernardino county court that in 2021 Metka pled guilty to felony possession of a destructive device (carjacking and assault charges were dismissed.) He apparently drew a brief jail term and was placed on probation. Related post

Stolen guns are often used to commit violent crimes. So where do they come from? A recent study reveals that more than half of guns stolen in 2022 came from cars. That’s a steep increase from a decade earlier, when vehicle thefts were the source for one in four stolen guns. Most vehicles are parked at residences when thieves strike. Memphis endured the highest rate of these thefts in 2022, when three-thousand guns were stolen from cars. Related post

5/10/24 DOJ is contesting a law recently enacted by Iowa that prohibits the presence of persons who have been legally excluded from the U.S. and requires judges to expel them. According to a Federal lawsuit, Iowa’s law, which Governor Kim Reynolds signed on April 10, “impedes the federal government’s ability to enforce entry and removal provisions of federal law and interferes with its conduct of foreign relations.”  Iowa bill  Immigration updates   Related post

An Okaloosa County, Fla. deputy shot and killed an off-duty airman who answered his apartment door while armed with a gun. The deputy was responding to a complaint of a “disturbance in progress,” and when he arrived at the complex a woman told him that the situation in unit 1401 was “getting out of hand.” Airman Roger Fortson came to the door holding a handgun, but it was supposedly pointed at the ground. He was ordered to drop the gun, then was quickly shot. His family’s lawyers claim that the deputy was at the wrong apartment, but the Sheriff denies it. Bodycam video
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5/9/24 Police are identifying student protesters, putting names to faces, through the same techniques that landed many Capitol rioters in jail. A.I. is being used to compare facial images from neighborhood and school security cameras and officer bodycams to existing photos that are present online. Videos are also being scanned for license plates of vehicles that may have been involved. And police hope that citizens will tip them off about the identities of some of the violent protesters, particularly those who wore masks, from videos that were posted online. Related post

Concerns that Houston police shut down thousands of investigations because of insufficient resources apparently prompted Chief Troy Finner’s sudden retirement. In February he announced that 4,000-plus inactive sexual assault cases were being re-examined. Most were soon closed, but eighty with DNA hits remain open. It’s not a recent problem, or only with sex assaults. In 2018, before he was Chief, he had blamed “lack of personnel” for ignoring a “road rage report”. But the Mayor said that the issue had become overly distracting, and he agreed it was time for the Chief to leave. Related post

Ex-Memphis cop Patric J. Ferguson and a civilian are pending State trial for the 2021 on-duty kidnapping and murder of Robert Howard. His body was dumped in a river and his car was sold for scrap metal. Out on bail, they’re now back in custody facing Federal civil rights charges for the same acts. And the recent, April 12th. death of Memphis officer Joseph McKinney, who was killed during a shootout with suspect Jaylen Lobley, is now being attributed to shots fired by fellow officers. Lobley had been released without bail one month earlier after being arrested in a stolen car in which he carried a firearm that had been illegally converted to fire fully automatically. Related posts 1   2

5/8/24 In 1998 two L.A.-area street gangsters, John Klene, 18 and Eduardo Dumbrique, 15, drew life without parole for murdering a rival the previous year. While family members said both were elsewhere when the killing took place, detectives assembled circumstantial tidbits and accounts from self- interested, allegedly manipulated witnesses into a tale that convinced jurors. Years later, an imprisoned gang member confessed to the crime. But his account wasn’t passed on, and it wasn’t until 2021, after innocence project lawyers had stepped in, that Klene and Dumbrique were exonerated and released. They will now divide a $24 million settlement, which L.A. County just approved. Innocence Project   Related post

$3.375 million dollars. That’s what L.A. County has agreed to pay the father of Dijon Kizzee, whom deputies fatally shot in 2020. Kizzee was purportedly riding his bicycle on the wrong side of the street, and he fled on foot when deputies tried to stop him. That turned into a scuffle. Kizzee freed himself and supposedly reached for a gun he had dropped on the ground. Deputies repeatedly fired, killing him. While the deputies were cleared by prosecutors, officials now agree that the officers overreacted. A gun was recovered. Kizzee, a felon, had been twice convicted for gun possession. Related post

5/7/24 During the late evening hours of May 4 two suspected gang members opened fire on a group gathered in a parking lot near a Long Beach, California nightclub. Witnesses say that as many as twenty shots were fired. Seven male adults were wounded, four critically. Both shooters fled; no arrests have yet been made. According to the Census, the location of the incident, ZIP 90805, has a poverty rate of 18.9 percent. LBPD news release   Related post

Information that a student had a weapon led University of California at Riverside campus police to execute a search warrant on his dorm room. According to an official news release, officers seized “an assault rifle registered to [the] student, ammunition, five high-capacity magazines, and hand-drawn images in a journal depicting a violent act.”  The student was ordered off campus and suspended. The student’s age was not revealed. California law allows persons 18 and older to have and acquire rifles. Related post

Gun violence continues to beset D.C. On Friday, May 3rd. one of the many bullets fired during an exchange of gunfire between a vehicle and persons on the street flew into a classroom at Dunbar High School. A 17-year old student was grazed in the head and wound up in the hospital. Two teens, one 17, the other 18, were arrested. Later that day, Ty’ah Settles was shot and killed when the SUV in which she was riding unexpectedly wound up in the middle of #8220;a gun battle” near her home. Ty’ah was three. Related post

5/6/24 A meta-analysis of 56 studies concludes that crime can be significantly reduced in beset areas by addressing problems of physical disorder (e.g., trash, graffiti) and of “social incivilities” including public urination, prostitution, panhandling, open drug dealing, loitering and drunkenness. While police can help, their benefit comes not from their application of “aggressive order-maintenance strategies” but rather through their participation in joint efforts with service providers and community groups.
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According to the Public Policy Institute of California, the State’s police staffing levels are at their  lowest since the early 1990’s. The largest decline occurred during the 2007-2009 Great Recession; a lesser drop, which is still ongoing, began in 2020. That’s troubling, as research suggests that each additional officer leads to 1.3 fewer violent crimes and 4.2 fewer property crimes each year. Assessments of the quality of police protection are also less favorable. In 2011 78% of respondents rated it “good” or “excellent”. That’s now 50%: 55% for Whites, 49% for Asians, 44% for Latinos, and 36% for Blacks. Related post

In 2019 Kansas City PD implemented a 1-year “place-based crime” policing initiative that sought to tamp down violence in problem areas. Police used data to inform patrol officers “where to go and what environmental features to focus on” when they got there. Police tactics were designed for both short and oloong-term benefits. An evaluation revealed that crime was comparatively reduced in intervention areas by 22.6 percent. Related post

In its struggle against unserialized “ghost guns”, California enacted Penal Code sec. 29185, which prohibits anyone other than a licensed gun manufacturer from having or acquiring a CNC milling machine whose primary purpose is to make firearms. One such machine, the “Ghost Gunner,” was being sold online by Defense Distributed. San Diego County is now suing the firm for returning the same machine to the market. Renamed the “Coast Runner”, it’s on sale to all comers, licensed or not. Related post

According to the Wisconsin Dept. of Justice, the student shot and killed by Mt. Horeb police (he’s been identified by media sources as 14-year old Damian Haglund, an eight-grader) was encountered near the entrance to the village middle school armed with a Ruger .177 caliber pellet rifle. He pointed it at responding officers and did not drop it when ordered to do so. A review of Haglund’s X account (link supplied by Heavy.com) reveals many disturbing, threatening posts (most recently, “my last morning” on May 1st.) and a fascination with guns. Related post

Lots of Los Angeles bus riders went without on May 3rd. as “dozens” of drivers struck to protest a string of assaults on operators, including a recent stabbing “while passengers watched.” Metro logged 168 assaults in 2023, and there was an assault “every other day” in February. Work will soon begin to install hard partitions between drivers and passengers. There’s also a move to create a special Metro police force that would take the place of present contract guards. But that seems a long way off. Related post

Last year Virginia prosecutors dropped charges against two of the three hospital workers accused in the “piling on” death of Irvo Otieno. Prosecutors are now recommending that charges also be dropped against five of the seven deputies originally charged in Mr. Otieno’s death. If carried through, that would leave two deputies and a hospital worker still facing second-degree murder charges for allegedly asphyxiating the shackled but combative man in the reception area of a mental hospital. Related post

5/3/24 Protests over Israel’s response to the Hamas attack beset college campuses across the U.S. Some, such as U of Minn., have compromised and allowed non-disruptive encampments to remain. But many universities have called in police. According to the AP, arrests now exceed 2,000. At UCLA a storming by anti-protesters led to many arrests and a forced clearing of the encampment. That episode has led to criticism of administrators for failing to protect students, and of police for responding in inadequate numbers and with insufficient zeal. NY Times college map and compilation of arrests Related post

Can police officers detain someone for simply trying to avoid them? Not according to the California Supreme Court. Reversing an appellate court opinion, the Justices agreed that such behavior can be considered as “relevant context”. Police are free to engage with citizens. But “before an officer can compel compliance with a show of authority, articulable facts must support a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.” The case stemmed from LAPD’s detention of a man in a gang-infested area and the search of his vehicle, which turned up a gun and drugs. People v. Flores   Related post

5/2/24 Gary Washington was 25 when a Maryland jury convicted him of murdering a man during a drug dispute. A 12-year old boy who was present when Fareem Ali was killed ID’d Washington as the shooter, and neither his denials nor the testimony of others who said the killer was Lawrence Thomas held sway. The child later admitted that he was pressured to ID Washington, and Thomas eventually told a third party that he was the real killer. Washington had served 31 years when prosecutors, now convinced of his innocence, dismissed the case in 2019. Maryland just awarded him $3 million. Related post

In Mt. Horeb, a small Wisconsin city of about 7,000 pop. approx. 23 miles West of Madison, local police shot and killed a student outside a local middle school. Officers were responding to a call about an armed person and fired multiple times. Authorities have so far declined to provide any further details, including the kind of weapon the student carried or whether it had been fired. Classes were in session, and the campus was locked down after students and faculty heard several gunshots. A nonprofit Madison newssite reported that the student, who was 14, had been observed by a fellow-eight grader as he tried to break into the school through a cafeteria window, first using the butt of a rifle, then firing shots at the glass. He had also posted threatening comments in foreign languages on a Snapchat account. Related post

5/1/24 A Deputy U.S. Marshal, two State corrections officers and a local police officer were killed, and four local police officers were wounded, when they sought to arrest a felon wanted for gun violations at a residence in Charlotte, North Carolina. Terry Clark Hughes, 39, inflicted the casualties by firing on the officers with an AR-15 rifle from the home’s second story as they approached. Clark was later shot and killed when he exited the residence. Two female occupants of the home are being questioned. Chief’s briefing  Related posts   1   2   3

DOJ announced that the Administration is moving forward on a proposal to reclassify marijuana from Schedule I, which makes it illegal for any use, to Schedule III, which allows medical use and lowers the penalties for illicit transactions. But observers who see marijuana as a “gateway” to hard drugs worry about encouraging its use. International treaties would also be affected, and DEA could be badly stressed, as it would have to oversee marijuana dispensaries that wish to take on a pharmaceutical role. Drug legalization updates   Related post