Alleged serial killer and convicted rapist Anthony Sowell is creating even bigger problems for the Cleveland police department, who have been accused of joking about missing victims, passing the blame onto those victims and outright incompetence. As of today, the body count is up to 10 (plus one skull), and people around the world are wondering what went wrong.
posted by bitter-girl.com on Nov 4, 2009 - 69 comments

The Wellesley College Daily Police Log is available online. Unfortunately, the individual days are PDFs. But it gives a glimpse into the gritty realities of day-to-day policing. Case Closed.
posted by Mayor Curley on Mar 26, 2009 - 27 comments

15 year old girl in holding cell beaten by Seattle Cop Caught on Camera. 15 year old girl in holding cell beaten by Seattle Cop. Not surprisingly the cop's lawyer didn't want this video published.
posted by ginky on Feb 28, 2009 - 157 comments

Cops regularly perjure themselves - Blue Lies. Though few officers will confess to lying -- after all, it's a crime -- work by researchers and a 1990s commission appointed to examine police corruption shows there's a tacit agreement among many officers that lying about how evidence is seized keeps criminals off the street.... Criminal-justice researchers say it's difficult to quantify how often perjury is being committed. According to a 1992 survey, prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges in Chicago said they thought that, on average, perjury by police occurs 20% of the time in which defendants claim evidence was illegally seized. "It is an open secret long shared by prosecutors, defense lawyers and judges that perjury is widespread among law enforcement officers," though it's difficult to detect in specific cases, said Alex Kozinski, a federal appeals-court judge, in the 1990s. [more inside]
posted by caddis on Jan 30, 2009 - 75 comments

"A detective does his job in the only possible way. He follows the requirements of the law to the letter -- or close enough so as not to jeopardize his case. Just as carefully, he ignores that law's spirit and intent. He becomes a salesman, a huckster as thieving and silver-tongued as any man who ever moved used cars or aluminum siding -- more so, in fact, when you consider that he's selling long prison terms to customers who have no genuine need for the product." [more inside]
posted by dhammond on Nov 29, 2007 - 95 comments

WIRED: A cell mobile phone helped police find the body of missing student Kelly Nolan. "The average citizen is not aware that they are carrying a location-tracking device in their pocket..."
posted by chuckdarwin on Jul 18, 2007 - 51 comments

Studies in Scarlet: Marriage & Sexuality in the US & UK, 1815-1914 , courtesy of Harvard University, features digitized trial narratives for over 400 cases--some famous, most not. (Harvard also has a more general collection of trial narratives here.) There are earlier trial narratives at Rictor Norton's Homosexuality in Eighteenth Century England: A Sourcebook and Early Eighteenth-Century Newspaper Reports; see also CrimeCulture's Rogue's Gallery and a Victorian anthology, Curiosities of Street Literature (originally published in 1871). Albert Borowitz has a brief history of true crime narratives here. For more historical criminality from the investigator's point of view, check out the Forensic Medicine Archives Project at the University of Glasgow. (Main link via VICTORIA.)
posted by thomas j wise on Mar 15, 2007 - 13 comments

Indian police smell pretty. Police in an Indian province are airing a new strategy for crime fighting and community relations: "Police in India’s Western state of Gujarat are to wear new uniforms impregnated with the fragrance of flowers and citrus to help improve their image."
posted by dbarefoot on Mar 14, 2007 - 21 comments

The Young Brothers Massacre. The gunfight that killed the most law enforcement officials is US history did not happen at Waco or Kansas City, but just outside of Springfield, MO (which was also home to the first famous "high noon" shootout of the Wild West). On January 2, 1932, the two Young Brothers murdered the six policemen who'd come to arrest one of them for killing a town marshall. Not much later, they met their own end. This 1932 quickie pulp remains the best (or at least most readable) version of the story. (Warning: a few postmortem photos are included).
posted by Bookhouse on Dec 2, 2006 - 8 comments

The History of the Metropolitan Police offers a useful overview of both policework and assorted Shocking Crimes in nineteenth-century London. But there are so many more Victorian detectives--not to mention Victorian murderers--lurking about on the net. Sneak a peek at Charles Booth's notebooks, which record his walks with various London police officers, or read Charles Dickens' famous account of a night out with Inspector Charles Field (who later inspired Bleak House's Inspector Bucket). Put John Mapp on trial. Read some broadsides. Try to avoid Dr. Cream and Mary Ann Cotton. Executions, anyone? The Victorian Dictionary reprints a number of Victorian newspaper articles about criminal activity (click on "crime" to see a detailed listing). Of course, you can't forget this fellow.
posted by thomas j wise on Mar 31, 2006 - 7 comments

Marcus McKinney was arrested Wednesday for the gang-related shooting of Michael Jacola at Orange Park High School in Jacksonville. Florida. Marcus was caught because left his photo on his Myspace.com profile alongside various comments about belonging to a gang.
posted by tapeguy on Feb 24, 2006 - 40 comments

NewsFilter: I know a lot of people are concerned about Big Brother, but my response to that is, if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?
posted by I Love Tacos on Feb 18, 2006 - 154 comments

Tawdry, tawdry stuff "Another prison guard smuggling dope, another cop caught tweaking, an airport security professional trying to get rich, a horny Florida deputy, and a Michigan police chief who sounds like a real decadent party animal." Lots of not-so-fun reading in Corrupt Cops Stories, a weekly feature in the Drug War Chronicle. The archive goes back a few years.
posted by mediareport on Aug 8, 2005 - 11 comments

Composite Drawings of suspects wanted by the Michigan State Police. With photos of the suspect if they are captured, for comparison. Via.
posted by Divine_Wino on May 26, 2005 - 49 comments

Chicagocrime.org takes the Chicago Police Department's Citizen ICAM and puts it into an easily searchable -- by crime type, street, date, district or location type -- format, along with a Google Map. Who knew police station parking lots were so dangerous?
posted by me3dia on May 19, 2005 - 10 comments

LA Deputies: 100+ rounds, two wounded. After firing nearly 120 rounds, some Los Angeles County Sherriff's Department deputies manage to wound the driver of an SUV they'd been pursuing, one of their own number, and punch lots of 9mm holes in a Compton neighborhood. Report says no weapon in the suspect's vehicle.
posted by alumshubby on May 10, 2005 - 50 comments

Fighting crime with Photoshop. For the past three years, a twelve-year-old girl has been sexually abused, with a photographic record in circulation via the internet. Police have been tracking the photographs, but have not released them for fear of tipping off her kidnappers—until today, with the girl photoshopped out of the pictures. Now they're asking the public to help identify the locations. So far the response has been overwhelming, and has narrowed the search for the crime scene to a single hotel.
posted by DrJohnEvans on Feb 4, 2005 - 72 comments

And you thought your wedding day was bad? Bridezilla strikes again, resulting the police being her wedding photographer, her wedding suite a cell, this hilarious news story (RealMedia), and soon-to-be national infamy.
posted by MegoSteve on Aug 19, 2003 - 38 comments

Groom Tries To Keep Pimp Hand Strong With Dowry Demand - Gets Arrested A bride who got the police to arrest her bridegroom has become something of a celebrity in India. Nisha Sharma, 21, called the police after her father was asked for more dowry money just minutes before her wedding ceremony.
posted by turbanhead on May 15, 2003 - 6 comments

The return of the dangerous classes: crime control in the 21st century. "The language of crime control seems to be today on the verge of eclipsing all others - in particular that of social rights – and becoming the single, all encompassing goal of social policy."
Sounds topical? John Lea's work on the changes postfordism has brought to crime control are even more relevant now than they were when he wrote them back in the nineties. [more]
posted by slipperywhenwet on Apr 30, 2003 - 3 comments

The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, London, 1674 to 1834 A fantastic, fully searchable database of criminal cases from another era, e.g., speaking scandalous and reflecting Words on His Majesty, assault with sodomitical intent and the appalling Mortal Wound with a Pitchfork on the hinder part of the Head. The Old Bailey's published record was a popular read at the time. Also included is a typology of crimes, a history of London policing before the bobbies, essays about gender and punishment and lots more historical background. [via the always marvelous Researchbuzz]
posted by mediareport on Apr 3, 2003 - 9 comments

Sex Crimes and equal treatment "under the law." (pun anyone?)

Outraged prosecutors said Thursday that they will appeal the sentence given to Edwin "Ed" Mann, a former Orlando Police Department sex-crimes detective, for having a sexual affair with a 14-year-old girl who had earlier dated his son.

Mann, a former leader in Cops for Christ, pleaded guilty last week to four felony charges resulting from an ongoing sexual relationship he had with the girl two years ago when he was a sex-crimes detective.

Do you think being "religious" and policeman merits special treatment from a judge?
posted by nofundy on Nov 26, 2002 - 37 comments

Hate crime police raid 150 homes 'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,' it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.'
posted by kablam on Nov 13, 2002 - 14 comments

It is not a crime to look at bomb-making websites... or so says Lieutenant Jason Ciaschini, police spokesman in Punta Gorda, where a Briton who was using a computer to look at bomb-making websites is now being held at Charlotte County Jail on immigration violations.
Florida police had evacuated the library and arrested him after he looked at bomb-making websites, and found suspicious liquids in his backpack.
"Looking up stuff on the Internet - everybody has freedom to do that," he also said.
posted by Blake on Jul 30, 2002 - 6 comments

"It is not an overstatement to describe the arrests in Tulia as an atrocity. The entire operation was the work of a single police officer who claimed to have conducted an 18-month undercover operation. The arrests were made solely on the word of this officer, Tom Coleman, a white man with a wretched work history, who routinely referred to black people as "niggers" and who frequently found himself in trouble with the law."
posted by artifex on Jul 29, 2002 - 29 comments

Police offers will soon have to disclose why they have stopped someone - I thought this sounded like a reasonably good idea... especially since on more than one occasion I've been pulled over just so they can "check my car over"... until I read this: "Forces will be told to set up panels of community representatives to scrutinise stop and search records and check that ethnic minorities are not being targeted disproportionately.". Can anyone else see where this is going? "Oh, I'm afraid we can't arrest Mr. X, because we've arrested too many [insert random racial group here] this month".
posted by robzster1977 on Mar 11, 2002 - 17 comments

NDb -(60% x Nc/Nt +40% x Dc/Dt) x 17,585
"Mathematicians called in by the Metropolitan Police think they have worked out the best way to beat crime in the capital."
Are there any UK mathematician/cops out there that know what the variables actually are?
posted by badstone on Jan 17, 2002 - 8 comments

Naughty Children to Be Registered as Potential Criminals in the UK UK police are to set up a secret database of children as young as three who they fear might grow up to become criminals. What next, DNA testing on embryos to find out if they have a genetic leaning towards criminal behaviour? Link courtesy of Backwash.
posted by Jubey on Nov 26, 2001 - 14 comments

Strathclyde Police, Scotland, given the right to take DNA samples from anyone arrested. Previously DNA samples were taken only from those suspected of murders, sex attacks or serious assaults.

Sir John Orr, Chief Constable of Strathclyde Police, denied that compulsory testing would infringe people's human rights. He said: "The tests are not invasive, not intrusive and not against civil liberties. The vast majority of people will be asked only to give a simple mouth swab, which can be done in seconds. This is a magnificent tool which will help detect crime and the public should be very pleased."

Read: you have nothing to fear if you're innocent...
posted by methylsalicylate on Mar 20, 2001 - 22 comments

APB Online is also interesting if one's into that kind of think. When I'm feeling blue, I just stop here, and think of how lucky I am to live in a middle class town.
posted by tdecius on Oct 5, 1999 - 0 comments