What started as a report of a convenience store robbery near the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology last night has sprawled into a chaotic manhunt for the perpetrators of
the recent terrorist attack on the Boston Marathon.
The deadly pursuit, involving
a policeman's murder, a carjacking, a violent chase with thrown explosives, and the death of one suspect, has resulted in
Governor Deval Patrick ordering
an unprecedented lockdown of the entire Boston metropolitan area as an army of law enforcement searches house by house for the remaining gunman.
The Associated Press has identified the duo as
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and his 19-year-old brother Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, who remains at large. Both are
immigrants from wartorn
Chechnya in southwestern Russia.
The Guardian liveblog is good for quick updates, and
Reddit's updating crowdsourced timeline of events that has often outpaced mainstream media coverage of the situation. You can also get real-time reports straight from the (Java-based)
local police scanner.
posted by Rhaomi
on Apr 19, 2013 -
4937 comments
When it hits you, no matter how much you expect it, it comes as a surprise — a literal shock, like a baseball bat swung hard and squarely into the small of your back. That sensation — which is actually two sharp steel barbs piercing your skin and shooting electricity into your central nervous system — is followed by the harshest, most violent charlie horse you can imagine coursing through your entire body. With the pain comes the terrifying awareness that you are completely helpless. You cannot move. You lose control of almost everything and the only place you can go is down, face first to the floor.
That’s what it feels like to be hit with a Taser.
posted by Horace Rumpole
on Apr 5, 2013 -
74 comments
In 1962, the Mansfield (Ohio) Police Department stationed officers armed with a movie camera behind a two-way mirror in a public restroom known for its "cruisy" atmosphere. With the help of the footage shot, dozens of men were arrested, prosecuted, and convicted on
sodomy charges, which at the time carried mandatory minimum sentences of a year in prison. In 2007, the original surveillance footage was obtained by filmmaker
William E.
Jones. He's screened the unedited 56 minute film as
Tearoom at festivals and museums the world over, providing a clandestine look at the scrutiny small-town Midwestern gay men faced in the 1960's. [
warning:
explicit,
NSFW material lies beyond most links]
[more inside]
posted by item
on Feb 9, 2012 -
82 comments
In 1991,
Troy Davis was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1989 murder of policeman Mark MacPhail in a Savannah, Georgia parking lot. Since then, seven of the nine prosecution eyewitnesses have
recanted all or part of their testimony, with some citing pressure from the police to make false statements. An exception is Sylvester "Redd" Coles, who made the initial report of Davis’s guilt, and is regarded by the defense as the chief suspect. New witnesses have sworn affidavits that Coles confessed the crime to them. An
array of figures have called for a stay of execution, including death-penalty supporters Senator Bob Barr and former FBI director William S. Sessions.
Today, the Georgia
Board of Pardons and Paroles denied clemency; barring
action from the District Attorney, Davis is
set to be executed by lethal injection tomorrow at 7pm. [
Previously]
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94
on Sep 20, 2011 -
432 comments
Your Sweet Justice story for the day: In February, K.C. was riding her bike home from work. While waiting at a stop light, she felt a slight bump from the car behind her, followed by laughter from within. K.C. wasn't looking for a fight, and did her best to ignore this. Disappointed with his failure to elicit a response, the driver bumped her again, this time a bit harder. This is when K.C. pulled out her police badge, and
things started to get weird...
posted by schmod
on Jun 14, 2011 -
94 comments
“You know what Miami gets in their crime show? They get detectives that look like models, and they drive around in sports cars. And you know what New York gets, they get these incredibly tough prosecutors, competent cops that solve the most crazy, complicated cases. —What Baltimore gets is this reinforced notion that it's a city full of hopelessness, despair and dysfunction. There was very little effort—beyond self-serving—to highlight the great and wonderful things happening here, and to indict the whole population, the criminal justice system, the school system.” —
Baltimore Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III, on the effect of
The Wire on Baltimore’s reputation.
[more inside]
posted by kipmanley
on Jan 18, 2011 -
119 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
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
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
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
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
