On the heels of the highly publicized Missouri raid that ended in the death of a corgi (
previously), a seven year-old girl has been
killed in a
no-knock raid in Detroit. According to one of Radley Balko's
commenters, the family may have been targeted because they shared a two-family duplex with the target of the raid.
posted by lalex
on May 17, 2010 -
183 comments
Two years ago, Police Officer
Adrian Schoolcraft, an officer in Brooklyn's 81st Precinct, became gravely concerned about how the public was being served. To document his concerns, he began carrying around a digital sound recorder, secretly recording his colleagues and superiors. Initially he carried the recorder to protect himself from the
civilian complaints that can result from street encounters. But then he began to document things happening in the precinct that bothered him. After he ran afoul of precinct politics, he recorded what he viewed as retaliation by his bosses. The
Village Voice is releasing portions of the tapes in batches and is also publishing several stories to deal with the issues that the recordings present.
In this week's installment, the Voice looks at the roll calls at the Bed-Stuy precinct and the conflicting instructions given to street cops, who must look busy at all times, while actually suppressing crime reports.
posted by anotherpanacea
on May 6, 2010 -
93 comments
California police have
raided the home of Gizmodo editor
Jason Chen, and seized his computers. Chen posted Gizmodo's
review of Apple's next-generation iPhone, which had been left in a bar by a staff member (
previously).
Media reports say that police are considering criminal charges against the person who sold the phone to Gizmodo. Assuming that the police were not investigating Chen himself for breaking the law, the case
raises the question of whether bloggers such as Chen are journalists under the law.
posted by Dasein
on Apr 26, 2010 -
471 comments
During the last week, a senior detective in Novorossiysk, Russia named
Alexei Dymovsky had a viral hit on YouTube with a series of videos (in Russian:
1,
2. With
English subtitles: 1) complaining about working conditions, accusing officers of corruption, and claiming that he and other police were ordered to stage crimes in order to put innocent people in jail. Dymovsky was promptly fired, but the Russian government has since admitted that parts of the police have been turned into
criminal businesses. More
here and
here.
posted by twoleftfeet
on Nov 12, 2009 -
11 comments
JERICHO, Ark. — It was just too much, having to return to court twice on the same day to contest yet another traffic ticket, and Fire Chief Don Payne didn't hesitate to tell the judge what he thought of the police and their speed traps. The response from cops?
They shot him. Right there in court.
posted by finite
on Sep 3, 2009 -
151 comments
Robert Pinter, a 52-year-old gay man who was arrested for prostitution at the Blue Door in the East Village on Oct. 10, spoke at the town hall meeting. He said a young man ... cruised him in the store. He was "charming and persistent, and we agreed to go home for consensual sex, but as we were leaving he said, 'I want to pay you $50 [to have sex].' I didn't respond, but I thought it was strange," Pinter recounted. As the men left the store, Pinter said, a group of men who did not show police identification pushed him against the wall. "I thought I'd been set up by a gang," he said. "I asked them why they were doing this to me. I was totally clueless. They handcuffed me and said, 'Why the f--- do you think we're arresting you — loitering for the purpose of prostitution.'"
Reminiscent of the
criminalizing of consensual gay sex in the Stonewall era, New York City cops are
using questionable tactics to target, entrap, and falsely arrest gay men.
posted by orthogonality
on Feb 2, 2009 -
63 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
The story of a speeding ticket, in three acts (click to see full-sized, readable versions). The Cliffs Notes version: man gets speeding ticket complete with a typo on the date of issue, man responds to police with amusing tales of time-travel, infants driving, and automobile prototypes. I won't spoil the ending.
posted by mathowie
on Nov 3, 2008 -
88 comments
