On January 18, 2016, Daniel Shaver, 26, a Texas pest control worker, was killed in cold blood in the hallway of a Mesa, Arizona, hotel by a police officer who was later acquitted of murder by a jury (read details here). Shaver, who was intoxicated, didn’t exercise perfect judgment. He had a pe[...]
Posts Tagged ‘Police Abuse’
November 25th, 2022 - 2:50 pm § in Law and Courts, Politics
This police killing cost taxpayers over $10 million
November 11th, 2022 - 11:30 am § in Law and Courts, Racism
Another awful police department
Vallejo, California, is one of America’s most diverse cities; its population is roughly evenly split between whites, blacks, Asians, and Hispanics (details here). Not too surprisingly, it also has one of America’s worst and most racist police departments. I’m not sure where to star[...]
November 7th, 2022 - 5:23 pm § in Law and Courts
Let’s defund dumb cops
I’m a hardliner on crime; I want more cops, tough prosecutors, and long prison sentences for violent and career criminals. But we don’t make streets less safe by eliminating from police budgets the salaries and lawsuit settlements of cops like these. (Read story here.) Return to The-Ave.[...]
October 26th, 2022 - 10:56 am § in Law and Courts, Politics
Fire this cop
The Tulsa PD put him on “restrictive duty,” but that’s not enough. A police badge is the power of the state. It’s dangerous in the wrong hands. Do you want your city patrolled by someone who tells a Citizen Police Academy class, “Nothing is more dangerous to America tha[...]
September 2nd, 2022 - 11:10 pm § in Law and Courts
Police misconduct stories on 9/2/22
Case #1 “An East Tennessee law enforcer who bragged about the ‘tune-up gloves’ he wore when beating suspects to remind them ‘who the boss was” and shouted ‘I’m not sorry for what I’ve done’ when a judge convicted him of civil-rights abuses is headed to feder[...]
August 2nd, 2022 - 3:47 pm § in Humor, Law and Courts
How to go out in style
From Daily Mail (here): “A terminally-ill university lecturer who mooned a speed camera for his bucket list has been cleared of any criminal wrongdoing …. Darrell Meekcom, 55, was arrested in the garden of his home in Kidderminster, Worcestershire, by several officers after dropping his [...]
July 26th, 2022 - 12:26 pm § in Law and Courts, Racism
Cincinatti cop clarifies she doesn’t call all black people the N-word, only ones she doesn’t like
A Cincinnati police officer “caught on body camera letting loose a stream of expletives and racial slurs is defending herself by claiming she wasn’t referring to all African-Americans,” but only the 16-year-old who flipped her off. Officer Rose Valentino didn’t deny saying, &[...]
April 27th, 2022 - 8:51 pm § in Misc.
Seattle suburb settles police shooting for $7.5 million
The facts are complicated. Andrea Churna (photo, left), 39, daughter of a retired Michigan state police commander, and ex-wife of a Microsoft lawyer, kept a gun in her Redmond, Washington, apartment because she thought she was being stalked. On the night of September 20, 2020, she called police beca[...]
April 17th, 2022 - 2:46 pm § in News Media, Politics
Another shooting, another GOP rant without solutions
Forgive me for yawning; I can’t help it. This is getting tiresome. As you know, a 62-year-old drifter wounded 10 people on a New York City subway last week. Police quickly arrested him, and we know he has a dozen prior misdemeanor arrests. He’s almost certainly mentally ill, but was able[...]
Chief hired to reform America’s worst police department fired; did the police union get her?
Aurora, Colorado, arguably has America’s worst police department. Its cops are infamous. Their own chief calls them “despicable.” So begins a posting I wrote last year (read it here). Then, Aurora PD was back in the news because of yet another police brutality incident. Now, because the ci[...]