The Tampa Bay area is reeling from four police shootings, two fatal, two non-fatal only because the officers were wearing bullet-proof vests.
This morning, Tampa officers Jeffrey Kocab and David Curtis were killed at a traffic stop. David Curtis was the father of four young children. He worked the overnight shift so he could spend more time with his children. Jeffrey Kocab was about to become a father: he leaves behind a wife who is nine months pregnant. ...
Remember when sticking daisies in riot policemen’s guns used to at least be, you know, original?
Vietnam War Protesters, 1967 (Bernie Boston) ...
Just when you think the stupid barrel’s run dry:
Yes, that is a wanted poster inked onto the arm of defendant Tyree Gland, on trial for killing a young girl, Deandre Brown, in a drive-by shooting. ...
Someone claiming to be cop-killer David Powell’s cousin has written me, accusing Powell’s victims and the justice system of various sins. Unsupported allegations like these too often pass for debate over the death penalty in the mainstream media. Therefore, it’s worth a look, though the slurs Powell’s cousin tosses at the victims ought to just be trash canned. See here and here for my previous posts on Powell.
The writer, John Struve, makes several assertions about minutiae of the appeals process — assertions that should be taken with a very large grain of salt, for he offers no proof. It’s not as if the courts didn’t revisit these cases in detail: that is why it took 30 years to execute Powell. It’s not as if Struve lacks access to the court documents. But he feels no need to back up his claims, and in this, the media has unfortunately trained him to need no proof as he says everything and anything about the case against Powell. ...
Imagine the crappiest job in the world:
You put on your Men’s Warehouse suit and drive to the office, dreading the inevitable outcome of the day. Settling into your cubicle, you arrange the day’s work on the chipped laminate desk: a billy club, mace, and a copy of the quarterly budget figures for your division, awaiting approval from above. In the next cubicle, Joey H. is already rocking back and forth in his mesh swivel knockoff, working the screws on one of the padded armrests. ...
Texas executed David Lee Powell yesterday for the murder of police officer Ralph Ablanedo.
Ablanedo’s family has been waiting for Powell’s appeals to end for 32 years. They have endured a lifetime of watching Powell be cast as some type of especially sensitive, peace-loving man as he manipulated the legal system — a spectacle they were forced to subsidize with their taxes. ...
This is Wilbert Rideau, Academy Award nominee, George Polk award winner, George Soros grant recipient, Jimmy Carter Center honoree, American Bar Association Silver Gavel winner, Grand Jury prize winner at Sundance, NPR commentator, journalist, Random House author, Terry Gross pal, friend of the famous and the rich . . . you get the picture.
Oh yeah, he also kidnapped three innocent people during a bank robbery in 1961, shot them all, and then stabbed the one young woman who couldn’t escape him after he “ran out of bullets,” as the second victim played dead and the third hid in a swamp. He plunged a butcher knife into Julia Ferguson’s throat as she begged for her life. Rideau later went on to claim that she wasn’t technically begging for her life, as part of Johnny Cochran’s successful 2005 bid to get him out of prison, but in this conveniently forgotten video, he tells a very different — and shocking — story about the crime. ...
Ah yes, the silly season. Reporter claiming to be writing about solitary confinement jumps right into equating solitary confinement with “hard-line criminal justice polic[y]” instead. According to this view, solitary confinement is not, as one might think, a rational response to the dangers created by extremely violent offenders. Nor is it a way to protect prisoners who might be vulnerable to harm because of their appearance, orientation, or gang status. Nor even a response (one that ought to be appreciated) to the endless lawsuits filed against corrections facilities demanding protections for prisoners — protection from themselves, or others.
Nope, in the eyes of the media, every issue relating to incarceration and crime is just another opportunity to lash out at allegedly “draconian” sentencing policies. In this view, using less solitary confinement to address budget constraints isn’t a sign that prisons are having to deal with the financial downturn like everyone else. Using less solitary confinement is: ...
Robert Chatigny, whose controversial advocacy for serial killer Michael Ross may have inspired Obama to nominate him to the Circuit Court, advanced out of the Senate Judiciary Committee on a party-line vote. I wrote here about the reasons why I think Obama would nominate someone like Chatigny:
Media coverage of executions used to be shameless. Reporters played advocate, inserting themselves and their inflamed sensibilities into the story, while victims’ families were ignored or accused of being “vengeful,” a crime apparently worse than murder itself.
Only victims’ families were thus demeaned: offenders, no matter the horror of their actual crimes, were depicted in only the most positive light. They were deemed specially sensitive, or dignified, or talented, or at least pitiful, as if playing up to (or merely embodying) the reporter’s sensibilities magically erased the profound harm these men had visited on others. ...
. . . walking past the men to shoot them.
Gerardo Regalado ...
You wouldn’t know it from the way many in the media cover crime, but recidivists with extremely violent records are still routinely cut loose from prison early, or allowed to stay free while awaiting trial.
Or allowed to attend high school with nobody knowing they’re sex offenders. ...
While investigative reporters and their academic mouthpieces busily crochet their latest screeds against the notion of putting criminals in prison, here’s a quick sampling of people who should have been behind bars, but weren’t. Of course, this isn’t a criminological study, because we’re going to actually mention the crimes these men committed, instead of just breathlessly envisioning the endless possibilities of their next “re-entry” into society.
It looks like the last re-entries were easy to a fault. ...