Another policing issue, special threatment for officers

I don't want this blog to get a reputation as a police basher.  Policing is a difficult, under-paid and dangerous job.  Shootings of police get much less attention than police shootings of civilians.  Nonetheless, the following is a real issue.  From the NYT:
"Baltimore —The trials of the six officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray, the 25-year-old black man who died after suffering a spinal injury in police custody, begin tomorrow. As a public defender here, I have watched the cases of the officers move through the Baltimore City Circuit Court.

These cases are remarkable in that police officers were actually charged in Mr. Gray’s killing, unlike in other recent cases of police violence. But they are also notable in another, less laudable, way.

The court has given extraordinary treatment to the accused officers, from their arrests up to their impending trials. But thousands of other defendants in Baltimore receive an inferior brand of justice."

• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  

"These cases are remarkable in that police officers were actually charged in Mr. Gray’s killing, unlike in other recent cases of police violence. But they are also notable in another, less laudable, way.

The court has given extraordinary treatment to the accused officers, from their arrests up to their impending trials. But thousands of other defendants in Baltimore receive an inferior brand of justice.

Internet Addiction

“The net is designed to be an interruption system, a machine geared to dividing attention,” Nicholas Carr explains in his book “The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains.” “We willingly accept the loss of concentration and focus, the division of our attention and the fragmentation of our thoughts, in return for the wealth of compelling or at least diverting information we receive.”
Addiction is the relentless pull to a substance or an activity that becomes so compulsive it ultimately interferes with everyday life. By that definition, nearly everyone I know is addicted in some measure to the Internet. It has arguably replaced work itself as our most socially sanctioned addiction.
According to one recent survey, the average white-collar worker spends about six hours a day on email. That doesn’t count time online spent shopping, searching or keeping up with social media.
The brain’s craving for novelty, constant stimulation and immediate gratification creates something called a “compulsion loop.” Like lab rats and drug addicts, we need more and more to get the same effect.
Endless access to new information also easily overloads our working memory. When we reach cognitive overload, our ability to transfer learning to long-term memory significantly deteriorates. It’s as if our brain has become a full cup of water and anything more poured into it starts to spill out.
I’ve known all of this for a long time. I started writing about it 20 years ago. I teach it to clients every day. I just never really believed it could become so true of me.
Denial is any addict’s first defense. No obstacle to recovery is greater than the infinite capacity to rationalize our compulsive behaviors. After years of feeling I was managing myself reasonably well, I fell last winter into an intense period of travel while also trying to manage a growing consulting business. In early summer, it suddenly dawned on me that I wasn’t managing myself well at all, and I didn’t feel good about it."

However, some argue that the benefits of the internet outweigh the problems and the evidence is scanty.

More left-wing college intolerance

“Hundreds of students crammed into Amherst College’s Robert Frost Library for a sit-in against racial injustice that turned into a confessional, as one black or Hispanic student after another rose to talk about feelings of alienation and invisibility on campus. . . .[Among their demands]

They wanted students who had posted “Free Speech” and “All Lives Matter” posters to go through “extensive training for racial and cultural competency” and possibly discipline.” 

Although Amherst is a private college and the First Amendment doesn’t apply to them, one would think education and academic freedom would suggest more tolerance. Tolerance and free speech are under attack from both the left and right.  This is very disturbing, and does not bode well.

 

For more on  this general topic see Jack Cashill's book Scarlet Letters: The Ever-increasing Intolerance of the Cult of Liberalism.

 

 

 

Think you know a lot about Crime Law and Justice?

Then check out these questions on the topic and my trivia blog. 

SMART PHONES, TRAFFIC DEATHS AND ADDICTIONS

Think this isn't a problem, before we get to  the major topics, consider this:
" According to a 2013 survey by Harris Interactive, 20 percent of Americans, 18 to 34 years of age, use their cellphones during sex, generating a new meaning for the expression coitus interruptus."

As per PC World:

“According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, "distracted driving," where the driver's attention is focused on an activity other than the road ahead, is a growing problem. In fact, the proportion of fatalities linked to distracted drivers rose from 10 percent in 2005 to 16 percent in 2009.

While the overall number of U.S. traffic deaths is on the wane--from 43,510 in 2005 to 33,808 in 2009--the percentage of fatalities associated with driver distraction is on the rise.

Nearly one in five (18 percent) of all fatal distracted-driving crashes last year reportedly involved cell phones as the distraction, according to a new NHTSA study. In those crashes, the phone was either in use at the time of the crash, or was "in the presence of the driver" when the accident occurred.”

According to another source:

“The reason that smartphones are so addicting is because they trigger the release of serotonin and dopamine—the "feel good chemicals" in our brains—providing instant gratification just like addictive substances do, says therapist and addiction expert Paul Hokemeyer, Ph.D. (Put down the phone and try The 10 Habits of Happy People instead.)

And he says that this particular type of addiction can be a sign of deeper problems. "Obsessive and compulsive smartphone use is a symptom of underlying behavioral health and personality issues," he explains. "What happens is that people who are suffering from issues like depression, anxiety, trauma, and socially-challenging personalities self-medicate by reaching for things outside of themselves to manage their internal discomfort. Because technology plays such an integral part of our lives, smartphones easily become their object of choice."

But what appears to be a solution at first actually amplifies their problems in the long run. "They choose reaching for their phones over healing connections with important people," Hokemeyer explains. Doing so, though, can hurt your career and personal life, not to mention cause you to miss out on all the fun things happening in real life. (Find out how Your Cell Phone Is Ruining Your Downtime.)”

"  . . . "Larry Rosen, a research psychologist at California State University who studies smartphone use among college students, says . . .  that most college students are “heavy users” and that his experiments show that their heart rates and other vital signs actually spike when they can’t use their phones, in response to increased anxiety and distraction."
 

Supreme Court case raises important "diversity" and equal protection issues

The Supreme Court will hear Fisher v. Univ. of Texas. According to the NYT:
" With the constitutionality of race-based affirmative action hanging by a thread at the Supreme Court, University of Texas officials are struggling to explain a policy that gives an extra edge to Latino and African American students from middle-class households and top-performing high schools."  The preferences are also give to many minority students from affluent families.  One opponent of the University stated, ""If one is looking for a lively discussion from students with the greatest possible variety of backgrounds, then including a poor white student from a trailer park might add more diversity than a wealthy African American graduate of a prep school, . . ."

In too many states, universities are poorly monitored and audited.  The ethically challenged flourish. Legal and ethical lapses are commonplace, but often covered up.  It reminds me of some police departments.

Safe zone, microaggression, offensiveness, etc. plague goes on, 'Try not to have an offensive Thanksgiving'

Great article by Frank Cerebino from the Dallas morning news.   It's worth reading. One quote below.
"Try not to have an offensive Thanksgiving.
It won’t be easy. These holidays are often trickier than they seem, and we’re already off to a particularly offensive holiday season.
It started early this year with Halloween. And as Yale University has shown, there’s no limit to the trouble that can be caused by an insensitive Halloween costume.
“Could someone take offense to your costume and why?” an email from the university’s Intercultural Affairs Committee asked students.
Dressing up in a way that might offend somebody isn’t a crime, faculty member Erika Christakis responded.
“Even if we could agree on how to avoid offense — and I’ll note that no one around campus seems overly concerned about the offense taken by religiously conservative folks to skin-revealing costumes — I wonder, and I am not trying to be provocative: Is there no room anymore for a child or young person to be a little bit obnoxious ... a little bit inappropriate or provocative or, yes, offensive?” Christakis wrote.
Apparently not. At least at Yale. The flap over Halloween costumes there is expected to last until Valentine’s Day."

One important point to stress. As Christakis notes.  It's only offensive if it offends left-wing political correctness.  Appaprently conservatives are not entitled to the same protection.  This hysteria threatens First Amendment values.

LAPD Facing Alarming Police Shooting Increase

According to the NYT

 "Citing an “alarming” rise in shootings by police over the last year, the civilian board that oversees the Los Angeles police called on Tuesday for an extensive review of the department’s policies on the use of force.

The new president of the Los Angeles Police Commission, Matt Johnson, said reducing officers’ use of force was one of his top priorities for the department, on par with bringing down the overall crime rate.

The number of shootings by the police so far this year has nearly doubled, to 45 from 23 during the same period last year, Mr. Johnson said. He added that, like other departments, the Los Angeles police were facing “a crisis of confidence with minority communities, particularly African-Americans,” in the wake of police shootings of black civilians across the country.

“We must fully commit to minimizing the number of use-of-force incidents,” Mr. Johnson said. In addition to review of use-of force incidents, he called for an examination, and possible expansion, of nonlethal options like Tasers and beanbag shotguns. "

Poliice shooting video, subsequent demonstrations and first degree murder charge

Transparency and public pressure paying off in Chicago.  See the shooting video and article.

More transparency means better policing

Many contend that increasing scrutiny of police is a bad thing and leads to police timidity and more crime.  This is termed the "Ferguson effect."  There's no data to support it and the benefits of increased transparency are changing police for the better.
In the NYT, a  former NYPD cop tells it like it WAS:

“First, let me take you back to the way policing used to be. Years ago, a group of men walked into a Harlem bar with bats and hatchet handles. Moments later, they’d left their calling card: broken bones and fractured skulls.

This wasn’t a robbery, but restitution. Earlier in the day, a young patrol officer had been attacked by unruly patrons of the bar. This cop’s off-duty brothers in arms made sure to give anyone there a strong “attitude adjustment.”Continue reading the main story

My New York Police Department instructor shared this story with me and my fellow recruits to explain “shaking the tree” — how the community had a price to pay for the assault on an officer. No one would dare report the incident, we were told, because it would be the officers’ word against the public’s — no contest.

For many years, this was the world in which our nation’s police agencies operated. What happened in the darkness of inner-city streets was between the police and whoever was on the other side of the nightstick and, on occasion, a gun. The police reports all read the same: The suspect had a shiny object, he reached for something, he forced me to act in self-defense.

This was an inextricable part of the policing culture in America, and many Americans benefited from these aggressive tactics if their streets were safer. Frankly, we as a nation ignored how people were treated to get the results.”

 

Body cams, dashcams, and smart phones have changed all this.  Criminal prosecutions of police appear to be on the rise.  More and more agencies are using body cams.More training is being offered. However, more needs to be done, as explained in the article.

 

 

Police Violence costs S.C. $23 million since 2009

"A newspaper’s analysis shows legal settlements from shootings involving police officers from South Carolina municipalities have totalled about $23m since 2009.
The Post and Courier reports that its analysis shows that more than $17m in such legal settlements have come this year.
Those payments included a $10m dollar settlement in the shooting death of a former mayor in Cottageville and $6.5m in the shooting death of Walter Scott, an unarmed African American man, by North Charleston police officer Michael Slager on 4 April this year.
Insurers for the municipalities paid the bulk of the settlements, which typically stemmed from lawsuits alleging wrongful death or excessive force.
However, the paper said, such settlements can lead to higher insurance premiums that are ultimately paid by taxpayers.
Police shooting payouts “will either remain the same or even rise if steps aren’t taken to curb officers’ uses of deadly force,” the newspaper quoted Sam Walker, a University of Nebraska criminal justice expert, as saying."

Book Review, "American's Secret Jihad," White/Aryan Supremacy is not Dead

Rather than repeat what has already been written, I direct you this review of this book by Stewart Wexler, and hit a few additional points.
The book is about white/Aryan supremacist groups who use a twisted Christian theology to justify unprovoked attacks on black and Jews. 

One of these twisted theologies is the Christian Identity Movement. (Now apparently Called Kingdom Ministries.)   It has had various names and sub-sects over the years.  One of the related groups was  the Confederate Underground. Another related group was the National States Rights Party.

The Southern Poverty Law Center lists a number currently active white/Aryan supremacy groups. There are  number of current groups who support this theology--one is Christogena.org
From 2010 to 2014, this website had over 417,000 unique visitors.  Another group site Kingdom Identity Ministries  got an average of over 2,400 visits.    Their website states "Kingdom Identity Ministries is a Politically Incorrect Christian Identity outreach ministry to God's chosen race (true Israel, the White, European peoples).  (This data is from p. 323 of the book).
See http://www.kingidentity.com/radioarchives/
According to Wexler, neither of these groups, however, openly or directly advocates terrorism.

The KKK still holds sway in limited areas and white/Aryan supremacy is alive and sickly well in America.   I suspect that some, but not all, lost cause delusionists are white supremacists. How many in these groups or 'lone wolves' are willing to use violence is unknown. 

Racist and violent theologies are world wide.  ISIS is the most obvious example.  The SPLC lists 3 black/lslamist groups in this category (see link above)