Policing
June 11, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
The Washington Post has a long article about unsolved killings in American cities. It studied homicide data from 50 cities, encompassing 52,000 such crimes. In the process, it identified areas where killings are frequent but arrests are rare. These “areas of impunity” are located in poor neighborhoods where minorities (almost always African-Americans) reside. The first thing that jumps out at me from the Post’s study is that in the 50
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April 1, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
It wasn’t so long ago that Baltimore politicians were pandering to the anti-law-and-order crowd with talk about “no justice, no peace” and “space to destroy.” Now that this kind of sentiment has helped produce a spike in homicides, earning Baltimore the title of America’s most dangerous city, the pols are singing a different tune. In fact, many are calling on the state legislature to enact tough anti-crime legislation. Here’s Del.
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March 26, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
Paul Cassell is a law professor and former federal district court judge. Richard Fowles is an economics professor. Both teach at the University of Utah. Cassell and Fowles have studied the spike of homicides in Chicago in 2016. Through multiple regression analysis and other tools, they conclude that an ACLU consent decree triggered a sharp reduction in stop and frisks by the Chicago Police Department, which in turn caused homicides
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March 19, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
Johns Hopkins University wants to form its own police department with armed, sworn police officers to patrol its university and hospital campuses. The University already has its own security personnel, approximately 1,000 strong. Even so, last Fall there were 16 gunpoint robberies around its main campus in Baltimore. Thus, the Baltimore delegation to the state general assembly will propose legislation to enable Hopkins to have its own police department. The
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January 20, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
The Washington Post reports that Baltimore’s mayor has abruptly replaced Police Commissioner Kevin Davis weeks after the city ended 2017 with a record-setting homicide rate. The mayor, Catherine Pugh, was responding to increased pressure to control crime. Violent crime began spiraling out of control in Baltimore after the police came under attack by local politicians following the accidental death of Freddy Gray in 2015. As we discussed here, police officers
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December 9, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
Most regular Power Line readers know that I don’t criticize the police lightly. I think I understand the dangers officers face when they confront suspects and need to make instant assessments of their intentions. That understanding makes me loath to condemn officers whose split second decisions produce tragic results. However, the case of former Mesa, Arizona police officer Philip Brailsford is different. His killing of Daniel Shaver warrants condemnation, though
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December 7, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
Attorney General Sessions fielded questions today from interns at the Justice Department. Naturally, many of the questions had a left-wing slant, some aggressively so. As Sessions put it, “this is not a timid group.” Sessions fielded the questions with aplomb. He was combative at times, but maintained a friendly demeanor. He deserves credit for engaging in a spirited, candid dialogue with the interns. The best exchange, in my view, was
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September 29, 2017 — Scott Johnson
The controversy over the NFL’s indulgence of players protesting the national anthem might be treated as a time to learn. One might learn something from Heather Mac Donald about the mythology underlying Colin Kaepernick’s protest “against the incredible number of unarmed black people being killed by the police.” In Kaepernick’s honor, I say that one deserved a high Colinic flush. Instead it metastasized with the invaluable assistance of Barack Obama
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September 28, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
While poorly educated athletes, egged on by leftist commentators, indulge in Black Lives Matter based protests against their country, evidence pours in that black-on-black crime is the real threat to black lives and that attacks on policing are causing an increase in such crime. Heather Mac Donald has the details. She points out that nearly 900 additional blacks were killed in 2016 compared with 2015, bringing the black homicide-victim total
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August 6, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
The Washington Post reports, with mixed emotion, that the governor of Missouri has dispatched some members of the Missouri Highway Patrol to St. Louis in response to a surge in shootings and assaults in that city. (St. Louis is on pace for its most homicides in more than two decades). Similarly, last month, after 25 people were shot in a nightclub not far from the governor’s mansion in Little Rock,
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August 2, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
“In Minneapolis, response to police shooting of white woman by Somali officer has been different.” So declares the Washington Post in its headline to a story strongly implying that white Minneapolis residents are guilty of racism because they have reacted differently to the police shooting of Justine Damond than to police shootings of African Americans. The story is by Janell Ross. The Post identifies her beat as “race.” Judging from
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July 29, 2017 — John Hinderaker
There have long been similarities between politics in the United States and politics in the United Kingdom. For example, one could argue that Ronald Reagan = Margaret Thatcher, George H.W. Bush = John Major, and Bernie Sanders = Jeremy Corbyn. Recently, though, the parallels have been rather uncanny. Here in the U.S., Democrats have refused to accept the results of the November 2016 election. They view President Trump as illegitimate
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July 24, 2017 — John Hinderaker
The latest development in the Mohamed Noor/Justine Damond story, following a report that a loud noise preceded Noor’s shooting of Damond: fake street signs have cropped up around the Twin Cities: Someone–no idea who–has gone to a lot of trouble to make a point.
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July 23, 2017 — Scott Johnson
When three Somali Minnesotans went to trial in Minneapolis last year on terrorism charges, the New York Times skipped the proceedings. Times reporter Jack Healy arrived in town just in time for the verdicts. Healy’s article reporting the verdicts, written with freelancer Matt Furber, turned for comment to Burhan Mohumed, a “community organizer” and friend of the defendants who condemned the verdicts as “purely political.” Judge Michael Davis presided at
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July 21, 2017 — Scott Johnson
As I say — and do forgive me for repeating myself — the shooting of the unarmed and pajama clad spiritual healer Justine Damond by Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor opens a window onto the sick culture that reigns in Minneapolis. No sooner had idiot Minneapolis mayor Betsy Hodges fired number 22 World Leader and Minneapolis Police Chief Janee Harteau than Hodges sought to expound on her deep thoughts for
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July 21, 2017 — Scott Johnson
In “The loud noise heard round the world,” I wrote that the “loud noise” that the shooting of the unamred and pajama clad healer Justine Damond by Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor opens a window onto the sick culture that reigns in Minneapolis. What a crew. Idiot mayor Betsy Hodges perfectly represents it. Running for reelection this year, Hodges made her presence felt today. Hodges addressed the shooting crisis by
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July 21, 2017 — Scott Johnson
Minneapolis Police Chief Janeé Harteau returned from vacation and held a press conference yesterday afternoon on the shooting death of Justine Damond by Officer Mohamed Noor. The Star Tribune reports on the press conference here along with two-minute audio excerpts. The Star Tribune has also posted video of the entire press conference on Facebook here. The department’s video of Chief Harteau’s statement is posted on YouTube. I have embedded it
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