Policing
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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July 20, 2017 — Steven Hayward
John and Scott have both offered long posts about the shooting of Justine Damond by Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor, and I have only two questions to add. First, I am surprised I haven’t seen more questions or comments about a most peculiar aspect of the story—that officer Noor fired at Damond from the passenger seat out the driver’s side window, meaning he shot past his partner. I am no
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July 19, 2017 — John Hinderaker
The Daily Mail rushes in where others fear to tread, so take this story with a grain of salt. Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor and his lawyer have refused to explain why Noor shot Justine Damond, in a case that has reverberated around the world. But the Daily Mail claims to have interviewed Noor’s friends. Somewhat to my amazement, they allegedly say that Noor did it on purpose: Killer policeman
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July 19, 2017 — Scott Johnson
The UK’s Guardian has posted the exclusive video above of Justine Damond with the following explanation: When reporters asked friends and family for stories about Justine Damond, many of them asked: “Have you heard about the ducks?” Three weeks before she was shot dead by police Damond, a 40-year-old Australian who had changed her surname from Ruszczyk in anticipation of her wedding, climbed into a storm drain and rescued a
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July 19, 2017 — Scott Johnson
At a press conference early yesterday evening Minneapolis authorities provided the the first account of the shooting of pajama clad Justine Damond by Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor in the alley behind Damond’s home in southwest Minneapolis. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is investigating Ms. Damond’s death. The account is based on the BCA’s interview of Noor’s partner, Officer Matthew Harrity. Noor himself isn’t talking, at least not yet.
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July 18, 2017 — John Hinderaker
Scott wrote yesterday about a tragic shooting incident in Minneapolis. At about 11:30 last Saturday night, a 40-year-old woman named Justine Damond, a native of Australia, thought she heard a sexual assault in progress in the alley behind her house. She called 911 and a Minneapolis Police Department squad car with two officers responded to her call. She left her house in her pajamas to talk to the officers. While
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July 17, 2017 — Scott Johnson
The 2016 shooting death of Philando Castile in the course of a traffic stop by suburban Twin Cities police officer Jeronimo Yanez convulsed the Twin Cities both before and after the officer involved was acquitted earlier this summer. Castile’s death was live streamed and narrated by his girlfriend on Facebook. It was a horrifying, heartbreaking scene. A Ramsey County jury nevertheless found that Officer Yanez reasonably feared for his life
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July 5, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
Alexander Bonds, an ex-con with a long rap sheet, shot and killed New York City police officer Miosotis Familia, a mother of three, as she sat in a patrol car in the Bronx. The attack was unprovoked. It was an assassination. According to the New York Times: Around 12:30 a.m., as Officer Familia neared the end of her shift, Mr. Bonds walked up to the vehicle and fired a single
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June 21, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
Last August, Dominique Heaggan-Brown, an African-American police officer in Milwaukee, shot and killed Sylville Smith, an African-American suspect with a lengthy record who was armed and fleeing the police. Anti-police rioting ensued. Four officers were injured. It was clear from the beginning that the African-American policeman did not shoot Smith for reasons having anything to do with race. But this didn’t matter to the local rioters or to Black Lives
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June 16, 2017 — John Hinderaker
Last July, police officer Jeronimo Yanez stopped a vehicle that was being driven by Philando Castile, with Castile’s girlfriend and her daughter as passengers. The officer and Castile had an exchange in which Castile said he had a gun. Yanez later testified that he ordered Castile not to reach for the gun, but Castile disobeyed that order and grabbed for it in the front pocket of his shorts. Yanez, who
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April 6, 2017 — John Hinderaker
Heather Mac Donald is the nation’s leading expert on policing and race. Her book The War On Cops is a classic of social science. In December my think tank, Center of the American Experiment, hosted Heather for a speech in Minneapolis that was attended by more than 400, including over 150 law enforcement officers. That was a great crowd. But when Heather spoke at UCLA last night, at the invitation
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February 18, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
Jim Scanlan describes the compliance nightmare that looms for the Baltimore Police Department as a result of the consent decree the City reached with the Justice Department. The events that led to the decree are well known. It stemmed from the death of Freddy Gray through injuries sustained in police custody. There was no convincing evidence that the police did much wrong, and prosecutors were unable to convict any of
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January 10, 2017 — John Hinderaker
You could say this is one of the pettier controversies in the history of our national Capitol, or you could say it opens a window onto the deep disgrace of one of our political parties. I incline toward the latter view. There is, apparently, an annual arts competition that results in a large number of paintings from the Congressional districts being displayed in a hallway between one of the House
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December 31, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff
The Washington Post declares: “Despite ongoing national scrutiny of police tactics, the number of fatal shootings by officers in 2016 remained virtually unchanged from last year when nearly 1,000 people were killed by police.” There are a few problems with this declaration. First, by the Post’s count, the number of fatal shootings by officers decreased by more than 3 percent this year — down from 991 to 957. Second, the
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