

by Peter Moskos

June 28, 2014

Who made that? And when?

The mighty flex-cuff...

Anybody know when they first appeared? I do not. And I just get a query from MOMA asking me them and I'll be damned, I have no idea. I'd like to know the answer.
I write to you with the hope that you might help with our research. We are featuring Flexicuffs and Bite/Spit Masks (the plastic iterations of both) in an upcoming post and have run into a dead end regarding their provenance. With all design objects featured on the site, we do our best to include as much "museum caption" information as possible. Unfortunately, we have found very little information as to when these two objects came into being in their plastic forms. For example, the most specific date we have for the plastic handcuffs is "1960s."

By chance do you have any additional information that would help us fill in the gaps? We have been in contact with both the Police Museum as well as the NYPD (in addition to our own independent research) and continue to draw a blank.
Personally, I always liked using proper metal handcuffs because they're easier (and more fun) to put on, but then you had to take them off to trasnfer a prisoner to the wagon. So if you knew you were going to arrest somebody, you always brought the flex-cuffs. No fuss, no muss. (Except that one time when one dumbass "unarrested" somebody and decided to remove the flex-cuffs with his pocket knife. It was a minor cut, but still...)

June 27, 2014

"Just the world we live in"

A stun grenade exploded in a baby’s face. According to the BBC:
The Swat officers had used a stun grenade, called a flash bang, as they entered the residence. The device, which creates bright bursts of light and noise to temporarily disorient its targets, landed in 19-month-old Bounkham "Bou Bou" Phonesavanh's playpen, where it burned the child's face and created a gash on his chest deep enough to expose his ribs.
OK. I mean it may be standard to use SWAT teams and flash grenades, but that isn't supposed to happen. But mistakes do happen. So I bet the chief is pretty apologetic.

But not in Habersham County, Georgia. According to Sheriff Joey Terrell:
Our team went by the book. Given the same scenario, we'll do the same thing again. I stand behind what our team did.... Bad things can happen. That's just the world we live in. Bad things happen to good people.... The baby didn't deserve this.
I'm sorry, but that's not good enough.

I mean look, I know this is just another example of our idiotic war on ourselves, I mean drugs. That's nothing new. And bad things do happen to good people. But that doesn't mean bad things should happen to good people at the hands of police. And when they do, as they inevitably will sometimes, you say you're sorry, figure out what you did wrong so it doesn't happen again, and probably shell out some dough to the victim.

When "the book" results in innocent babies being maimed by police, then rewrite the fucking book, you brainless fool! What you don't do is say no mistakes were made, and you would do the same thing again. See, if you did the same thing again in the same situation, then the same thing would happen again. And if you're OK with that, then you're a dick.

From the BBC:
Meanwhile, Bou Bou Phonesavanh is no longer in a coma, but he is still undergoing hospital-based rehabilitation. His long-term prognosis has yet to be determined.

Wanis Thonetheva, the original target of the raid, was eventually located and arrested for drug possession. As the Guardian's Pilkington notes, police officers knocked on his door, and he went with them without resistance.
That's worth repeating: "Police officers knocked on his door, and he went with them without resistance." Wow, so you mean the whole SWAT team / flash-grenade thing was unnecessary? Why... yes.

Anyhow... with Thonetheva off the streets, I'm sure it must now be impossible to get meth in Habersham County.

Update: It's worth noting, and it's taken me a while to realize this, that this is the same jurisdiction and sheriff that were involved with the killing of innocent Rev. Jonathan Ayers in 2009. It's amazing to me that such multiple instances of gross incompetence in law enforcement could come out of the same small place.

June 17, 2014

Thomas Frazier directs the Oakland Police Department to comply

I was just spell checking Thomas Frazier's last name for something I'm writing and learned, though the wonders of google, that Frazier is now running the Oakland Police Department. And he's running it in a way I've never heard of:


Frazier is the guy who originally approved my Baltimore research, though he was gone before I got there. He and Kurt Schmoke were universally disliked by the time I got to Baltimore in late 1999. Among the rank-and-file, Frazier was never able to live down his line about police being "social workers with guns."
Between 1995 and 2000, murders in Baltimore dropped from 325 to 261.

There's some irony that Frazier is now trying to clean up the mess in Oakland that Anthony Batts, now the Baltimore police commissioner, couldn't fix.

June 3, 2014

Number two, shooting for number one

The good people over at How-to-Become-a-Police-Officer.com have just informed me that by some fancy measures they use, I have the second most popular law enforcement blog. How 'bout that?

I wouldn't complete trust that list since it doesn't include Second City Cop which is quite good and has many more readers, judging from the number of comments. But hey, who can argue with numbers?
The problem with good cop blogs is they don't last long. I can keep going because I'm no longer a cop. But if you are on the job, no good can come from keeping a blog. And trouble is always just one click away. I just went through my blog role and eliminated far too many moribund links.


I just found this photoshopped file in an old folder on my computer. I honestly have no idea who made it or how I got it. (Needless to say, it is not a original comic and has nothing to do with creator of the comic.)

June 2, 2014

"Woman Not Guilty of Chemical Warfare; Constitution Saved"

Nice article by Garrett Epps in The Atlantic about Bond v. United States, prosecutorial overreach, and rare victory for the 10th Amendment:

Bratton tweak Operation Impact...

...By putting rookie officers with more veteran officers. This should have been a no-brainer years ago. Partnering dumb with dumber -- both right out of the police academy, both sometimes clueless white boys from Long Island -- was never a brilliant idea (though even then it did help reduce crime). Rookie cops faced with quota pressure who could not distinguish class differences in the ghetto led to a lot of unwarranted stops, questionably legal marijuana arrests, and political backlash that hurt the NYPD. It also reinforcing the idea that foot patrol was just something to be endured before you got to become real police.

The story in the Daily News.

Law and Order, 1932

From Shorpy.com:
Washington, D.C., 1932. "Metropolitan police officer on motorcycle." Keeping the peace in the gashouse district. Harris & Ewing glass negative. Full size image.

June 1, 2014

Cops aren't shrinks







Take this case I handled during field training:

