A little outrage with your morning coffee ( Read more... )

Before I get seriously annoyed with somebody, can someone on my list who's knowledgeable about such things confirm the following: U. S. police typically use rubber bullets for crowd control, not live ammo (though they still carry it in their sidearm).  (Oh, and tear gas, of course-I'm just saying that for projectiles they tend to use rubber bullets ( Read more... )

Freedom isn't free, nor is it cheap:

Katy teen Stephen Gegenheimer had just bought $50 worth of roman candles and fireworks Monday afternoon and was headed home to set them off in his front yard when he spotted flashing lights in his rearview mirror ( Read more... )

• I was wrong: Americans are driving less, to the tune of 11 billion miles in March compared to last year.  And mileage dropped another 4.5 billion in April vs. a year ago.
• The current markup in gas prices includes speculation that hurricane season (which began June 1) may disrupt supplies, but it could go even higher if another Big One hits the Gulf.
• ( Read more... )

Some big news in the Ryan Frederick case: Radley Balko has updates here and here.  If true, it may reveal a level of police misconduct regarding the raid on Frederick's home that led to the death of a Chesapeake police detective that nearly rivals the Kathryn Johnston case in Atlanta.

I will provide more details later in my blog A Thousand Cuts.

I have to take this news with a rather large block of salt, but it's funny nonetheless:

Political activists planning protest rallies at the upcoming Democratic Convention in Denver have their stomachs in knots over a rumor about a crowd control weapon - known as the “crap cannon” - that might be unleashed against them ( Read more... )

[cross-posted to A Thousand Cuts]

Washington, D. C. cops crack down on qat users, arresting dozens of people and seizing 30 pounds of the mildly stimulating plant commonly found in Africa and the Middle East.

The next night, seven people are murdered in "a spasm of violence" in the eastern part of the District, bringing the total number of ( Read more... )

[cross-posted to A Thousand Cuts]

The thin blue line closes ranks around two cops who were shot during a no-knock raid:

The friends who stood up for a man who shot two Columbus officers now are under fire from the local police union ( Read more... )

"I think any person that has a firearm and is willing to shoot at any person is a dangerous person."

That's the opinion of Columbus police officer Tony Garrison, who was shot and wounded (along with another cop) by an ex-Ohio State football player, Derrick Foster, during a no-knock raid on a suspected crack house on April 30 ( Read more... )

All these stories do is fill me with impotent rage, but I can't stop reading or writing about them:

Interviewing the people in Tracy Ingle's life - his sisters, his foster brother, his friends - you hear one line often enough that it soon becomes a refrain: Tracy is no angel ( Read more... )