Do you remember the first time you played with fire? I mean, literally played with fire. Chances are it involved matches or your parents lighter? Because as kids, those were the likely, most accessible firestarters. And for us middle-aged or older, one or both of our parents probably smoked back in the day. There were always matches or lighters kids could pilfer or lift from dad’s pants pocket or mom’s purse. Remember that very first sensation of extreme heat on your fingertips, whoa, son of a bitch, that got your attention. And unless you were a complete imbecile as a kid, you didn’t go back for a repeat performance. Nowadays, kids can show off in other ways, like ramming their skateboard into a brick wall. Continue reading Podcast: Burned Fingers
Podcast: Pre-textual Stops/Good One’s Aren’t Bulls#*t or Racist
I’m seeing it more and more…because it’s happening more and more. Law enforcement cutting back, in some cases, way back on pretextual traffic stops. Stops for minor infractions like broken tail lights, overly tinted windows, expired tabs, ornaments hanging from rear view mirrors, obscured license plates, hanging license plates, etc., etc. During the height of the pandemic, with cops stretched as thin as Olive Oyl, many departments were almost forced to slash their pretextual stops due to personnel shortages. I said then, and I say now, look for that trend never to go away. And, it hasn’t.
Minneapolis has become the latest large agency to decide it’ll no longer pull over motorists for minor traffic violations, such as expired tabs, or having an air freshener dangling from a rear view mirror, a non-working license plate light. And so on. Police critics, says the Minneapolis Star-Tribune have long argued that, much like stop and frisk policies, pretextual stops in which officers use a minor traffic or equipment violation as legal justification for pulling over someone they wish to investigate, contribute to racial disparities in the criminal justice system. Continue reading Podcast: Pre-textual Stops/Good One’s Aren’t Bulls#*t or Racist
Is it now better to be carried by six than judged by 12? | Police Podcast
A story I posted today read that, “Alabama police arrested a suspect for assaulting an officer after he allegedly pulled a gun on police and got into an altercation with officers during an early morning traffic stop”. Keep listening. The vehicle had been stopped for traffic violations and pulled into a gas station. The officer called for backup, which arrived, but a passenger was noncompliant with officer’s instructions. He broke free, started running, pulled a gun from his waistband and pointed it at one of the officers. Notice I said pointed it at one of the officers. Did any of the officers under totally righteous circumstances, shoot to stop the threat? Nooo
A second officer used a distraction strike and was able to get the asshole to drop the gun. A second gun was found in the lowlife’s waistband. If the distraction strike had missed or been ineffective, then what…one cop shot, two cops shot, or maybe he could have gone for a three-bie. Continue reading Is it now better to be carried by six than judged by 12? | Police Podcast
Podcast: Thumbs Up To The Passenger-side Approach
Recently, I made a lengthy motoring journey to visit my elderly aunt for her 95th birthday anniversary. It encompassed about seven and a half hours on the road from St. Louis to Wichita. Now, long drives are second on my bucket list of all-time, most fun activities only to getting my teeth ground down. All by my lonesome, too, which made the trip even more fun-filled. To pass the time, I listened to old radio classics on my satellite radio, and, I kept an eye out for law enforcement. Not to avoid them, but rather to see what I could glean in the few seconds I could eyeball officers while barreling down the highway.
Other than a Missouri trooper directing traffic after a horrid accident on I-70, I didn’t see a single cop until I crossed the state line into Kansas. THAT was very much another story. In relatively quick succession. I encountered four officers, either state troopers or local deputies, who had stopped vehicles in the beautiful Flint Hills of Eastern Kansas for various infractions. It really gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling, too, to see that in every instance the officers had made a passenger side approach. In one case, a young officer almost ran from his cruiser to the passenger side while he also touched the driver’s trunk for identification purposes. I could only presume he was so speedy because he didn’t want the driver to notice he was making a passenger-side approach. Don’t know, for sure. In any case, it gratified me to see that every cop along the way had adopted an approach that I have long, long advocated for many reasons for officer’s safety. Continue reading Podcast: Thumbs Up To The Passenger-side Approach
Don’t Put a Target on Your Back | Police Podcast
In November, 1942, a gentleman named Fridolph Trieman took his imposing German shepherd and a neighbor’s equally fierce looking dog for a rump in the grass of New York’s Central Park. Bear with me here, because I’m gonna make a hell of a point, which all cops, paramedics, firefighters, and first responders need to hear. You international listeners to this podcast as well.
Hassa, the German shepherd, soon came back barking and tugging at Mr. Trieman’s trouser cuff. He followed the dog to a ditch, where he spotted the body of a young woman. Her skirt was pulled up, exposing her legs and panties and a sleeve had been ripped off her coat. Four welts around her throat hinted at a cause of death, strangulation.
Ultimately, the 24 year-old woman’s estranged husband was nailed for the brutal slaying. You can read it for yourself in the archives of the New York Daily News, just Google Louise Almodovar. That tragedy, however, is not why I have produced this podcast. Continue reading Don’t Put a Target on Your Back | Police Podcast