criminal justice

A story in the New York Times reports that the district attorney in Brooklyn, New York has blacklisted seven police officers whose work is so flawed and so lacking credibility that their testimony is precluded from criminal cases. The story indicates that this is a common practice, but the names of the offending police officers are usually not publicized.

In 2017, Walsh said the COOP board would expand from three to five members and would take on more cases. Yet two years later, the board hasn’t even released data on cases it has reviewed over the last four years and has just two members, one of whom appears to be in violation the mayor’s executive order barring city officials from being employed in the cannabis business.

The state’s Supreme Judicial Court last week ruled that the Boston Police Department could not bypass a recruit for hiring based solely on a hair test that found traces of cocaine in recruit Michael Gannon’s hair.

After police released 800 pages of emails between Boston Police Sgt. Detective Gregory Gallagher, an officer who serves as the department’s liaison with ICE, and ICE agents, city councilors are questioning whether the department violated the city’s Trust Act, which bars BPD officers from holding people in their custody or turning them over to ICE agents based solely on their immigration status.

In January 2019, when a jury brought back a guilty verdict against former Chicago cop Jason Van Dyke in the murder of Laquan McDonald, there were loud cheers that justice had been done; namely a white cop finally tried and convicted of the murder of an unarmed black man.

One wonders what induces some whites to assault blacks violently even though there is not apparent provocation. Why would whites turn out for a lynching party? The simple assertion of racism does not answer the question. Conflicts stretching back centuries in the past have influenced the status of the Kurds in the Middle East, but there is little history of black violence against whites in America.

A bill that would outlaw use of hand-held phones while driving in Massachusetts remains stalled due to legislators’ concerns about increased racial profiling that could stem from increased enforcement.

Some prosecutors may demand longer sentences for them to send a message, as one put it, that “prison is the only answer for entitlement and criminality.” That message will always crash hard against white privilege.

Suffolk County Sheriff Steve Tompkins announced last Tuesday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees would no longer be held at the Suffolk County House of Correction in South Bay.

Despite bombshell after bombshell broken by reporters at various outlets, it’s difficult to see an end to Massachusetts State Police incompetence and corruption.

One important lesson to be learned is that blacks ought not damage the effort to reduce criminal sentences to more reasonable levels by imposing racial considerations to the sentencing levels.

The message in both was that though a police officer was found guilty of murder, it was still not really guilt, at least in the true legal sense.