police

Tales of “White Christmas”

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

I didn’t expect a white Christmas in Northern Virginia this morning, and there wasn’t one. It’s a good thing too: a snow-covered vista would have probably made me cry, and that’s been happening too often this holiday season. (My mother, who made up Christmas traditions and legends as an avocation, once told my sister and me that it was bad luck for the whole year to come if you cried on Christmas.) The song “White Christmas” is supposed to make you cry, however, or at least get a bit misty.

I co-wrote two Christmas revues for my late, lamented (by me, anyway) professional theater company in Arlington, Virginia, The American Century Theater. The most popular of the two was called “If Only In My Dreams,” taken from the lyrics of another wistful Christmas song, “I’ll Be Home For Christmas,” by lyricist Kim Gannon and composer Walter Kent and introduced by Bing Crosby in 1943. The show was constructed around the letters written by GIs overseas during World War II to their families or  girlfriends as Christmas loomed, alternating those stories with narration and the popular Christmas songs of the period.

The most famous and important of these songs was, of course, “White Christmas.” Bing Crosby’s version was the best selling single record of all time for half a century. When Irving Berlin handed the song over to the musician who transcribed his melodies (Irv could not read music and composed by ear, just like another brilliant and prolific tune-smith, Paul McCartney), he  famously announced that he had written, not just the best song he had ever written, but the best song that anyone had ever written.  Continue reading →

In Utah, How To Raise An Ethics Dunce

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Police in Brigham City, Utah responded to complaints that a young boy was selling beer at a roadside stand. Sure enough, the kid had a sign at his makeshift stand that said “ICE COLD BEER.” But upon closer examination, the police found that “root” was in tiny print in front of the beer. The admiring police posted on Facebook, “He’s selling beer … ROOT BEER, that is. His marketing strategy has resulted in several calls to the BCPD, but apparently it’s paid off as business has been good.” Indeed. Business is booming, the boy told the fawning news media. “We had to buy another cooler.”

So the child has learned that bait-and-switch along with deceptive advertising not only works, but that he will be praised for it. I’m sure he can make the connection that deceit is also a useful and profitable strategy, and find lots of ways to exploit people’s trust to deceive them for his own benefit.

Yup, his family has the makings of a real little con artist there, and they’ll have the police and the news media to thank. Maybe he’ll end up in jail, or in Congress.

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Pointer: JutGory

My Challenge to Tom Selleck: I Dare You to Put This Story On “Blue Bloods”!

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Let me summarize:

1. In the summer of 2022, approximately 10,000 NYPD officers took the exam to get promoted to sergeant—you know, the one they’re always talking about on “Bluebloods,” now heading into its 15th and final season, Tom Selleck’s paene to NYC’s men and women in blue. This was an unprecedented number because the pandemic lockdown had delayed the exam for two years. The exam was offered in four sessions over two days to accommodate the unusually large number.

2. An investigation from the City’s Department of Investigation has determined that about 1,200 of the cops who participated cheated.

3. Those officers brought cell phones with cameras into the exam and participated in group chats to help each other through the test. They discussed possible answers and offered advice to each other, with those who had already taken the exam on the first day helping out the officers taking the exam on the second day.

4. This, of course, was explicitly forbidden, as the officers were told to place their cell phones in plastic bags under their chairs. But more than10% violated that rule.

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Well, At Least He Didn’t Get Shot: Observations On An Unethical Confrontation On All Sides

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Reginald Burks’ vehicle was pulled over for speeding in Alabama last December as he was driving his two children to school. The officer told Burks that he had exceeded the speed limit, but when Burks asked how fast he was going, the officer said he wasn’t sure because his radar gun was broken. He told the motorist that he had used his cruise control to estimate the speed.

Burks replied that the officer “ was full of crap” because he didn’t believe the cop could clock a car’s speed by cruise control. The officer gave him the ticket anyway, and was standing stood in front of Burks’ car. Burks said he asked the officer “politely at least twice” to get out of the way; the officer told Burks to go around him.

So Burks said, “Get your ass out of the way, so I can take my kids to school. That’s why y’all underpaid because y’all act dumb!”

Oh, good one.

Burks has already paid more than $200 to resolve the speeding ticket. A judge, however, has ordered him to apologize to the police officer in writing, and Burks refuses, calling it compelled speech and a First Amendment violation. Judge Nicholas Bull of the Ozark Municipal Court in Alabama says he’ll put Burks in jail for up to 30 days if he continues to refuse to write the ordered mea culpa letter.

As EA”s periodic columnist Curmie might say, “Oh bloody hell!”

1. Let’s assume arguendo that Burks was speeding. With kids in the car, that is unacceptable—it’s unacceptable without kids in the car. Speeding justified the officer pulling the car over. If his radar gun was broken, depending on the speed, a ticket might be successfully challenged in court. Maybe the officer was just going to issue a warning…until the driver decided to argue with him.

2. It’s unethical to use the process as the punishment, which is what the cop would be doing if he knew cruise control pacing would not stand up in traffic court. (I have no idea if it would in Alabama: it wouldn’t in Alexandria.)

3. It’s bad citizenship to escalate a police stop by telling an officer he’s “full of crap.” Citizens should treat police with respect, even when they are mistaken, or even full of crap. Why is that such a difficult concept to grasp? Or teach children before they become adults (or juvenile delinquents)?

4. By standing in front of the car, the officer was engaging in conduct I have experienced myself: deliberately inconveniencing a driver to “teach him a lesson.” That conduct is also unethical and unprofessional. It is also daring a motorist to misbehave.

5. OK, the cop was being an asshole. It doesn’t matter: that doesn’t justify Burks’ shifting into full asshole mode himself. Police officers should be treated with respect and civility because of the institution and mission they represent.

6. What a dangerous lesson Burks was teaching his children! He should apologize to them.

7. Burks is correct, however: a judge has no power to demand that a citizen say or write anything. Burks is willing to spend money on lawyer fees and go to jail to fight for this principle. The sound of one hand clapping for that: the judge shouldn’t order him to apologize, but Burks should want to apologize voluntarily.

8. So should the police officer.

Did I neglect to mention that Burks is black and the officer is white? Silly me. Yet why should that change the analysis here?

My exit question: How many lives would be saved if black Americans resolved to obey police orders and instructions (let’s forget about obeying the law for now) without incivility, hostility and resistance regardless of the circumstances?

Ethics Dunces: The Murrieta (California) Police Department

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Oh yeah, this will improve public respect for law enforcement and the rule of law.

The Murrieta Police Department is posting hilarious arrest and lineup photos with suspects’ faces replaced by Lego heads. This is its response to a new California privacy law that forbids the posting of mug shots and other photos of individuals arrested for non-violent offenses. The law, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last September, went into effect on January 1 of this year. It also requires police departments to remove other mugshots from social media after 14 days….or replace them with Lego heads, I guess. So those risible images above are not gags or the product of a Babylon Bee wag. The police actually posted them.

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More Weird Tales From The Great Stupid: Oh Yeah, This Will Work Out Well…

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments

It’s getting really, really weird out there. Today this headline actually appeared on the Newsweek site: “Couple Assaulted Outside Liquor Store Over Suspected Bud Light Purchase.” Yes, Major Clipton will make his obligatory appearance, but here is the story, which I could not believe when I first learned about it:

The Los Angeles Department of Transportation has created a draft plan to have unarmed civilians enforce traffic laws instead of the Los Angeles Police Department. The plan, obtained by the Los Angeles Times, has been on the drawing board for nearly three years but has yet to be officially released. This, I suspect, is because those who created this thing are in fear of ending up in a padded room.

As the story proves, however, all of California is now a padded room.

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At Last! A Persuasive Explanation For The Tyre Nichols Police Attack That Doesn’t Involve “White Supremacy”

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Radley Balko, the former “Reason” investigative reporter who, as long as he isn’t discussing Donald Trump-related issues, is still a reliable, perceptive and ethical analyst, has a guest essay in the New York Times convincingly arguing that the tragedy was a predicable result of the ““elite” police team fad around the country. “Elite police teams” are, he explains, assembled for the broad purpose of fighting crime waves, and they intentionally operate with far more freedom and less oversight than police officers normally do.

The five officers who terrorized and eventually killed young Tyre Nichols were members of the 10-officer Memphis version of this phenomenon, and were collectively called “Scorpion.” Balko points out that the name is a tell: though the Memphis police force website emphasizes the importance of winning the community’s trust, the theory behind elite police teams is that they should inspire fear.

When I first learned that the Memphis police had shut down Scorpion in response to the Nichols tragedy, my initial reaction was that this was the Barn Door Fallacy, a rush to eliminate what was being blamed for a disastrous event without any evidence that doing so will have a beneficial effect, in order to be perceived as doing something. Balko makes a strong argument that these teams are ticking bombs:

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Now THIS Is Incompetent Policing! (International Division)

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Police in Santa Marta, Colombia, recently published a wanted poster for 12 dangerous criminals in the town, asking the public for help in apprehending them. All are members of the “Los Pachenca” drug cartel and are suspects in a series of crimes committed in Santa Marta in recent months. The published poster (above), however, only mentioned the suspects’ nicknames without revealing their real names, and only generic silhouettes were offered rather than actual photos.

Nevertheless, the police department acted as if their procedure was serious and reasonable. “It is very important that citizens help us identify the people who are affecting life throughout the city,” the police high command said to supplement the poster. “We are going to provide payments for data that allow us to identify them.”

The mockery of the absurdly inept dragnet was instant and relentless. One wag noted that it should be easy to identify cartel members since “they all look identical.”

The department quickly pulled the poster. See? It’s not completely incompetent after all!

Tardy Ethics Observations On The Netflix Series “Unbelievable” [RE-Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

I have at least four posts written already in my head this New Year’s Day morning, but I wanted to begin 2023 with a discussion that is at least a little bit positive, hence this. In truth, the 2019 series “Unbelievable” is the reason the first post of the year is going up so late: disgusted with the vulgar and idiotic New Year’s Eve coverage on the networks (“Do you two have children, are will you be making one tonight?” one of ABC’s celebrity hosts asked a kissing couple.) Grace and I started watching “Unbelievable” on Netflix for the third time. I thought it was better this time than before, and on the earlier viewings I thought it was great. Thoroughly engrossed we couldn’t stop midway, so as a result, the Marshall got to bed after 3 am last night. (And I woke up with a cold.)

Over at “Simple Justice,” lawyer/blogger Scott Greenfield wrote about his regret that so many examples of flaws within the justice system escaped his metaphorical acid pen in 2022. Yeah, welcome to my world, Scott. I write three or hour posts a day to his one, and I still miss more ethics issues, often major ones, than I cover. I do not understand why I didn’t write about “Unbelievable” in 2019, or in 2021, when I watched it again. In such situations, I’m just letting readers down. “Unbelievable” is not only an ethics story, but an important one; it also happens to be true. (It was also partially created by the Marshall Project. I am awash in shame.)

I usually don’t worry much about spoilers, but in this case, I don’t want anyone to enjoy the series less because I’ve given away the plot completely, although, as I said, I enjoyed “Unbelievable” more the third time around, but perhaps for different reasons than I did on first viewing. If you want to experience the story, the performances (which are all excellent), the incrustation and emotional finale cold, then maybe you should stop reading here. But I’m going to try to make some ethics points here without giving too much away: Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: “Update On The Uvalde Massacre Extension Of The Sandy Hook Ethics Train Wreck, Part 2: Supreme Court Justice Stephen J. Breyer’s Self-Refuting Dissent”

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

As it did eventually in the Parkland school shooting, the consideration of the accountability for the death toll of innocents in the Uvalde shooting has turned to the conduct of those charged with protecting the victims. It is a separate issue from the culpability of the shooter, whose conduct, intentions and ethical and moral bankruptcy remain the same regardless of the actions of those who helped or hindered it. It is also a separate issue from the question of what public policies might have realistically prevented the tragedy before it took place. It is germane, however, to the matters of government trust, accountability for the loss of life, and particularly the reasonableness of constructing a free society where citizens are entirely at the mercy of the competence, wisdom and character of government agents.

Especially because of the latter, some commentators appear to be trying to rationalize and even excuse the conduct of the police in Uvalde who, by their officials’ own admission, allowed the murderer to keep shooting while they prevented others from trying to intervene, while holding back themselves because they feared being shot.

Commenter Jim Hodgson, in this Comment of the Day on the post, “Update On The Uvalde Massacre Extension Of The Sandy Hook Ethics Train Wreck, Part 2…“:

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I was the first supervisor of my previous agency’s SRO program, and I helped teach Active Shooter Response to all our law enforcement deputies for nearly fifteen years. Continue reading →