It’s been a bad couple of years for the police in my part of the state. Late in 1992, a jury awarded Fred Sanders $1.5 million dollars after finding that officers had beaten him after his arrest and then conspired to cover it up. This January, our city settled a suit brought by a motorcycle club, following a raid based on inaccurate…
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Policing Marion County
John Leaf was home, in bed. Heeding the advice of Mothers Against Drunk Driving and others, he had given his car keys to a friend because he had been drinking.
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It Could Have Been Us
The story from Cincinnati is a familiar one: a white police officer shoots a black teenager, later found to have been unarmed, and the African-American community erupts. A curfew is imposed, and the Mayor declares that the incident will be a catalyst for “real” review and subsequent improvement of community-police relations.
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Time to Rope in the Cowboys
According to news reports, the incident began when a motorist involved in a property-damage auto accident drove away without stopping—a hit and run. Rather than waiting to run the license plate number, police gave chase. Lots of them. Some witnesses counted over twenty police cars involved by the time the chase ended inside the Abbey.
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Government Terrorism
When the media first reported that a White House functionary — later identified as Craig Livingstone -had obtained files containing personal information on Bush Administration employees, a lot of us felt queasy. The image of some partisan operative gloating over private information he might use to benefit his patrons and…
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