Category: Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement
-
Blue Lives Don’t Matter
by James A. Bacon Last week Virginia Senate Democrats unveiled a 27-bill package of criminal justice “reforms” they will advance in the special session that Governor Ralph Northam has said he expects to call this August. Some have potential merit, such as a slew of proposals to hold law-enforcement officers accountable for unjustified use of…
-
Senate Democrat Promises on Police Reform
By Steve Haner What follows, without edits, is the full list of legislative proposals now endorsed by the Virginia Senate Democratic Caucus. With 21 members, if they all show up and vote aye on all of these, they pass in the upcoming special session. Bills would then have to also pass the House of Delegates…
-
“Bring That Sucker Down Without Anyone Getting Hurt”
By Peter Galuszka In a striking sign of the times, Popular Mechanics magazine has published a how-to article regarding removing statues on your own. The article is titled: “How to Topple a Statue Using Science: Bring that sucker down without anyone getting hurt” by James Stout. The force need to bring down a controversial statue…
-
Another Use and Abuse of Statistics…
by James A. Bacon The Fairfax County Police Department publishes a statistical report every year on the police use of force in the county. There were 594 use-of-force incidents reported in 2019, up from 510 the previous year. The publication provides data with minimal commentary. This is the headline from the Reston Now article summarizing…
-
Stop the Problem Before It Starts
by Chris Braunlich With the General Assembly taking up policing reform in this summer’s special session, there should be at least one bill stopping a problem before it begins. Most big problems are created by a small number of people. The same is true of police officer transgressions. Most police officers are good police officers,…
-
Northam Gets a Couple of Things Right
by James A. Bacon I do have my issues with Wise King Ralph, but I have to give credit where credit is due. He has done two things right in the past few days. He has given the OK to move to Phase 3 of the COVID-19 lockdown on July 1, and he has refused…
-
The Systemic Racism of Monument Avenue
—
by
in Blogs and Blog Administration, Consumer Protection, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Culture wars, Demographics, Electoral process, Federal issues, Housing, Labor and Workforce, Money in politics, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Race and Race Relations, TransportationBy Peter Galuszka Richmond’s grand Monument Avenue, a double lane, tree lined thoroughfare, has been the epicenter of the Black Lives Matter campaign that has focused on the statues of several Confederate figures one the road, including Robert E. Lee, J.E.B. Stuart, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson and Jefferson Davis. All are up for removal, but the…
-
Stoney Proposes Overhaul of Richmond Policing
by James A. Bacon The Richmond Police Department received more than 80,000 calls for service in the first five months of 2020, writes Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney an a Richmond Times-Dispatch op-ed. Police respond to every type of crisis, from homelessness to mental health to substance abuse. “We need officers to respond to violent and…
-
Coming to a City Near You: Middle-Class Flight
by James A. Bacon As the City of Richmond becomes increasingly ungovernable in the face of continued protests and vandalism, a lot of people are saying to themselves, “I’m out of here.” Here’s a prediction: Middle-class flight will become the next big thing. Richmond, like many other cities around the country, has enjoyed a strong…
-
By the Way, Assaults on Virginia Police Officers Surged Last Year
by James A. Bacon So, the nation is in an uproar again, this time over the shooting death of Rayshard Brooks by a white police officer in Atlanta after Brooks resisted arrest, grabbed the officer’s taser and turned it on him. While this incident, like every other episode fueling the Black Lives Matter movement, occurred…
-
No, Northam Does Not Support Police Defunding
by James A. Bacon The idea of defunding the police in Virginia comes close to being clinically insane. Only someone suffering from mental psychosis would seriously propound it. Whatever police abuses may occur in Virginia — and they are relatively few — they are trivial to compared what would occur in a state of lawlessness…
-
Portsmouth Statue Smashers Nearly Kill a Man
by Kerry Dougherty Every time I pick up a newspaper I find myself thinking, If only they had real editors. I had that thought yesterday when the local newspaper published this online: “A man was hurt when one of the statues fell from the Portsmouth Confederate monument.” No, no, no. A statue didn’t FALL from…
-
The Ups and Downs of Felix Dzerzhinsky
By Peter Galuszka For three decades, a 15-ton statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky loomed over a square in downtown Moscow. He rose high near the Lubyanka building, a turn of the century, yellow-colored one-time insurance office that served as the national headquarters for the KGB. “Iron Felix,” born of Polish nobility, is best known as V.I.…
-
Racism, COVID19 and Marijuana Legalization in Virginia
By DJ Rippert Unintended consequences. Newspapers, websites and Bacon’s Rebellion have been full of articles describing and debating the COVID-19 pandemic and the police killing of George Floyd with the attendant protests. First-order consequences of these events have been widely discussed. However, as we enter into the “new normal” a number of secondary and tertiary…
-
They Are Coming For Your Family, Your Strip Malls
By Peter Galuszka State Sen. Amanda Chase, R-Chesterfield County, has always played the clown. The conservative politician grabbed attention a year or so back when she addressed a meeting at the General Assembly wearing a revolver in a holster on her hip. She’s also feuded with the county Republican Party and was defrocked. Now Chase…