The insistent cadence of the telephone on the bedside cabinet had a certain sense of urgency to it. Stacey stirred from the warmth and comfort of her bed, switched on the bedside lamp, and glanced at the alarm clock. The time was five minutes to six. It was still dark outside. Sleepily, she picked up the receiver and spoke into the mouthpiece.
'Yes?'
It was the Langley switchboard instructing her to get to Headquarters. Director Helms wished to see her as soon as possible. She replied in the affirmative and replaced the receiver. Sinking back into the pillows, she wondered what the hell had happened now. Her partner, Alex Shepard, with whom she shared the condo was away; flying some junket of lard-assed Congressmen on some so-called fact-finding mission to some Mickey-mouse African Republic. He had taken the car across to Andrews Air Force Base the previous morning to prepare his airplane, which meant that she would have to take either a cab, or catch the Langley shuttle bus which picked up over on Tenth Street N; a few blocks to the north. Getting out of bed, she hit the bathroom, showered, and put on her make-up. She dressed in a sensible business suit and double-checked her briefcase to make sure she had everything she was likely to need for the day. Coming out of her bedroom; she made her way to the dining area of the kitchen for a quick breakfast. A cup of coffee and a slice of toast later, she left the kitchen and proceeded to the living-room. She made a quick check to see that nothing was left out that would compromise her identity... as was standard procedure when an operative's apartment was to be vacant for any length of time… and the phone-call suggested that she might well be just that. The shuttle bus didn't seem to b...
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...foolhardy dealers who had thought that the drive past meant that the coast was clear.
John McCarron glanced at Stacey. He knew from experience that it would be a short visit. No right-minded police will be out on these streets fifteen minutes from now. That was when the guns came out. The streets were empty of dealers, runners, and addicts. All the radio cars are would be sneaking off to their holes, parked up nose-to-tail behind warehouses and factory buildings, or, better still, out on the edge of their patrol area at some all-night coffee and donut diner. This was the time that the drug gang enforcers settled their differences, and it was all too easy to get caught in the crossfire. It was also the time that the dirty BNDD agents came calling. With the streets empty they could move without fear of recognition as they collected their take from the various dealers.
Dowd becomes a patrol cop in Brooklyn’s 75th Precinct, in East New York in 1983, and within a year, he formed a crew of cops that began robbing drug dealers. In 1986 known on the streets as ‘’Mike the Cop”, he began charging drug dealers as much as $8,000 for protection. And also, He began to participate in kidnapping of drug dealers and sold stolen drugs on Long Island. In 1988, NYPD Internal Affairs Sgt. Joe Trimbole began to investigate officer Dowd, but he didn’t receive enough support from the New York Police Department to prosecute him
Once he displayed the table showing the percentage of calls in the Eastern District in one year, over one quarter of them were DCS or drugs related. This made sense because of the drug relyant nature of the Eastern District. But many of those were “bullshit calls” meaning the police did not need to be dispatched to the call. This includes competing drug dealers calling the police on each other, or prostitutes not getting paid and claiming they were raped. The themes of the chapter is
The first chapter of Policing Gangs in America is entitled, “Studying the Police Response to Gangs.” The primary purpose of the chapter is to establish how police agencies; Inglewood, Las Vegas, Albuquerque and Phoenix in specific, respond to gang problems in their respective areas. This chapter served as an introduction, giving a brief history of gang-related policing, how the public and media see the gang problem, research studies done regarding gangs and the recent declaration to shift away from suppression-oriented strategies as a result of overly aggressive actions toward citizens. Examples of this misconduct are given in the forms of gang units from Las Vegas, Chicago and Houston.
CNN presents the documentary, Homicide in Hollenbeck, spotlighting gang activity in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Hollenbeck. This documentary explores the subculture of gangs existing within Hollenbeck from a several perspectives. The people documented include a mother who lost both of her sons to gang violence, a priest that has tried to help rehabilitate gang members, a police officer that has worked in Hollenbeck for five years in the gang unit, and a current gang member. For a conclusion, Homicide in Hollenbeck focuses on a juvenile exposed to gang life on the cusp of decided where they want their life to lead; gangs or freedom. Problems attributed to the high rate of gang activity and number of gangs in Hollenbeck are the high poverty rate, low employment rate, and broken families that make up the majority of Hollenbeck. The crime most discussed, as per the title of the documentary, is homicide The number of gang related homicides has risen even though the criminal behavior of gangs has ultimately decreased in the neighborhood. In order to fight the overwhelming gang presence, the police believe in increasing the amount of gun power on the streets and number of jailed gang members. The priest who runs Homeboy Industries stated that he feels most gang members are just young men who can’t get out of the gang life. With more funds and opportunities, he thinks the problem could be decreased. In the end, the documentary mentions that the FBI has formed a gang center where local law enforcement agencies can share information to gain more knowledge and to better fight the presence of gangs.
“My crimey here think the way to go is more drugs. But I know better. I think making money is okay, but not making it just by dealing. You gotta go legit, at least for a minute. You gotta go state fresh, all the way live, if you wanna do anything worthwhile out here. Everybody thinks they can make crazy dollars, but they confused. It aint like that. I’ve seen co-caine bust many a head – they get fucked up and be clocking out after they find out they cannot find the key to understanding that mystery skied. But you know what? But-but0but you know what? They don’t have a clue. Word.” (Williams, 1989)
The piece goes on to say that “gang members, drug dealers, two-bit criminals, wannabes, etc. are taking a vacation and taking advantage of the police not wanting to be in the area because police are the targets for all these gang members and drug dealers.” The video continues on stating that this is all occurring as arrest numbers have dropped 32%; a concerning result of police officers being targeted, fearing for their lives, feel alienated and concerned about doing their jobs. The guest also states “this is exactly what the city government gets…The police department doesn’t feel the police commissioner has stood by it, and the mayor threw them under the bus by inviting the DOJ to come and investigate an alleged presence of racism…{So they} are making no proactive stops; not stopping people and shaking them down, not searching people or looking for guns or drugs, basically just answering the calls to service…taking care of the good citizens who are in trouble…and taking care of their fellow officers because they now have to worry about making a mistake and getting charged with false arrest, false imprisonment, and the loss of their freedom.” The guest also predicts that many of the police officers will leave to find places that will respect them and support them when they make lawful arrests and do their job, leaving only those who would do nothing and mindlessly agree with the
Vollmer, through his leadership as a police chief, his writings, and the many disciples he educated, influenced American policing for the rest of the Twentieth Century. While many of his ideas were deemed radical at the time, they came to encapsulate what is today considered to be good quality and professional policing. Although Vollmer’s views on narcotics were, and still are, radical, it is curious to ponder if his views on illicit drugs were not prescient.
The first detail the authors selected is the fact that drug dealers still live with their mothers at home. Drug dealing has been painted by the media as “one of the most profitable jobs in America” (Levitt 83). However, that is not the case. Drug dealing works much like a business in America, namely crack dealing in Chicago. In the novel, there is the example of the Black Disciples, a crack gang in Chicago. Their group is organized into a multitude of franchises that report back to the board of directors, providing the board with a large cut of the profits made on the streets. The leader of each gang made a large sum of up to $100,000, but “the foot soldiers earned just about $3.30 an hour, less than the minimum wage” (Levitt 93). This detail of the drug dealers was selected to appear in the novel to show how “conventional wisdoms” are false and misleading. The media at the time was stating that drug dealers made large sums of money participating in the illicit drug trade, but that was not the case. Drug dealers did not even make enough money to move out of their mother’s home. Foot soldiers worked for less than the federal minimum wage at the time, but the “conventional wisdom” was that the foot soldiers were making large sums of money. This detail causes the reader to question what they see in the media, and readers see that there exists a complexity behind
Peak, K. J. (2013). Policing America, Vitalsource for Kaplan University [VitalSouce bookshelf version]. Retrieved from http://splashurl.com/qc99jsl
This documentary takes place in Newark, New Jersey. One of the most crime filled cities in the United States. Murder, drugs, and gangs fill this city. Many police officers work hard to keep their city safe and others for other intentions. This documentary shows how the police work, their tactics, and the reality of how police officers are working with the community.
Gang involvement has been quite higher than past years. The 2008 National Youth Gang Survey estimates that about 32.4 percent of all cities, suburban areas, towns, and rural counties had a gang problem (Egley et al., 2010). This represented a 15 percent increase from the year 2002. The total number of gangs has also increased by 28 percent and total gang members have increased by 6 percent (Egley et al., 2010). This shows how relevant gang related activity is in today’s society. More locations are beginning to experience gang activity for the first time. Gang crime has also been on the rise in the past...
A number of officers, some plain-clothed, Detective Charles Smythe, and Deputy Inspector Seymour Pine showed up at 1:20 am and announced that they were “taking the place.” Having been used to raids in the past, some patrons of the bars tried to escape- only to find that their exits had been blocked. Standard procedure for police raids included female officers performing inspections in the restrooms, in order to confirm that some of the ...
Over the last decade, Southwest border violence has elevated into a national security concern. Much of the violence appears to stem from the competing growth and distribution networks that many powerful Mexican drug cartels exercise today. The unfortunate byproduct of this criminality reaches many citizens of the Mexican border communities in the form of indiscriminate street gang shootings, stabbings, and hangings which equated to approximately 6,500 deaths in 2009 alone (AllGov, 2012). That same danger which now extends across the border regions of New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and California has the potential for alarming escalation. Yet, despite the violence, evermore-brazen behavior continues to grow, as does America’s appetite for drugs. Even though drug-related violence mandates that law enforcement agencies focus on supply reduction, the Office of National Drug Control Policy should shift its present policy formulation efforts to only drug demand reduction because treatment and prevention efforts are inadequate and strategy has evolved little over the last three decades.
The third maddening buzz of my alarm woke me as I groggily slid out of bed to the shower. It was the start of another routine morning, or so I thought. I took a shower, quarreled with my sister over which clothes she should wear for that day and finished getting myself ready. All of this took a little longer than usual, not a surprise, so we were running late. We hopped into the interior of my sleek, white Thunderbird and made our way to school.
Otero, Juan. “Curbing street gang violence,” National League of Cities. 21 Dec 1998. General Reference Center Gold. Jan 2007