Black and White and Thin Blue Lines

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On the afternoon of January 10, 2024, more than 20 police officers in tactical gear carrying long arms and deploying flash bangs served a search warrant in Elyria, Ohio. Sure ... the usual stuff. You know. The guy the police were looking for hadn't lived at the residence the cops trashed for more than a year. Oh, and there was another hiccup. It seems the police deployed a flash bang grenade that blew out a glass window over a bassinet where a 17-month old baby was breathing on a ventilator. Not to worry. The Police Department issued a press release assuring the public that no baby was injured in the fiasco (because flash bangs don't use caustic chemicals). In other news, the baby was admitted to the hospital for treatment of his non-injuries. Don't let the baby's picture fool you; the child always looked like that. Clarke vents and Serge analyzes the unintended battery on the baby and the intentional assault on our intelligence.

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Serge often observes that America is declining into anarchy. Clarke is sometimes pessimistic. Serge and Clarke bring their inclinations to the story of a young man who jumped the bench in a Las Vegas courtroom and beat up the judge who was sentencing him to prison for beating up a person with a baseball bat. What the heck is in the water in this country? Also, New York Governor declares war on shoplifting. Welcome Governor to the chaos you and others have created. 

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Almost six decades after the United States Supreme Court's landmark Miranda decision, police administrators in Maryland are claiming that a 2022 Maryland law that requires police adhere to Miranda during juvenile arrests is making their job more difficult. In a now familiar whine, our state and local governments blame their inability to fight crime on a document designed to protect citizens from the overreach of government. In this episode, Serge and Clarke discuss the Maryland Child Interrogation Protection Act. This episode is a counterbalance to official state propaganda. 

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Police Commissioner Worley has implemented 8 hours of empathy instruction for every Baltimore Police Officer. In this episode, Serge and Clarke discuss the instruction. Serge begins with the valid premise that it is a good idea for victims of trauma -- like most police officers and many Baltimoreans--to learn understanding. On his part, Clarke is a bit more "Doctor, Heal Thyself." 

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This week, the Mayor of Baltimore filed suit in federal court against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. It turns out that ATF sends gun trace information to the Police Commissioner but does not send the same information to the Mayor. Rather than figure a workaround, the Mayor -- represented by Everytown Law -- filed suit. The lawsuit is largely a press release in the form of a lawsuit pretending that Mayor Scott is stymied in his war on crime by federal authorities. Serge and Clarke discuss this farce. 

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For three decades, the United States Congress has passed laws to fund forensic examinations in sexual assault cases. But it  doesn't seem to matter.  The country is awash in untested rape kits while repetitive sex offenders continue to violate. In fact, Maryland leads the nation in rape kit backlogs at the forensic lab. But at least the rape kits make it to the lab in Maryland. In New York, cops ameliorate the crime lab backlog with a new strategy: just leave the Sexual Assault Forensic Examination kits uncollected from the hospital. In this week's episode Serge and Clarke discuss SAFE nursing with Marcia "T" and she provides insight into the process, the protection afforded to victims, and a great way to re-think the "she asked for it" bias. 

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After Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd, the federal government permitted anarchists to loot and burn communities across the country. The State of Minnesota successfully prosecuted Chauvin and he was sentenced to 22 years in prison. But the federal government was not satisfied. A federal grand jury was convened. Chauvin was federally indicted. Chauvin pled guilty to civil rights violations and a federal prison sentence was imposed to run concurrently with his state sentence. Then the federal government moved Chauvin to Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Tucson where a former FBI informant stabbed Chauvin 22 time before correctional officers intervened. Did the federal government ship Chauvin to a notoriously dangerous and poorly run federal prison and permit Chauvin to be stabbed for the same reason it let anarchists loot and burn communities? Please listen to this episode of Black and White and Thin Blue Lines and you be the judge.

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The United States Attorney for the District of Maryland successfully indicted and convicted former Baltimore City State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby of two counts of perjury. In this weeks episode, Jack Mitchell -- a former police officer who worked for Ms. Mosby as an Assistant State's Attorney -- joins Serge and Clarke to discuss Mosby's perjury conviction. Two of three commentators think this case was a political hit job.  It might surprise you to learn who thinks the prosecution was righteous.

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Who would have thought that in 2023, shoplifting could become a major crime in the United States. Wait -- stop. Not everyone believes that shoplifting is even on the rise. But we do! In this episode Serge and Clarke discuss the changing  social conventions surrounding the crime of shoplifting as further evidence of a breakdown of cultural norms and further proof that we are devolving into anarchy. 

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Kashef Khan was the Maryland State Trooper of the Year until he was fired for allegedly writing a false report. The "falsity" in the report was the location of a traffic stop which Khan accurately documented in many ways. Khan uploaded a slightly inaccurate longitude and latitude location from a reporting system that MSP admits was NOT designed for highway use and may generate inaccurate locations. While Kashef Khan's case works its way through the Maryland appellate court process, Khan revealed to the Office of the Attorney General that he had tape recorded the interrogation that MSP alleged it could not locate. And lo and behold, Khan's copy of that interrogation contradicts the testimony of the interrogators before the Administrative Hearing Board and in statements made by them to Internal Affairs. The Maryland State Prosecutor has referred the case to MSP for administrative investigation.