Bad Cop Blotter

  • The DEA Is Monitoring Your Phone Calls

    Over the weekend, revelations that AT&T is freely sharing a massive amount of phone data with the DEA and local law enforcement agencies underlined just how connected the surveillance state is to the war on drugs.

  • The Cops Should Always Be on Camera

    As a pilot program in Rialto, California, reveals, when cops film all their interactions with civilians and suspects, complaints against officers go down. So why aren't more departments around the country doing this?

  • Stop Tasering Us, Police Bros

    Tasers are designed to let officers take down violent perps without killing them, but they're often used by mean or lazy cops to neutralize such nonthreats as streakers, pregnant women who are pissed about parking tickets, disorderly ten-year-olds, the...

  • Eric Holder Speaks Out Against Mandatory Minimums, Gives Us a Sliver of Hope

    Yesterday Attorney General Eric Holder announced that his office wouldn't be seeking mandatory minimums when it came to low-level drug offenders. It's a baby step on the long, long road to reducing the US's prison population.

  • End the War on Baby Deer

    Two weeks ago, cops in Wisconsin served a search warrant on an animal shelter in order to seize a contraband baby deer named Giggles. They tranquilized and later killed the fawn because it hadn't been taken to a wildlife reserve as it should have been...

  • DEA Raids Legal Weed Dispensaries in Washington Again

    Last Wednesday, at least four medical marijuana dispensaries in Washington state—where even recreational use of pot is legal in small amounts—got quite a scare when the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) came calling. The clinics, all of which had...

ΔΙΑΦΗΜΙΣΗ
  • Routine Raid Terror

    Cops on raids often come in with guns waving and assume that the person they're raiding knows that they're police and not some other gang of armed men. This can lead to tense, dangerous standoffs between SWAT teams and armed civilians, like in the case...

  • Asset Forfeiture, the Cash Cow of the Drug War

    Cops routinely seize assets—like cars, money, and even hotels—that are linked to criminal activity, even if the property owner hasn't been convicted of a crime. This leads to a dangerous system of incentives whereby cops seize property in drug busts so...

  • The Police Can Legally Kick You out of Your Home

    The Third Amendment makes it unconstitutional for soldiers to quarter themselves in private homes. But cops may not count as soldiers and can force their way into any house they like, as the Mitchell family in Henderson, Nevada, found out in 2011. Now...

  • We'll Need to See Some ID, Officer

    When a group of strangers ran at Elizabeth Daly, a 20-year-old college student, waving guns and yelling, she didn't know they were cops, so she tried to get away. Cases of mistaken identity like that are far too common, and can result in someone...

  • Yet Another "Justified" Police Shooting

    A robbery, a lie told to 911 about a gun, and police officers' potentially itchy trigger fingers led to Kendrec McDade's death last year. Whose fault is it he got shot multiple times despite being unarmed? According to the courts and official reports...

  • Stop SWAT Raids

    Introducing Bad Cop Blotter, a new column where dangerous, arrogant, and stupid police behavior gets shamed, and good officers—on occasion—get praised. This week, we're looking at horrifically botched SWAT raids and more than one case of cops shooting...