by Fred Reed
It was after ten on Friday night in Arlington and I was riding with Officer Matt O’Brien and absolutely nothing was happening. Nobody was in the streets. The weather was cold. The criminals, who lack strength of character, were hiding indoors. O’Brien told me that nothing would happen until just before his shift ended, so …
Having written this column for many years now, I find myself wondering at times, “Whence?” and “Whither?” and “Wherefore?” and “To what end?” What have I gotten out of it, and what, if anything, have the readers gotten? Sure, I’m making a buck, which we all have to. But there’s more to it than that. …
Let’s see. The Puerto Rican celebration in New York turned into turned into a rape fest, and the police were denounced for not stopping it. In Philadelphia, a black shot at cops, the cops thumped him, and the NAACP sued. The rules are fairly clear by now. If white cops do anything to misbehaving minorities, …
Some months ago I wrote that cops in a lot of jurisdictions have decided that the current climate of hostility toward the police has led officers to keep their heads down — i.e., not to do anything that could result in criticism by the racial lobbies. Because this column also appears on my web site …
real-life story of the DC cops. I’m going to keep it vague because a civil suit looks probable. I was in Northwest last week with friends to celebrate a new job one of them had. After dinner for grins we went for a beer at a local girly bar. A buddy of mine, call him …
had hoped to spend the summer running columns from my recent trip to Chicago, which gives a picture of big-city policing that Washington can’t. As it happens, however, the growing racial problem, in which cops are declining to risk arresting blacks for fear of being prosecuted, has upset the apple cart. My email on the …
A country deserves what it tolerates, and will assuredly get more of it,” said my favorite political commentator (me). He has also asked, “And this is supposed to help blacks?” Across the country the rabble rampage—Black Lives Matter, Antifa, and mobs sacking stores. They are by no means all black. Whites participate in the vandalism, …
The other day I was doing some target shooting at a private range with a cop I know, and we started talking about the very common dislike of cops found throughout society. Which got me to thinking. A few observations: There is a clear difference between the sexes in attitudes toward the police. White women, …
In re race and the behavior of police: Reporters and writers of editorials seem to lunge instinctively for the superficial, preferably embodied in easily remembered buzz phrases. One such is “racial profiling.” The implication, and assumption, is that blacks are being targeted for reasons of racial hostility by the police. Generally this isn’t true. If …
Mountings. Large ones. Fog, too. We caught the seven-o’clock goat-and-chicken out of Kat, my daughter Macon and I, two porters, and our trusty guide Karna. A Nepalese rural bus is not the Stork Club. It is much better, depending on your nerves. For eight hours we bounced higher into the Himalayas with the tires a …