Thursday, December 06, 2012

Oh, IMPD, you are just a fount of blog inspiration...

So the local TeeWee News announcer informed me this morning that the IMPD had formally hired their interim police chief as the new head cop of my fair city.

Described as a Gary native who came to Indianapolis two years ago from Baltimore, I thought "Wow, now there's the resume you want for your top cop." That's like having the new city comptroller described as "a native of Weimar Germany who comes to the Circle City from the Argentinian Ministry of Finance..."

(I also like the way the linked article deftly rephrased "rumors of evidence-tampering" regarding the departure of the incumbent...)

9 comments:

Turk Turon said...

Thank you for using the word "fount" in a sentence.

New Jovian Thunderbolt said...

Baltimore (hon)? If Indianapolis becomes more like Baltimore (hon) you may want to pull stakes for greener (or less red) pastures.

Way back when... Baltimore (hon) had an illiteracy problem. So public awareness campaigns were launched to try to combat the problem. Including a a slogan: "The City that Reads". It was on all the park benches and buses. It quickly morphed into "The City that Bleeds" when the murder rate spiked.

I prefer the other slogans. "Charm City" and "B'lieve, Hon"

Anonymous said...

I worked on a project with the Baltimore PD. They spent most of the time fighting with the Baltimore Fire Dept over who got the money versus who did the job.

Best of Luck.

Gerry

JohninMd.(help!) said...

Acually,I prefer to stay the hell OUT of Baltimore, "HON". "Charm City", my arse. Another town with.a history of "downgrading " offical reporting of crime stats, to make hizzoner and the cops look better on crime control, at least on paper. Un fortunatly, dead bodies kinda prove homicide stats. Now O'Malley is the Governor, has just about finished hosing us and telling us it's raining, and is probably angling for a Fed. Gov. job, maybe the Senate, or.... higher. He'll be a shoe-in in Md., 'cause democrat. If he gets traction towards the White House, remember the nick-name Martin O'Malley earned as mayor of Balto.; the "Teflon Leprocaun".

mikee said...

I lived in Baltimore for a decade. One (of the many) problems with the police there is that they practice selective enforcement of laws, depending on the neighborhood, the race of the perpetrator, and the violation of law involved in any situation.

For example, revenue enhancement for the city is practiced on commuters as if the police were grizzly bears and drivers were salmon headed upstream. Nothing else matters when the stream is full of nice fat fish to catch. And police efficiency rises to unmatched heights when dealing with nonviolent, sober commuters with fat wallets to plunder for - gasp! - speeding along with thousands of others every morning. They certainly spent more effort making the city money than policing the projects for drug dealers or petty criminals like muggers.

Social maladjustment is tolerated, such as homelessness, begging among drivers trapped at red lights and public drug use or intoxication, as long as it is confined to areas outside the tourist district or nicer suburbs, i.e., the slums. Police rarely responded to move the unconscious bums from outside the walls of my child's day care downtown, mostly because that was a quiet, safe place for the bums to sleep during the day.

Violence and crime due to drug dealing and drug abuse was tolerated to an amazing degree by the police and even more by the courts. A murder a day, at least, was averaged in the first years I was there as Jamaicans took over from local dealers in crack dealing. The death rate was that low only because the Emergency Rooms got so good at trauma care.

The show "Homicide" was popular there then, as "The Wire" has been recently, due to plenty of ready backgrounds for grimy reality.

I had a junky pop into my home in an attempt to steal purses during a party at my house. I lived one block from the police station at the time. Before I realized I had been invaded, my Bawlmer native neighbor cussed him out of the house. He calmly hiked down the block and walked into occupied houses again and again that sunny Saturday, until the police finally caught up with his rambling crime wave at his home 6 blocks away after he robbed his next door neighbor, who of course knew him. Did I mention I lived a block from the police station? He got rehab at the drug court and was back on the street in days.

Enjoy the Baltimortification of your fair city's law enforcement. Things like drunk driving police will seem like the good old days when police are arrested en mass for protected drug dealers. When it becomes noticeable I suggest a speedy exit.

rickn8or said...

You think he's gonna bring his Baltimore-ian and Maryland-ian attitudes about CCW to the job now that he's the head honcho?

Tam said...

rickn8or,

Thankfully, IN state law says that his attitudes about CCW don't amount to a hill of beans.

Stretch said...

"IN state law says that his attitudes about CCW don't amount to a hill of beans"

Um, sorry Tam. Just 'cause IN law says he can't doesn't mean he wont try. Maryland in general and Baltimore in particular breeds pols that consider laws as mere guidelines to be followed or ignored as whim and circumstances allow. Expect a "crackdown" on gun violence by the new PoPo Chief. Has to make his mark you know.

JohninMd.(help!) said...

Yup. What Mikee said. Ahh, the Jamacian drug war. such good times...like a root canal. And who can forget the proclivity for making "open container" busts, on folks drinkin'a beer....IN THEIR OWN BACK YARDS during a cook-out. Yup, fun town.