Police Blotter of the Day: This is how to pose for a mug shot
Police mug via thesmokinggun.com
Meet Michelle Watson.
The 24-year-old motorist had an eventful Thursday evening, according to cops in Prescott, Arizona.
(According to the charges, Watson was driving intoxicated, hit several curbs, cursed one officer, shoved another and kneed one in the groin.)
Despite all this, Watson was beaming and flashing two thumbs up when she posed for the above booking photo at the Yavapai County Jail (her blood alcohol content was measured at nearly three times the legal limit).
Full story (The Smoking Gun)
Police Blotter of the Day: Man wearing ‘I’m A Drunk’ T-shirt hits cop car, arrested for DWI
WNBC-TV
A man wearing a T-shirt reading “I’m A Drunk” crashed into a police car early Thursday on Long Island and is being charged with driving while intoxicated, police said.
Kevin Daly, of Coram, N.Y., was driving a 2000 Saturn on County Road 83 at about 1:45 a.m. when he hit the patrol car.
The entire message on his T-shirt reads “I’m Not An Alcoholic, I’m A Drunk. Alcoholics Go to Meetings.”
(The police officer wasn’t hurt.)
Full story (AP via WNBC-TV of New York)
Police Blotter of the Day: Bay Area man accused of skinning, eating bobcat
Where I come from, that verb would be “applauded for.”
Investigators said the bobcat made five of Henry Arnibal’s 50 roosters into a tasty meal.
Arnibal was not pleased with the bobcat eating his roosters, so the Morgan Hill man shot the big cat with a .22-caliber rifle and turned the tables, Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney Steve Lowney said.
Prosecutors said Arnibal used tools to skin the bobcat before eating it.
Eating a bobcat is not illegal, but it is against the law to kill one, Lowney said.
Prosecutors said Arnibal was high on methamphetamine when he killed and ate the bobcat.
Full story (KCRA-TV of Sacramento, Calif.)
Development of a news story: Is Obama’s high-speed rail a ‘train to nowhere’?
Over at msnbc.com, I have a piece looking at the status of President Obama’s ambitious project to bring high-speed rail — think Japan’s bullet trains — to most of the country by 2034.
The assignment was to write about the ballooning costs estimates for the Los Angeles-to-San Francisco project, which has been widely covered. So the challenge was to find A) a new angle on a story everyone already knows about and B) a way to make an infrastructure budget story — a known click repellent — interesting.
The first part was relatively easy: Let’s put the California project into a national context and see what, if anything, it says about Obama’s overall plan. The second part was a little harder.
U.S. reconsiders, now says it’s not really OK to lie to journalists
Cross-posted from msnbc.com’s Open Channel investigative blog, where I also hang my hat:
The Justice Department has gotten the message from journalists, interest groups and government watchdogs and has decided to withdraw its proposal to allow federal agencies to lie to people seeking sensitive documents under the Freedom of Information Act.
Currently, if a requested document is so sensitive that it would be dangerous to acknowledge its very existence, the government is allowed to tell you that it can neither confirm nor deny whether there is such a document.
Last month, the Justice Department proposed a rule revision that would let government agencies tell requesters there is no such document — even if there is. According to the proposal, which was retrieved by the nonprofit investigative project ProPublica, agencies would be allowed to “respond to the request as if the excluded records did not exist.”
Why machines won’t replace live editors any time soon
From an article that obviously was run through editing software in a shop that had no one to review the output:
However, if one is wearing a little african american dress, a fun concept is to pair that with any different color of shoe, such as red flats, blue sends, or any other style that fits one’s fancy.
Crackheads aren’t coming to get you
I tell MSNBC's Craig Melvin why sentences for crack will be closer to penalties for powder cocaine.
Cross-posted from msnbc.com’s Open Channel investigative blog, where it originally appeared:
No, thousands of “crackheads” aren’t going to start flooding America’s streets Tuesday.
That’s just one of several myths that have surrounded the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s vote in June to make federal sentence reductions retroactive for current prisoners convicted of crack possession or use.
What happens Tuesday is that some eligible federal prisoners who have petitioned for reduced sentences under rules Congress passed last year can begin being released. Those rules sought to address a disparity that meant crack offenders were given the same mandatory five-year minimum sentence as were offenders in possession of 100 times as much powder cocaine.
Police Blotter of the Day: Woman kept crack pipe in Bible, cops say
… Tonya Levette Sutton, 42, was arrested late Sunday on narcotics possession and public consumption after she was spotted walking on a public street with an open container of Colt .45 malt liquor, according to an arrest report obtained by TCPalm.com.
Sutton was approached by officers and taken into custody, but when police searched her purse they made an unholy discovery.
Inside a small bible was a crack cocaine pipe that appeared used and had drug residue, the report said. …
Full story (WTVJ-TV of Miami)
Development of a story idea: Rooting for the home team? There’s a PAC for that
Over at msnbc.com, where I hang my professional hat, I have a piece today examining the intersection of big-time sports and political activism in Washington:
If you’re among the many Americans who believe lobbyists are part of what’s wrong with this country, you should know this: If you’ve ever gone to a football, baseball, basketball or hockey game — or even watched one on TV — you have your own special interest groups pushing your agenda in Washington.
Even Ralph Nader is working for you. …
Leaders of the groups push a number of different agendas — fighting soaring ticket prices, league lockouts and television-rights deals that black out some fans, among others — but they come together on one issue: what they see as the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s exploitation of athletes and fans for profit.
Many believe the answer is to scrap the Bowl Championship Series, which purports to pit the two best college football teams in the country for the national championship, even though its postseason matchups are determined by pollsters and computers, not by on-the-field competition.
Police Blotter of the Day: Credit card thief spends $717 at Burger King
Since Aug. 25, the thief used the card up to several times a day but at just one place: the Burger King at 175 N. Federal Highway in Boca Raton, near Mizner Park. That averages about $14 a day spent at the restaurant. …
In February, the Broward Sheriff’s Office was searching for a credit card thief with different cravings. That thief, nicknamed the “Marlboro man,” had been breaking into cars since 2008 to steal credit cards, which he then used to buy cartons of cigarettes.
Full story (South Florida Sun Sentinel)
Alex Johnson - Journalist at Large 