Category: Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement
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Journalism, Confirmation Bias and the Presumption of Racism
by James A. Bacon People believe what they want to believe. They seek information that affirms their worldview, and they downplay or ignore evidence that conflicts with it. Psychologists have term for this proclivity: “confirmation bias.” Confirmation bias is extremely well documented in the psychological literature. Everyone falls prey to it. It doesn’t matter how…
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Mentally Ill in Jails, Part 1–The Scope of the Problem
By Dick Hall-Sizemore (Note: This was not intended to be a long post, but, during its development, it grew like Topsy. Being painfully aware of my tendency to be wordy and the limitations of a blog regarding long essays, I have broken the post into three parts or installments. The first examines the extent of…
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Here’s What You Look Like to a Traffic Cop
by James A. Bacon After a recent incident in which two Windsor policemen stopped black army officer Caron Nazario, pepper sprayed him, and forced him out of his car and onto the ground, the driving-while-black phenomenon is back in the news. Most people would agree that the behavior of the senior officer, Joe Gutierrez, was…
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Ralph Rescues Reefer
By Don Rippert Warm up the bongs. Adults in Virginia will be able to legally possess up to an ounce of marijuana for recreational use starting July 1. The bill originally passed by the General Assembly would have delayed that date until July 1, 2024. However, Governor Ralph Northam amended the bill and, after some…
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Justice For All
by Michael D. Purzycki I commend Dick Hall-Sizemore for his column of April 10. I agree with his outrage at the behavior of police in Windsor. There is no reason for an officer to point a gun at a person, or pepper-spray them, for anything to do with a license plate. And I agree that…
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Two Police Officers Made Windsor Famous
by Kerry Dougherty Looks like Windsor, Virginia, is finally on the map. For all the wrong reasons. The tiny incorporated town in Isle of Wight County, just west of Suffolk, is home to about 2,758 people. It’s not a place that makes much news and the folks there probably like it that way. But a…
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Driving While Black
By Dick Hall-Sizemore If anyone ever doubted there was a need for society to address the problem of police officers stopping Black drivers, a recent event in the town of Windsor should dispel those doubts. The incident is reported in today’s on-line Virginian-Pilot. Like incidents at Virginia institutions of higher education that have been recently…
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Is an 18-Month Sentence Too Little, Too Much, or Just Right?
by James A. Bacon By way of a press release from the Attorney General’s Office, Bacon’s Rebellion has learned of a heinous case in which a certain Amber Nelson has been sentenced to 18 months and ordered to pay restitution of $19,200 for elder neglect and abuse. I would invite readers to weigh in on…
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Selling Virginia Pot? Expect A Union Label
by Steve Haner When Virginians begin to buy marijuana from state-licensed providers, if Governor Ralph Northam has his way, along with his smiling visage on every baggie of grass you may also find a union label. I’m kidding about getting high with the governor’s image on the package but using the legalization bill to promote…
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Yes, the Virginia Beach Gang Shootings Should Be Investigated
Delegate Jay Jones, D-Norfolk, and other state legislators have called upon Attorney General Mark Herring to conduct an investigation into the shooting death of Donovon Lynch by a Virginia Beach police officer during a wild exchange of gunfire at the Oceanfront a week ago. Herring had said he supported a Virginia State Police investigation, but…
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Broken Windows
by Kerry Dougherty Maybe it’s time to admit that bicycle cops high-fiving gangbangers isn’t the best way to protect the public at the Virginia Beach oceanfront. I mean no offense to the police officers who patrol that wild 10-block area. They have a tough job. It’s time we let them do it. For years, the…
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Big Brother Has Been Curtailed
By Dick Hall-Sizemore A recent TV series, Person of Interest, centered on the ability to use large databases of personal information coupled with extensive audio and video surveillance to identify any individual and pull up extensive data on that individual. A small team of good guys used this capability to identify threats to individuals and…
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Does Loudoun CA’s Anti-Mass Incarceration Policy Mean More Battered Women?
by James A. Bacon Loudoun County, which still manages to elect Republicans to office on occasion, now vies with Arlington County and the City of Charlottesville for the title of the Berkeley of the East Coast. Over and above a super-woke school board which is implementing critical race theory in classrooms, Loudoun in 2019 elected a super-progressive…
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Richmond “Bleeding Heart” Released Killers From Supervised Parole
by Kerry Dougherty Meet one of Virginia’s most notorious murderers: Joseph Giarratano. If his name isn’t familiar, it may be because you weren’t in Virginia — or Norfolk — in the late 70s and early 1980s. On February 4, 1979 Giarratano strangled and raped a 15-year-old Norfolk girl, Michelle Kline, and stabbed her mother, Toni…
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A Chaotic Night in Virginia Beach
by Kerry Dougherty “Don’t drive near the oceanfront,” warned the caller on my cellphone Friday night. “Something’s going on.” I was on my way home from a dinner near the courthouse and usually travel north on Pacific Avenue. The other person, who’d left before me, was stuck in traffic. There were sirens and flashing lights. He…