Video of NYPD's vain attempt to stop skateboarding event goes viral

Click here to see the full, uncut video. At nearly 14 minutes long it gets rather boring pretty quickly.

This Exists: South Africa Occult Crime Unit with membership restricted to Christian police officers

It exists, and University of Cape Town professor Jacques Rousseau calls it out:

Decades after its formation, the Occult-Related Crime Unit (ORCU, founded by Kobus "Donker" Jonker in 1992) continues to waste public resources, misdirect police attention, and stigmatize young people who are by and large more misunderstood than malignant.

Amongst all the crimes that we can speculate police in this unit might have seen, there's one we can be sure of - and it's one that they are complicit in. The crime in question is against common sense and morality, and is vested in the reinforcing of a Christian evangelical "Satanic Panic".

In the context of South Africa's constitutionally-protected freedom of religion, restricting membership of a police unit to only Christians - and dedicating that unit to protecting a Christian version of reality - is itself worthy of special attention as an occult-related crime.

Because a unit can't investigate itself, I'd ask the Minister of Police to consider funding a new Occult-Related-Related Crimes Unit, which I volunteer to lead. Our mission? To be ruthless in pursuing crimes related to simplistic, moralizing, and religiously prejudiced views of crime, society at large, and especially the youth.

Even on the very fuzzy definition of "occult" used by ORCU, too few such crimes occur to merit the existence of a dedicated unit. But it is in the definition of these crimes, as well as the background metaphysics and psychology, that ORCU starts to appear just as spooky as the crimes and motivations ORCU exists to combat.

In response (I presume) to a fairly constant barrage of criticism on social media, the South African Police Service (SAPS) removed the web page that gave us our best insight into how a unit in a 21st-century police force is being guided by ideas from the Dark Ages.

But thanks to the Wayback Machine, we can see not only that "Child has an interest in computer" is a sign that said child might be involved in a cult, but also that this and other equally ridiculous diagnostic advice has remained unchanged since September 2004 (the archived page from then - the earliest date the page was captured - being identical to the one that was removed in November 2013):

http://web.archive.org/web/20040922161210/http://www.saps.gov.za/youth_desk/occult/occult.htm

I don't mean to dispute that adolescents, and others, commit crimes in the service of motivations they themselves think of as occult. But when they do so, why is it that this motivation is singled out for special attention? We don't have a jealousy-related crimes unit, or a greed-related, tender-related, BEE-related, or alien-related unit - even though all of these provide possible motivations to commit crimes, mostly with far greater regularity than the occult would.

Then, if we find that a crime is committed because the guilty party thought themselves under some supernatural instruction, we know full well what to do next: arrange for that person to get the psychological help they clearly need, alongside whatever other sentence is appropriate.

Cop fired after macing, shooting at squirrel in dollar store

CBS 5 - KPHO

With New 'Starchase' Technology Police Can Fire GPS Trackers At Fleeing Suspects (Video)

The St. Petersburg, Florida police department is showing off a new tool meant to reduce the risks associated with high speed chases. A compressed-air launcher, mounted behind the grille of a police cruiser, uses a laser to target the fleeing vehicle. It discharges a projectile/tag containing the GPS module. The projectile adheres to the suspect vehicle and transmits coordinates back to dispatch. The dispatcher then views the location and movements of the tagged vehicle in near real-time on a digital road map via a secure Internet connection. The StarChase mapping platform is a secure, scalable Web-based solution that does not require special hardware to operate. It is compatible with existing CAD and AVL systems.

Starchase.com

Man must apologize to police officer for taking a dump cruiser

Policing: it's a dirty job, but somebody's go to do it: From the Lowell Sun in Massachusetts:

A 66-year-old Nashua man was placed on probation and must write a letter of apology to a state trooper after admitting to driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol on Route 3 in Chelmsford, then left "a present" in the back seat of a State Police cruiser after he was arrested.

In Lowell District Court on Wednesday, Edward Carroll, of 909 St. James Place, admitted to sufficient facts to charges of operating under the influence of drugs, operating under the influence of alcohol, wanton destruction of property, assault and battery on a police officer, and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon...

On Feb. 10 a state trooper stopped Carroll and arrested him for suspicion of driving while under the influence.

Carroll allegedly struggled when he was placed in the rear of the cruiser and allegedly kicked the trooper. The trooper used a baton to strike Carroll in the shin to prevent him from kicking further... 

While in the cruiser's back seat, Carroll allegedly spit in the car and defecated in his pants.As he was removed from the cruiser, Carroll allegedly laughed in the trooper's face and told him he left "a present" in the backseat.

Carroll allegedly continued to be unruly in the station. A company had to be a called in to decontaminate the cruiser and the holding cell.

Ewww.

Two drunk, unlicensed drivers arrested driving the same vehicle minutes apart.

Sounds like a bit of police incompetence in Australia's Northern Territory.

According to the NT News, the cops first pulled over the Toyota Hilux pickup truck for speeding in the town of Patterson at around 10pm last night. The 22-year-old female driver, who only had a learner's permit, was reportedly doing 100km/h (62 mp/h) in an 80km/h (49 mp/h) zone and gave a .112 on her roadside breathalyzer reading.

Then 15 minutes later, police again pulled over the same truck about 17 kilometers (10.5 miles) away, in the town of Tivendale. This time it seems an unlicensed 27-year-old man was driving and his test returned a reading of .203.

Now, how could the same vehicle be pulled over by police 15 minutes later unless the police let the drunker of the two take off in the truck after the first stop?

Unfortunately, the NT News article sheds no light on this, whatsoever.