If you have walked a neighborhood foot beat as a police officer, I’d like to talk to you. I am working on a story on policing, and I would like to hear stories from men and women who have both walked neighborhoods as police officers and driven patrols in cruisers. If interested, please contact me with this form: [contact-form to=‘billhennessy@me.com’ subject=‘Police Foot Patrol Response’][contact-field label=‘Name’ type=‘name’ required=‘1’/][contact-field label=‘Email’ type=‘email’ required=‘1’/][contact-field label=‘Comment’ type=‘textarea’/][contact-field label=‘Police Department’ type=‘text’ required=‘1’/][/contact-form]

Do people become cops just so they can write speeding tickets? According to the National Sheriffs’ Association, writing speeding tickets is a police officer’s noblest calling. People and technologies that help drivers drive more safely and obey the law interfere with that noble mission of revenue generation, and the NSA is out to stop it. According to the Associated Press,the National Sheriffs’ Association wants to crack down on the popular traffic navigation app Waze™ so that people will drive faster and cops can write more tickets.

[audio mp3=“https://hennessysview.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/do-police-like-ticket-quotas.mp3”][/audio] What do police officer think about traffic ticket quotas? Here’s one officer’s thoughts: In my agency, those of us in patrol had to keep a “Daily.” This would be a formal document that showed the times, addresses where we went, written in code, of what we had done. On the back were boxes for how many traffic citations, criminal citations, parking citations and felony and misdemeanor arrests we had made on that day.

What did you think when you first heard reports of violence in Ferguson? I mean, after the shooting death of Michael Brown? Did you ever for a moment think, “this is about more than just Michael Brown?” I hate to say that. It’s embarrassing to admit that I’m so jaded as to think “that’s all” when a young man dies. Sorry. I’m just being honest. I understand community grief and anger.

Conservatives love cracking on government and its unintended consequences. How often does a government initiative give us backassward results? Exhibit A: Obama hands Solyndra millions in tax dollars to promote green energy. Solyndra (and numerous other green energy grant recipients) goes bankrupt. Another example is the St. Louis Board of Police Commissioners. In 1861, Missouri’s legislature created a board of commissioners to oversee the St. Louis Police Department. Why? Because Missouri was a slave state, but St.

You get the feeling that Rex Sinquefield holds a grudge against his home state, and he’s using some of his fortune to punish us. Rex gave a quarter million dollars to Obama’s Lawyer, Chris Koster. But that wasn’t his first assault on us. Rex’s war against the St. Louis Police Department is older and far more bitter. Rex wants to force the state to surrender the Board of Police Commissioners for St.