Roundup: Crime in 2021 was down, or up, or maybe the same; the silly fentanyl Halloween panic, Biden's new pot policy; San Antonio cop shoots teen for eating a burger

Here’s what’s happening in the world of criminal justice and civil liberties:

• Philadelphia apologizes for allowing medical experiments on black inmates from the 1950s through the 1970s.

• Study: U.S. police average far more fatal shootings than most other countries, ranking third of the 18 countries surveyed. U.S. police also received the least amount of training.

• According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report, the crime rate in 2021 appeared to remain mostly static, which would mean another year in which homicides were significantly higher than in 2019, but in which violent crime generally and overall crime continued to fall. But thanks to changes in reporting methods, nearly half of police agencies across the country didn’t report a full year’s worth of statistics, and many reported nothing at all. The UCR has always been unreliable and easily manipulated, but you could at least attempt to compare data from year to year. That’s going to be all but impossible now. All of which is worth keeping in mind when you read hot takes attempting to shoehorn national crime trends into a political narrative. (You can check here to see which police agencies in your area did or did not report data.)

• Our prison population is aging, and that’s going to present a lot of expensive challenges. I predict we will recognize the humanity of incarcerated people and provide them with the care they deserve. (Just kidding! It’s going to be a disaster.)

• The idea that drug dealers have any interest in dropping expensive illicit narcotics into your kids’ trick-or-treat bag has always been silly and preposterous. The “rainbow fentanyl” panic is just another iteration of the same Halloween panic we’ve seen decades. It’s hysterical bullshit propaganda.

• I mean, so long as they’ve pledged.

• Chris Geidner has a through rundown of what you need to know about Biden’s mass pardon and marijuana announcement last week.

• Sitting U.S. senator Tommy Tuberville says people advocate for reparations because “they think the people who do the crime are owed that.” Which, in addition to being pretty blatantly racist, makes as much as sense as . . . well, much of what Tommy Tuberville says.

• San Antonio police officer opens fire on a teenager for eating a burger in a parking lot. The officer — who has been fired but not yet criminally charged — claimed the car looked like a car that had evaded him the day before. It was not the same car.

  Kendall Brown @kendallybrown

  Earlier this week, a San Antonio cop abruptly confronted a teen eating in a McDonalds parking lot & demanded the teen exit his vehicle. When the teen asked why, the cop immediately assaulted & then shot him MULTIPLE TIMES. Cop tried to (falsely) claim the teen had struck him 1st

This week in dog history:

“Chubby,” an Airdale Terrier, noticed that seven-month-old Walter Whalen had become entangled in his blankets and wasn’t breathing. Chubby barked furiously, alerting Walter’s mother, who disentangled the infant. Chubby then “willingly” posed for a newspaper photo with Walter.

— Associated Press, October 11, 1937

Photo:

Denali. Denali National Park, Alaska. September 2022.