Wednesday Link Roundup & A Question For Our Readers

Unfortunately, I’ve been pretty busy lately and haven’t had as much time to dedicate to Cop Block as I’d like. To save time, I’ve been considering no longer posting under our Quick Hits feature and instead posting roundups (like this one) of interesting police-related links I find to the main page every few days.

• Over at Pro Liberate, William Grigg discusses several recent cases of police brutality that took place in Denver, CO. I discussed several of these cases in a post last month which you can view here.
• Remember that guy who was arrested for calling the police Nazis? Arkansas Times reports that the Jonesboro police agreed to drop all the charges against him as long as he does not sue the police for trespassing on his property, battering him, falsely arresting him, and conducting an illegal search. A word of advice to the Jonesboro police: people will stop calling you Nazis if you stop acting like them.
• Over at Reason Magazine, Radley Balko reports that two years ago a police officer in Chesapeake, Virginia was shot and killed during a no-knock drug raid by a resident who believed he was being burglarized. While the police haven’t stopped conducting ultra-violent no-knock raids on the homes of people suspected of victimless crimes, they have started using a totally sweet new battering ram. Way to go, fellas! I’m sure your dead colleague would have been proud.
• Activists in New Hampshire protested a fascist “sobriety” checkpoint last Saturday. Some people stood near the checkpoint to film it while others stood further down the street and held up signs warning motorists about the checkpoint. Naturally, many of the activists were harassed by the police. Personally, I think that warning people about checkpoints is an awesome form of activism that I’d like to see replicated everywhere, however, I would not recommend being antagonistic towards police officers.
• Speaking of checkpoints, The New York Times reports that a new reality show in Iraq tricks celebrities who are stopped at a military checkpoint into believing that they have bombs in their cars and will be executed on terrorism charges. For some reason, I’m not laughing.
• The Keene Sentinel reports that “As budgets tighten, local police are struggling to remain visible in their communities.” Police have been laid off, overtime has been cut, and police are spending less time patrolling. Oh, and Marlborough Police Chief Christopher J. Lyons can’t give anti-bullying spiels at local schools anymore. The horror!

My question to our readers is this, which style of blogging do you prefer? Should I continue working on Quick Hits or should I post link roundups?