I wanted to send a quick note to thank all the new subscribers for joining. This week marks exactly two (!) years since I started Posse Comitatus. At the time, I didn’t think many people would read a newsletter about sheriffs. Sadly, it seems to have become only more relevant. To the readers, thank you. To the sheriffs who make it necessary, put me out of a job!
ICYMI
Last week I interviewed Nika Soon-Shiong, Public Safety Commissioner for West Hollywood, about her work on the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department contract with WeHo for policing. She provided fantastic insights into the opaque process of how contract cities in Los Angeles are forced to do business with the LASD. Background on contract cities here.
This week, I wrote about monkeypox – more specifically, what we did (or did not) learn from the HIV and COVID-19 pandemics and how jails and prisons are vectors for disease. Dr. Homer Venters, the former chief medical officer for New York City jails, also wrote a piece here, in which he points out the inevitable skin-to-skin contact in jails and prisons.
Alan Elrod of the Pulaski Institution interviewed me for his podcast and allowed me to ramble on about how sheriffs are a threat to democracy.
What I’m Reading
Zachary Siegel – a long-time friend and a writer I admire – wrote a fantastic piece in the New York Times Magazine about those “fentanyl exposure” videos produced by law enforcement. He points out that such copaganada is not only false – you cannot overdose on fentanyl by touching it – but also ignores the very people who are suffering the most, those overdosing and dying, the people law enforcement are sworn to protect. Zach – alongside Tana Geneva, another delightful writer I’ve known for a long time – also writes a Substack called Substance that I highly recommend.
Wisconsin’s anti-democracy movement got the New Yorker treatment in this piece by Dan Kaufman. Racine County Sheriff Christopher Schmaling ran his own “investigation” into alleged improper voting by residents of long-term care facilities, something I wrote about for Bolts.
Michael Hardy, one of my favorite Texas writers, covered the bizarre quest of Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg – who ran as a “reform prosecutor” – to oust all of the judges who are trying to bring more justice to the criminal system.