• The Onion reviews the coming NFL season.
• Marty Peretz, editor of The New Republic, says the First Amendment is a privilege, not a right, and concludes that Muslims haven’t earned it. Of course if you were to accept Peretz’s absurd first premise, you might conclude Peretz hasn’t earned it, either.
• Eapen Thampy on Missouri’s asset forfeiture laws.
• Research suggests better educated cops are less violent.
• How censoring Craigslist’s “adult services” section helps sex traffickers.

Last Sunday night, police in Morganton, North Carolina shot and killed 17-year-old Michael Sipes. The officers were responding to a noise complaint called in by a neighbor in the mobile home park where Sipes lived. His mother says there were three children in the home on the night Sipes was killed, and were likely he source of the complaint.

According to Sipes’ mother and others in the house, the police repeatedly knocked on the door to the home, but never identified themselves. They say both Sipes and his mother asked more than once who was outside. A neighbor who heard the gunshots also says he never heard the police identify themselves. Police officials say the officers did identify themselves.

According to those in the trailer at the time, as the knocks continued, Sipes retrieved a rifle, opened the door, and stepped outside. That’s when Morganton Public Safety Officer Johnny David Cooper II shot Sipes in the stomach “four or five times.”

More here and here. Profile of Sipes here. The story is still fresh, but at first blush he certainly doesn’t seem like the kind of kid who would knowingly confront police officers with his rifle.

• Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland commutes the death sentence of Kevin Keith, who was due to be executed on September 15th.
• Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer says God put her in office to save Arizona. Apparently God doesn’t like immigrants, either.
• Speaking of which, a new report says that due to the economy, illegal immigrants are staying home. But I thought they came here to collect welfare?
• Alexandria, Virginia police want to prevent people from listening to police scanners, too.
• Federal investigators say prison guards in Washington County, Missouri arranged to have prisoners administer beatings to other prisoners.
• The whittler shot by Seattle police was carrying a legal knife and was deaf in one ear. At least one witness is disputing the initial police reports.

I know it sounds odd, but trust me on this one: Eef Barzelay of Clem Snide and his ukulele cover Journey’s “Faithfully.”

There’s also whistling.

The Philadelphia Daily News interviews nine men the city’s police department has arrested for carrying guns, even though all nine were carrying legally.

Eight of the men said that they were detained by police – two for 18 hours each. Two were hospitalized for diabetic issues while in custody, one of whom was handcuffed to a bed. Charges were filed against three of the men, only to be withdrawn by the District Attorney’s Office.

The civil-rights unit of the City Solicitor’s Office confirmed that it is handling eight such cases. Two of the men interviewed by the Daily News said that they rejected settlement offers from the city ranging from $3,500 to $7,500. One accepted a $5,000 offer.

Most of the cases hinge on what local authorities call the “Florida loophole,” under which a Pennsylvania resident can obtain a nonresident permit to carry a concealed weapon through the mail from another state, even without a permit in Pennsylvania.

The “loophole” is unpopular with Philadelphia cops, who say that it allows those denied a permit here or whose permits were revoked to circumvent Philadelphia authorities and obtain it elsewhere.

But proponents say that it’s necessary because Philadelphia has unusually strict criteria for obtaining a concealed-carry permit. Philadelphia, according to police and gun owners, relies heavily on a clause that allows denial of a permit based on “character and reputation” alone.

Agree or disagree with the law, it is the law, which the police are sworn to uphold. Some police officers in Philadelphia apparently feel they can simply ignore it. The department brass doesn’t seem particularly concerned.

Despite following the law, all of the men said that they were treated like criminals by city cops who either ignored their rights or didn’t know the laws.

Lt. Fran Healy, special adviser to the police commissioner, acknowledged that some city cops apparently are unfamiliar with some concealed-carry permits. But he said that it’s better for cops to “err on the side of caution.”

“Officers’ safety comes first, and not infringing on people’s rights comes second,” Healy said.

It doesn’t get more succint than that.

I hadn’t heard about this show:

In Martin Scorsese’s new HBO series Boardwalk Empire, Steve Buscemi plays the de facto political boss of Atlantic City during the dawn of Prohibition. He’s involved in everything: glad-handing, gaming, bootlegging, and the violence and women that come along with those things. Like almost every role Buscemi has ever played, his character is neither likable nor despicable. Like all his memorable characters, Buscemi plays the miserable hero. A guy so desperate, so uncomfortable, so disappointed in virtually everyone else around him that you can’t help but root for him — no matter how many people he orders killed, no matter how badly he treats his mistress.

Sounds fantastic. More here, including a promising-sounding new Will Arnett/Mitch Hurwitz joint.

Clip from Boardwalk Empire:

More here.

• Man falls, wife calls paramedics, man ends up tased three times.
• Fascinating article about an experiment in which Charles Darwin created a new ecosystem on a remote island.
• This little girl has an incredible voice. Caught her performance last night. It was even better.
• Man whittling in public confronted by police. Ends up dead.
• John McWhorter: Ending the drug war will do more to help black Americans than marching.
• The good news is that an online gambling legalization bill is slowly gaining momentum. The bad news comes in reading about how it’s happening, when you see just how ugly Washington sausage making really is.

My column this week was about the continuing secrecy of Virginia’s largest police departments and the way the state’s law enforcement community is opposing efforts to make the departments even marginally more transparent. The journalist sounding the alarm about all of this is Michael Pope, who writes for Northern Virginia’s Connection Newspapers, and contributes to D.C. NPR affiliate WAMU.

But Pope’s series of articles inspired this strange reaction from the editor of the Sun Gazette, another Northern Virginia regional paper (motto: “Reaching the most affluent audience in the Washington D.C. metro area”).

Stop Tilting at Windmills, Connectionerinos

The Connection newspaper chain, which is hanging in there by seemingly defying the laws of economics, has a new cause to champion.

The paper’s Arlington edition, and presumably others, ran a story this week about the ability of Virginia’s public-safety agencies to shield information from the view of the public and the press.

I think this whole folderol dates back to last year’s arrest of the Alexandria police chief on a DWI charge in Arlington. Let’s just say Arlington police weren’t as forthcoming as they might have been, going so far as to charge news outlets for costs related to providing some of the meager information they released.

The back story to this appears to be that the reporter involved with this story used to work in Florida (as did I!), where open-records laws are great for the press. Just about everything is open to public review down there.

But the article goes a bit too far with a sub-headline that says “Secret Police?” as if Northern Virginia was akin to East Germany, and terms what public-safety agencies do a “code of silence.”

Blah, blah, blah, blah. Nobody cares except some freedom-of-the-press types. Hey, I’m a freedom-of-the-press type, and even I don’t care all that much.

Actually, the “whole folderol” took off when Fairfax County police shot and killed an unarmed man during a traffic stop last year, and have since refused to release the police reports, dash cam footage, or even the officer’s name.

But, you know, dead citizen, cops not talking . . . blah blah blah blah. Better to devote precious newsroom resources to the important stuff, like the local mini-golf tournament, or how the local police department won an award for ticketing people who don’t wear their seatbelts.