Archive for the ‘crime’ tag
Netflixed: Gomorrah
“Gomorrah (The Criterion Collection)” (Criterion)
A non-glamourous look at the working class1 of the Naples crime organization. Documentary feel, and based in reality, this isn’t a film celebrating the life of crime.
The intertwining tales of a delivery boy, a tailor, a businessman and two cocky teenagers form the fabric of this gritty and lyrical examination of the influential Neapolitan mob known as the Camorra. Peering into a multitude of social strata within present-day Naples, director Matteo Garrone’s film — a hybrid of melodrama, crime and art-film genres — was nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Golden Globe and a Best Documentary Independent Spirit Award. [Click to Netflix Gomorrah]
I liked it a lot. I might even pick up a copy of the book, despite not usually veering into best seller territory
From Roger Ebert’s review:
Roberto Saviano, who wrote the best seller that inspired the movie, went undercover, used informants, even (I learn from John Powers on NPR) worked as a waiter at their weddings. His book named names and explained exactly how the Camorra operates. Now he lives under 24-hour guard, although as the Roman poet Juvenal asked, “Who will guard the guards?”
Matteo Garrone, the director, films in the cheerless housing projects around Naples. “See Naples and die” seems to be the inheritance of children born here. We follow five strands of the many that Saviano unraveled in his book, unread by me. There is an illegal business in the disposal of poisonous waste. A fashion industry that knocks off designer lines and works from sweatshops. Drugs, of course. And then we meet teenagers who think they’re tough and dream of taking over locally from the Camorra. And kids who want to be gangsters when they grow up.
None of these characters ever refer to “The Godfather.” The teenagers know De Palma’s “Scarface” by heart. Living a life of luxury, surrounded by drugs and women, is perhaps a bargain they are willing to make even if it costs their lives. The problem is that only death is guaranteed. No one in this movie at any time enjoys any luxury. One of them, who delivers stipends to the families of dead or jailed Camorra members, doesn’t even have a car and uses a bicycle. The families moan that they can’t make ends meet, just like Social Security beneficiaries.
[Click to continue reading Gomorrah :: rogerebert.com :: Reviews]
Terry Gross and John Powers piece on NPR from February, 2009:
“Gomorrah” is based on a powerful book by an ambitious, young Neapolitan journalist named Roberto Saviano who saw his own father badly beaten because he called an ambulance for one of the mob’s victims. Fueled by righteous anger, Saviano did undercover reporting on the docks at an illegal textile factory, and he even waited tables at Camorra weddings. The result was a passionate, highly personal expose whose visibility annoyed the mob’s bosses, who are evidently not avuncular old fellows like Marlon Brando. These dons issued their version of a fatwa back in 2006, and three years later, Saviano, just 29 years old, is still living a life of bodyguards, armored cars and safe houses.
While Saviano’s book burns hot, he’s implicitly his story’s crusading hero. Garrone’s approach is cool, detached and almost anthropological. He knows that in a movie, Saviano’s feverish style would make “Gomorrah” exciting in the wrong way, turn it into operatic melodrama or pulp fiction.
Featuring no heroes, Garrone’s movie is pointedly anti-mythological, never more so than in its treatment of murder. “Gomorrah” is actually far less violent than “The Godfather” or “Goodfellas,” but it seems more brutal for Garrone offers no cinematically cool deaths and nobody softens the blow with catchy lines about killing not being personal, only business.
[Click to continue reading The Gritty Gangsters Of 'Gomorrah' : NPR]
Manohla Dargis concludes the NYT review:
Footnotes:I don’t want to overplay the film’s violence — it has a lower body count than the average Hollywood action flick — or underplay Mr. Garrone’s artistry. But part of what’s bracing about “Gomorrah,” and makes it feel different from so many American crime movies, is both its deadly serious take on violence and its global understanding of how far and wide the mob’s tentacles reach, from high fashion to the very dirt. There’s a heaviness to the bloodletting here, which has pressed down on this world and emptied its faces, halls and apartments of life. This is a world in which no one laughs, populated by men who are so busy killing one another that they don’t realize they’re as good as dead already.
Though Mr. Garrone doesn’t point a finger at the audience, he doesn’t let anyone off the hook. Toward the end of the film, the tailor accidentally catches sight of Scarlett Johansson on television as she smilingly promenades on a red carpet in one of the gowns he helped to make. As the announcers chatter about the gown (“an apparent simplicity, but in reality, very elaborate”), and the paparazzi scream for the star, the tailor smiles wistfully at his creation, which he and a roomful of women painstakingly hand-sewed in a gloomy factory for too many hours and too little money. It’s a cream-colored dress with a nice drape and satiny sheen, and while you can’t see the blood that went into every stitch, it’s there.
[Click to continue reading Movie Review - Gomorrah - Lesser-Known Mobsters, as Brutal as the Old Ones - NYTimes.com]
- for lack of a better term [↩]
Reading Around on November 26th through December 1st
A few interesting links collected November 26th through December 1st:
- Movie Review – Gomorrah – Lesser-Known Mobsters, as Brutal as the Old Ones – NYTimes.com – A snapshot of hell, the film takes its biblically inflected punning title from the Camorra, or Neapolitan Mafia, the largest of Italy’s crime gangs, with 100 barely organized, incessantly warring clans and some 7,000 members. Based in and around Naples, the Camorra (it means gang) smuggles cigarettes, drugs, guns and people, polluting the province with fear and worse. Unlike the better-known Sicilian Mafia, which took root in America in the late 19th century and in Hollywood thereafter, the Camorra has never had a significant presence in this country, pop cultural or otherwise. Until now, its reign of terror has been largely in reality and not on the screen, which explains why the world in this film can feel so alien: the movies haven’t yet imagined it.
- Gomorrah :: rogerebert.com :: Reviews – The film is a curative for the romanticism of “The Godfather” and “Scarface.” The characters are the foot soldiers of the Camorra, the crime syndicate based in Naples that is larger than the Mafia but less known. Its revenues in one year are said to be as much as $250 billion — five times as much as Bernard Madoff took years to steal. The final shot suggests that the Camorra is invested in the rebuilding of the World Trade Center. The film is based on fact, not fiction.
-
- This Progression of What – I’ve been writing
These poems every day
For many months now.
Even though I haven’t been paid
A single cent, I’d rather be remembered
For this, these words,
Over being recalled
As an efficient
Account executive
Any day. -
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Trouble in Paradise :: rogerebert.com :: Great Movies – The sexual undertones are surprisingly frank in this pre-Code 1932 film, and we understand that none of the three characters is in any danger of mistaking sex for love. Both Lily and Mariette know what they want, and Gaston knows that he has it. His own feelings for them are masked beneath an impenetrable veneer of sophisticated banter.
Herbert Marshall takes ordinary scenes and fills them with tension because of the way he seems to withhold himself from the obvious emotional scripting. He was 42 when he made the film, handsome in a subdued rather than an absurd way, every dark hair slicked close to his scalp, with a slight stoop to his shoulders that makes him seem to be leaning slightly toward his women, or bowing. His walk is deliberate and noticeably smooth; he lost a leg in World War I, had a wooden one fitted, and practiced so well at concealing his limp that he seems to float through a room.
Organized crime and mushrooms
Amusing tale of the intersection between historic food collection and capitalism aka the criminal element.
It is a great French autumnal tradition that furnishes an essential ingredient in some of the nation’s finest dishes. Yet the once tranquil pastime of mushroom hunting has fallen victim to organised crime as city-based gangs descend on the countryside in search of a fungus that brings quick, easy profits.
With professional pickers from France, but also Spain and Romania, gathering ceps, milk-caps, black trumpets and other delicacies worth thousands of euros, forest owners have decided to strike back.
They are planning to introduce mushroom picking licences to regulate an activity that has become a lucrative business, The Times has learnt.
[Click to continue reading Organised crime mushrooms as French fungi trade becomes lucrative - Times Online ]
The old ways of communal sharing are being replaced by quick-get-rich schemes:
landowners had traditionally allowed their neighbors to hunt mushrooms to cook with their omelets, chestnuts or scallops.
“The law says mushrooms belong to the landowner, but the practice was always tolerated so long as it was for family consumption.”
However, over the past couple of years, gangs — notably from Marseilles — have been pillaging woods in southern France and selling their finds on the black market to the restaurant trade and food industry. “An experienced picker can make between €5,000 and €7,000 in a fortnight, which is significant revenue,” said Mr Lauriac.
Homage to George L. Kelling
Broken window theory in action.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_Windows_Theory
Building owned by the CTA has had a broken window for several years now.
and still has broken windows. You’d think some city official would have noticed by now
Texas and Death Row
Is there hope for Texas? We’ll see…
Even in Texas they are having their doubts. The state that executes more people than any other by far – it will account for half the prisoners sent to the death chamber in the US this year – is seeing its once rock-solid faith in capital punishment shaken by overturned convictions, judicial scandals and growing evidence that at least one innocent man has been executed.
The growth of DNA forensic evidence has seen nearly 140 death row convictions overturned across the US, prompting abolition and moratoriums in other states that Texas has so far resisted.
But the public mood is swinging in the conservative state, which often seems to have an Old Testament view of justice. A former governor, Mark White – previously a strong supporter of the death penalty – has joined those calling for a reconsideration of capital punishment because of the risk of executing an innocent person.
The number of death sentences passed by juries in Texas has fallen sharply in recent years, reflecting a retreat from capital punishment in many parts of America after DNA evidence led to the release of scores of condemned prisoners.
The number of death sentences passed annually in the US has dropped by about 60% in the past decade, to around 100.
“In Texas we have seen a constant stream of individual cases that really destroy public faith and integrity in our criminal justice system,” said Steve Hall, former chief of staff to the Texas attorney general for eight years, who is now an anti-death penalty activist.
[Click to continue reading Texas accounts for half of executions in US – but now has doubts over death row | World news | The Guardian ]
The vocal and partisan Christian Taliban minority in Texas has given the state a bad name, but perhaps they might come to their senses, in our lifetimes. How can killing an innocent man be reconciled with their god’s commandments? It cannot, so either the Christian Taliban has to give up their doctrine, or change their government’s behavior in in their name. Rick Perry would rather kill a few innocents than admit he might be wrong, will he remain governor?
In Dallas county alone, 24 people have been exonerated and the new district attorney has created a conviction integrity unit to examine other suspected miscarriages of justice.
Recent attention has focused on a high profile case which may become the first officially acknowledged miscarriage of justice which led to a man being executed.
The governor of Texas, Rick Perry, has been accused of gerrymandering a commission examining the evidence against Cameron Todd Willingham who was executed in 2004 for the murder of his three young daughters in an arson attack on his home. Perry abruptly replaced the chairman of the Texas Forensic Science Commission as it was about to hold hearings into a report by its own expert, who described the conviction as based on “junk science”. The new chairman called off the hearing.
Michael Nolan and his Batman-like plan foiled
“The Dark Knight (Two-Disc Special Edition + Digital Copy)” (Warner Home Video)
Michael Nolan, brother of Dark Knight director, Christopher Nolan, planned escape from the Metropolitan Correctional Center – a downtown Chicago jail – using 31 feet of sheets knotted as rope, a harness, a razor, and a metal clip for picking locks.
[Metropolitan Correctional Center - a Harry Weese joint]
Costa Rican authorities charged Nolan three years ago with murder and kidnapping in the 2005 torture and slaying of Florida accountant Robert Cohen, who allegedly was blamed for losing $7 million of a Florida businessman’s money.
“This is not a movie, it is real, you cannot give this number to anyone or I am dead,” Cohen allegedly told his daughter in a desperate phone call before he died.
Luis Alonso Douglas Mejia, a bellboy seen driving Nolan’s rented car, was convicted in Costa Rica of aggravated homicide.
In charging papers that read like a Hollywood script, Costa Rican authorities alleged Nolan posed as a wealthy Paris jewel dealer named McCall-Oppenheimer to lure Cohen to a meeting in an attempt to recover the $7 million. There was evidence the two men spent time together, attending an Andrea Bocelli concert, and ate breakfast together the day Cohen vanished, but nothing showed Nolan was directly involved in the slaying, a U.S. federal judge found in August.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Mason said Nolan could be extradited to Costa Rica — but only for using a fake British passport.
Nolan’s attorney, Zachary Fardon, called the charges “pure bunk hyperbole” at a June hearing, according to a transcript. Fardon did not return a call or e-mail seeking comment Thursday.
Though charges were never filed, Chicago police were investigating Nolan and a check-kiting scam that allegedly brought in nearly $1 million, a police source said.
The scam allegedly unfolded in 2007 when his brother was in Chicago filming “The Dark Knight,” the source said. Nolan allegedly used the connection to the blockbuster movie to cozy up to Chicago banks, sometimes bringing champagne to meetings about loans, the source said. He also allegedly promised rides or pictures in the Batmobile.
The investigation halted, though, when police learned of the federal inquiry.
A trim man who dressed casually, Nolan sometimes talked about ear and sinus problems that were supposedly the result of underwater and parachute training he said he performed as part of an elite British commando unit, said Tom Sedlacek, a suburban businessman who lent Nolan $600,000. Nolan told Sedlacek he now used his military skills running an international bank collection service and needed the loans to finish a job in Costa Rica.
[Click to continue reading Batman-like plan: Brother of 'Dark Knight' director planned escape from a Chicago jail, officials say -- chicagotribune.com]
[another view of the Metropolitan Correctional Center]
Related note, Dark Knight is still a lame movie, plotwise. The mise en scène was interesting, especially since so much was filmed in Chicago, but the film itself was a bit boring. Especially considering Memento is such a good film [Netflix], as is The Prestige [Netflix]. Insomnia [Netflix], a remake of a much better 1997 Norwegian film of the same name [Netflix], was ok, but since I had seen the original first, the remake didn’t make much of an impact.
Faux Ad Agency Execs
Almost amusingly brazen scheme: scammers pose as advertising account executives, and convince publishers to host fake advertisements for legitimate sounding corporations. The advertisements are embedded with malicious code and/or lead to fake websites, the goal is to collect names and addresses that can be resold, or worse. Dozens of high profile ad agencies have been targeted, as well as high profile websites like The New York Times, the Gawker Media group, and others who don’t want to publicly admit they’ve been duped.
The scam goes something like this: Someone posing as an agency executive or marketer approaches a publisher with a credible e-mail domain like vonage-inc.com or hyundai-inc.com and asks for a quick turnaround campaign, often over a weekend. The ads then install malware or harvest user identities and continue to do so until the publisher figures it out. Often they don’t and the “advertiser” — sometimes part of a European organized-crime syndicate — will even pay for the campaign and run another.
…
What do the scammers want? Eyeballs, and installs, for the most part. Some are paid by the number of malware installs they can get; others by the number of identities harvested or number of computers than can be used remotely as part of a bot network. In all cases, the bigger and more trusted the site, the easier to make money. “It’s purely financially motivated,” said John Harrison, manger at security firm Symantec.
Gawker Media was one of the latest to fall victim, and ran a campaign last week that installed malware on visitors to Gawker sites for several days until the ads were discovered. The scammers were clever enough to credibly pose as employees of Spark SMG, a unit of Publicis Groupe, and had a detailed knowledge of Spark clients and repertoire of industry lingo convincing enough industry insiders to create a fake campaign for Suzuki across Gawker sites.
As is typical, they created a legitimate-looking e-mail address, @spark-SMG.com (real Spark employees are @sparksmg.com), and called from a Chicago area code. Their ads only infected computers in intervals, so routine tests on the ads wouldn’t discover the malicious code.
…
Mr. Caruso said the scammers would have very likely paid for the campaign. Depending on the goal of the scam, it can be a very good business. Identities can be resold to organized crime; scare ads can harvest sales of phony anti-virus software. In the end, the goal is not to get caught, because when they do, Mr. Caruso said, “they have to change their name, change their LLC and come up with a new scam.”
[Click to continue reading Advertising: Latest Ad Scammers: Faux Ad Agency Execs - Advertising Age - Digital]
Sterling Cooper never had to deal with this aspect of the modern world…
Reading Around on August 31st through September 1st
A few interesting links collected August 31st through September 1st:
- Glenn Greenwald – Swampland – TIME.com – Can’t decide if my favorite part of this laughable Joke Line aka Joe Klein article is the article itself, the comments ripping Klein to shreds, or the thoughtful response Glenn Greenwald made on his Salon.com blog. Or all of the above. Klein should be so embarrassed as to resign and become an upstate bee keeper.
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- A Mugging on Lake Street – Chicago magazine – September 2009 – Chicago – “A veteran investigative reporter looks into his own beating and finds himself confronting harsh and lingering questions of race BY JOHN CONROY”
- Radiohead -Lollapalooza Festival 1st August 2008 – XM Broadcoast- mp3s | Radiohead Not For Profit – Radiohead – Lollapalooza, Grant Park; Chicago, IL
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Ridealong
As Mo Ryan, the Chicago Tribune television critic tweeted earlier today, there is Fox television drama being produced by Shawn Ryan. I might even watch an episode or two – especially if Chicago is the central character in the drama.1
Fox has given a put pilot order to “Ridealong,” a Chicago-set cop show from “The Shield’s” Shawn Ryan.
Project’s a personal passion project of Ryan’s, who grew up in nearby Rockford, Ill. “Ridealong” will center on three groups of police officers –ranging from uniformed beat cops to the female chief of police.Ryan is set to write and exec produce the hourlong drama, which comes from 20th Century Fox TV.
Ryan plans to shoot the skein in Chicago, which he plans to make a major part of the show.
“It’s a city I’m very familiar with, and one I haven’t seen photographed much, at least on TV,” Ryan said, “In my opinion, Chicago has become the center of the universe: It’s the place that Barack Obama comes from, it’s a candidate to host the Olympics, and it’s where Oprah dispels her wisdom.
“When I pitched it to the people at Fox, (Chicago was) the first character I described,” Ryan said. “It’s a gorgeous town and is the most interesting architectural city in America.”
Ryan said Chicago is also a “city with a big crime problem at the moment,” which will inform the show.
Ryan said “Ridealong” will mostly take place on the streets of Chicago, and will be populated by unique people — including the central lead character, a Polish-American cop who plays up his heritage.
[Click to continue reading Fox on Ryan's 'Ridealong' - Entertainment News, TV News, Media - Variety]
I wanted David Simon and Ed Burns to extend their show, The Wire, and set it in Chicago, but I guess they are busy working on the Haymarket Riot film without a working title. Ridealong (possibly) is an acceptable substitute.
Ms. Ryan2, interviewed Mr. Ryan:
No filming dates have been set, but if the “Ridealong” pilot gets the green light, it would be shot in Chicago in the spring. If Fox orders a full series, Ryan wants to film that in the Windy City as well.
“These things always come down to finances and I’m told that at the moment that Chicago is film-friendly and feasible,” Ryan said.
The show is “mostly about cops, but we will deal with how cops are affected/stymied/supported by local political elements,” Ryan said. “Ridealong” will also feature a “young, female chief of police and her attempts to navigate Chicago politics.”
So how will the show be different from “Hill Street Blues” — or Ryan’s own influential cop drama, “The Shield”?
“I’ll take comparisons to either of those shows any time,” but Ryan said “Ridealong” will be “very different” from either the NBC classic or the influential FX drama.
“I definitely would not be interested in doing the network version of ‘The Shield,’” he noted.
“Ridealong” will be “filmed primarily on the streets with our cops’ vehicles serving as their offices. It will be part cop procedural, part buddy comedy, part political thriller, part undercover drama… or it will just be a huge mess,” he said. “But I’m going to try to make it good.”
[Click to continue reading The Watcher: 'Shield' creator's new cop show a 'love letter' to Chicago ]
Worth paying attention to, maybe they’ll need some photos for location scouting?
Footnotes:Publishing History of the Proceedings
What an awesomely great, interesting online resource! If I were to ever work on a screenplay set in The Age of Enlightenment, in Victorian England (or other eras), having access to such a compendium of names and events would be spectacularly useful.
The Proceedings contain accounts of trials which took place at the Old Bailey. The first published collection of trials at the Old Bailey dates from 1674, and from 1678 accounts of the trials at each sessions (meeting of the Court) were regularly published. Inexpensive, and targeted initially at a popular audience, the Proceedings were produced shortly after the conclusion of each sessions and were initially a commercial success. But with the growth of newspapers and increasing publication costs the audience narrowed by the nineteenth century to a combination of lawyers and public officials. With few exceptions, this periodical was regularly published each time the sessions met (eight times a year until 1834, and then ten to twelve times a year) for 239 years, when publication came to a sudden halt in April 1913.
[From The Proceedings - Publishing History of the Proceedings - Central Criminal Court]
I was reading an old issue of The Smithsonian Magazine1, and found mention of Old Bailey and its chronicle, The Proceedings, and the digitization project found at Old Bailey Online.
Thanks to Google, I found the article by Guy Gugliotta, which begins:
By the time the hangman finished him off, Jonathan Wild had few friends. In his own way he had been a public servant—a combination bounty hunter and prosecutor who tracked down thieves and recovered stolen property, a useful figure in 18th-century London, which had no formal police force of its own. Such men were called “thief-takers,” and Wild was good at his work. But along the way, he became more problem than solution.
He called himself the “Thief-Taker General of England and Ireland,” but he became London’s leading crime boss, specializing in robbery and extortion. He frequently encouraged or even set up thefts and burglaries, fenced the booty for a relative pittance, then returned it to its owner for the reward. If his cronies tried to double-cross him, he had them arrested, to be tried and hanged—then collected the bounty. It was said that he inspired the term “double-cross,” for the two X’s he put in his ledger beside the names of those who cheated him.
Daniel Defoe, a journalist as well as the author of Robinson Crusoe, wrote a quickie biography of Wild a month after he was hanged, in 1725. Henry Fielding, the author of Tom Jones and Joseph Andrews, satirized him in The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great. John Gay took him as his inspiration for the villainous Peachum in The Beggar’s Opera.
But by the time that work had morphed into the Bertolt Brecht-Kurt Weill hit The Threepenny Opera two centuries later, Wild had all but faded from memory. And when Bobby Darin made a hit out of “Mack the Knife” 30 years after the play opened, Wild was largely a forgotten man.
But thanks to a pair of expatriate Americans fascinated by the way England’s other half lived during the Age of Enlightenment, anyone with a computer can now resurrect Jonathan Wild and his dark world. The original record of his trial is in the Proceedings of the Old Bailey, the digest that described and often transcribed the more than 100,000 trials that took place in the criminal court of the City of London and the County of Middlesex between 1674 and 1834. Working with grants totaling some $1.26 million, historians Robert Shoemaker of the University of Sheffield and Tim Hitchcock of the University of Hertfordshire have digitized the 52 million words of the Proceedings—and put them in a searchable database for anyone to read on the Internet.
[Click to continue reading Digitizing the Hanging Court | History & Archaeology | Smithsonian Magazine]
More details of the publishing history from OldBaileyOnline.org
In October 1678 the first edition which described all the trials at a single session appeared. In December 1678 a particularly detailed account was published with a more objective tone. Perhaps in recognition of what such publications could achieve, and in order to have some control over their content, in January 1679 the Court of Aldermen of the City of London ordered that accounts of proceedings at the Old Bailey could only be published with the approval of the Lord Mayor and the other justices present. At this point a more or less standard title was adopted: The Proceedings of the King’s Commission of the Peace and Oyer and Terminer, and Gaol-Delivery of Newgate, held for the City of London and the County of Middlesex, at Justice-Hall, in the Old Bailey. With some minor variations, this title remained unchanged for decades. Although sometimes referred to as the “Sessions Papers”, this project has adopted the short title of Old Bailey Proceedings, or just Proceedings.
The fact that publication had to be approved by the Lord Mayor, and London Lord Mayors serve yearly terms of office from November to November, explains why later editions of the Proceedings were bound together and paginated in annual volumes, from the first sessions in the Mayoral year (November or December) to the last (October). Until the late eighteenth century printers had to pay an annual fee to the Lord Mayor for the privilege of printing the Proceedings.
Early editions of the Proceedings were between four and nine pages long, included brief summaries of trials, and were not necessarily comprehensive. Nonetheless, by the mid 1680s most trials seem to have been reported. Around 1712 the Proceedings began to include some verbatim testimonies, especially in trials which were thought to be salacious, amusing, or otherwise entertaining.
Click to see a sample of the original page, here’s some of the text from that page:
WILLIAM RICHARDSON . I am a police Inspector. I was at Fairlop fair on the 6th of July, about six o’clock in the evening—William Gibson was charged with felony, and brought into the Crown and Anchor booth, where the Magistrates were sitting—after the examination he was committed to Ilford gaol for re-examination—the warrant was given into the hands of Pope, the constable who apprehended him, and the Magistrates ordered a sufficient force to see him safe to Ilford gaol—they departed with Gibson in their custody—I followed for safety through the crowd in the fair—I observed a crowd following us—I got the assistance of two other police-constables—when we got about one hundred and fifty yards through the fair, I observed a large mob assembling—several people rushed forward in an outrageous manner, and the cry was, “Go in and take him away”—” Don’t go”—”Give it to the b—s”—the mob made several attempts to come and take him away, but were kept back by the police—there were about six of us, and three or four parish constables—we continued in that state for about twenty minutes—it took that time to go a quarter of a mile—Gibson at last said he would not go—I turned round, and saw the whole of the police attacked by the mob, which was two or three hundred people—those who were not engaged in combat with the constables flew on me—I was forcibly thrown off my legs on my back, and Gibson was taken from us, and taken away—I could not myself swear to the prisoner being one of them
HENRY PARKER . I am a policeman. I was at Fairlop fair, having charge of Gibson—the Inspector’s evidence is correct—a large mob followed us, which we were one hour contending with—(the prisoner, before we could get Gibson to the booth before the Magistrates, had held a stick in his hand, brandishing it, and threatened to strike me several times)—the mob said, “Go in and give it to him”—he immediately up with his stick, and struck me across the shoulder—I closed on him—he struck me on the nose, and made it bleed—he was within three or four feet of the Inspector when he was knocked down, and was very active—he was about the wont.
Prisoner. Q. Did you strike me first, or I you? A. You struck me three times—here are the dents in my hat, where you struck me with the stick.
WILLIAM SAWYER . Q. I am a policeman. I was at Fairlop fair—I have heard the witness’s evidence—it is true—the prisoner was active in the mob—I saw him in contest with Parker.
Prisoner. Q. In what part did you see me? A. About five yards from the Inspector.
WILLIAM SHAW . I am a policeman. I was on duty at the fair—Gibson was charged with felony—we were endeavouring to take him to a place of confinement—a mob of two or three hundred attempted to rescue him—the officers were attacked and very much ill-used—the prisoner was close to us at the time Gibson was rescued—he got quite off with his handcuffs on, and has not been taken since—he was charged with stealing a gentleman’s coat—the prisoner was very active, calling, “Go in, you in—I saw him strike Parker across the shoulders and over the nose—the blood flew over the prisoner’s foot, and he bit a piece, flesh and all, out of the sergeant’s thigh—we were an hour with him in the forest, endeavouring to secure him.
CHARLES SMITH . I was at the fair. The evidence of the officers is true.
Prisoner’s Defence. I was at the fair—the prisoner was being taken away—I did not know him—I ran to see what was going on, and when I came up, the prisoner was a hundred yards before me—I was shoved against Sergeant Parker—he struck me on the chin with his staff, and another policeman struck me on the back of my head, and made me senseless.
GUILTY . Aged 20.— Confined Two Years.
Some things never change.
For fun, I searched the surname, Murphy
At this Sessions the 5 persons burnt in the Hand were
John Wickham, Thomas Hoskins, John Clark, Emm Sanbie, and Mary Toulson.
The 5 persons ordered to be Transported were
John Harrock, William Finchman, Richard Scot, Frances Abraham, and Richard Scarlet.
The 9 Persons that Received Sentence of Death were
Abraham Biggs, Richard Caborn, Christopher Redman, Phileman Adams, Dorcas Morgan, Dorothy Waller, Jane Langworth, Elizabeth Stoakes, and Katherine Cotterel.
The 11 Persons Sentenced to be Whipped , were,
Richard Williams, David Roberts, Thomas Murphy, George Clarke, Jacob Clark, Margaret Shipley, Joseph Lawrence, George Laurence, Nicholas Dun, Ambros Hog, and William Cole.
Andrew Craford being convicted and brought to the bar, was ordered confinement in the Goal of Newgate, during the KING’S pleasure.
Thomas Murphy’s offense?
Footnotes:Thomas Murphy and Charles Doyle Indicted, the former as principal, and latter as accessory, for stealing a Golden cross, a Handkerchief, and a Leaden Meddal, inlayed with Gold , from Justin MacCartis Esq , of St. Martins in the fields, on the 19th of November, it was proved against Murphy, that he had stollen the goods specified, and delivered them to Doyle, in order to expose them to sale , nor did he deny the Fellony, in Court, only alledging that his Companion was Innocent, and knew not that the goods were stole; whereupon Murphy only was found Guilty to the value of 10d and his companion acquitted .
- April, 2007, if you want to know [↩]
Hendrix Murdered By Manager
Odd, and only coming out now because of the book.
Jimi Hendrix was murdered by his manager, according to a new book by one of the guitarist’s former roadies. James “Tappy” Wright has claimed that manager Michael Jeffrey confessed to making Hendrix swallow sleeping pills, because he hoped to collect on his client’s life insurance policy.
Jeffrey feared being replaced with a new manager, Wright writes in his book Rock Roadie, and decided Hendrix was “worth more to him dead than alive”. Jeffrey was allegedly the beneficiary oo the guitarist’s $2m life insurance policy (worth around £1.2m in 1970).
According to Wright, Jeffrey told him about the crime in 1971 – a year after 27-year-old Hendrix was found dead in a London hotel. “I had to do it, Tappy,” Wright claims the manager said. “You understand, don’t you? I had to do it. You know damn well what I’m talking about … We went round to [his] hotel room, got a handful of pills and stuffed them into his mouth … then poured a few bottles of red wine deep into his windpipe.”
[From Jimi Hendrix murdered by manager, claims roadie | Music | guardian.co.uk ]
Probably a lie, but who knows. There have been all sorts of allegations about Michael Jeffrey controlling and manipulating Hendrix, so there could be truth here. And of course, Jeffrey allegedly died in a plane crash in 1973, so nobody can refute the tale. It wouldn’t hold up in a court of law, but in the court of public opinion, hearsay is admissible evidence.
Jeffery has received almost unanimous criticism from biographers of Hendrix. Several have alleged that Jeffery siphoned off much of Hendrix’s income and channeled it into off-shore bank accounts, that Jeffery had dubious connections to US intelligence services (it has been reported that insiders often claimed that he worked for MI5, British Secret Intelligence and that he had connections to European organised crime). When Experience bassist Noel Redding inquired as to where Jeffery was going with briefcases of the bands money, he was asked to leave [the band].
Reading Around on May 30th through May 31st
A few interesting links collected May 30th through May 31st:
- Our Man In Chicago: Alderman Carothers, allow me to educate you on James Brown lyrics – “Now, I’m not well-versed in matters of fraud and bribery – or no moreso than most people in Chicago and Illinois, which is to say “more than most of us would like to be” – but I do consider myself one of the top 20 experts on James Brown (Caucasian division). And I’m here to tell Alderman Carothers that, no, there is no “prominent” song by James Brown called “You’ve Got To Deal With It” (or even “You Got To Deal With It” as he was quoted by the Sun-Times).”Amused me as well – I’m only a top 50 expert in James Brown related matters, but was befuddled at this reference as well…
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- Should You Put Oil in Pasta Water? : Only if you want slimy spaghetti – CHOW – Despite a popular belief that adding oil to pasta water keeps the noodles from sticking together, Laura Schenone, author of The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken, says that adding oil does nothing to prevent pasta from clumping.
- Confessions of a Non–Serial Killer – Michael O’Hare – “he mail was from an amateur sleuth in California named Gareth Penn, who had been trying for some time to interest the police in the idea that I was the Zodiac killer. Perhaps he was trying to alarm me into confessing or doing something incriminating. Who knows. Even today, I know little about the man, beyond the odd detail I’ve picked up here and there—like the fact that he is a librarian and surveyor by trade, that he has (or had) a wonderful Jesus beard, and that he is a member of Mensa.”
Netflixed The Friends of Eddie Coyle
New Criterion Collection release of the cult classic, The Friends of Eddie Coyle (IMDb) / Wikipedia / [Netflix]
“The Friends of Eddie Coyle” (Peter Yates)
The gritty 1974 cult classic The Friends of Eddie Coyle, directed by the criminally underrated Peter Yates (Bullitt, Breaking Away), is now available for the first time ever on DVD, in a Criterion special edition. In it, classic Hollywood tough guy Robert Mitchum plays the titular small-time Boston gunrunner, nicknamed Fingers, who’s caught between remaining loyal to his criminal cohorts and turning them in to avoid jail time, and Mitchum does it with a poignant, effortless precision that makes the film’s brutal twists all the more effective. With its evocative sense of time and place, and expert pacing, Eddie Coyle is a brilliant, quintessential work of seventies American cinema.
Kent Jones writes, in part:
Offhanded fatalism is embedded in every word of every exchange, each of which alternates between hide-and-seek games and verbal tugs-of-war. The Friends of Eddie Coyle is an extremely faithful adaptation (in structure, spirit, and flavor) of the first published novel by the Brockton, Massachusetts–born Higgins, whose career as a United States prosecutor and then big-time criminal defense lawyer (his clients included Eldridge Cleaver and G. Gordon Liddy) coincided with his ascendancy as a novelist, and whose dialogue is one of the glories of American literature. “I’m not doing dialogue because I like doing dialogue,” Higgins once said. “The characters are telling you the story. I’m not telling you the story, they’re going to do it. If I do it right, you will get the whole story.” What is remarkable about the film is the extreme degree to which Yates and the producer and writer, Paul Monash, adhere to Higgins’s aesthetic, banking on the contention that if you render the action among the characters as faithfully as possible, their entire moral universe will be revealed.
And so it is. “Look, one of the first things I learned is never to ask a man why he’s in a hurry,” says Robert Mitchum’s Eddie to Steven Keats’s inappropriately relaxed arms salesman, Jackie Brown (guess who’s a fan of this movie), in what might be the film’s most emblematic bit of table talk. “All you got to know is that I told the man he can depend on me because you told me I could depend on you. Now one of us is gonna have a big fat problem. Another thing I’ve learned: if anybody’s gonna have a problem, you’re gonna be the one.” As in every good dialogue-driven film, talk in The Friends of Eddie Coyle equals action. In this case, maneuvering for leverage and self-preservation.
Nothing could be further from Higgins’s full-immersion approach to fiction than a collection of prima donna thespians vying for attention; thankfully, The Friends of Eddie Coyle is a true ensemble piece if ever there was one. It’s amazing that a star of Robert Mitchum’s caliber even considered this movie (he was originally offered the role of the bartender); that he integrated himself so fully into the ensemble and the working-class Boston atmosphere is some kind of miracle. Mitchum is on-screen for roughly half of the movie, and never for a moment does he or the filmmakers play the movie star card—no special isolated “moments,” no hammy overplaying or sneaky underplaying. Golden-age Hollywood’s most notorious bad boy arrived in Boston ready for action on every front, as amply chronicled by Grover Lewis in his Rolling Stone profile “The Last Celluloid Desperado.” Apart from the usual shenanigans (think blondes and booze), Mitchum went right to work, getting an “Eddie Coyle haircut” (which might have been executed with a lawn trimmer) and allegedly hanging out with the notorious Whitey Bulger, the prototype for Jack Nicholson’s character in The Departed, and his Winter Hill Gang. Higgins was worried, Mitchum was unfazed. “It’s a two-way street,” he told Lewis, “because the guys Higgins means are associating with a known criminal in talking to me.” Apart from a few slippages here and there, Mitchum mastered the exceptionally difficult Boston accent. More importantly, he found the right loping rhythm, the right level of spiritual exhaustion, the right amount of cloaked malevolence. If Mitchum betrays anything of himself as Eddie, it’s his sense of poetry, which, for roughly three-fourths of his career as an actor, seems to have manifested itself off- and not on-screen. But when he rose to the occasion, he was one of the best actors in movies. Thinks like a poet, acts like a jazz musician, hitting on the perfect melancholy chord progression from his initial appearance and playing quietly dolorous variations right to the end.
[Click to continue reading The Friends of Eddie Coyle:They Were Expendable - From the Current]
Sounds intriguing, consider it added to the queue, maybe the book too…
“The Friends of Eddie Coyle: A Novel (John MacRae Books)” (George V. Higgins)
DNA Database will protect the innocent
Putting aside your thoughts regarding the creation of a massive government database of intimate details about its citizens, because that already exists, and consider why the police can copy a suspect’s fingerprints when arrested, but not also take a DNA sample. Seems to me, a lot of the falsely accused would have not spent time in jail for crimes they did not commit if the police routinely collected DNA evidence as well.
When someone is arrested for a serious crime, police automatically take a set of fingerprints and no one thinks twice about it.
In close to 20 states — but not Illinois — the cops go a step further: They take a DNA sample from everyone who has been arrested for a serious crime but not yet tried. The FBI recently started to do the same.
That’s a reflection of just how valuable DNA has become as a way to catch the guilty — and exonerate the innocent. Experience shows that such databases stop criminals and solve cases.
[Click to continue reading: Stretching the DNA net -- chicagotribune.com]
I wonder if the resistance to routine collection of DNA evidence is based on cultural prejudice, or religious grounds (knee-jerk reaction to stem cell and the like)? I see no real reason that evidence shouldn’t include DNA, especially since fingerprint data is problematic, and often wrong.
Reading Around on May 11th through May 12th
A few interesting links collected May 11th through May 12th:
- Du laisser-faire à la loi : ce que font les autres pays pour lutter contre le piratage – Politique – Le Monde.fr – French newspaper Le Monde republished a photo of mine. Wonder what the article is about?
FlickR/swanksalot
Les eurodéputés ont pris le contre-pied du projet de loi français en confirmant, mercredi 6 mai, leur opposition à toute coupure de l'accès internet décidée par une autorité administrative. - Jesse Ventura: You Give Me a Water Board, Dick Cheney and One Hour, and I'll Have Him Confess to the Sharon Tate Murders | Video Cafe – I'm bothered over Guantanamo because it seems we have created our own Hanoi Hilton. We can live with that? I have a problem. I will criticize President Obama on this level; it's a good thing I'm not president because I would prosecute every person that was involved in that torture. I would prosecute the people that did it. I would prosecute the people that ordered it. Because torture is against the law. (KING: You were a Navy SEAL.)
That's right. I was water boarded, so I know — at SERE School, Survival Escape Resistance Evasion. It was a required school you had to go to prior to going into the combat zone, which in my era was Vietnam. All of us had to go there. We were all, in essence — every one of us was water boarded. It is torture.It's drowning. It gives you the complete sensation that you are drowning. It is no good, because you — I'll put it to you this way, you give me a water board, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I'll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders.
- Burning and Dodging with Adjustment Layers – "Burning & Dodging With Adjustment Layers And Masks"
a useful little tutorial
