Semper Cop: Happy 88th Birthday To Joseph Wambaugh

Happy 88th birthday to Joseph Wambaugh, the former LAPD detective sergeant and best-selling author of classic police novels such as The New Centurions, Hollywood Station, and The Choirboys, as well as classic true crime books such as The Onion Field, Echoes in the Darkness, and The Blooding.   

Over the years, I've been privileged to interview Joseph Wambaugh several times and I've reviewed many of his outstanding books.   

You can read my Philadelphia Weekly Crime Beat column on Joseph Wambaugh via the below link:

  Love cops? Hate cops? Read Wambaugh - Philadelphia Weekly

You can also read my Washington Times On Crime column on Joseph Wambaugh's The Onion Field via the below link:

 Paul Davis On Crime: My Washington Times On Crime Column: A Look Back At Joseph Wambaugh's 'The Onion Field'

And you can read my long-form Q&A with Joseph Wambaugh via the below link:

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Beat Column: Semper Cop, My Q & A With Joseph Wambaugh

And you can read my Philadelphia Inquirer review of Joseph Wambaugh's Hollywood Station below:

Designating Cartels And Other Organizations As Foreign Terrorist Organizations And Specially Designated Global Terrorists Executive Order

President Trump designated the criminal cartels as foreign terrorist organizations via an executive order on January 20, 2025.

You can read the executive order below:

DESIGNATING CARTELS AND OTHER ORGANIZATIONS AS FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS AND SPECIALLY DESIGNATED criminal GLOBAL TERRORISTS

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S.C. 1101 et seq., the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA),50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq. it is hereby ordered:

Section 1.  Purpose.  This order creates a process by which certain international cartels (the Cartels) and other organizations will be designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations, consistent with section 219 of the INA (8 U.S.C. 1189), or Specially Designated Global Terrorists, consistent with IEEPA (50 U.S.C. 1702) and Executive Order 13224 of September 23, 2001 (Blocking Property and Prohibiting Transactions With Persons Who Commit, Threaten to Commit, or Support Terrorism), as amended.

(a)  International cartels constitute a national-security threat beyond that posed by traditional organized crime, with activities encompassing:

(i)    convergence between themselves and a range of extra-hemispheric actors, from designated foreign-terror organizations to antagonistic foreign governments;

(ii)   complex adaptive systems, characteristic of entities engaged in insurgency and asymmetric warfare; and

(iii)  infiltration into foreign governments across the Western Hemisphere.

The Cartels have engaged in a campaign of violence and terror throughout the Western Hemisphere that has not only destabilized countries with significant importance for our national interests but also flooded the United States with deadly drugs, violent criminals, and vicious gangs.

The Cartels functionally control, through a campaign of assassination, terror, rape, and brute force nearly all illegal traffic across the southern border of the United States.  In certain portions of Mexico, they function as quasi-governmental entities, controlling nearly all aspects of society.  The Cartels’ activities threaten the safety of the American people, the security of the United States, and the stability of the international order in the Western Hemisphere.  Their activities, proximity to, and incursions into the physical territory of the United States pose an unacceptable national security risk to the United States.

(b)  Other transnational organizations, such as Tren de Aragua (TdA) and La Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) pose similar threats to the United States.  Their campaigns of violence and terror in the United States and internationally are extraordinarily violent, vicious, and similarly threaten the stability of the international order in the Western Hemisphere.

(c)  The Cartels and other transnational organizations, such as TdA and MS-13, operate both within and outside the United States.  They present an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.  I hereby declare a national emergency, under IEEPA, to deal with those threats.

Sec. 2.  Policy.  It is the policy of the United States to ensure the total elimination of these organizations’ presence in the United States and their ability to threaten the territory, safety, and security of the United States through their extraterritorial command-and-control structures, thereby protecting the American people and the territorial integrity of the United States.

Sec. 3.  Implementation.  (a)  Within 14 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of State shall take all appropriate action, in consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury, the Attorney General, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Director of National Intelligence, to make a recommendation regarding the designation of any cartel or other organization described in section 1 of this order as a Foreign Terrorist Organization consistent with 8 U.S.C. 1189 and/or a Specially Designated Global Terrorist consistent with 50 U.S.C. 1702 and Executive Order 13224.

(b)  Within 14 days of the date of this order, the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall take all appropriate action, in consultation with the Secretary of State, to make operational preparations regarding the implementation of any decision I make to invoke the Alien Enemies Act, 50 U.S.C. 21 et seq., in relation to the existence of any qualifying invasion or predatory incursion against the territory of the United States by a qualifying actor, and to prepare such facilities as necessary to expedite the removal of those who may be designated under this order.

Sec. 4.  General Provisions.  (a)  Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(i)   the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or

(ii)  the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(b)  This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(c)  This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

Statement From Acting Secretary Huffman On US Border Patrol Agent Killed In Line of Duty

WASHINGTON – Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Benjamine Huffman issued the following statement on the death of a US Border Patrol Agent:

“Today, January 20, a Border Patrol agent assigned to the US Border Patrol’s Swanton Sector was fatally shot in the line of duty.

“Every single day, our Border Patrol agents put themselves in harm’s way so that Americans and our homeland are safe and secure. My prayers and deepest condolences are with our Department, the Agent’s family, loved ones, and colleagues.

“This incident is being swiftly investigated and DHS will release additional information as soon as it becomes available.” 

Watch President Trump's 2025 Inaugural Addess

The New York Post offers a video of President Trump’s 2025 Inaugural Address. 

You can watch the video via the below link: 

Watch Now: President Donald Trump’s Full Inauguration Speech (Video) | New York Post 

On This Day In History Edgar Allan Poe Was Born

As History.com notes, on this day in history, Edgar Allan Poe was born.

You can read about Poe’s life and work via the below link:

Edgar Allan Poe is born | January 19, 1809 | HISTORY

Back in May of 2021, Philadelphia Weekly published my Crime Beat column on Edgar Allan Poe's time in Philadelphia.

I interviewed Scott Peeples, author of Man in the Crowd: Edgar Allan Poe and the City.

You can read the column via the pages below (click on them to enlarge), the below link, or the below text:

How Philly shaped Edgar Allan Poe's pessimistic poetry - Philadelphia Weekly 

Poe in Philadelphia: 

Edgar Allan Poe Had Creative Peak While Living in Philly 

By Paul Davis  

I visited Edgar Allan Poe’s house in Philadelphia on a school trip many years ago. I revisited the historical house in my twenties when I was rereading and enjoying Poe, especially “The Murders on the Rue Morgue,” which is credited as the very first detective crime story. 

I recently read Scott Peeples’ “The Man of the Crowd: Edgar Allan Poe and the City,” which covers Poe’s time in Richmond, Baltimore, New York, and of course Philadelphia. Scott Peeples, a professor of English at the College of Charleston, also co-edited, with J. Gerald Kennedy, “The Oxford Handbook of Edgar Allan Poe,” and he wrote two other books on Poe as well. 

I reached out to Peeples and asked him about Poe’s time in Philadelphia, which was from 1838 to 1844. 

“In some ways, it was the most stable period of his adult life,” Peeples replied.” That’s not saying much, but still, Poe lived in the same house for about four of the six years in Philadelphia, which was very unusual for him. And he had steady employment for a few years, as editor of Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine and then Graham’s Magazine. He got to know a lot of other writers and editors; he met Charles Dickens when Dickens toured the city. 

“Poe even came close to launching his own magazine, something that he greatly desired. But he never made a lot of money, and then in 1842 his wife Virginia began showing symptoms of tuberculosis. Poe’s mother-in-law, who was also his aunt, lived with Edgar and Virginia, and the three of them moved a couple of times between 1842 and ’44, before finally leaving for New York. During that last year or so Poe began drinking more, and his wife’s illness weighed heavily on him. So things were pretty shaky by the time he left Philadelphia.” 

I asked what significant work Poe produced while living in Philadelphia. 

“It was his creative peak --- I think that would be hard to argue with. He wrote and published most of the stories he’s best known for today: “Ligeia,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Black Cat,” “The Pit and the Pendulum,” “The Masque of the Red Death,” “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” “The Gold-Bug,” “The Man of the Crowd,” and more,” Peeples said. “He wrote a lot of satirical fiction as well, and a steady stream of book reviews.” 

Peeples described Poe’s house, which is now the National Historic Site on Spring Garden Street, as relatively spacious considering how little money the family had. 

“It was attached to a much larger house owned by his landlord, but Poe’s place was a pretty nice little home on the outskirts. Apparently, the landlord admired Poe as a writer and didn’t really worry too much about the rent.”  

Peeples said Poe moved to Philadelphia in the wake of the Panic of 1837, as the city was trying to bounce back from a recession. 

“Even so, it was growing pretty quickly --- not at the speed of New York, but definitely expanding,” Peeples said. “Some impressive new public buildings were going up --- Eastern State Penitentiary, the Second Bank of the US, the US Mint, the Philadelphia Arcade --- but at the same time back lots were getting filled in with smaller, shoddier houses. It probably felt kind of chaotic, despite the city’s image as the Quaker City with the orderly grid of streets.  There were labor disputes and riots, including the burning of Pennsylvania Hall in 1838 by a racist mob, because they had hosted an abolitionist lecture. And the city published a lot of newspapers and magazines, and that was probably the main thing that drew Poe to Philadelphia in the first place.” 

Peeples said he wrote “Man of the Crowd” to show how much Poe engaged with the places he lived. 

“Poe lived an itinerant life --- he moved from city to city and within cities very frequently, largely because he was never financially secure. Cities shaped Poe’s life and career, and that was something I wanted to explore.”   

Peeples said Poe’s work has endured for many reasons. 

“Poe’s stories are more than creepy --- they confront some basic human questions in unsettling ways: what’s it like to be dead? Why am I my own worst enemy? Poe’s posthumous image --- to some extent the one I’m implicitly challenging with this book --- took on a life of its own, as he sort of became the face of gothic horror in the twentieth century, thanks to comic books, movies, and a lot of other adaptations.” 

Paul Davis’ Crime Beat column appears here each week. You can contact him via pauldavisoncrime.com. 

Fair Winds And Following Seas: Ex-USS John F. Kennedy Embarks On Final Journey from Philadelphia, The City Where The Navy Began

Chrisy Trabun at the Naval Support Activity Philadelphia command offers a piece on the retired aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy's final departure from Philadelphia:

 

PHILADELPHIA - For more than a decade and a half, the last remaining conventionally powered aircraft carrier, the Ex-USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67), has been moored in the City of Brotherly Love—a tangible symbol of America’s military strength in the city where both the Navy and Marine Corps were founded 250 years ago.

On Thursday, three tugboats pulled alongside the Ex-JFK, the mooring lines were dropped from Pier 4, and she began her final voyage down the Delaware River, bound for scrapping in Brownsville, Texas. Veterans from her nearly 40 years of active service braved well-below-freezing temperatures to watch the final preparations, reminisce about their time aboard her decks, and capture one last farewell photo.

“Ex-John F. Kennedy will always be remembered as a symbol of enduring freedom and a beacon of hope and peace during difficult times in our nation,” said Rear Adm. Bill Greene, Director, Surface Ship Maintenance, Modernization and Sustainment.

Commissioned on Sept. 7, 1968, the USS John F. Kennedy (CVA- 67) conducted 18 deployments to the Mediterranean, Tyrrhenian, Ionian, Ligurian, Aegean, and Adriatic seas during periods of escalating tension in the Middle East and North Africa, often under the watchful eye of Soviet ships, according to a Naval Sea Systems Command news release.

In more recent history, immediately following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the John F. Kennedy and her battle group established air security along the mid-Atlantic seaboard to help calm a fearful and shocked nation in support of Operation Noble Eagle.

In February 2002, the ship deployed in support of Operations Anaconda and Enduring Freedom. On the eve of the first air strikes launched from her flight deck into Afghanistan, then-commanding officer Capt. Ronald Henderson Jr. reflected on America’s global leadership, declaring, “Our Naval power has been the principal weapon of our resolve,” and honoring the “great ships and great crews” that came before. “It is now our turn to strike for justice, and we will strike hard,” he said.

The John F. Kennedy also deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in July 2004.

After decommissioning in 2007, the carrier was brought to Philadelphia in 2008, where it has remained until Jan. 16, 2025.

Rear Adm. Bill Greene concluded, “The countless members of the ship’s crew and all who sustained it during its lifecycle should be proud of the exceptional work that kept the ship sailing and supporting our fleet for many years. Fair winds and following seas.”

My Washington Times On Crime Column On The Life Of Jimmy Breslin

The Washington Times ran my On Crime column today on Jimmy Breslin. 

You can read the column via the below link or the below text:

Author Richard Esposito discusses the legacy of New York columnist Jimmy Breslin - Washington Times  

Although I disagreed with Jimmy Breslin’s politics, I always read his newspaper columns, magazine pieces and books. I always found his work unique and interesting. I particularly liked his crime novel, “The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight.”

I enjoyed reading about him in Richard Esposito’s “Jimmy Breslin: The Man Who Told the Truth.” I contacted him and asked why he wrote the book.

 

“Jimmy Breslin was one of the most influential journalists of the second half of the 20th century and right through the first decade of the 21st. His contribution to millions of readers and their understanding of politics, crime, government was enormous, his contribution to hundreds of young reporters as a mentor and as a role model for great, precise reporting was also enormous, and his reinvention, in the early 1960s, of journalistic storytelling with his “new journalism” colleagues, changed the nature of narrative story-telling,” Mr. Esposito replied. 



How would you describe him as a man, newspaper reporter, and columnist?

 

“There was no hardworking, more exhaustive reporter than Jimmy, and there was no one more exhausting to work with. Period. I did it as a copy boy - one of many to buy him coffee, run his column across the newsroom, get him money, always broke, always in need of money. And I did it as a city editor. And in the course of writing the book, I learned even more about just how exhausting he was with hours on the phone, cajoling, reporting, yelling and prying. He was relentless. And he was, as I said, simply exhausting because his world revolved completely around himself.”

 

Who were his major influences?

 

“Jimmy was influenced, in many ways, by the great sports writers who came before him. Depending on the day, he credited any number of journalists with being his most important influences. But through it all there was Damon Runyon. For Jimmy, Runyon was a role model.”

How did his newspaper column differ from other columns from his era? Why did he move his column from newspaper to newspaper?

“Jimmy acted more like a journeyman than a star. He was constantly searching for a better home. If you looked at it in light of a childhood where he, his mother and his sister were abandoned to penury by his father, you could see it as a pattern of his life. Love, then anger and betrayal. He quit, in a sense, before he thought you were going to abandon him. This was all inside him of course. But the emotions were there in his writing. Rage, anger, the defense of the helpless. All of this was Jimmy in his columns. He differed from the other columnists in many ways. In his columns, in essence, he wrote poetry for a cab driver, his simple sentences were the bricks of his story telling, his sense of humor lifted the entire paper, giving it a life it otherwise might not have had. These are just a few of the ways he differed. No one worked harder than Jimmy Breslin.”

 

What was his relationship with New York cops?

 

“Jimmy respected honest cops. He grew up with cops in his household. He deplored cops who came into New York City from the suburbs, like an invading army he would say, learning nothing about the people they were supposed to serve or the city they were supposed to serve in. Conversely, any number of cops loved to hate Jimmy. But the smartest among them were his confidants and his friends, and the smartest among them were open to reading him, even when they disagreed with him.”

 

What was Breslin’s relationship with New York organized crime figures?

 

“He had solid relationships, if not friendships, with some key members of organized crime. He also had nothing but distain for the selling of drugs which by the 1970s was becoming the way the mob made much of its money.”

Did Breslin report his beating from “Jimmy the Gent” Burke to the police?

 

“Breslin reported his beating by Burke to no one. And Burke, of course, reported it to no one. It was business. In a bar. Between two guys who had a life-long relationship. Both of them had volatile personalities. Burke’s was sociopathic. Breslin’s egomaniacal.”

 

Why did Burke offer Breslin money for his wife’s illness, and why did Breslin refuse?

 

“Burke’s offer came from knowing Rosemary, or “Rose” as he called her, since they were young. He wanted her cured, and in his world, a bag of cash could buy the best of anything. So he tried to give it to Jimmy so he could buy Rosemary the best care. Jimmy didn’t take the money. But he never forgot the offer, and many years later, he wrote about Burke’s generosity.” 

What do you believe will be Jimmy Breslin’s legacy?

“Breslin’s legacy is reminding us all, tell the truth, tell the stories, and then let the readers figure it out. In other words, give them what they need to make up their minds. Don’t preach to a choir that already knows what you are going to say and believes it.”

 

• Paul Davis’ On Crime column covers true crime, crime fiction and thrillers.

 

Jimmy Breslin” The Man Who Told the Truth

Richard Esposito
Crime Ink/Penzler, $30, 360 pages