Ramesh Nyberg From Defund to Retool The joke goes: A man is having a bad day. He gets fired from work, goes out to find his car vandalized, then goes home to find that his home was burglarized. It’s a busy day in the district and the nearest available officer is a K-9 unit. The sunglasses-wearing officer gets out and the German Shepherd comes bounding out of the vehicle after him. The man laments, “Oh, God…I’ve been fired…my car gets…
Ramesh Nyberg The Misery of the Aftermath As I write this, it has been just 26 days since Hurricane Ian made landfall on Florida’s southwestern coast just north of Sanibel Island. I spent a good deal of time in that area as a youngster. We were close friends with a family who lived in Fort Myers and we visited often. They lived right on the Caloosahatchee River which flowed across the north end of town into the Gulf of Mexico….
Ramesh Nyberg The Things We Carry The ever changing world of technology is a fascinating study. There was a time when the lead pencil was considered the height of technology. Automobiles without air conditioning which chugged along at a blazing 25 mph were the fancy of only the wealthy elite, as was propeller airplane travel. Police work has a similar evolution. When I first got interested in police work, I got a job at the Fontainebleau-Hilton Hotel in Miami Beach…
Ramesh NybergNot in Kansas Anymore This column is a first – I’m writing it from another country. I’m in Kolkata, West Bengal, India, nearly 10,000 nautical miles from Miami, staying at my in-laws’ house. To say things are “different” would be quite the understatement. It’s culture shock at every turn. I’ve had some remarkable experiences in just the first seven days I’ve been here, but, for this column, we’ll stick to the justice system, the traffic and policing of the…
Ramesh Nyberg Freedom of Speech Is a Problem? Recently, my wife and I went to see an Indian comedian performing in West Palm Beach. He was really funny, but what really grabbed me about his performance was the first thing he said when he got on stage. “I’m very happy to be here – and I mean I’m happy to be here in the United States, where I can speak freely.” He went on to explain that, as a vocal…
Ramesh Nyberg What a Difference a Decade Makes I think it’s safe to say that, as we get older, we get more nostalgic. I say this because of the myriad posts on Twitter and Facebook about “remember this?” and “whatever happened to….?” You’ve seen them and you’ve gotten accustomed to seeing the same stuff coming from certain people in your circle of colleagues and friends, right? There is a group of ex-cops I know who just can’t seem to pull…
Ramesh Nyberg (and…the truth hurts) If you woke up one day and that face of yours – the one you have come to know, love and take care of – suddenly had a large, offensive, seeping boil on it, what would you do?It’s safe to say that you would try your best to hide it from everyone else. Until it went away or it was medically attended to, you might even avoid looking in the mirror. You would draw as…
RAMESH NYBERG It’s Been a Busy Week… The week I am writing this column began on Monday, October 25th. It’s a week following a week of three big criminal justice stories – two of them in my home state. I tell my students that we are never lacking for study material and it’s true. The headlines of the Miami Herald – as well as every major news outlet in the country – are always overflowing with real crime stories, arrests,…
by Ramesh Nyberg Spending the Hours Reminiscing There are times when one is reminded of days gone by and it’s poignant, or wistful, or just plain “those were the days.” Three things have recently brought me back down memory lane, specifically to the decade of the 1980s, and I was reminded of life in South Florida during that time. I should preface this by telling you that, though I have visited many places around the country and the world, I…
RAMESH NYBERG Making a Difference This column is dedicated to the victims and families of the Surfside, Florida, condo collapse. Is it weird what I’m feeling? Here I am in Boston with my wife on vacation, enjoying time with my son, his wife and my 18-month-old grandson, and I suddenly have an urge to be in Surfside, picking through rubble and recovering victims of this disastrous building collapse. They say that police work “gets in your blood” and never goes…