Thursday, March 21, 2013

New York Governor Favors Easing Newly Passed Gun Law (The New York Times) and Other Thursday, March 21st, 2013 NYC Police Related News Articles

Thursday, March 21st, 2013 — Good Afternoon, Stay Safe

 

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Cuomo Duplicity and Double Talk  / All Active (Including Those On Duty) and Retired NYPD Officers Still in Violation of the New Law

New York Governor Favors Easing Newly Passed Gun Law

By THOMAS KAPLAN and DANNY HAKIM — Thursday, March 21st, 2013 ‘The New York Times’

(Edited for brevity and law enforcement pertinence) 

 

 

ALBANY — In the wake of the elementary school massacre in Newtown, Conn., Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York pushed through the State Legislature gun control measures that included not only a tougher assault weapons ban but also a tighter restriction on the maximum legal capacity of gun magazines.

 

But after weeks of criticism from gun owners, Mr. Cuomo said on Wednesday that he would seek to ease the restriction,  ( Not so! )  which he said had proved unworkable even before it was scheduled to take effect on April 15.

 

The gun-control law, approved in January, banned the sale of magazines that hold more than seven rounds of ammunition. But, Mr. Cuomo said Wednesday, seven-round magazines are not widely manufactured. And, although the new gun law provided an exemption for the use of 10-round magazines at firing ranges and competitions, it did not provide a legal way for gun owners to purchase such magazines.

 

As a result, he said, he and legislative leaders were negotiating language that would continue to allow the sale of magazines holding up to 10 rounds, but still forbid New Yorkers from loading more than 7 rounds into those magazines.

 

“There is no such thing as a seven-bullet magazine,” Mr. Cuomo said at a news conference. “That doesn’t exist. So you really have no practical option.”

 

The development came as the governor and the legislative leaders announced Wednesday night that they had reached a tentative agreement on the state budget for the fiscal year that begins on April 1, though they released few details.

 

Several contentious issues are still being negotiated, including a plan to reduce low-level marijuana arrests stemming from police stops in New York City.

 

But the decision to change the gun magazine restriction overshadowed the budget announcement.

 

Even after allowing the sale of 10-round magazines, New York’s law would still be among the strongest in the country. Only three other states — California, Hawaii and Massachusetts — and the District of Columbia have a 10-round magazine limit, according to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

 

Limits on magazines remain a major goal of advocates of gun control — on Wednesday, Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado signed into law a ban in that state on magazines that hold more than 15 rounds.

 

Gun control advocates were divided over the modification to the new legislation.

 

Assemblywoman Michelle Schimel, a Long Island Democrat and a chairwoman of the New York chapter of State Legislators Against Illegal Guns, noted that key portions of the law — like an expanded ban on assault weapons — were not being changed.

 

“This is still a robust bill,” she said, calling it “still a model for the rest of the country, without a doubt.”

 

But Richard M. Aborn, the president of the Citizens Crime Commission of New York City, described the concerns from gun owners about a scarcity of seven-round magazines as “a manufactured crisis.”

 

“I think the governor and the Legislature got it right the first time,” Mr. Aborn said, adding, “We don’t want to have to tell the mother of a young man who’s just been shot and killed that he was killed with the ninth bullet.”

 

Gun rights advocates had complained that seven-round magazines were not widely available.

 

The magazine restriction “was probably going to be a de facto handgun ban in New York,” said Jake McGuigan, who directs state affairs for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a firearms industry trade group.

 

Gun rights advocates continue to believe the entire gun-control package should be repealed. Stephen J. Aldstadt, president of the Shooters Committee on Political Education, a New York group, described the amendment as “the most asinine thing I’ve ever heard.”

 

“Any person who is going to go commit a mass shooting like Columbine or Sandy Hook is certainly not going to pay attention to a law restricting magazines to seven rounds,” he said. “The only people who would possibly obey that law are legal gun owners, and they’re not your problem.”

 

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NYPD Stop, Question & Frisk  / 40 Pct. P.O. Pedro Serrano Testifies

NYC cop: Payback likely after stop-frisk testimony

By COLLEEN LONG and LARRY NEUMEISTER (The Associated Press)  — Wednesday, March 20th, 2013; 7:53 p.m.  EDT

 

 

NEW YORK—A New York City police officer testified Wednesday that he's already been labeled a rat and expects more retaliation from colleagues for testifying at a civil trial that the department routinely enforces quotas on arrests and other enforcement action and punishes those who do not achieve the artificial goals.

 

Officer Pedro Serrano told a federal judge in Manhattan that his colleagues in the Bronx already dumped out his locker and stuck rodent stickers on the outside, implying he is a rat for testifying.

 

"I fear that they're going to try and set me up and get me fired," he said.

 

Serrano, 43, was speaking publicly for the first time at the trial, which is challenging how the New York Police Department makes some street stops. His testimony was given to show a culture within the nation's largest department that revolves more around numbers and less around actual policing.

 

Lawyers for the four men who sued say officers unfairly target minorities under the controversial tactic known as stop and frisk, sometimes because of pressure to make illegal quotas. Attorneys for the city say the department doesn't profile—officers go where the crime is, and the crime is overwhelmingly in minority neighborhoods. Police officials have said that they do not issue quotas but set some performance goals for officers.

 

Serrano, who wore a suit Wednesday but was in police uniform earlier in the week, said he has been protesting within the department for six years about quotas for arrests, summonses, and stop, question and frisk reports each officer should achieve per month.

"I've been verbally telling my supervisors this is wrong," he said. "They say, 'This is the way it is; it's been done this way forever.' You can't fight. It's a losing battle."

 

Serrano was the second whistleblower to testify Wednesday in the case. Officer Adhyl Polanco, whose story had already been made public in media reports, said police brass were not concerned with whether patrol officers were saving lives or helping people; they were focused on one thing: numbers.

 

Both officers said if they didn't get the 20 summonses, one arrest and five street stops per month while working patrol, they'd face poor evaluations, shift changes and no overtime. Serrano said the push to get arrests came right after the academy and continued. He said he's been punished for not having enough arrests.

 

"They tell you: 'I need a specific number,'" Serrano said of his superiors.

 

Four black men testified Monday and Tuesday about their experiences being stopped by police—they say because of their race.

 

There have been about 5 million stops made by police in the past decade, mostly of black and Hispanic men. Lawyers with the Center for Constitutional Rights, which brought the lawsuit on behalf of the four plaintiffs, are seeking to reform the tactic, which gained traction in the past decade.

 

The mayor and police commissioner say stop and frisk is a life-saving, crime-stopping tool that has helped drive crime down to record lows. New York City saw the fewest number of murders in 2012 since comparable record keeping in the 1960s, and other major crimes are down to record lows, too. City officials say criminals are keeping their guns at home.

 

Officers have more than 23 million contacts with the public, make 4 million radio runs and issue more than 500,000 summonses every year. Comparatively, 600,000 stops annually are not unreasonable, city lawyers said.

 

U.S. District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin, who has said in earlier rulings that she is deeply concerned about the tactic, has the power to order reforms to how it is used, which could bring major changes to the force and other departments.

 

On Tuesday, the second day of the trial that is expected to last weeks, city lawmakers announced that they had reached an agreement to install an inspector general for the NYPD—an issue raised last year amid mass demonstrations against stop and frisk and a series of stories by The Associated Press that detailed police monitoring of Muslims. A vote was expected in the coming weeks. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he would veto the proposal.  

 

Bloomberg, city lawyers and police officials said the department has enough oversight, including an independent watchdog group, a 700-person Internal Affairs Bureau, a police corruption commission, prosecutors and judges.

 

It's not clear whether the proposal for an inspector general would affect what changes the judge may order.

 

———

 

Associated Press writer Jennifer Peltz contributed to this report.

 

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Second NYPD whistleblower testifies he was called a 'rat' for protesting stop-and-frisk quotas

Officer Pedro Serrano said he was ostracized for protesting the stop-and-frisk quotas that were demanded at the 40th Precinct where he worked in the South Bronx, saying he was told 'you can’t fight a losing battle.'

By Robert Gearty AND Bill Hutchinson — Thursday, March 21st, 2013 ‘The New York Daily News’

 

 

A second NYPD whistleblower testified Wednesday that department brass pressured cops for arrests and stop-and-frisk quotas and that he was smeared as a “rat” for bucking the system.

 

Officer Pedro Serrano said he was ostracized for protesting the quotas demanded at the 40th Precinct in the South Bronx. “They said, ‘Hey, this is the way it is, you can’t fight a losing battle,’” Serrano testified in Manhattan Federal Court.

 

Serrano, 43, a member of the police force since 2004, followed Officer Adhyl Polanco to the witness stand in the class-action lawsuit against the controversial stop-and-frisk tactics.

 

Like Polanco, Serrano said the quota demanded by supervisors is 20 summonses and one arrest a month. He did not specify how many stop-and-frisks he was required to make.

 

He also backed Polanco’s claim that the quota system had the support of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association.

 

Serrano testified that he was once criticized by supervisors for failing to make any stop-and-frisks in a month when he surpassed his quota, issuing 20 summonses and making three arrests.

 

He said that since going to the Internal Affairs Bureau recently to complain, his stationhouse locker was tattooed with stickers proclaiming him a “rat.”

 

He said he also found the word “rat” next to his name on a roster list outside the stationhouse cafeteria. “I fear they’re going to set me up and get me fired,” Serrano testified.

 

Earlier Wednesday, secret recordings made by Polanco at the 41st Precinct stationhouse, also in the South Bronx, were played in court to bolster his testimony.

 

In the tapes, one of Polanco’s supervisors is heard demanding that cops make their “20 and 1” quota and lambasting those who came up short.

 

“If you want to be a zero, I’ll treat you like a zero,” patrol Sgt. Marvin Bennett fumed on tape.

 

Polanco also recorded his patrol commander, Lt. Andrew Valenzano, telling officers to meet their quotas by ticketing bicyclists.

 

“If you see people over there on bikes, carrying the bags, you know, good stops,” Valenzano says on tape. “That’s what we need.”

 

Officer Angel Herran, a union delegate, was taped telling officers the quota was agreed to “in this last contract.”

 

“They’re telling you to ‘go make money,’ ” Herran is heard saying.

 

rgearty@nydailynews.com

 

***

Recordings of NYPD officers were played in Manhattan Federal Court on Wednesday pressing cops into quotas.

 

In this instance, patrol Sgt. Marvin Bennett warns those who want to buck the system, calling them “zeros.”

 

“So we're going to start correcting and treating those who want to fight the cause and fight the power — that's no problem. No problem. Your names, each one of your names are important …. Trust me, your name is important.”

 

On another tape, Officer Angel Herran, a union delegate, pleads for solidarity.

 

“The union's agreeing on it and we're unionized here, this is what we do. You know? ”

 

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Stop-and-Frisk Trial Turns to Claim of Arrest Quotas

By JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN — Thursday, March 21st, 2013 ‘The New York Times’

 

 

For the first two days, the trial focused on sidewalks and street corners from Harlem to Flatbush, as African-American men testified about how they were stopped by the police.

 

But by the third day, the testimony had veered indoors, as a New York City police officer described scenes from a station house in the South Bronx. There, during the roll call at the start of each shift, a commander addressed the officers, handing out assignments and occasional words of lukewarm encouragement.

 

It was during those speeches, the police officer testified on Wednesday in Federal District Court in Manhattan, that supervisors and union delegates stressed the need for officers to write more summonses, make arrests, and make stop-and-frisk encounters.

 

“They want 20 and 1,” Officer Adhyl Polanco of the 41st Precinct testified, explaining that meant “20 summons and one arrest per month.”

 

Officer Polanco appeared as a witness in a class-action suit that claims that the police routinely stop minority men on the street without a legal reason to do so. But his testimony was directed at proving the existence of quotas, a contention that has emerged unexpectedly at the center of the stop-and-frisk trial, which is one of the most significant legal challenges of a major Bloomberg administration policy.

 

In their opening arguments, lawyers for the city dismissed all talk of quotas as a sideshow, saying that the average officer stops only a handful of people a month. But the plaintiffs have insisted that quotas put officers under pressure to make unconstitutional stops as they seek people to arrest or issue tickets to.

 

“We were handcuffing kids for no reason,” Officer Polanco said.

 

He described how he once wrote a summons to a man for not having a dog license, after being directed to do so by his commander. “I did not see the dog,” Officer Polanco said. He later told Internal Affairs Bureau investigators about that episode and others.

 

After a confrontation with a lieutenant, he was stripped of his gun and badge and faced disciplinary proceedings.

 

Mr. Polanco is among a handful of officers who have taken to covertly tape-recording station house conversations, and he came to court prepared to discuss recordings that he made nearly three years ago.

 

In one speech played at the trial, a voice that Officer Polanco said was that of Donald McHugh, the precinct commander at the time, spoke about writing summonses. The commander warned that some people were not “chipping in” and said that those officers were going to be paired with supervisors “to make sure it happens.”

 

But he also complimented his officers, saying that “the overwhelming majority of people did an outstanding, great job, and I’m saying I appreciate it.”

 

Much of the discussion about “20 and 1” came from remarks by delegates from the police union who spoke at roll calls that the recordings captured officers being told that they were expected to write “20 and 1.” Those remarks showed how some delegates occupy a back channel between officers and commanders; some officers say that delegates have become too cozy with management. In one recording, a man identified by Officer Polanco as Angel Herran, who was a delegate in the 41st Precinct at the time, could be heard trying to convince officers that it was not unreasonable to be expected to write tickets.

 

“You have to show something,” he said. “You’re a police officer.”

 

“You mean to tell me,” he asked, that during a month of work “you haven’t seen any violations on parking, any violation, and any kind of arrest?”

 

“It’s impossible,” he concluded.

 

But the tapes also offered a sampling of the tradition of oratory that has developed alongside roll calls. While commanders and precinct delegates occasionally start off by delivering a pep talk, the speeches occasionally fall short of encouraging.

 

In one speech, Sgt. Mervin Bennett said that even officers disillusioned with the work were expected to “do your 8 hours and 35 minutes a day and go home, and just do your job.”

 

“You could be disgruntled, fine,” he said. “Welcome to the N.Y.P.D. That’s part of the nature of the job.”

 

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Secret Roll Call Recordings Played in NYPD Stop-and-Frisk Trial

By ADAM KLASFELD — Thursday, March 21st, 2013 ‘The Courthouse News Service’ / Pasadena, CA

 

 

MANHATTAN (CN) - An NYPD officer testified Wednesday that his bosses retaliated for his blowing the whistle on quotas by prosecuting him for false statements on forms that his patrol commander forced him to sign.

 

The New York Police Department has stopped and frisked 5 million people - nearly 90 percent of them black or Latino, the NYCLU said on the eve of the trial, which began this week.

 

Attorneys for the city claim that the data skew that way because crime disproportionately involves those ethnic groups.

 

But Adhyl Polanco, a veteran of 8 years on the force, testified that the real motive is money - and that his secret recordings of police roll calls prove it.

 

Polanco in late summer 2009 taped his patrol commander, supervising sergeants and union delegate at the Bronx's 41st Precinct, speaking directly and indirectly about a policy of "20 and one."

 

The numbers referred to 20 summonses and one arrest, Polanco said. Supervisors later added a requirement of "five 250s," a shorthand for street stops, Polanco said.

 

Attorneys for plaintiffs challenging the stop-and-frisk tactics played Polanco's faint and scratchy recordings in court Wednesday.

 

Polanco identified the voice on the first track as Officer Angel Herran, the union delegate on his squad, saying, "They want 20 and one. How? I don't know. Maybe you're horning for parkers, so you write all 20 parkers, I don't know."

 

The same speaker complained about having to "adjudicate fvcking CDs on the activities." CDs refer to "command discipline," such as lost vacation days to punish low numbers, Polanco testified.

 

"This is what this job's coming to, you know?" Herran griped, according to the transcript.

 

Another speaker, believed to be Inspector Donald McHugh, the precinct commander, tells the squad that headquarters "lit up" - or screamed - at the Bronx chief for low numbers in the borough.

 

Throughout this recording, the speaker enigmatically refers to "giv[ing] them the business," which Polanco said is slang for summonses.

 

"It's a shame that they call it a business," he added.

 

The voice of Lt. Andrew Valenzano, the platoon commander, trails off on a recording as he refers to "people over there on the bikes, carrying the bags," apparently as potential targets of "good stops."

 

Valenzano never explained why they should be stopped, Polanco said.

 

Another speaker, whom Polanco identifies as Officer Gaetano Fundaro, allegedly warned officers who opposed the orders.

 

"Forget about the drama and all the political bullshit and everything that goes on in the fvcking command 'cause you're not going to win," Fundaro said. "You're fighting against the current."

 

Though that statement was made at a roll call, Polanco testified that he believed the remark referred to him, because his cover had been blown as the author of an anonymous letter to the integrity control officer, or ICO.

 

After the ICO did not respond to the anonymous letter, Polanco said, his attorney began discussions with ABC News.

 

Later, Polanco said, he sent the Internal Affairs Bureau evidence supporting his earlier claims, again anonymously.

 

Explaining why he hid his identity, Polanco said, "You've seen what happened to Adrian Schoolcraft." Schoolcraft, another NYPD whistleblower, was forcibly institutionalized, allegedly in a campaign to discredit him. His case is pending in the same court.

 

Polanco said he knew he had been identified as the source of the complaints when someone wrote "rat" next to his name in the roster.

 

"Basically, I'm a single officer, a minority officer, going against the department," he said.

 

He said that he revealed his identity after a Dec. 12, 2009 incident that led to his suspension.

 

That day, he worked what he called a punitive shift at an illegal traffic checkpoint with no flares, cones, stopping patterns or law enforcement purpose - strictly to run up his numbers.

 

During that shift, he testified, he needed to call an ambulance for his partner, who had turned pale and complained of "very strong chest pains."

 

When the ambulance arrived, EMTs put an oxygen mask on his partner, who was turning blue, Polanco said.

 

He said that Lt. Valenzano ordered him to get back to his post.

 

Polanco said that he replied: "You can do what you please. I'm going with my partner."

 

Valenzano then assaulted him grabbing his chest in an effort to wrest away his gun and shield to suspend him, Polanco said.

 

Brenda Cooke, an attorney for the city, claimed that Polanco ignored orders from multiple officers, shoved Valenzano and spouted racist slurs.

 

Scoffing at the allegation, Polanco asked, "How am I going to scream racial [abuse] if I have a recording?"

 

He used the tape of his fight with Valenzano to defend himself in an administrative hearing, but it was not admissible for his testimony Wednesday.

 

Polanco said he pushed Velanzano in self-defense.

 

"He didn't have the authorization to put his hand on me," Polanco said, adding later, "I didn't punch him as I should have."

 

After this incident, the NYPD suspended Polanco on perjury charges stemming from what he called phony summonses that Valenzano forced him to write.

 

One summons accused a pedestrian of walking a dog without a license, though Polanco said he never saw the pooch.

 

"I told the person to fight it and bring it to court," Polanco said.

 

A second summons, for "disorderly conduct," was against a black person whom Polanco said he did not see at the time of the stop.

 

After three and a half years, his administrative hearing for false statements still has not been resolved.

 

"They know I'm innocent," Polanco said.

 

When asked why he risked retaliation, he said, "I'm a father. I have three kids. I grew up in the Heights. I grew up in the hood. ... I don't need my kid to get shot by a cop who was chasing him to fill out a 250," referring to the stop-and-frisk form.

 

He said he did not oppose street stops in principle.

 

"It's a great tool, and we need it," he said.

 

The lawsuit seeks to reform the practice, not to end it.

 

Depositions by two fellow officers in the 41st Precinct were read into the record Wednesday.

 

Inspector McHugh, the precinct commander, is expected to take the stand this week.

 

Lead plaintiff David Floyd and three others claim they were subjected to unconstitutional stops and searches. They seek an injunction against New York City to stop the NYPD from violating the constitutional rights of the class. In practice, that would probably mean court oversight. They are represented by the Center for Constitutional Rights.

 

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Whistleblow officer is for stop-&-frisk

By BRUCE GOLDING — Thursday, March 21st, 2013 ‘The New York Post’

 

 

A disgruntled cop who’s serving as a star witness against the NYPD’s use of stop-and-frisk unexpectedly praised the controversial police tactic yesterday as an essential weapon in the city’s war on crime.

 

Officer Adhyl Polanco testified that he “absolutely” believed stop-and-frisk is an “appropriate tool” to keep pistol-packing thugs from victimizing innocent New Yorkers.

 

“It’s a great tool, and we need it,” Polanco said in Manhattan federal court, adding, “Because I have no problem harassing criminals.”

 

Polanco also said that he’s “not in denial that Hispanics and blacks are the ones committing the crime, and I’m here asking for help — how can we make the minority people drop the gun?”

 

But Polanco — who’s currently on modified duty following a dust-up with a supervisor — said he took the witness stand against the city because alleged quotas for stop-and-frisks were leading to illegal racial profiling of minority youths.

 

The father of three, whose of Dominican heritage, said he “grew up in the ’hood” and didn’t want to see his children harassed — or worse — because of stop-and-frisk, which Mayor Bloomberg credits for the city’s record-low crime rate.

 

“I don’t want my kids to get shot by a cop who’s chasing them to write a ‘250,’ ” Polanco said, referring to the official form cops use to report their stop-and-frisks.

 

Polanco also testified about a series of secret recordings he made in 2009 during roll calls at the 41st Precinct station house in The Bronx, where he said union delegates and police supervisors told cops to make at least five stop-and-frisks a month, along with at least 20 summonses and one arrest.

 

Plaintiffs’ lawyers played several profanity-laced excerpts in court, with Polanco describing how he was told the demands were “really non-negotiable” and how he believed “that it was part of the contract and the union was backing it up.”

 

After failing to meet the quotas, Polanco said, he was repeatedly denied days off and twice forced to issue summonses for alleged infractions he didn’t observe, including charging someone with unlicensed-dog possession “who said he didn’t have no dog.”

 

After making anonymous complaints to the Internal Affairs Bureau, Polanco said he was branded a “rat” and went public with his recordings — which were broadcast in a March 2010 TV news report — because the NYPD “was not listening to me.”

 

“They still will not listen to me. They don’t want to hear,” he said.

 

Polanco also detailed a December 2009 incident in which he was stripped of his gun after clashing with a supervisor at a police checkpoint when his partner suffered chest pains and had to be put in an ambulance.

 

On cross-examination, Polanco admitted shoving then-Lt. Andrew Valenzano when Valenzano physically blocked him from getting into the ambulance but denied shouting slurs about Valenzano’s ethnicity.

 

Polanco also said that while his departmental trial — on charges including perjury for the two summonses — finally concluded two weeks ago, he still hasn’t gotten the verdict.

 

“They know I’m innocent. That’s my belief,” he said.

 

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NYPD $$ Lawyer Lotto Bonanza $$  /  NYPD Stop, Question & Frisk

 

Stop-And-Frisk Costs In New York Questioned Anew With Trial, Teen Killing

By Janell Ross — Wednesday, March 20th, 2013 ‘The Huffington Post’ / New York, NY

 

 

NEW YORK -- The city's controversial stop-and-frisk police tactic faces new scrutiny this week as a federal civil trial began in four men's class-action claim they were illegally stopped, and records for two police officers who fatally shot a Brooklyn teenager this month showed repeated lawsuits filed by people who claimed to have been illegally stopped and roughed up.

 

Mayor Michael Bloomberg this week described the tactic, formally called "stop, question and frisk," as a key crime-reduction tool that no “rational” person would oppose. But the federal trial and the March 9 killing of 16-year-old Kimani Gray when officers tried to stop and question him have sparked fresh debate about the true cost of stop-and-frisk, a strategy police officers use to reduce crime by stopping, questioning and searching people they consider suspicious. The tactic has led to mass demonstrations, City Council hearings and mayoral candidates calling for change. The lawsuit seeks a court-appointed monitor to oversee changes to how the police make stops.

 

The $185.6 million the city spent in fiscal 2011 to settle legal claims against the police department was a 35 percent increase from the year before and was partly because of stop-and-frisk, according to a report by New York City Comptroller John Liu in December. The precise legal cost of stop-and-frisk lawsuits is difficult to determine, because the suits make a variety of claims, including civil rights violations, excessive force and unlawful arrest, Liu said.

 

“Stop-and-frisk has driven a deep chasm between communities and police, which makes everyone less safe,” said Liu, who this week announced his candidacy for mayor. “As stop-and-frisk has increased, we have also seen a marked increase in lawsuits and claims against the NYPD -- bills that taxpayers are on the hook for.”

 

Court records show five legal settlements paid by the city to people who claimed their civil rights were violated by Sgt. Mourad Mourad and Officer Jovaniel Cordova -- the cops involved in Gray's killing. The settlements cost taxpayers about $215,000, according to the records. Mourad has served as a police officer for eight years and Cordova for two.

 

Both men have been placed on administrative leave while Gray’s death is investigated. Both also have received commendations for work confronting suspects. Neither responded to a request for comment.

 

Bloomberg’s claim that stop-and-frisk has helped reverse New York crime trends -- a boast echoed by city lawyers in the federal trial this week -- fails to recognize the human toll of the tactic,, said City Councilman Jumaane D. Williams, who represents portions of Brooklyn.

 

“Mayor Bloomberg has failed to show any correlation between his use of stop, question and frisk and the rates of weapons recovery, shootings or murders,” Williams said. “He is wedded to a failed policy and has shown a unique obstinacy in defending it against an overwhelming mountain of evidence. ... “The cost of stop, question and frisk in money, lives and overall community health is immeasurable.”

 

The New York Civil Liberties Union said last week that the police department is nearing 5 million stop and frisks. Of the 4.4 million stops already recorded, more than 86 percent of the people involved were black or Latino, and 88 percent of these interactions did not lead to an arrest or citation requiring a court appearance, NYCLU said.

 

No one denies stop-and-frisk brings intense policing to high-crime neighborhoods, said Heather Mac Donald, a fellow at the right-leaning Manhattan Institute who studies cities and crime. Crime rates in New York have fallen further and continued to decline over a longer period of time than any other major U.S. city, Mac Donald said.

 

“All of the liberal root causes for crime, like poverty, inequality … stayed the same,” Mac Donald said. “Conservative causes like out-of-wedlock birthrates, that stayed the same, too. The only thing that changed in New York in the 1990s was the style of policing.”

 

Mac Donald, who is observing the federal stop-and-frisk trial this week, said opponents of the tactic, in New York and elsewhere, often try to depict it as discriminatory or unfair because the number of blacks and Latinos stopped and frisked far outpaces their presence in the population.

 

“But that’s not how policing is determined, nor should it be,” Mac Donald said. “Policing goes where victimization is happening. The police are trying to bring the same level of safety to every community in New York.”

 

The reality is that high-crime neighborhoods are home to mostly black and Latino residents, and more than 90 percent of shootings occurred after a black or Latino perpetrator fired a gun, Mac Donald said. More frequent stops in these neighborhoods and interactions with minority individuals makes legal sense and helps improve overall public safety, she said.

 

“You cannot protect the victims of crime without generating racially disparate police statistics,” said Mac Donald. She added, “I would say that stop, question and frisk is the lesser of two evils. Is there a cost? Yes, there is a cost to some people. But I would say crime is a higher cost.”

 

Khalil Muhammad, director of New York’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, said New York’s homicide rate has declined precipitously since the 1990s, but it did so in most U.S. cities at a time when almost every city in the country –- small, medium and large -– experienced a similar drop, he said.

 

Bloomberg and other proponents of Stop and Frisk want New Yorkers to leap to the conclusion that stop-and-frisk drove this trend in New York without clear evidence, said Muhammad, a historian who studies the history of U.S. law enforcement and race.

 

Bloomberg and others have said that while the number of people stopped and ultimately arrested or ticketed is small, stop-and-frisk helps to keep people who might cause trouble from carrying guns or engaging in crime because they know they are likely to be caught.

 

“Massive crime and killing -- or the wholesale and regular violation of black and brown people’s rights,” said Muhammad. “That’s the false dichotomy they have set up when we know there are other methods that have worked and do work in other cities that do not ... revolve around increased incarceration.”

 

When Muhammad hears Bloomberg talk about stop-and-frisk as the reason for falling crime, Muhammad said he hears echoes of an earlier and ugly time in American history. In the Jim Crow South, white community leaders often expressed a need to contain and monitor black populations to suppress perceived criminal impulses and maintain public safety. Now, New York is practicing what Muhammad called a “Jim Crow” form of justice in high-crime neighborhoods.

 

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Attempt to Make Kelly Accountable to Elected Officials

 

Mayor Vows to Veto Inspector (General) for Police

By WENDY RUDERMAN — Thursday, March 21st, 2013 ‘The New York Times’

 

 

Less than a day after the City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, endorsed a bill to create an inspector general to oversee the Police Department, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on Wednesday vowed to veto the proposal, assailing it as “disastrous for public safety.”

 

The mayor characterized the bill as “election-year politics,” asserting that it would undermine the authority of the police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, and “make our city less safe.”

 

Mr. Bloomberg’s unusually strong rebuke underscored the delicate relationship between the mayor and Ms. Quinn, who have traditionally been strong allies during their tenure at City Hall.

 

But as Ms. Quinn seeks the Democratic nomination for mayor, she has appeared far more willing to adopt stances contrary to Mr. Bloomberg’s position.

 

“It’s unfortunate that the mayor and I disagree on this and I suspect when we pass the bill, he’ll veto it and I can guarantee we will override,” Ms. Quinn said on Wednesday.

 

By supporting the creation of an Office of the Inspector General for the Police Department, Ms. Quinn aligned herself with civil rights leaders who have repeatedly called for independent oversight over a police force that, they believe, unfairly targets black and Hispanic residents for street stops.

 

Some political observers said they believed that Ms. Quinn’s announcement was influenced by the mayoral race. Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic political strategist, said that Ms. Quinn was “caught in a squeeze” between possibly alienating Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Kelly, and losing the chance to go after minority votes.

 

“Some political people will think that she’s been handed the golden opportunity to prove that she’s not beholden to the mayor, take a stand against stop-and-frisk and against Kelly’s policy and then win minority votes,” he said. “But she might not win minority votes and she might anger people who support Bloomberg and Kelly so this could be a lose-lose as opposed to a win-win.”

 

Ms. Quinn, however, dismissed such talk, saying that council members have been working toward a consensus on the inspector general bill since it was introduced last summer and was the subject of public hearings.

 

“We have a situation right now in this city, whether we like it or not, where some of the practices of the Police Department have caused significant rifts between the police and the community,” Ms. Quinn said. “Those type of rifts make it harder to keep people safe, not easier. This type of monitoring will help move us beyond those issues in the future.”

 

Nonetheless, Mr. Bloomberg used nearly the entire length of a morning speech, ostensibly to welcome Sabey Corporation’s new data center to New York City, to criticize the proposal for an inspector general.

 

“Over the past year, the greatest Police Department in the world has been subjected to constant attacks from elected officials and special interest groups,” he said, not mentioning Ms. Quinn by name. “The latest example of that was the inspector general bill currently before the City Council.”

 

Mr. Bloomberg said he believed an inspector general would add an unnecessary and dangerous layer of bureaucracy that would undermine Mr. Kelly’s leadership.

 

Ms. Quinn again expressed her desire to keep Mr. Kelly on as police commissioner if she becomes mayor next year.

 

“I have said, and I stand by it, that whoever the next mayor is would be lucky to have Ray Kelly as police commissioner,” she said. “And if I’m lucky enough to be the mayor, I’d like to have him.”

 

Mr. Sheinkopf, however, said he believed that Ms. Quinn’s support of the bill means Mr. Kelly would be unlikely to stay on as police commissioner under a potential Quinn mayoral administration. “You can’t punch somebody in the face and say, ‘l love you’ at the same time,” he said. “It’s really about trying to have it all ways.”

 

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Bloomberg Slams Quinn-Backed NYPD Watchdog As 'Dangerous Mistake'

By Jill Colvin — Wednesday, March 20th, 2013; 6:06 p.m. ‘DNAinfo.Com News’ / Manhattan

 

 

NEW YORK CITY —  Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn locked horns Wednesday over a plan to create a new independent NYPD watchdog, with Bloomberg slamming the plan as a "terrible and tragic and dangerous mistake" and Quinn alleging police practices were making people less safe.

 

Facing mounting pressure from activists, Quinn, who recently launched a bid for mayor, announced her support Tuesday for legislation that would create an independent NYPD inspector general to oversee the department's policies.

 

The announcement came after mounting criticism over stop-and-frisk and the reported surveillance of Muslim communities, as well as pressure from her rivals in the race.

 

But Bloomberg on Wednesday vowed to veto the bill, which he argued would undermine the city's crime-fighting gains, putting it back on a path toward the bad old days of the 80s and 90s.

 

“Make no mistake about it: This bill jeopardizes that progress and will put the lives of New Yorkers and our police officers at risk," Bloomberg said in remarks at the opening of a new data center in Lower Manhattan.

 

"We have come too far to forget the lessons we’ve learned," he continued. "And those who taking our record low levels of crime for granted are making a terrible and tragic and dangerous mistake."

 

He also took a thinly-veiled shot at Quinn: “We cannot afford to play election-year politics with the safety of our city," he said.

 

It was his most pointed criticism of Quinn in recent memory, and comes as she tries to establish herself as a candidate who will continue to prioritize public safety, while fending off criticism from the left that she is too close to the mayor.

 

In his statement, Bloomberg argued the department was already monitored by a slew of offices, including five district attorneys, two U.S. attorneys, the Civilian Complaint Review Board, the Commission to Combat Police Corruption, as well as the NYPD's Internal Affairs Bureau — which he argued already functioned like an Inspector General’s office, rooting out bad apples.

 

The mayor also threatened the legislation would undermine Police Commissioner Ray Kelly's authority as well as his own decision-making power by creating what he said would essentially amount to a policy supervisor.

 

"There is absolutely no validity to that concern," Quinn told reporters at a press conference at City Hall when asked about Bloomberg's comments.

 

She also said Bloomberg's fears were misguided, and "guarantee[d]" the council would over-ride any veto from the mayor.

 

Quinn had previously called for stop-and-frisk reforms, but went farther, saying the controversial practice was actually interfering with keeping the city safe

 

"We have a situation right now in this city, whether we like it or not, where some of the practices of the police department have caused significant rifts between the police and the community. Those types of rifts make it harder to keep people safe, not easier," she charged.

 

At a debate on Tuesday night, Quinn also said she was skeptical that there was any correlation between crime figures and the number of stops, which have skyrocked since Bloomberg was elected into office.

 

"As crime has gone down, stop, question, and frisk — they don't correlate," she said. "The real decrease in crime in the Bloomberg administration happened when stop, question, and frisk was much, much lower," she said, noting that the number of guns found during stops is "statistically insignificant."

 

She added that, while she intends to continue the practice if she wins the election, "it is not a critical strategy in bringing crime down."

 

"The data shows it is not a critical component to keeping our city safe," she said.

 

Quinn also denied that her sudden change of heart on the legislation had anything to do with her bid for mayor, telling reporters the timing was driven by the fact that a deal had been reached.

 

With Dennis Zhou

 

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Bloomberg blasts NYPD Inspector General plan; says it would create '2 police commissioners'

By Ken Paulsen — Thursday, March 21st, 2013 ‘The Staten Island Advance’ / Staten Island

 

 

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Mayor Michael Bloomberg attacked a City Council plan to create the role of NYPD Inspector General, saying it would undermine the leadership of a department that has had minimal corruption while dropping crime to historic lows.

 

"Our City Council's bill would create a new bureaucracy with the power to oversee the policies and strategies -- that's what they say, policies and strategies -- adopted by the Police Commissioner," he said. "That's not an Inspector General; that's a policy supervisor, and I don't think any rational person would say we need two competing police commissioners."

 

He said such a role would create questions in the department's ranks about who's really in charge, leading to a chain of command breakdown that would harm public safety.

 

The plan has the support of City Council Speaker -- and mayoral candidate -- Christine Quinn.

 

It also has the backing of North Shore Democratic Councilwoman Debi Rose, who chairs the council's Civil Rights Committee: "I support the creation of an Inspector General for the NYPD in order to address specific violations of Stop, Question and Frisk and its misuse as an effective policing tool," she said in a prepared statement. "Creating an NYPD Inspector General is in no way unusual, as evidenced by the existence of similar positions in law enforcement agencies and offices throughout the country, including the Los Angeles Police Department, and within the FBI and the CIA." She said such positions in those agencies serve to create a "culture of accountability" that's needed within the NYPD.

 

South Shore Republican Councilman Vincent Ignizio is firmly in the mayor's corner on this one.

 

He rattled off a handful of entities that already have investigatory powers involving the NYPD, including the city's five District Attorneys; the Civilian Complaint Review Board, the city Department of Investigation, federal prosecutors, the City Council and the NYPD's own Internal Affairs Bureau.

 

The city doesn't need one more, he said.

 

Ignizio, who also voiced his strong support for Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, called the Inspector General plan "a political tool that's going to dominate the mayoral campaign."

 

Mid-Island GOP Councilman James Oddo has already voiced his strong opposition to the plan, citing Bloomberg's logic: "The NYPD already has the most oversight of any police department. I think this will undermine the commissioner," he told the Associated Press.

 

Bloomberg said he will veto the legislation if it passes.

 

He said those who support the plan need to get a clue about the city's gruesome crime situation in 1990, when the murder rate was more than five times what it is today.

 

Bloomberg said that since that time -- starting with Mayor David N. Dinkins -- the city has been successful in all areas of crime-fighting, and he fought the perception that the modern tactics are crowding the jails. The opposite is true, he said.

 

"We're basically incarcerating a third fewer young people, and that's good because they don't learn how to be worse criminals," he said. "They can stay out and become productive members of society, and that shows in the lower murder rate and the lower shooting rate."

He decried special-interest groups that support the measure, such as the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU has been particularly vocal in its opposition to the NYPD's stop-and-frisk tactics and its spying on Muslim groups.

 

Ignizio concurred. He said the ACLU is "perpetually opposed to the NYPD and its tactics" but fails to acknowledge that thousands are alive today as a result of the NYPD's tactics.

 

New York Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Donna Lieberman earlier told the AP that her group was gratified that the Council appeared poised "to create meaningful oversight and mechanisms to investigate police practices."

 

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Mayor Bloomberg blasts Christine Quinn for backing NYPD inspector general plan, calling it an ‘election-year ploy’

Council Speaker says more oversight is needed. Stop-and-frisk is a central issue.

By Erin Durkin — Thursday, March 21st, 2013 ‘The New York Daily News’

 

 

Mayor Bloomberg blasted a plan to create an inspector general to monitor the NYPD as an election year ploy that will be disastrous for public safety.

 

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn backed the proposal Tuesday, calling for an office within the city Department of Investigation that could subpoena police officials and documents.

 

Quinn is hoping to secure the mayor’s endorsement in her run for City Hall this year — but Bloomberg called the bill the latest in a pattern of politically-motivated attacks on the NYPD that could plunge New York back into the bad old days.

 

“We cannot afford to play election year politics with the safety of our city, and we cannot afford to roll back the progress of the past 20 years,” he said. “This bill jeopardizes that progress and will put the lives of New Yorkers and our police officers at risk.”

 

He said an inspector general with the power to oversee policy would undermine the police commissioner’s authority.

 

“I don’t think any rational person would say we need two competing police commissioners,” he said. “That kind of breakdown in the chain of command would be disastrous for public safety.”

 

Lashing out at Quinn and other candidates who have been calling for more NYPD oversight, Bloomberg said keeping crime down requires ongoing vigilance and tough tactics.

 

“It is a lesson that too many people I think today in elected office already seem to have forgotten,” he said. “Over the past year, the greatest police department in the world has been subjected to constant attacks from elected officials and special interest groups.”

 

Quinn said Bloomberg’s comments had “absolutely no validity,” adding there was “no correlation” between the existence of an inspector general and the police department’s ability to keep people safe.

 

“Having this type of additional monitoring will help keep the police department on point and on target and focused on what they can do and be doing that will actually be keeping crime down,” she said. “We have a situation right now ... where some of the practices of the police department have caused significant rifts between the police and community. Those type of rifts make it harder to keep people safe, not easier.”

 

Quinn reiterated her support for Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, despite disagreement over the inspector general proposal.

 

“Ray Kelly and I disagree on the inspector general bill,” she said. “We agree on many other things.”

 

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Allies No More? Bloomberg and Quinn Split on NYPD Issues

By Unnamed Author(s) — Thursday, March 21st, 2013 ‘WNYC News’ / New York, NY

 

 

Is a rift opening up between Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn? The two have worked closely but are disagreeing sharply over council legislation that would create an independent monitor for the New York Police Department. It’s one of a number of issues that are showing a rift between the mayor and the woman who hopes to replace him.

 

 

Mayor Bloomberg sharply criticized the inspector general bill on Wednesday.

 

“We cannot afford to play election year politics with the safety of our city,” he said.  “And we can't afford to roll back the progress of the past 20 years  Make no mistake, this bill jeopardizes that progress and will put the lives of New Yorkers and our police officers at risk.”

 

A couple of hours later, Quinn held her own press conference and most of the questions were about the mayor's comments, including one about whether it helps her to be facing off with the mayor on this issue.

 

“It's irrelevant,” she said. “ The mayor's going to have what ever position he's going to have and I'm going to have whatever position I've going to have. I mean I've been saying for months that more legal infrastructure was needed around stop question and frisk.”

 

Quinn, who looked weary at the press conference, has tried to walk a fine line, says WNYC’s Brigid Bergin. She’s been trying not to distance herself too much from Bloomberg, while staking out specific and nuanced positions on issues related to the police department, such as the inspector general or the use of stop-and-frisk.

 

The council speaker has also repeatedly said she or whoever the next mayor is would be lucky to have Kelly as police commissioner. It’s a statement goes over well with business leaders.

 

But she has been criticized for this by her opponents. At a mayoral forum on public safety earlier this week, the moderator asked her directly to explain why she would keep him on. And, Bergin says, her answer essentially was that just because people work well together doesn't mean they have to agree on everything.  She also said Kelly has "over relied massively" on the stop question and frisk tactic.

 

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Quinn’s move a killer
Mike’s warning on NYPD watchdog

By CARL CAMPANILE and DAN MANGAN — Thursday, March 21st, 2013 ‘The New York Post’

 

 

Council Speaker Christine Quinn’s Big Brother plan to micromanage the NYPD with an inspector general could be a death sentence for city cops forced to combat an epic spike in crime, Mayor Bloomberg warned yesterday.

 

“Make no mistake about it. This bill . . . will put the lives of New Yorkers and our police officers at risk,” Bloomberg said yesterday during a speech to business leaders about the dangers posed by Quinn’s proposal.

 

Bloomberg said having an inspector general that can do away with effective police tactics like stop-and-frisk would bring crime levels back to the bad old days of the ’70s and ’80s, when the murder rate was through the roof.

 

“We have come too far to forget the lessons we’ve learned,” Bloomberg said. “And those who are taking record low levels of crime for granted are making a terrible and tragic mistake.

 

“We cannot afford to play election-year politics with the safety of our city, and we cannot afford to roll back the progress of the past 20 years.”

 

Bloomberg said he plans to veto the move for an NYPD inspector general’s office, which would fall within the city Department of Investigation.

 

Quinn, who said she has the votes to override Bloomberg’s veto, was also blasted by Republican former MTA Chairman Joe Lhota — the early favorite to oppose her in November’s election.

 

“I think there’s no reason to have an inspector general’s office for the NYPD,” said Lhota, who served as deputy mayor under Rudy Giuliani when the city’s crime rate began to plunge dramatically.

 

“It already has oversight by the five district attorneys, by the two US attorneys, by various other organizations. This is just another level of bureaucracy that is being put upon the city of New York, and it’s just not necessary.”

 

Bloomberg’s speech against Quinn’s proposal came at the opening of Sabey Corp.’s new data center on Pearl Street.

 

“The success of our Police Department in driving crime to record lows has allowed us to drive the number of jobs in our city to record highs,” Bloomberg said.

 

“If you remember, it wasn’t long ago that companies were moving out of New York City — not moving in. And one of the big reasons that they were moving out back in those days was that crime was just out of control.”

 

He referred to the murder rate in 1990, when “more than 2,200 New Yorkers were murdered in our streets, our parks, our subways and our apartment buildings in one year.

 

“New York was the murder and crime capital of the nation back then. People did not feel safe going out in the streets at night — no less riding the subways. Kids carried mugging money.”

 

Bloomberg told the audience how then-Mayor David Dinkins and Council Speaker Peter Vallone hired thousands of new police officers to beef up patrols.

 

“With that, crime started to come down — and when Rudy Giuliani became mayor and deployed CompStat and adopted a ‘broken windows’ strategy, crime began to fall dramatically,” he said.

 

“Thanks to the historic leadership of Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, we have continued to drive crime down even further.”

 

Bloomberg cited last year’s record-low murder rate of 418.

 

“That included targeting criminal hot spots and stopping, questioning and sometimes frisking people who may have been engaged in criminal activity,” he said.

 

“If New York City had had the murder rate of Washington, DC, last year, 1,189 more New Yorkers would have been murdered. If in 2012 New York had the murder rate of Chicago, 1,489 more New Yorkers would have been murdered in 2012.

 

“Tampering with the success that we have had in bringing down the murder rates would have been just outrageous, would have been irresponsible and it would have been terribly dangerous.”

 

The mayor noted the large number of entities that already act as NYPD watchdogs.

 

“Thanks to Commissioner Kelly, we now devote as many members of the NYPD to the Internal Affairs Bureau as we do to counterterrorism — and we are vigilant about catching the few bad apples and we do hold them accountable,” Bloomberg said.

 

The mayor also fumed that Quinn’s bill “would create a new bureaucracy,” that would not be an inspector general but would be “a policy supervisor.”

 

“I don’t think any rational person would say we would need two competing police commissioners,” Bloomberg said.

 

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Bill Thompson Backs NYPD Inspector General

By Matt Sledge — Wednesday, March 20th, 2013 5:45 p.m. ‘The Huffington Post’ / New York, NY

 

 

The horse may be a little bit out of the barn on this one, but that isn't stopping Bill Thompson from taking a position on the proposal to create an NYPD inspector general. On Wednesday he issued this statement:

 

I support installing an Inspector General at the NYPD. The need for an IG reflects the City's failure to reform Stop and Frisk and see our communities as partners, instead of adversaries in fighting crime. When I'm Mayor, I will make sure our city remains safe without stigmatizing Black and Latino New Yorkers. We need an IG committed to increasing transparency in the NYPD, with an opportunity to independently review policies and procedures.

 

When I asked Thompson about whether he'd like to see an IG back in February, he declined to answer.

 

Thompson's statement comes one day after City Council Speaker Christine Quinn announced a "broad agreement" on the plan. It's not so broad to include Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who on Wednesday vowed to veto the IG bill.

 

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Analysis: What the Position of Inspector General Means for the NYPD

By Kathleen Horan — Wednesday, March 20th, 2013; 5:45 p.m. ‘WNYC News’ / New York, NY

 

 

The role of the inspector general could be the most significant oversight of the NYPD to date. Or it could be a toothless monitor that adds a layer of bureaucracy. 

 

 

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn are at odds over the proposed new position – with Bloomberg warning that changes to the department could mean a reversal of historic crime lows and Quinn saying she has enough backing in the Council to override his veto. 

 

Little is known about the position other than it will have subpoena power and be housed within the city's Department of Investigation.

 

The proposed role was announced Tuesday by Quinn, the Democratic mayoral frontrunner. It comes as the NYPD is facing increased scrutiny amid unrest in East Flatbush over a police-involved shooting and as the stop and frisk policy faces its broadest legal challenge in federal court.

 

"We have a situation right now in this city whether we like it or not where some of the practices of the police department have caused riffs, significant riffs,  between the police and the community," Quinn said Wednesday.

 

WNYC’s Kathleen Horan has more on what an inspector general would mean for the NYPD, where it’s been implemented in other cities and the politics behind it.

 

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Thursday, March 21st, 2013 ‘The New York Post’ Editorial:

Invitation to mayhem

 

 

Mayor Bloomberg was never more right than he was yesterday when he slammed local candidates for playing “election-year politics with the safety of our city.”

 

The mayor named no names, but it’s no secret that City Council Speaker Christine Quinn — the leading candidate to succeed Bloomberg — was a prime target. The mayor rightly argues that legislation she supports to install an inspector general to oversee NYPD “policies and strategies” effectively sets up a rival police commissioner.

 

And what would be the mission of that rival commissioner? To undercut one of the tools that has helped Mayor Bloomberg and Commissioner Ray Kelly transform New York into the safest big city in America: stop-question-and-frisk.

 

Quinn isn’t the only candidate who’s putting that program in jeopardy with her politicking. At a forum Tuesday evening for mayoral candidates, Comptroller John Liu called for the outright abolishment of stop-and-frisk — and challenged fellow candidate Bill Thompson to do the same.

 

Thompson’s response was revealing: “I’m the one who has to worry about my son being stopped and frisked,” said Thompson. But: “I’m worried also about my son being shot by someone who’s a member of a gang in the street.”

 

Give Thompson credit for recognizing that stop-and-frisk is saving young minorities from finding themselves shot or killed by criminals. Perhaps if leaders such as Thompson had been emphasizing that point over the years, we wouldn’t have the class-action lawsuit now being heard by Federal Judge Shira Scheindlin — who may make all talk of inspector generals moot by throwing out stop-and-frisk on her own.

 

The issue comes down to this: The Quinns and Thompsons are trying to have it both ways. So they say they don’t want to get rid of stop-and-frisk, they just want to tinker with it to make it better.

 

Mayor Bloomberg is telling us a vote for an inspector general to “improve” the policy is really a vote to strangle it.

 

He’s exactly right.

 

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Paying for NYPD O.T.

 

GOP Senator Tom Coburn to NYPD commish Ray Kelly: Grow up and pay your own overtime

Coburn pushed a doomed bill on Wednesday that would prevent police from using federal counterterrorism funds to pay for overtime. Kelly, worried about the money being cut, sent a letter to the senator, who dismissed it.

By Dan Friedman , Joseph Straw AND Joe Kemp — Thursday, March 21st, 2013 ‘The New York Daily News’

 

NOTE:   N.Y. Post article that was not posted on the internet said the bill pass.  The NYPD will get its money. – Mike

 

 

WASHINGTON — The senator known as “Dr. No” has a prescription for New York’s top cop: Grow up and pay for your own overtime.

 

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) pushed a doomed bill Wednesday barring police nationwide from using federal counterterrorism grants for personnel costs.

 

The NYPD, which receives $150 million in counterterrorism funding annually, spends some of the money to pay overtime.

 

NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly was worried enough to write the senator, warning him: “Such a restriction would jeopardize our collective efforts to safeguard New York City.”

 

Coburn, an obstetrician from Muskogee, was not impressed.

 

“I got his letter,” Coburn told the Daily News. “Grow up!”

 

“Everybody is gonna get cut,” Coburn said. “So they’ve got to grow up a little.”

 

Kelly declined to comment.

 

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Brooklyn North Homi / 90 PDS:  Now Retired Detectives Louis Scarcella and  Stephen Chmil 

(Disgraceful Flake Job and/or Sloppy Detective Work)

 

Jailed Unjustly in the Death of a Rabbi, Man Nears Freedom

By MICHAEL POWELL and SHARON OTTERMAN — Wednesday, March 20th, 2013 ‘The New York Times’

(Edited for brevity and NYPD pertinence) 

 

To read the article in its entirety, go to:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/20/nyregion/brooklyn-prosecutor-to-seek-freedom-of-man-convicted-in-1990-killing-of-rabbi.html?pagewanted=all&pagewanted=print  

 

 

In the wintry darkness 23 years ago on a back street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, a jewelry thief fleeing a botched robbery panicked and shot a Hasidic rabbi in the head.

 

Four days later, the rabbi, Chaskel Werzberger, an Auschwitz survivor, died of his wounds. Even in the New York City of 1990, as homicides crested at 2,245, the murder stirred grief and outrage. The “Slain Rabbi” was front-page tabloid news. Mayor David N. Dinkins traveled to Williamsburg’s Satmar enclave to sit in mourning and to offer a $10,000 reward.

 

The new Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, stood shoulder to shoulder with fur-hat-wearing Satmars, watching as they rocked back and forth and wailed as the pinewood coffin was carried out. He vowed to bring the killer to justice.

 

Forty detectives worked the case, soon led by the swaggering, cigar-chewing Detective Louis Scarcella. Working closely with an influential Satmar rabbi, Detective Scarcella arrested a drug-addicted, unemployed printer named David Ranta. Hasidic Jews surrounded the car that carried the accused man to jail, slapping the roof and chanting, “Death penalty!”

 

Mr. Ranta was convicted in May 1991 and sentenced to 37.5 years in maximum-security prison, where he remains to this day.

 

He is almost certainly not guilty.

 

This week Mr. Hynes, after a long investigation by a unit that he created to look into questionable convictions, plans to ask a state judge to release the prisoner. Mr. Ranta’s lawyer, Pierre Sussman, who conducted his own inquiry, said his client has been instructed to pack up his cell.

 

Mr. Ranta could walk free as early as Thursday. In the decades since a jury convicted him of murder, nearly every piece of evidence in this case has fallen away. A key witness told The New York Times that a detective instructed him to select Mr. Ranta in the lineup. A convicted rapist told the district attorney that he falsely implicated Mr. Ranta in hopes of cutting a deal for himself. A woman has signed an affidavit saying she too lied about Mr. Ranta’s involvement.

 

Detective Scarcella and his partner, Stephen Chmil, according to investigators and legal documents, broke rule after rule. They kept few written records, coached a witness and took Mr. Ranta’s confession under what a judge described as highly dubious circumstances. They allowed two dangerous criminals, an investigator said, to leave jail, smoke crack cocaine and visit with prostitutes in exchange for incriminating Mr. Ranta.

 

At trial, prosecutors acknowledged the detectives had misbehaved but depicted them as likable scamps. Reached in retirement on Tuesday, Mr. Scarcella defended his work. “I never framed anyone in my life,” he said.

 

No physical evidence ever connected Mr. Ranta to the murder.

 

He now sits in a cell at a maximum-security prison outside Buffalo. He is a touch shy; his gray hair is fast thinning. His voice still carries the slantwise intonations of working-class south Brooklyn. Asked how he survived, he said he was not sure he had.

 

“I’d lie there in the cell at night and I think: I’m the only one in the world who knows I’m innocent,” he said. “I came in here as a 30-something with kids, a mother who was alive. This case killed my whole life.”

 

 

A Guilty Verdict

 

It began with a fumbled robbery on Feb. 8, 1990.

 

This murder tore at the heart of the then-25,000-strong Satmar community. Rabbi Werzberger was their shamas and adviser to the grand rebbe. The Satmar, the intensely devout, politically powerful ultra-Orthodox sect, demanded that the police find his killer. Rabbi Leib Glantz became their point man.

 

Rabbi Glantz rounded up witnesses, brought them to the precinct and translated from Yiddish as detectives conducted interviews.

 

Detectives worked furiously, calling in paroled felons and miscreants of many varieties for questioning. An anonymous caller suggested that the police talk to Joseph Astin, an experienced holdup man who was tall and blond, with rugged good looks. But on April 2, Mr. Astin crashed his car in a police chase and died.

 

In late April, Detective Scarcella went to jail and visited Dmitry Drikman, a mustachioed bull of a man with a perpetual glower. Mr. Drikman was being held for several robberies, and had in the past been convicted of a horrific rape.

 

Mr. Drikman, in hopes of obtaining a shorter sentence, proved talkative. He gave Detective Scarcella the name of his friend, Alan Bloom.

 

Mr. Bloom, a crack-cocaine addict, had been convicted of dozens of robberies and faced a potential century in prison. He decided to start talking.

 

The detectives placed Mr. Bloom and Mr. Drikman in the same section of the jail, so they could continue their conversation. Soon they had their story: Mr. Bloom had had a hand in the robbery, but an acquaintance, David Ranta, a small-time thief and drug user, was the gunman. And Mr. Drikman’s girlfriend told detectives she had seen Mr. Ranta and Mr. Bloom planning to cover up the crime.

 

District Attorney Hynes shook hands with Mr. Bloom shortly before prosecutors gave him immunity from prosecution in the murder case and greatly reduced his sentence for other crimes.

 

On Aug. 13, Detectives Scarcella and Chmil found Mr. Ranta on 73rd Street in Bensonhurst. They handcuffed him and drove to the 90th Precinct in Williamsburg.

 

Detective Scarcella testified at Mr. Ranta’s trial that, 26 hours later, he sat on a bench in a crowded office and listened as Mr. Ranta, with little or no sleep, gave a long, rambling confession.

 

The detective said he did not have to ask Mr. Ranta a single question. “He flowed, and I took it all down, verbatim,” the detective testified.

 

Asked why he did not question the suspect, Detective Scarcella was nonchalant.

 

“That’s not my style,” he replied.

 

The case was laden with inconsistencies. Mr. Weinberger had stared the gunman in the face and testified during the trial that Mr. Ranta was “100 percent not” that person. In fact, four of the five witnesses in the first lineup did not identify Mr. Ranta.

 

In the end, however, the jury pronounced Mr. Ranta guilty.

 

Before his sentencing, Mr. Ranta addressed the court. He spoke of corrupt police officers and those who testified against him.

 

“Now you people do what you got to do because I feel this is all a total frame setup,” he told the court. “When I come down on my appeal, I hope to God he brings out the truth because a lot of people are going to be ashamed of themselves.”

 

 

Behind the Scenes

 

During the trial, Detective Scarcella proved to be an entertaining witness. A son of Bensonhurst, a professed old-school detective, he talked about how to make a suspect talk and where to buy the best pizza (New Haven, he advised). But his description of his investigation angered the judge, Francis X. Egitto.

 

Asked why he took prisoners out of jail to eat at restaurants and visit felonious friends, Detective Scarcella replied, “I do what I want to do with my prisoners.”

 

“They’re not your prisoners,” Justice Egitto responded.

 

The detective testified that while interviewing Mr. Bloom and Mr. Drikman, he never wrote a single note, as required by police procedure. Nor did he show witnesses photographs of Mr. Drikman or Mr. Bloom, although they were murder suspects.

 

The judge in particular questioned how Detective Scarcella obtained Mr. Ranta’s confession, asking why a veteran detective did not take Mr. Ranta to an interview room, where he could have tape-recorded it. Detective Scarcella said he transcribed the 658-word confession by hand.

 

Mr. Ranta has insisted he confessed to nothing. He passed a polygraph test in which he was asked if he shot the rabbi.

 

Midway through the trial, the judge spoke to the lawyers of his mistrust of these detectives. They are playing games, he said. They have “taken it upon themselves to be judge, jury and partial executioner.”

 

Yet, when he instructed the jury on what to consider during deliberation, he mentioned none of his concerns.

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

Cop who got innocent man jailed claims he’s a scapegoat
Jailed 23 years in rabbi’s 1990 murder

By JOSH SAUL , C.J. SULLIVAN and LEONARD GREENE — Thursday, March 21st, 2013 ‘The New York Post’

 

 

The NYPD detective whose corner-cutting investigative work, combined with a community’s blood lust for quick justice, put an apparently innocent man in prison for 23 years insists he’s being scapegoated by the very district attorney who pushed for the conviction.

 

“They threw me under the bus,” Louis Scarcella told The Post yesterday after DA Charles Hynes indicated he’d asked a judge to vacate David Ranta’s conviction, more than two decades after Ranta was found guilty of murdering a prominent rabbi in Williamsburg.

 

“I was appalled when I got the news,” the retired cop said outside his Staten Island home. “I stand by the confession 100 percent. I never framed anyone in my life. You have to be a low devil to frame someone. I sleep well at night.”

 

While Scarcella was sleeping, Ranta, 58, was languishing in a Buffalo prison, convicted of the February 1990 murder of Rabbi Chaskel Werzberger after a botched jewelry heist in the Orthodox Jewish community.

 

Today, Hynes, who was a new DA when his office prosecuted Ranta amid a public outcry for justice, will ask a judge to toss Ranta’s sentence after a review of the case by his office revealed a shoddy investigation, unreliable witnesses, and a tragic rush to judgment.

 

Detectives in Brooklyn at the time said there was enormous pressure to close the case.

 

Within hours of Werzberger’s death, then-Mayor David Dinkins sent a personal representative to the crime scene, and Hynes made a visit to the 90th Precinct, sources said.

 

“I still had my coat on, and in walked Hynes,” a retired detective recalled. “The DA never came out on a case. The pressure didn’t let up until we made an arrest.”

 

Six months passed before Ranta was arrested.

 

Despite a lack of physical evidence and a witness who insisted Ranta wasn’t the killer, he was convicted and sentenced to 37 years in prison.

 

“It’ll be good to see him on this side of the bars,” said Michael Baum, who was Ranta’s defense attorney at the time of the conviction. “There was never a doubt in my mind this guy was innocent. I made a promise that I would never forget. I have slept with this case every night for 23 years.”

 

Several years after the trial, a woman named Theresa Astin gave sworn statements that her husband, Joseph, had killed the rabbi before Joseph died months later in a car accident while fleeing cops. Her testimony fell on deaf ears.

 

Although Ranta, a petty criminal and house painter, had professed his innocence for years, his fight didn’t pick up steam until, at Baum’s urging, Hynes’ conviction-integrity unit went back over the case.

 

The review found Scarcella had coached a witness, and didn’t take notes after questioning Ranta, according to court papers.

 

Scarcella also investigated Joseph Astin after he died, but again failed to record most of those steps, according to the court papers filed by the conviction-integrity unit.

 

“He testified that although he had visited Theresa Astin’s home and left a card, he had never spoken to her,” according to the court papers.

 

“This directly contradicted Theresa Astin’s hearing testimony that Detectives Scarcella and [Stephen] Chmil had visited her the morning after her husband’s death, interviewed her, and intimated that she could collect a $20,000 reward if she provided evidence that her husband had murdered the rabbi.”

 

It wasn’t the first time Scarcella’s evidence came under review. Nearly two years ago, another man convicted of murder was released on parole after 20 years amid strong doubts about his guilt — and Scarcella’s evidence.

 

Derrick Hamilton was convicted of killing Nathaniel Cash in Bed-Stuy in 1991. That case came under scrutiny in 2011 after the sole witness against him recanted her testimony and nearly a dozen people came forward to stand up his alibi. Scarcella allegedly coerced a witness, according to a court affidavit.

 

“It’s a shame that somebody like him could have that much power,” said Hamilton, who filed a lawsuit against Scarcella and the city, which was dismissed. “I’m very happy for Ranta, but I’m sad I’m still fighting my conviction in court.”

 

Additional reporting by Reuven Fenton and Larry Celona

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

Brooklyn South Anti-Crime Sgt. Mourad Mourad and P.O. Jovaniel Cordova

 

NYPD Shooting Victim Kimani Gray's Mom 'Not Pleased' with DA Investigation

By Ben Fractenberg — Wednesday, March 20th, 2013; 4:47 p.m. ‘DNAinfo.Com News’ / Manhattan

 

 

BROOKLYN — The mother of Kimani Gray, the allegedly armed teen shot and killed by police in East Flatbush earlier this month, met with the Brooklyn District Attorney's office Wednesday to demand an investigation into the two officers who shot her 16-year-old son.

 

"They haven't done anything," Carol Gray said. "We're not pleased with the way they're handling the investigation and we want an independent investigation, just so the truth comes out."

 

After an hour-long meeting with Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes' office, Gray stood alongside City Councilman Charles Barron as Barron asked why the cops were still on the force when they had several civil rights suits against them.

 

Officers Jovaniel Cordova has been sued twice and Mourad Mourad has been sued three times for civil rights violations.

 

"How come they were still on the force when they had all these violations against them?" Barron said. "We want answers. This office has to work for the people. They are relying too much on the police to get the story."

 

Barron called for an independent investigation and a federal civil rights probe. He also said the Gray family would file suit against the city.

 

The Brooklyn DA's office and the NYPD did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

 

Police said that Kimani Gray, 16, was shot on March 9 when he pointed a loaded .38-caliber pistol at two plainclothes officers on East 58th Street in Brooklyn. He was struck seven times.

 

The shooting, which Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has defended, touched off nearly a week of protests and rioting in the area over what some have called excessive police force.

 

Several witnesses told DNAinfo.com New York Gray had his hands up and was lowering himself to the ground when the officers shot him

 

Demonstrators smashed a police officer in the face with a brick and vandalized a Rite Aid during the rallies last week, officials said.

 

"We want justice," said Carol Gray, who has condemned the violence. "There will be peace if we have justice."

 

Gray, a high school sophomore, had previously been arrested for breaking into a car, possession of stolen property, grand larceny and rioting. Police sources claimed he was a member of the Bloods street gang.

 

Carol Gray acknowledged her son's troubled past, but called the shooting unjustified.

 

"He is not the public's angel, but he's my angel and he's my baby and he was slaughtered and I want to know why," Gray said at a previous press conference. "Even after the first shot, why the second bullet? Why the third bullet? Why the fourth bullet? Why?"

 

Also on Tuesday, the Gray family announced funeral arrangements for the 16-year-old.

 

A memorial and viewing will be held at Carib Funeral Home and Floral Studio at 1922 Utica Ave. on March 22.

 

The funeral will take place at 9 a.m. March 23 at St. Catherine of Genoa Roman Catholic Church at 530 Linden Boulevard.

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

Hero Detectives Rodney Andrews and James Nemorin Killer

 

Cop-killer’s baby on way
Pregnant jail guard misses court after going into labor

By MITCHELL MADDUX — Thursday, March 21st, 2013 ‘The New York Post’

 

 

The corrections officer impregnated behind bars by convicted cop killer Ronell Wilson was excused from a court date this morning because she is having contractions, her lawyer said.

 

Nancy Gonzalez, 29, of Huntington Station, is hours away from giving birth to a boy and is awaiting transfer to a local hospital, her attorney Anthony Ricco told the court.

 

Gonzalez was arrested for having sex with Wilson during his lockup at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn and is expected to settle the rap with an upcoming guilty plea.

 

"She is looking forward to giving birth and she is looking forward to being a mother," another one of her lawyers, Natali Todd, said.

 

Wilson, a reputed gangbanger was convicted of brutally slaying a pair of undercover cops in Staten Island in 2003.

 

Gonzalez said she agreed to carry Wilson's child to give the killer something to look forward to in his life despite facing life in prison.

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

Long Island

 

Union: Drugs missing from Southampton Police Department

By  DAVID M. SCHWARTZ — Thursday, March 21st, 2013 ‘New York Newsday’ / Melville, L.I.

 

 

Crack, marijuana, prescription painkillers and other drugs tied to a controversial Southampton Police Department drug unit are missing, according to a union representative, prompting an internal investigation.

 

"The union has been made aware there is an investigation in reference to missing narcotics from the property room," said Det. Kevin Gwinn, vice president of the Town Patrolmen's Benevolent Association. "The current chief of police is conducting his own complete audit of the property room."

 

The revelation is the latest involving the disbanded unit that prompted the Suffolk district attorney's office to dismiss convictions against three individuals. Last week, the union petitioned the town board to allow Officer Eric Sickles, a unit member who was addicted to prescription painkillers, to return to work.

 

Former Chief William Wilson, who retired late last year, said that Sickles' supervisors, including Lt. James Kiernan and current Chief Robert Pearce, failed to act promptly after learning of Sickles' addiction and allowed him to return to duty with only a doctor's note.

 

Pearce was not available for comment Wednesday, and his office said he was not expected until Monday. Kiernan's attorney, Ray Perini, declined to comment.

 

A law enforcement source said the missing drugs were related to the disbanded Southampton Street Crime unit, which investigated drug crimes in the town. They had been inside a box marked "street crimes investigation," according to the source.

Pearce on Monday asked to review the box, after photos of the office taken in February 2012 were published by the weekly Southampton Press newspaper.

 

It was then that the drugs were discovered missing, though some items that could be used as training props, like crack pipes, were still inside, according to the source, speaking on condition of anonymity.

 

In 2012, then-chief Wilson said he found drugs and potential evidence -- including cash, crack pipes, marijuana and prescription pills -- in desk drawers and filing cabinets in the Street Crime unit's office. It was secured with a keypad lock, but janitorial staff and police supervisors had access to the room.

 

Wilson told Newsday earlier this month that he treated the room "like a homicide scene."At Wilson's direction, he sent 37 items to the Suffolk County crime lab. Gwinn said Theresa Tedesco, the officer in charge of the property room was assigned there because of "outstanding performance and attention to detail in her 23-year career."

 

He said Tedesco is on vacation, but added that in her five years in the property division, she has logged in more than 3,000 evidentiary items.

 

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

Connecticut

 

Conn. lawmakers want Newtown briefing from police

By SUSAN HAIGH (The Associated Press)  — Wednesday, March 20th, 2013;  EDT

 

 

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Legislative leaders, upset that a Connecticut State Police commander reportedly disclosed information about the Newtown school shooting at a law enforcement seminar in New Orleans, said Wednesday the state police should be briefing them on details of the crime.

 

Senate President Donald Williams Jr., D-Brooklyn, told reporters that any information state police have that wouldn’t adversely affect any potential prosecution should be released ‘‘for everyone’s greater understanding of the terrible crime.’’

 

Both Democratic and Republican legislative leaders continued closed-door talks on Wednesday, hoping to craft a bipartisan bill that addresses the Dec. 14 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School that left 20 first-graders and six educators dead.

 

House Minority Leader Lawrence Cafero Jr., R-Norwalk, said lawmakers have asked several times without success for information from state police investigators that would help them as they craft a legislative response to the massacre that addresses gun violence, school security and mental health.

 

Cafero called it ‘‘really galling’’ to read an account in the New York Daily News of comments Col. Daniel Stebbins made to ‘‘strangers to our state’’ about evidence in the case. A column published this week, citing an unnamed police officer who attended the seminar, reported that Stebbins discussed evidence that suggested the Newtown gunman, Adam Lanza, studied other mass slayings and dedicated extensive planning to the massacre.

 

‘‘He (Stebbins) has an immediate duty to explain himself, directly, especially to us, the legislature and its legislative leaders, who he must know by every news account are breaking their backs trying to come to a resolution on the very issues surrounding the incident which he has this information about,’’ Cafero said.

 

After the column was published, state police spokesman Lt. J. Paul Vance issued a statement saying the seminar was designed for law enforcement professionals only and sensitive information dealing with the tactical approaches used by first responders to the Sandy Hook shootings was discussed.

 

‘‘Following each tragic mass murder incident in this country it is customary for law enforcement to share their lessons learned from the investigations so that other law enforcements agencies can learn,’’ said Vance, adding how the state police ‘‘has not and will not speak publicly on the Sandy Hook investigation, as it is still ongoing and it is the policy of the state police that no factual information will be distributed until the families of the victims have been informed first.’’

 

Vance said a final report from the state police is ‘‘still several months away’’ and no additional information regarding the case is available.

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

U.S.A.

 

Percentage of Hate Crimes Reported to Police Falls in The Last Decade

By Ted Gest — Thursday, March 21st, 2013 ‘The John Jay College of Criminal Justice Crime & Justice News’ / Washington, DC

 

 

The percentage of hate crimes reported to the police fell from 46 percent between 2003 and 2006 to 35 percent between 2007 and 2011, the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics said today.

 

The percentage of violent hate crime victims who did not report the crime because they believed the police could not or would not help increased from 14 percent in 2003-06 to 24 percent in 2007-11.

 

In the 2007-11 period, people 12 or older experienced an annual average of about 259,700 hate crimes.

 

The majority of hate crime victimizations are motivated by racial or ethnic bias. That percentage dropped from 63 percent in 2003-06 to 54 percent in 2007-11.

 

The percentage of hate crimes motivated by religious bias more than doubled across the two periods, from 10 percent to 21 percent. About 92 percent of all hate crimes in 2007-11 were violent victimizations, up from 84 percent from 2003-06.

 

 

Read the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics report here:

 

http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=4614

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

Microsoft Releases Report on Law Enforcement Requests

By KEVIN J. O’BRIEN — Thursday, March 21st, 2013 ‘The New York Times’

 

 

BERLIN — Microsoft on Thursday disclosed for the first time the number of government law enforcement requests it had received for data on its hundreds of millions of customers around the world, joining the ranks of Google, Twitter and other Web businesses in publishing regular transparency reports.

 

The report, which Microsoft plans to update every six months, showed that law enforcement agencies in five countries — Turkey, the United States, Britain, France and Germany — accounted for 69 percent of the 70,665 requests Microsoft received during 2012.

 

In 8 of 10 requests, Microsoft provided agencies with elements of so-called non-content information such as an account holder’s name, gender, e-mail address, IP address, country of residence and dates and times of data traffic.

 

In 2.1 percent of requests Microsoft disclosed the actual content of a communication, such as the subject headline of an e-mail, the contents of an e-mail, or a picture stored on SkyDrive, its cloud computing service.

 

Microsoft said it disclosed the content of communications in 1,544 cases to U.S. law enforcement agencies, and in 14 cases to agents in Brazil, Ireland, Canada and New Zealand.

 

“Government requests for online data are like the dark matter of the Internet,” said Eva Galperin, a global policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco, which has campaigned for greater disclosure.

 

She said that even with Microsoft’s disclosures, fewer than 10 companies publish the extent of their cooperation with law enforcement agencies.

 

“Only a few companies report this, but they are only a very small percent of the online universe,” Ms. Galperin said. “So any one company that joins the disclosure effort is good news. The faster this becomes a standard for all Web businesses, the better.”

 

The law enforcement requests targeted users of Microsoft services such as Hotmail, Outlook.com, SkyDrive, Skype and Xbox Live, services where consumers are typically asked to enter their personal details in order to obtain service.

 

Google was the first major Web business in 2010 to begin reporting the level of legal requests it received for information. Since then, Twitter, LinkedIn and some smaller companies have also reported, but big businesses such as Apple and Yahoo still do not.

 

Microsoft also initially resisted. In January, a group of more than 100 Internet activists and digital rights groups signed a petition asking Microsoft to disclose its data-handling practices for Skype, the Internet voice and video service it bought in 2011.

 

But Microsoft did provide two new facets of detail in its transparency report that rivals have not addressed in similar fashion — supplying detail on the reason why it rejected some requests, and listing separate categories by country on how it responded to requests for actual content of communications and to requests for non-content data.

 

In its transparency report, Microsoft also published separate information for Skype, which continues to be based in Luxembourg and therefore is subject to national and E.U. law.

 

During 2012, Microsoft disclosed in 4,713 cases administrative details of Skype accounts — such as a user’s SkypeID, name, email account, billing information, and call detail records if a user subscribed to the Skype In/Online service, which connects to a telephone number.

 

But Microsoft said it released no content from any Skype transmissions during 2012. Microsoft has said that the peer-to-peer nature of Skype’s Internet conversations mean the company does not store and has no historic access to Skype conversations.

 

The top countries that made requests and received information from Microsoft for Skype non-content information last year, in descending order, were Britain, the United States, Germany, France and Taiwan, which accounted for eight in 10 Skype requests.

 

Microsoft did not disclose the total number of requests it had received for Skype information, but said it aimed to do so starting in its next report later this year.

 

Brad Smith, a Microsoft executive vice president and the company’s general counsel, estimated that the number of requests Microsoft received during 2012 covered only a tiny fraction of its vast customer base, which the company estimates to be in the hundreds of millions of users.

 

Mr. Smith, in a blog post, said the 2012 requests affected less than 0.02 percent, or less than two one-hundredths of 1 percent, of Microsoft account holders. He noted that Microsoft, like all global businesses, was obligated to comply with legal requests from law enforcement. But Mr. Smith wrote that Microsoft had set high standards for complying.

 

Law enforcement agencies must first present a subpoena or its foreign equivalent to obtain non-content data on Microsoft users, Mr. Smith wrote. To obtain the contents of e-mails and other communications, Microsoft requires agencies to submit a warrant, which in the United States are issued by court judges, or in Britain, by the Home Secretary.

 

Microsoft rejected requests for data in 18 percent of cases during 2012, mostly because the company said it couldn’t find any information on the requested individuals or because law enforcement had not demonstrated proper legal justification for the requests.

 

Microsoft also said it received a minuscule number of requests for data on businesses.

 

During 2012, Microsoft said it received only 11 requests for information on business clients, and complied in only four instances — after Microsoft said it had either obtained consent from the business or already had in effect a contract to disclose the information.

 

“Like every company we are obligated to comply with legally binding requests from law enforcement, and we respect and appreciate the role that law enforcement personnel play in so many countries to protect the public’s safety,” Mr. Smith wrote on his blog. “As we continue to move forward, Microsoft is committed to respecting human rights, free expression, and individual privacy.”

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

Current Laws May Offer Little Shield Against Drones, Senators Are Told

By MATTHEW L. WALD — Thursday, March 21st, 2013 ‘The New York Times’

 

 

WASHINGTON — Targeted killings have made drones controversial, but a new class of tiny aircraft in the United States — cheap, able and ubiquitous — could engage in targeted snooping that existing laws are inadequate to address, witnesses and members of the Senate Judiciary Committee said in a hearing on Wednesday.

 

The drones, or unmanned aerial systems, have already helped the police find missing people and county planners measure the growth of a landfill. But they could also be used by drug dealers, pedophiles and nosy neighbors, the witnesses and a senator said.

 

Surveillance by government is limited by the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, and snooping by corporations and individuals is covered by privacy law and common law. But these were not written with drones in mind. The issue has taken on new urgency as the Federal Aviation Administration prepares to set forth rules for drones’ commercial use and as prices for the aircraft drop. Many states are considering legislation, but Congress is only beginning to consider the problem.

 

“There’s very little in American privacy law that would limit the use of drones for surveillance,” said one witness, Ryan Calo, an assistant professor at the University of Washington School of Law. “Drones drive down the cost of surveillance considerably. We worry that the incidence of surveillance will go up.”

 

But Benjamin Miller, of the sheriff’s office in Mesa County, Colo., who flies a two-pound, battery-powered six-rotor helicopter drone that he placed on the table in front of him, said his department had used a drone equipped with a thermal camera to investigate arson at a historic church, which helped firefighters identify hot spots and determine which direction the fire had traveled through the building. The sheriff’s office also used a drone for Mesa County’s annual survey of the landfill where it buries its garbage (to determine how quickly it is filling up), for about $200. The usual cost was nearly $10,000, Mr. Miller said.

 

The sheriff’s office operates its drones under a permit from the F.A.A., which requires that the aircraft stay under 400 feet and fly only in daylight. The rules are similar to the ones for radio-controlled model airplanes, which the drones resemble, although they have refinements like sophisticated autopilots, GPS navigation systems and stabilized cameras. Use of such drones by police departments and government agencies is still extremely limited. And commercial use — that is, a company flying a drone and being paid for it — is not yet legal.

 

The F.A.A. is to have rules in place for commercial use, including how to prevent collisions, by September 2015. But already there are thousands of drones in the nation’s skies.

 

Drones could be outfitted to read license plates and recognize faces, said Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee. “Just because the government may comply with the Constitution does not mean they should be able to constantly surveil, like Big Brother,” he said.

 

He warned that criminals could use drones because they were so inexpensive and capable, and that news reporters could use them in an intrusive way.

 

The hearing came the day after an unlikely pair on the House side, Representative Joe L. Barton, Republican of Texas, and Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, introduced a bill to limit data-gathering by drones.

 

They said one problem was that the F.A.A., which would eventually be the licensing agency for those drones for which pilots needed licenses, had no jurisdiction in privacy, nor much expertise in the area. Mr. Barton’s and Mr. Markey’s bill would require licensed drone pilots to say publicly what their drones were doing and how the information would be used, among other protections. It is not yet clear which drones the F.A.A. will require licenses for, although people flying many of the smallest ones are unlikely to need them.

 

Some experts think the threat from the government is bigger than any from private use. “If it’s my neighbor that wants to snoop on me, he can’t put me in jail,” said Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Liberty and National Security program at the Brennan Center for Justice. “If Google or Amazon wants to use drone surveillance to figure out my market preferences, the worst thing that happens is I get marketed stuff I don’t need.”

 

Showing the public uneasiness over the new technology, one young protester at the hearing was led away by Capitol police after she stood up and declared, “Drones are responsible for the death of people in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and Yemen!” Another protester held a sign that said, “1984.”

 

As Ms. Goitein observed, “The country can be divided into people who think this is horrifying and people who think this is neat.”

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

Resistance and Scant Support Sealed Fate of Push for Assault Weapons Ban

By JENNIFER STEINHAUER — Thursday, March 21st, 2013 ‘The New York Times’

 

 

WASHINGTON — As she stood surrounded by gunshot victims and displays of firearms in January to announce her intention to renew the push for an assault weapons ban after the massacre in Newtown, Conn., Senator Dianne Feinstein all but conceded defeat.

 

“This is really an uphill road,” Ms. Feinstein, a California Democrat, acknowledged then.

 

Her road terminated Monday in the private office of Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, who bluntly told Ms. Feinstein that a renewal of the ban — the symbol of American gun control for two decades — would not be included in a gun-regulation measure that would hit the Senate floor in April.

 

Ms. Feinstein, who had requested the meeting to press Mr. Reid, stormed from his office and spent the next 48 hours denouncing the decision, one that perplexed gun control advocates who believed the political moment had arrived to reinstate the ban that expired in 2004.

 

Mr. Reid was shocked that Ms. Feinstein was shocked. Despite a high-profile push by President Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the assault weapons ban never had a chance of passage.

 

In the nine years since the ban expired, the political momentum for renewed legislation has been almost nonexistent. Mass shootings on college campuses and in a packed movie theater, the killing of 20 schoolchildren in Newtown in December, the halting pleas of Gabrielle Giffords, the Arizona representative whose career was ended by a bullet to the head — none propelled it forward this year.

 

Its political demise stems from a confluence of realities: the lobbying prowess of the National Rifle Association; stiff resistance from lawmakers in both parties; serious questions about the efficacy of the ban in stemming gun violence; and the lack of support from gun safety groups, including one led by Ms. Gifford, that are much more invested in a background check measure, which has become the central goal of many groups and lawmakers.

 

“The background check bill has been always been the center of our agenda,” said Mark Glaze, the director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns. “The vast majority of fatalities are related to handguns, so the background check bill is the biggest policy fix and also happens to come with the best politics attached.”

 

The White House, like many senators in both parties, seemed more focused on incipient immigration legislation. Ms. Feinstein, whose entire career has been shaped through her personal experiences with gun deaths, was in effect very much alone.

 

On balance, politicians showed again that they have little interest in legislation that can be viewed as eroding existing gun rights, although they are open to redefining who should have those rights to begin with.

 

“Arguing for an assault weapons ban,” said Jon S. Vernick, the co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, “made it harder to reassure some folks that advocates of gun-violence prevention measures were not trying to take away anyone’s guns, but simply trying to make it harder for high-risk people to acquire guns.”

 

The ban is still expected to get a vote on the Senate floor, though Mr. Reid said he counted only about 40 votes for it. With that provision all but finished, Senate Democrats have been zipping through a flurry of meetings to game out not how many gun safety measures they can push to the floor, but rather which, if any, could survive.

 

Mr. Reid plans to put forward a modest measure to increase the penalties for those who purchase guns illegally, known as straw purchasing, but without a strong background check bill, that bill could be rendered toothless. A measure to enhance school safety will also be included.

 

For groups that are concerned with gun safety, a background check bill had long ago replaced an assault weapons ban as the legislation of choice.

 

For many weeks, Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, and Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, negotiated a measure that would expand background checks to nearly all gun purchases, roughly 40 percent of which are not subject to them, according to numerous studies. The measure would also strengthen penalties against states that fail to keep their background reporting systems current. (Sales between family members would be exempt.)

 

But Mr. Coburn bailed on the measure because of disagreements with Democrats over whether private sellers should have to keep records of gun transactions, as gun stores must. Mr. Coburn feared the move would be a precursor to a national gun registry; most supporters of an enhanced system believe record keeping is essential to enforcement.

 

“The concern about a national gun registry is a complete canard,” Mr. Glaze said, noting that enhanced straw purchasing measures would be difficult to enforce without expanded background checks with proper records.

 

While Mr. Reid is inclined to bring the background check measure to the floor and challenge Republicans and Democrats who favor strong gun rights to vote against a measure that is widely popular with voters, Republicans have found a line of opposition from Mr. Coburn.

 

“I can’t support a universal background check bill,” said Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona this week, citing Mr. Coburn’s opposition to record keeping.

 

Unlike an assault weapons ban, the background check bill still attracts optimism among those who would like to see gun violence addressed on a federal level.

 

“You have one of those rare moments when the public is ready and doesn’t have to be educated,” Mr. Glaze said. “If Congress can’t do this, you have to wonder what they can do.”

 

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NRA fundraising best in decade

By BYRON TAU — Wednesday, March 20th, 2013; 8:25 p.m. ‘Politico’

 

 

The National Rifle Association’s fundraising pace continues to quicken amid fears of new restrictions on firearms, with the gun lobby’s political action committee posting its best single month of fundraising in more than a decade.

 

The group raised nearly $1.6 million in February, according to the latest Federal Election Commission filings posted Tuesday night. February’s numbers follow a $1.1 million haul in January.

 

The NRA hasn’t posted such strong fundraising numbers since the height of the 2000 presidential campaign, when the committee raised $1.7 million in October.

 

Its fundraising pace has increased considerably since the December shooting in Newtown, Conn., that killed 26 people.

 

During the 2011-12 cycle, the committee raised $600,000 per month — for a two-year total of $14.3 million.

 

The committee’s fundraising pace in January and February alone has doubled from the previous cycle. Its PAC ends the month with a $4 million war chest.

 

The NRA also has upped its giving to congressional candidates since Newtown. The committee gave to 19 congressional and state-level candidates and party committees in February — up from just two donations in January.

 

Its donations include a $2,500 contribution to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).

 

Congressional Democrats and President Barack Obama have vowed to overhaul the nation’s gun-control laws, after a shooting in Connecticut left 26 children dead.

 

Still, new legislation faces an uphill climb in Congress. Democratic leaders shelved a renewed assault weapons ban this week, citing a lack of votes for the new measure.

 

Any new laws requiring better background checks or magazine capacity limits would require cooperation from House Republicans — who seem reluctant to back such proposals.

 

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Thursday, March 21st, 2013 ‘The New York Times’ Editorial:

Firearms and Domestic Violence

 

 

A man abuses and threatens his ex-wife. She tells a judge that she is frightened and that he is armed. The court orders him to stay away from her. Should it also order him to give up his guns?

 

Of course it should. If a protective order is to mean anything, the court must do all that it reasonably can do to keep a vulnerable person from becoming a homicide statistic.

 

An article by Michael Luo in The Times on Monday examined the threadbare web of protection for victims of domestic violence in a country overrun with guns. While there is a federal law that forbids most people subject to permanent protective orders to buy or own firearms, it was invoked fewer than 50 times by prosecutors last year. That leaves to the states the job of imposing meaningful laws to separate domestic abusers from their guns.

 

Most states are failing at that job. While a handful have laws requiring judges to order the surrender of guns when issuing any protection order, even temporary orders, most states do not go nearly that far. When legislators try to tighten the laws, they face the wrath of the National Rifle Association, whose relentless lobbying usually manages to kill or cripple such bills. Even modest “cooling off” laws — allowing sheriffs to confiscate weapons temporarily for the first, most volatile days of a divorce action or separation — have failed.

 

The N.R.A.’s blind defense of individuals’ gun rights has left a catastrophic toll. Stricter laws could help stem killings in domestic-violence cases. But legislatures would have to place prudent safety measures over Second Amendment absolutism. There is evidence that it would work: a study in the journal Injury Prevention in 2010 examined so-called intimate-partner homicides in 46 of the country’s largest cities from 1979 to 2003 and found that where state laws restricted gun access to people under domestic-violence restraining orders, the risk of such killings was reduced by 19 percent.

 

Representative Lois Capps, a California Democrat, recently introduced a bill to toughen the federal law to cover temporary protective orders and current or former “dating partners,” not just spouses. Congress should pass it, and states should reinforce it with their own laws, requiring judges to act when a person’s safety is at obvious risk from an ex-partner with a gun.

 

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Auto Larceny:  Massachusetts and Nationwide

 

Mass. car theft scourge fading

Rate plummets over four decades; New devices prevent attempts

By Peter Schworm — Thursday, March 21st, 2013 ‘The Boston Globe’ / Boston, MA

 

 

In 1975, when Chevelles and Cutlasses ruled the road, ­Massachusetts held the dubious distinction of being the country’s car theft capital, with an ­astounding 1 of every 35 registered motor vehicles reported stolen.

 

Today, motorists can worry far less about having their cars disappear. Auto thefts in Massachusetts have plunged 88 percent in the past four decades, a technology-aided decline that shows little sign of abating.

 

In Boston, there were just 1,575 reports of stolen vehicles last year, compared with 28,000 in 1975, according to government figures.

 

The state now ranks near the middle of the pack nationally, a major cultural shift that has not only curbed auto insurance rates, but spared residents untold expense and aggravation, specialists say.

 

Antitheft features, from transponder keys and immobilizing devices to vehicle tracking systems, have made cars far more difficult to steal. With new vehicles increasingly outfitted with such protection, the days of unlocking a car door with a coat hanger, then hot-wiring it for a quick getaway, are all but over.

 

The drastic drop mirrors a national trend and reflects declining crime rates overall. Still, the speed and magnitude of the decline have stunned law enforcement officials and industry observers alike. Even a decade ago, today’s levels would have been hard to imagine, they say.

 

“It’s beyond any rational expectations,” said Kim Hazelbaker, senior vice president of the Highway Loss Data Institute, a nonprofit group supported by auto insurers. “It’s been such an incredible story.”

 

In Massachusetts, car thefts have dropped every year since 2001, usually by an appreciable amount. The state ranked 21st nationally in 2011.

 

That’s a far cry from 1975, when auto thefts in Boston were at their peak. Even the mayor at the time, Kevin White, was not immune, as thieves stole his car from the streets of Beacon Hill no fewer than eight times in four years.

 

“As we say in Boston, we’re number one,” a Boston police sergeant said at a press conference at that time. “And we hope your car is there when you leave.”

 

Today, the proliferation of antitheft technology in new models has “driven out the casual thief” responsible for most stolen cars, Hazelbaker said.

 

“This is a professional operation now,” he said. “It’s a very targeted problem.”

 

Despite the overall decline, vehicles that are stolen are less likely to be found. Many are shipped overseas or are driven to Mexico, specialists say. Nationally, recovery rates have fallen to 52 percent, the lowest in decades.

 

Thefts across the country declined by nearly one-third between 2007 and 2010. In San Francisco and Philadelphia, among other cities, rates have dropped 40 percent in recent years.

 

Of the 10 vehicles most frequently stolen, all were made before 2007, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau, a nonprofit that works with insurance companies and law enforcement agencies.

 

Nationally, the 1994 Honda Accord topped the list, followed by the 1998 Honda Civic. Both are popular models that often lack the latest antitheft protection and therefore can be broken into with relative ease and remain targets for parts that thieves can resell.

 

The new antitheft devices generally prevent cars from being started without the proper key and are increasingly becoming standard. As older cars are gradually phased out, thefts could become even more difficult, specialists say.

 

“Vehicle theft might just be a manageable irritant before too long,” said Frank Scafidi of the National Insurance Crime ­Bureau.

 

In light of the decline, many police departments nationwide have disbanded specialized ­auto theft units to focus on other crimes.

 

In Massachusetts, the State Police dissolved the auto theft strike force in January, citing budget pressures. Formed in the early 1980s, the squad made 328 arrests in 2011 and recovered vehicles valued at more than $9.6 million.

 

Beyond the new technology, officials say, enforcement has also played a role in the decline.

 

In Boston, officers keep a close eye on parking lots and other high-risk areas, put out attractive “bait cars” to trap would-be thieves, and conduct surprise inspections of body shops where stolen vehicles may be stripped for parts.

 

“They know who we are,” said Sergeant Detective Ken Lamb, head of the department’s auto theft unit. “They’ve become a lot more cautious.”

 

Lamb, a member of the state’s theft strike force at its founding, said stricter penalties for thefts have also been a deterrent.

 

Edward Walsh, the police chief in Taunton, credited antitheft technology for the decline in thefts, saying, “It has become nearly impossible for an amateur to simply break in and start a car.”

 

Between 2007 and 2011, thefts in Taunton fell from 179 to 30. Most thefts involve older cars or cases where the driver left the keys in the ignition, Walsh said.

 

In Woburn, Chief Robert Ferullo Jr. said analysis of where thefts occur and an aggressive response to car break-ins in shopping areas contributed to a nearly 70 percent decline. In Randolph, Chief William Pace cited the hiring of 10 more officers as a factor in thefts dropping from 76 to 25 between 2007 and 2011.

 

Running counter to the trend, thefts have surged in Lawrence, rising from 408 to just over 1,000 during that same period.

 

Police Chief John Romero blamed a fiscal crisis that cost the force 40 of its 150 officers.

 

“We had at least five people working on auto theft and insurance fraud” who were put back in uniform because of the layoffs, he said.

 

The department has since added more officers, and thefts dropped sharply last year, to 686.

 

Many of the thefts are either tied to gangs who steal large numbers of vehicles or are not really thefts at all, Romero said. Instead, some drivers simply ditch their cars because the payments are too high.

 

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                                                          Mike Bosak

 

 

 

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