Tuesday, March 19th, 2013 — Good Afternoon, Stay Safe
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Reduction of 837 Cops by Attrition Sparks Heat From Council and PBA
By MARK TOOR — Monday, March 18th, 2013 ‘The Chief / Civil Service Leader’
The NYPD, already 6,000 cops below its peak staffing in 2001, will lose even more officers next year, Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said last week at a City Council budget hearing where he heard complaints from Council Members about stop-and-frisk, police discourtesy and other issues.
Mayor Bloomberg’s proposed budget calls for 34,600 officers in fiscal year 2014, which starts in July, he said. This year the department has 35,437 officers. Mr. Kelly said he hopes to move up a class scheduled to start in January 2014 to July to help deal with staffing shortages.
Expect a Major Exodus
Mr. Kelly attributed the drop in numbers to anticipated retirements by some of the 10,000 officers hired between 1992 and 1995 under the Safe Streets, Safe City program. That bump in hiring was funded by a special income-tax surcharge. Officers become eligible for a full pension on their 20th anniversary of NYPD service.
The Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association has decried the steady shrinking of the department. “With gun violence on the rise, a plan to further reduce the size of an already bare-bones police force can only be seen as insane,” Patrick J. Lynch, president of the union, said in a statement last week. “The NYPD is understaffed and completely demoralized, and that is dangerous for the public and for our members.”
“The city’s first obligation is to provide public safety,” he continued, “and that mandates that policing become a budget priority. Without safe streets, nothing else matters.”
Peter F. Vallone Jr., chair of the Council’s Public Safety Committee, said he was not happy with the news. “We are already down at record low levels, and 459 less police officers is not acceptable,” he said.
OT Cheaper Than Hiring
He and Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley asked Mr. Kelly whether it was cheaper to hire new officers than to pay massive amounts of overtime, the bill for which rose $30 million last year.
“Not necessarily,” Mr. Kelly said. “It’s actually cheaper to have an OT tour than a straight-time tour.” He said more officers would make more arrests, requiring more overtime to process them.
On other police issues, Councilwoman Helen Foster described how she was cursed by a police officer as she was stopped on Arthur Ave. in The Bronx. She said she identified herself as a Council Member and told the officer she was waiting for her 80-year-old mother.
“He said, I don’t give a s--- if she’s 100,” Ms. Foster said. “And at that point, I was like, ‘Whoa.’ It takes a lot to bring me to tears, but it brought me to tears.”
Stop-and-Frisk Skirmishes
Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez asked Mr. Kelly, “How much will the NYPD save if, instead of having police officers take the time to do a stop-and-frisk of innocent people, we direct those police officers to go after the real criminals?”
Mr. Kelly fell back on Mayor Bloomberg’s characterization of New York as the safest big city in America and said, “Something is going right here.”
After the Commissioner said the number of stops had dropped last year, Councilman Jumaane Williams, a prominent critic of the way the NYPD handles stop-and-frisk, said he should have mentioned that the murder rate had also gone down.
“You know they’re working,” Mr. Kelly responded, referring to stop-and-frisks. In fact, despite the claims of the Bloomberg administration, no scientific study has ever proven a correlation between stop-and-frisk and the crime rate.
Clash Over Shooting
Mr. Kelly and Mr. Williams also clashed over recent disturbances in Mr. Williams’s district sparked by a police shooting that killed 16-year-old Kimani Gray. Police said the youth was pointing a revolver at officers, but one witness and his mother both claimed he was unarmed.
Mr. Williams said the way Mr. Kelly discussed the disturbances denigrated their message. He invited the Commissioner to walk the streets of his district with him. Mr. Kelly declined, saying Mr. Williams was just looking for a photo op.
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Federal Class Action Lawsuit: Floyd, et al. v. City of New York
AUDIO: New York’s Police Union Worked With the NYPD to Set Arrest and Summons Quotas
By Ross Tuttle — Tuesday, March 19th, 2013 ‘The Nation’ (Magazine) / New York, NY
Listen the Audio: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZVkkhkLSqWE
Audio obtained by The Nation confirms an instance of New York City's police union cooperating with the NYPD in setting arrest quotas for the department's officers. According to some officers and critics of quotas, the practice has played a direct role in increasing the number of stop-and-frisk encounters since Mayor Michael Bloomberg came to office. Patrolmen who spoke to The Nation explained that the pressure from superiors to meet quota goals has caused some officers to seek out or even manufacture arrests to avoid department retaliation.
The audio is a key piece of evidence in the landmark federal class action lawsuit Floyd, et al. v. City of New York, et al., which opened yesterday in US District Court for New York's Southern District. The prosecution will play the audio in court this week.
The audio, recorded in 2009 by officer Adil Polanco, (41 Precinct) is part of a series of recordings originally released to the media that year, and a selection first aired on WABC-TV in 2010. But WABC-TV used only a small portion of the recordings, and did not air the union representative's explosive admission.
“I spoke to the CO [commanding officer] for about an hour-and-a-half,” the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association delegate says in the audio recording, captured at a Bronx precinct roll call meeting. “20-and-1. 20-and-1 is what the union is backing up… They spoke to the [Union] trustees. And that’s what they want, they want 20-and-1.”
“20-and-1 means 20 summonses and 1 arrest a month,” says a veteran NYPD officer who listened to the recording, and who spoke to The Nation on the condition of anonymity. Summonses can range from parking violations, to moving violations, to criminal court summonses for infractions such as open container or public urination.
“It’s a quota, and they [the Union] agreed to it,” says the officer. “It’s crazy.”
"Many officers feel pressure to meet their numbers to get the rewards that their commanding officer is giving out," says John Eterno, a former police captain and co-author of The Crime Numbers Game: Management by Manipulation. But if an officer's union delegate is also pushing the numbers, "this puts inordinate pressure on officers, getting it from the top down and getting it from the union."
The plaintiffs in the Floyd case allege that the New York Police Department’s stop-and-frisk policy results in unconstitutional stops based on racial-profiling. The department’s emphasis on bringing in arrest and summons numbers has caused officers to carry out suspicion-less stops in communities of color.
"There's always been some pressure to get arrests and summonses," says Eterno. "But now it's become the overwhelming management style of the department. It has become a numbers game. They have lost the ability to see that communities are dissatisfied with this type of policing, especially minority communities. They are the ones being overly burdened for doing the same sorts of things that kids in middle class neighborhoods are doing—only they're getting records because officers have to make these arrests."
The Patrolmen's Benevolent Association did not respond to a request for comment before this article was published.
Physical evidence has periodically surfaced of the existence of numerical arrest targets for NYPD officers, though arrest and summons quotas for police have been illegal in New York State since 2010. Precinct commanders defend their right to set productivity goals for their staff—but what the department defines as productivity goals can have the force of quotas when officers are subject to retaliation for not meeting them.
Cops who have spoken to The Nation say that retaliation can take many forms, including denied overtime; change of squads and days off that can disrupt family obligations like taking children to school or day care; transfers to boroughs far from home in order to increase their commute and the amount they’ll have to pay in tolls; and low evaluation scores.
Officers even reported being forced to carry out unwarranted stops to fulfill the summons and arrest numbers. In a second recording obtained by The Nation, a captain addressing a roll call in the same Bronx precinct illustrated how such retaliation plays out.
“When the chief came in…[he] said: ‘you know what, you really can’t reduce crime much more, the guys are doing a great job,’” the captain can be heard saying in the rough audio. “[He] said that we can…get some of our people who aren’t chipping in to go to some locations [where we are] having problems, and give them [the area’s residents] the business…”
The recording continues: “That’s all we’re asking you to do, that’s all, that’s all. And if we do that, everyone chips in, it’s fine. It’s really non-negotiable. Cause if you don’t do it now, I’m gonna have you work with the boss to make sure it happens.”
“If you don’t meet the quota, they will find [activity] for you,” another veteran officer explained to The Nation. “The sergeant will put you in his car and drive you around until whatever he sees he will stop and tell you to make an arrest or write a summons, even if you didn’t observe what he said it was.”
Sometimes these are legitimate stops, but other times, they’re bogus: “The sergeant told me to write two minorities for blocking pedestrian traffic,” the anonymous officer said, “but they were not blocking pedestrian traffic.”
The pressure for numbers, say cops, is unrelenting, and it’s leading to high anxiety and low morale. And that the union, an organization that is supposed to have officers’ interests at heart, is involved in the setting of quotas is mystifying, says one cop.
It’s all the more problematic given the union’s very vocal and public stance against quotas, such as in their ad campaign, “Don’t Blame The Cop,” which tries to engender sympathy for the officers who are pressured to write tickets and arrest motorists. “Blame NYPD management,” it says.
This development also signals to officers that there is one fewer place they can go to register their concern about departmental policy and practice. “I feel foolish for having gone to my [union] delegate with my complaints,” says one officer who has been unsettled by the continued pressure to meet quotas.
Adil Polanco, the officer who recorded the audio and first brought it to the attention of the press, has since had charges brought against him by the department for writing false reports—the same false reports he pointed out to the department’s Internal Affairs office as evidence of the quota system. Polanco maintains these and other charges against him and other officers who have spoken out are evidence that the department is retaliating against him and others for blowing the whistle.
The NYPD has just surpassed five million stop-and-frisks during the Bloomberg era. Most stops have been of people of color, and the overwhelming majority were found innocent of any wrongdoing, according to the department’s own statistics. And though the number of stops may have gone down recently—as pressure on the department and increased awareness of the policy has officers and supervisors thinking twice about how they employ the practice—the existence of quotas ensures that New Yorkers will continue to be harassed unnecessarily by the NYPD.
"The way I think about it," says a patrolman, "is, say a fireman is told by a supervisor, we need you to put out 15 fires this month. And if you don’t put out 15 fires you’re gonna get penalized for it. So if he doesn’t find 15 fires to put out, is that his fault? It’s not. But the fireman might even go out there and start setting fires, causing fires, just so he’s not penalized or looks bad... And that’s kind of what the police officers are doing."
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NYPD Stop, Question and Frisk
Controversial NYPD stop and frisk tactic goes on trial after New Yorkers claim it violates Constitution
The lawsuit, which was filed in 2008, seeks to have the NYPD’s policy declared unconstitutional and a monitor appointed by the court to keep tabs on how police make stops.
By Robert Gearty And Corky Siemaszko — Tuesday, March 19th, 2013 ‘The New York Daily News’
A Bronx medical student testified Monday that when a trio of plainclothes cops stopped him outside his godmother’s building the excuse they gave was that “there had been a pattern of robberies in the area.”
But the real reason, 28-year-old David Floyd said, had more to do with the color of his skin.
“I felt like I was being told I should not leave my home," said Floyd. “First and foremost, I didn't do anything; I am not a criminal.”
Floyd is one of four black New Yorkers who have filed a class-action lawsuit against the city that targets the police department’s controversial stop-and-frisk tactic.
The NYPD is laying “siege to black and Latino neighborhoods,” Floyd’s lawyer Darius Charney charged as the trial got under way Monday.
“Thousands, if not millions” of New Yorkers have been subjected to a “frightening and degrading experience,” said Charney, of the Center for Constitutional Rights.
Stop-and-frisk is legal, but the way the NYPD has been doing it is “arbitrary, unnecessary and unconstitutional," he said.
City lawyers insisted the NYPD is targeting crime — not minorities.
“Crime drives where police officers go, not race,” said Heidi Grossman, an attorney for the city.
The lawsuit, which was filed in 2008, seeks to have the NYPD’s policy declared unconstitutional and a monitor appointed by the court to keep tabs on how police make stops.
The plaintiffs also want NYPD officers to be required to fill out paperwork each and every time they stop and frisk a person, so they can be tracked. And they are also seeking unspecified compensatory damages.
The trial, which is expected to last over a month, will draw testimony from cops, lawmakers, constitutional experts, and 11 black or bi-racial New York men - and one Hispanic woman - who say they were victimized.
Like Floyd, who is studying medicine in Cuba, the three other plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit are black. They are Lalit Clarkson, 26, and Deon Dennis, 37, both of Harlem, and 20-year-old David Ourlicht, of Jamaica, Queens.
On Monday, now 16-year-old Devin Almonor, the son of a retired cop, described how three years ago he burst into tears when plainclothes police officers cuffed him for no reason.
“Why are you crying like a little girl?” the cops said, Almonor testified.
Almonor, who is also black, has filed a federal lawsuit separate from Floyd’s case.
In coming days, lawyers for Floyd and the others are expected to introduce as evidence audiotapes made by a Brooklyn cop named Adrian Schoolcraft.
Schoolcraft claims he was hauled off to a psych ward to discredit his allegations that the 81st Precinct pushed officers to fill arrest quotas.
His former commanding officers are also expected to be put on the stand.
Floyd versus the City of New York does not question the legality of warrantless stops in high-crime areas.
Nor can Manhattan federal court Judge Shira Scheindlin ban stop-and-frisk as a police procedure. But she has the power to order reforms that will directly affect how the NYPD polices the city - from the beat cop on up.
And Scheindlin, who is also hearing two related lawsuits, has already made clear she has some reservations about the stop-and-frisk tactic.
With Lisa L. Colangelo
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NYPD, Activists Face Off as Stop-Frisk Trial Begins
By Sean Gardiner — Tuesday, March 19th, 2013 ‘The Wall Street Journal’ / New York, NY
Stop and frisk went on trial Monday with a lawyer for a civil rights group calling the polarizing New York Police Department tactic an "intractable Constitutional problem" in need of a federal monitor to oversee reforms while a city attorney countered that this legal challenge is an attempt "to fix a problem which does not exist."
Before an overflow crowd that included longtime civil rights activist Jesse Jackson in Manhattan federal court, lawyers for the Center for Constitutional Rights, which brought the lawsuit, then the city gave opening statements cited some of the same statistics and the agreement from a previously settled stop-and-frisk case to try to make opposite points.
Referencing that settled case, Darius Charney, an attorney for the Center of Constitutional Rights, told Judge Shira Scheindlin, who will decide the potentially ground-breaking case, "really this trial is 14 years in the making."
In 1999, in response to the fatal police shooting of an unarmed African immigrant named Amadou Diallo, the center brought a lawsuit challenging the stop and frisk practices of the NYPD's Street Crime Unit, whose officers were involved in that incident, Mr. Charney said. In 2003, a settlement was reached out of court in that case in which the city agreed to create an anti-racial profiling policy, provide more training and improve the forms used to document stop and frisk encounters.
On Monday, Mr. Charney said instead of curbing the number of stops and preventing instances of racial profiling, over the next four years "stop and frisks exploded in New York City," increasing threefold from about 160,000 in 2003 to more than 470,000 in 2007.
He said that 85% of those stopped were black or Latino, though the total population for blacks and Latinos in New York City is about 50%. About 90% of those stops resulted in those being questioned and sometimes frisked released without charges, Charney said.
In 2008, the center filed this current lawsuit claiming, what Mr. Charney charged on Monday, has been a "deliberately indifferent failure" by the NYPD "to enact and implement policies and practices to prevent such unconstitutional behavior."
Since filing the lawsuit, the number of stops continue to mount, with the police department making a high of more than 685,000 stops in 2011 before dipping to about 533,000 last year.
Mr. Charney said Jeffrey Fagan, a professor at Columbia University Law School, will testify that his analysis of stop and frisk data showed that even accounting for crime rates and crime offender descriptions, blacks and Latinos have been disproportionately targeted by the NYPD's stop and frisk tactic.
"The NYPD has laid siege to the black and Latino neighborhoods over the past eight years, throwing the Fourth Amendment out the window," Mr. Charney said referencing the Constitutional right against illegal search and seizure.
He called on Judge Scheindlin to "act boldly and broadly" to remedy a "serious, intractable Constitutional problem which has plagued the city for more than a decade."
City attorney Heidi Grossman contended in her opening that the NYPD is "fully committed to policing New York City within the boundaries of the law" and said the trial seems to be "designed to fix a problem which does not exist."
She said given that the city has a population of more than eight million, hosts another 50 million tourist-visitors a year and that the NYPD makes 23 million contacts with the public a year, including making four million calls, the annual number of stops in recent years is about what "one would expect."
Ms. Grossman said the NYPD "focuses a disproportionate share of its resources in minority neighborhoods where crime is high" and minorities make up a large percentage of crime victims and suspects. She said this is called "hot spot policing" and contended "it is not racially-biased policing."
Later during the city's opening, another city lawyer, Brenda Cooke, used statistics to support their position. In 2011, 83 % of criminal suspects descriptions were of blacks or Latinos. That number matched the percentage of blacks and Latinos stopped by police that year. Suspect descriptions in Staten Island's 122nd Precinct that year was 64% and 63% of those stopped were white. In Brooklyn's 73rd Precinct, 87% of suspect descriptions were of blacks and 89% of those stopped were black, she said.
Jesse Jackson was in attendance and spoke to reporters during the lunch break, calling stop and frisk a "cultural phenomenon here" and that he believed the Department of Justice "needs to be a part this."
"I heard rationalization and justification rather than explanation from the city," Mr. Jackson said. "They were not denying, they were justifying."
After the break, Devin Almonor spoke of being handcuffed and taken to a police precinct after being stopped, questioned and frisked in 2010 when he was 13 years old.
Almonor, whose father is a retired NYPD officer, testified that after waiting with his friend at bus stop on West 145th Street, he was stopped by police while walking back to his family's home on Riverside Drive in Harlem. When asked for identification, Almonor said he didn't have any. He told police he was only 13, he testified. He said police patted him down, handcuffed him and pushed him into the squad car. When Almonor started crying, he testified that one of the officers taunted him about "crying like a little girl."
Under questioning by city attorneys, Almonor said that initially he didn't provide police with his full name or address and that he was tall for his age.
He also admitted that he subsequently made a movie based, loosely, on his experience called "iCops for Dummies." The now 16-year-old denied the city attorney's contention that the movie showed he had no respect for police officers.
Instead, he said the movie was his attempt to turn his negative experience into something positive. He called the movie a "comedy with a message" which he summed up as, "some police officers are inane and they need assistance."
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Stop-and-frisk trial: What's next for the controversial tactic?
The stop-and-frisk tactic under fire in New York City has already survived a constitutionality challenge, but could face reform from the current class action suit charging that stop-and-frisk is disproportionately used against minorities.
By Colleen Long (The Associated Press) — Tuesday, March 19th, 2013; 6:47 a.m. EDT
NEW YORK (AP) — Many of the tens of thousands of New Yorkers stopped, questioned and sometimes frisked by police in the past decade were wrongly targeted because of their race, lawyers for four men who claim they were illegally stopped said Monday.
But New York Police Department lawyers countered that officers must go where the crime is — and the crime is overwhelmingly in minority neighborhoods.
A civil trial that began Monday in federal court in Manhattan will examine the police tactic that has become a city flashpoint, with mass demonstrations, City Council hearings and mayoral candidates calling for change. The lawsuit, now a class-action, seeks a court-appointed monitor to oversee changes to how the police make stops.
The courtroom and overflow rooms were packed Monday, and stop-and-frisk opponents held an afternoon rally outside the courthouse. The Rev. Jesse Jackson, a prominent civil rights leader, watched the opening statements, telling reporters outside court afterward: "I heard rationalization and justification rather than explanation from the city. They were not denying. They were justifying."
The trial is expected to last more than a month.
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.
But Darius Charney, the lawyer for the four men who filed the suit in 2008, said the department is doing stops illegally and must make adjustments. He called many of the stops a "frightening and degrading experience" for "thousands if not millions" of New Yorkers.
Charney, of the Center for Constitutional Rights, called the stops "arbitrary, unnecessary and unconstitutional," and promised that plaintiffs will show the judge "powerful testimonial and statistical evidence" that New Yorkers are routinely stopped without suspicion.
Police have made about five million stops in the past decade, of mostly black and Hispanic men. Two witnesses testified Monday, out of a dozen who say they were targeted because of their race.
One, Devin Almonor, the 16-year-old son of a police officer, said he was thrown against an unmarked car and handcuffed when he was 13 and on his way home. The other, David Floyd, testified that he was wrongly stopped twice. Both said they were testifying because they didn't want the same injustice to happen to other people. Floyd, 33, is now a medical school student.
City lawyers sought to discredit the witnesses by suggesting their stories had evolved over the years to become more dramatic.
Officers and criminologists who have studied the statistics on street stops are also slated to testify, and lawyers plan to play hours of audio tapes made by Adrian Schoolcraft, a police officer who was hauled off to a psychiatric ward against his will after he said he refused to fill illegal quotas.
U.S. District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin, who has said in earlier rulings that she is deeply concerned about stop and frisk, is not being asked to ban the tactic, since it has been found to be legal. But she does have the power to order reforms, which could mean major changes to the nation's largest police force and other departments.
City lawyers said Monday the department already has many checks and balances, including an independent watchdog group that was recently given authority to prosecute some excessive force complaints against police. 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 attorneys said.
"The New York Police Department is fully committed to policing within the boundaries of the law," said Heidi Grossman, an attorney for the city. "Crime is not distributed evenly across the city."
The city lawyers said the expert testimony was flawed and evidence would show a correlation between the description of suspects and those stopped.
"Police are given an awesome responsibility, one of which is to bring crime down and keep people safe," Grossman said.
Street stops have risen dramatically since the 1990s while overall crime dropped in a city that once had the highest murder rate in the U.S. Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly say the stops are a deterrent that led to lower crime.
The city recorded 419 murders in 2012, down from more than 2,000 in the 1990s and the lowest since similar record-keeping began in the 1960s.
More than 531,000 people were stopped last year, more than five times the number when Bloomberg took office a decade ago. Fifty-one percent of those stopped were black, 32 percent Hispanic and 11 percent white. According to census figures, the city has 8.2 million people: 26 percent are black, 28 percent are Hispanic and 44 percent are white.
About half the people who are stopped are subject only to questioning. Others have their bag or backpack searched. And sometimes police conduct a full pat-down. Only 10 percent of all stops result in arrest, and a weapon is recovered a small fraction of the time.
Recent polls show a stark divide over how blacks and whites view the tactic, while among Hispanics, disapproval of the practice has grown.
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Associated Press writer Larry Neumeister contributed to this report.
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New York judge hears opening arguments in "stop and frisk" challenge
By Bernard Vaughan (Reuters) — Monday, March 18th, 2013; 5:56 p.m. EDT
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The New York City Police Department's "stop and frisk" crime-fighting tactics were a "frightening and degrading experience" for four black men who are suing the city, their lawyers argued on Monday, saying the practice was a racist violation of their constitutional rights.
The stops "are not just a minor inconvenience," Darius Charney, an attorney for the plaintiffs suing the city in a class-action lawsuit, said at the start of the federal trial in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.
The four men who filed the lawsuit in 2008 include David Floyd, a medical student who was living in the Bronx and was stopped twice. They claim police improperly targeted them because of their race. The suit also calls the tactic a violation of the right against unreasonable searches.
While there have been several other lawsuits, the class-action suit is considered the broadest legal challenge yet to the tactic in which New York City police stop people they suspect of unlawful activity and frisk those they suspect are carrying weapons.
Advocates of stop and frisk, including Mayor Michael Bloomberg, say the police practices have helped to reduce crime.
The plaintiffs are seeking changes to the NYPD's supervision of the activity and asking for the court to appoint a monitor to oversee the city's compliance with any relief that the court orders, among other remedies.
U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin is presiding over the trial, without a jury.
In a January decision related to a separate lawsuit, Scheindlin ordered the NYPD to immediately halt trespass stops outside certain residential buildings in the Bronx. However, she soon lifted her order at the request of the NYPD, which argued it would impose significant burdens on police.
Almost 90 percent of stop-and-frisk stops from 2004 through the first half of 2012 did not result in an arrest or summons, and only 0.15 percent of the stops produced guns, a main objective of the program, said Charney.
Officers are pressured by department-sanctioned quotas to conduct the stops, Charney said. The problems with the tactics, Charney said, "starts at the top and ends with the stop."
Heidi Grossman, an attorney representing the city, told the judge that the police department concentrates its resources on neighborhoods that experience the most crime. She also said that blacks and Latinos are both the overwhelming victims and perpetrators of crime in the city.
"Simply put, crime drives where police officers go, not race," Grossman said.
Grossman pushed back against the idea of an outside monitor, and said that "there is no evidence whatsoever" that officers operate under a quota system.
She also said some plaintiffs had changed the dates and times of alleged interactions with police officers.
"The evidence of the witnesses does not support" that the plaintiffs were stopped "for any reasons other than reasonable suspicion," Grossman said.
On the witness stand Monday, Floyd, the medical student, said that he was stopped and frisked twice, once in 2007 and once in 2008. The second time was in front of the Bronx house he was living in, as he was helping a fellow tenant unlock a door.
"I felt like I was being told I should not leave my home," said Floyd, who is black. "First and foremost, I didn't do anything; I am not a criminal."
On cross-examination, Morgan Kunz, an attorney for the city, sought to portray Floyd, 33, as an activist who changed his testimony regarding dates, times and other details of the 2007 interaction with police.
Floyd testified Monday that he couldn't remember exactly what day in April 2007 the first incident happened. Kunz noted that the badge numbers of officers Floyd said he dealt with in one of the interactions belonged to other officers.
"That's the information the officers gave me," said Floyd, who said he graduated from Syracuse University before pursuing a medical degree in Havana, Cuba.
(Editing by Barbara Goldberg, David Gregorio and Scott Malone)
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Inspector General For NYPD?
Quinn may rein in cops
By SALLY GOLDENBERG — Tuesday, March 19th, 2013 ‘The New York Post’
Mayoral front-runner yesterday Christine Quinn sounded like she was ready to pass legislation limiting the city’s “stop-and-frisk” policy.
“We are in negotiations,” she said in response to a question on whether she supports a bill to create an inspector general to oversee the NYPD.
Quinn spoke during an endorsement for her mayoral campaign from Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a fellow Democrat.
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Ditto for Mayoral Candidate and City Comptroller John Liu on the NYPD and Stop, Question & Frisk and Inspector General
Edited from:
Liu says he knows what it takes
By STEPHON JOHNSON — Monday, March 18th, 2013 ‘The Amsterdam News’ / New York, NY
In many of the city’s low-income Black and Latino neighborhoods, poverty and hopelessness abound. But that doesn’t mean Liu is a fan of the New York Police Department’s stop-and-frisk policy. He explained that there are bad elements that are doing dirt in many neighborhoods, but that doesn’t mean everyone in the area should be guilty until proven innocent.
“Of course it should be replaced,” said Liu on stop-and-frisk. “It should be replaced with proven strategies such as focused deterrents. It has been employed in other major cities that have seen crime reduction without having to enforce stop-and-frisk.
“Focused deterrents are predicated upon the idea that people in the neighborhood generally know who the worst elements are,” said Liu. “And when the community works with police, they then have a strong knowledge of where the bad elements are and they can bring the heat on them 24/7 as opposed to stop-and-frisk, where huge resources are expended on the thought that everyone is bad and they should be stopped. It doesn’t work, it increases lawsuits and it unnecessarily divides the city.
“You expect to see these things in a third world country. Not in America.”
Liu also told the AmNews that he supported the idea of an inspector general to oversee the NYPD. When asked about the criticism from NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne, who called the idea “wasteful” and saying the NYPD has enough oversight, Liu didn’t buy it.
“The CCRB continues to be extremely weak and ineffective, and we have seen in recent years a spike in lawsuits against the NYPD,” said Liu. “Clearly, something needs to be fixed. An inspector general is one step forward.” Amsterdam News
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C.C.R.B.
Kelly Still Has Final Say
CCRB Ready to Handle Police Discipline Cases
By MARK TOOR — Monday, March 18th, 2013 ‘The Chief / Civil Service Leader’
Although the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association has registered its disapproval, the agreement worked out between the Police Department and the Civilian Complaint Review Board to have CCRB attorneys prosecute some administrative charges against officers in the NYPD trial room goes into effect April 11.
The Memorandum of Understanding between the two agencies leaves the Police Commissioner in complete control of the disciplinary process, although it requires him to explain certain decisions.
The CCRB will review cases filed on or after April 15, spokeswoman Linda Sachs said in an interview last week.
What It Will Cover
Under its charter, CCRB handles all complaints involving excessive force, abuse of authority, discourtesy or offensive language (the agency uses the acronym FADO to designate its area of concern).
The agency will investigate these complaints and, where a panel of board members finds a complaint substantiated and recommends charges and specifications, have its attorneys prosecute the case in the trial room. Previously, such cases had been handled by the NYPD Department Advocate’s Office.
“The Department Advocate will still be prosecuting lots of other stuff like corruption, downgrading crime reports or other misbehavior,” Ms. Sachs said.
PBA President Patrick J. Lynch expressed opposition to the agreement. “In a time of increasing demands for limited government resources, this is another nonsensical program that is simply wasteful and unnecessary,” he said. “Instead of using existing NYPD employees who have performed the function for decades, there will now be newly-hired CCRB personnel who will present these very same cases before the very same hearing officers.
‘Draining Resources’
“By inserting newly-hired CCRB personnel into the process,” he continued, “we have ensured that a situation that didn’t need fixing will be supplanted by a new bureaucracy, further draining resources from areas where they are most needed—a prime example being the NYPD, which has been left dangerously depleted with 7,000 fewer officers.”
The department hit a high of nearly 41,000 uniformed personnel in 2001, partly because of the Safe Streets, Safe City initiative that added 10,000 officers between 1992 and 1995 and levied a special tax to pay for them.
The Memorandum of Understanding between the Police Department and the CCRB allows the Police Commissioner to accept, reject or modify the recommendation of an NYPD Trials Commissioner in a CCRB case, as he can in any case prosecuted by the Department Advocate. He may also reject any plea-bargain reached between an officer and CCRB attorneys.
If the Commissioner rejects a penalty proposed in a CCRB case or selects a lesser one, he must inform the agency in writing with “a detailed explanation of the reasons for deviating from CCRB’s recommendation including, but not limited to, each factor the Police Commissioner considered in making his decision.” The CCRB can submit a rebuttal, but the final authority remains with the Commissioner.
Can Request It Refrain
The Commissioner may ask the CCRB not to proceed with a prosecution if he determines it “would be detrimental to the department’s disciplinary process.” In any such instance, he shall give the CCRB, in writing, “a detailed explanation for such request and a statement detailing what discipline if any the Police Commissioner would pursue.”
The CCRB can submit arguments for allowing it to keep the case, but as with the penalties, if the Commissioner rejects its rebuttal, that’s the end of the prosecution.
In cases where a prosecution must be expedited because of an officer’s impending retirement or promotion, the CCRB must either meet the quicker time frame or turn the case over to the Department Advocate.
Ms. Sachs said the CCRB has added 10 attorneys to join a chief and deputy chief in prosecuting cases in the trial room.
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Police Unions Angry Cop Discipline Fines Not Going to Pension
By MARK TOOR — Monday, March 18th, 2013 ‘The Chief / Civil Service Leader’
The Bloomberg Administration and some police unions are at odds about whether millions of dollars in pay lost by police officers for disciplinary reasons is being wrongly diverted from the Police Pension Fund to the city’s general fund.
Edward D. Mullins, president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, told the DNAinfo news website that Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly has not given more than $30 million in lost pay to the pension fund as required by law.
‘Should Be Deposited’
Mr. Mullins said the union was looking for money withheld from a member when “we came up with the applicable city Administrative Code involved in discipline and money earmarked for the pension fund. We did research at the fund and had our financial people look for deposits on the books. But we don’t see any of that money deposited.”
Mr. Kelly told reporters in response to the DNAinfo report that the provision of the city code that required the money to go to the pension fund was eliminated in 1995.
But Mr. Mullins said he could not find proof this was the case. The SBA has filed a notice of claim over the issue, he said, and he expected the truth would come out in court.
Roy Richter, president of the Captains Endowment Association, expressed concern about mixing budget priorities with discipline.
“While I do not believe the Pension Fund has been shortchanged by the Police Department, I am concerned with the notion that annual budget reductions imposed by City Hall are met partly by increasing disciplinary penalties against officers,” he said in a statement. “Last year over 14,000 workdays were forfeited by officers of all ranks, a substantial increase from that forfeited years ago. These penalties place dozens of additional officers on the street at no cost to the city.
‘Not Meant for Budget’
“Forfeiture of vacation time plays an important role in the discipline process which is used to maintain order in the Police Department. However, it should not have an impact on the operating budget of the city. The discipline process should have a sense of fairness, and perhaps a deposit to the Pension Fund is an appropriate destination for these monies.”
Mr. Mullins said he had similar issues. He told DNAinfo that the Police Commissioner may have a conflict of interest ruling on punishment if he also has an interest in where the money goes.
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Police Pervert of the Month: NYPD P.O. Miguel Gomez
NYPD officer busted for spying on his stepdaughter for sexual pleasure: court documents
(Collared in 49 Pct.)
Officer Miguel Gomez, 41, secretly watched the 21-year-old getting dressed and having sex between May 28 and July 15 in the home she shared with the cop and her mom in the Bronx, according to court papers.
By Barry Paddock — Tuesday, March 19th, 2013 ‘The New York Daily News’
The cop busted for spying with a surveillance camera was actually peeping on his own stepdaughter for sick sexual gratification, officials revealed Monday.
Officer Miguel Gomez, 41, secretly watched the 21-year-old getting dressed and having sex between May 28 and July 15 in the home she shared with the cop and her mom in the Bronx, according to court papers.
Gomez, who has been on the force eight years, was arraigned in Bronx Supreme Court Friday on three counts of unlawful surveillance.
He was released without bail, but barred him from contact with his stepdaughter was issued.
Gomez could not be reached and his lawyer did not return a call for comment.
Gomez wasn’t the only cop to land in hot water over the St. Patrick’s Day holiday weekend.
Three off-duty cops faced drunk driving charges after crashing their vehicles.
• Detective Washington Mosquera, 37, hit a stopped FDNY ambulance at Jamaica Ave. and Highland Blvd. in East New York, Brooklyn, about 1:30 a.m. Monday, police sources said. Nobody was injured in the fender-bender.
Mosquera was charged with driving while intoxicated and refusing to take a Breathalyzer test.
• On Sunday, Officer Joseph King, 28, was arrested after allegedly crashing his 2006 Acura into a parked vehicle on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway near 49th St. in Astoria, Queens, about 4:25 a.m.
Two women in the other vehicle were hospitalized for pain to their neck, back and legs.
King, who prosecutors say had an open bottle of Bacardi rum in his car, was arraigned on charges of driving drunk and leaving the scene of an accident.
He was freed on $2,500 bail.
• Also on Sunday, Officer Dennis Munge, 32, crashed his 2011 Toyota into a traffic median and several parked vehicles on Northern Blvd. and 93rd St. in Jackson Heights, Queens, about 4:45 a.m., prosecutors said.
He was arraigned Sunday on a drunken driving charge and released without bail.
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Detective Becomes Sixth NYPD Employee Arrested Since Friday
By Unnamed Author(s) (CBS News - New York) — Tuesday, March 19th, 2013; 4:07 p.m. EDT
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — An NYPD detective was arrested early Monday and charged with driving under the influence – becoming the sixth police employee arrested in a period of three days.
Detective Washington Mosquera, 37, was arrested at 1:30 a.m. Monday in the 75th Precinct, which is located in the East New York section of Brooklyn.
He was charged with driving while intoxicated and refusing to take a breathalyzer test.
Five other police employees have been arrested since Friday morning.
Officer Dennis Munge, 32, was arrested in Queens around 6 a.m. Sunday, and charged with driving while intoxicated. He was arrested in the 115th Precinct, which includes the East Elmhurst, North Corona, and Jackson Heights sections of Queens.
Also early Sunday, Officer Joseph King, 28, was arrested at 4:41 a.m. in the 114th Precinct, which includes Astoria, Long Island City, Woodside and Jackson Heights. He also was charged with driving while intoxicated, as well as leaving the scene of an accident and refusing to take a breathalyzer test.
At 8:19 p.m. Saturday, NYPD Administrative Aide Curline Brown, 55, was arrested in the 48th Precinct in the Bronx. She was charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance.
Further details were not available in the three cases.
Another civilian employee — Traffic Agent Denise Johnson, 37 – was arrested around noon Friday in the 48th Precinct, also in the Bronx. She was charged with obstruction of government administration, criminal possession of a weapon, and criminal possession of stolen property.
Johnson was arrested when police discovered to fake guns and an assortment of stolen merchandise in her Dodge Charger, according to a New York Post report. The items allegedly had been stolen in robberies committed by her 16-year-old son and an accomplice, who were also arrested after they were caught trying to sell the items at a pawn shop, the newspaper reported.
Police had to search the car after Johnson refused to cooperate after being arrested, the newspaper reported.
And in the earliest incident around 8:30 a.m. Friday, Officer Miguel Gomez, 41, was arrested in the 49th Precinct in the Bronx and charged with unlawful surveillance.
Gomez had set up a spy cam in the building where he lived to record the activity of a 21-year-old female neighbor, according to a New York Daily News report.
Police did not tell the newspaper where the camera was set up, nor Gomez’s relationship to the woman.
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26th Precinct P.O. Ruth Scheker Burned in Fire
3-Year-Old Burned in Bronx Fire Is Daughter of Cop
By Murray Weiss, Jess Wisloski, and Ben Fractenberg — Tuesday, March 19th, 2013 ‘DNAinfo.Com News’ / Manhattan
THE BRONX — The 3-year-old girl who was badly hurt when a fire swept through her family's Bronx apartment and killed her older sister Sunday morning is the daughter of an NYPD cop who is also recovering from injuries from the blaze, family members and sources said.
The injured girl, Hailey Martinez, was "doing better" Monday evening, her grandfather German Martinez said, but she was still hospitalized in critical but stable condition.
Her mother Ruth Scheker, an officer at Harlem's 26th Precinct, suffered smoke inhalation and minor burns in the fire, which was sparked by a pinched stove cord in the 977 Grant Ave. apartment and was fueled by a gas can left over from Hurricane Sandy, sources said.
The blaze killed Hailey's 7-year-old half-sister Hazel Martinez.
Scheker was released from Lincoln Hospital Monday, sources said.
A Grant Avenue neighbor, Mari Garcia, said she visited Scheker in the hospital after the fatal fire.
"She didn't want to eat anything," Garcia said, adding that she brought Scheker fruit. "She still smelled like smoke."
Hailey, who had been rushed to the same hospital as her mother Sunday and was then transferred to New York Hospital, was also improving on Monday, said German Martinez, 65.
He said his son, Shaun Martinez, had been keeping a vigil at the 3-year-old's bedside ever since Sunday.
The fire was ignited by the stove, which had just been installed in the kitchen of the girls' fourth-floor apartment, near East 164th Street. The blaze sparked when the flame made contact with a nearby gas can in a cabinet that the family had bought because of the Hurricane Sandy fuel shortage, sources and fire officials said.
The can was nearly full, according to sources.
Five firefighters also suffered minor injuries in the fire.
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Illegal Aliens in N.Y.C.
Bloomberg to Pass New Law to Keep NYC the Most "Immigrant-Friendly" City in the U.S.
By Emily Gogolak — Monday, March 18th, 2013 ‘The Villiage Voice’ / Manhattan
COMMENT: Earth to Bloomberg. Do not complain when police in other states refuse to enforce the federal gun laws. That will just show your hypocrisy and duplicity! You pick and choose, they can pick and choose. - Mike Bosak
Today Mayor Bloomberg will sign off on two hefty pieces of immigration legislation that will maintain New York's reputation as one of the most immigrant-friendly cities in the nation.
The two laws, which passed 40-7 in City Council at the end of February, are a reaction to Secure Communities, the highly controversial federal solution to immigration-enforcement that expanded to New York last May. Under that plan, the fingerprints of anybody passing through local or state jails are sent to the Department of Homeland Security and run through its database. If a match is found showing that a suspect is an illegal immigrant or is a non-citizen with a criminal record, a "detainer" will likely be issued, requesting that the police hold the person until he or she is handed over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
However, it is up to the given municipality whether or not to honor these detainer requests. "These detainers are 100 percent voluntary," Daniel Coates, a lead organizer for Make the Road New York, the city's largest membership-based immigrant organization, said in an interview. "It's entirely in the municipality's discretion." Opponents of the federal policy argue that it deports many immigrants with no criminal histories who were arrested for minor offenses.
Now the city is taking steps to limit the extent to which the detainers can be enforced. "The city obviously cannot dictate federal immigration policy, but it does have control over its own law enforcement," said City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, one of the legislation's sponsors, at a press conference in February. "We can't tell ICE what they can or can't do. But we as the City Council can tell the Department of Correction what they can and can't do, and, in some cases, the police department what they can and can't do."
The laws stop both the NYPD and the Department of Correction from enforcing detainers on individuals who have no criminal record other than a pending misdemeanor charge. They don't, however, block detainers on inmates convicted of a felony or misdemeanor within 10 years of the arrest, those awaiting charges or with outstanding criminal warrants, or those included in a federal gang database or on a terrorist watch list.
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New York City limits ICE detainers
By David Perera — Monday, March 18th, 2013 ‘FierceHomelandSecurity.Com’
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg approved March 18 two bills limiting the city's cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainee orders.
NYC Intro 982 restricts New York police from holding an individual beyond normal processing time due to a federal immigration detainee order, except a handful of cases, including that the individual is a convicted criminal, is a defendant in a pending criminal case, has an outstanding criminal warrant anywhere in the United States, is recorded as having a gang affiliation, or is a possible match in the terrorist screening database.
Another bill, Intro 989 amends a previous law to extend the same conditions to the New York Department of Correction.
Intro 982, the bill pertaining to the NYPD, also states that if database searches show that the individual is subject to an outstanding warrant for removal from the United States, or has been previously deported, then New York will honor the ICE hold.
Critics of Secure Communities, the ICE information sharing program that permits it to search for illegal aliens arrested by state and local authorities by matching fingerprints sent to the FBI against immigration databases, were quick to applaud the legislation.
"It is critical for local communities to stand up to the extreme and punitive enforcement strategy of ICE, as New York City is doing today with this legislation," said Nisha Agarwal, deputy director of the Center for Popular Democracy in a statement.
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Traffic Fatalities in City Increased in 2012, but Officials Point to Larger Picture
By MATT FLEGENHEIMER — Tuesday, March 19th, 2013 ‘The New York Times’
More than 270 people died in New York City traffic in 2012, the most traffic-related fatalities since 2008, officials said on Monday.
A majority of those who died were pedestrians, accounting for 148 of the 274 deaths. But most of the increase since 2011 was attributable to automobile driver and passenger deaths. There were 73 of those deaths in 2012, up from 50 the year before.
The city also recorded 18 cyclist fatalities, down from 22 in 2011, and 35 motorcyclist deaths, an increase from 32. For the third year in a row, the city said, no pedestrians were killed in crashes with cyclists.
Within the data-driven Bloomberg administration, street safety figures have been trumpeted as a signature achievement in recent years, as interventions like expanded bike lanes and pedestrian plazas have remade much of the city’s transportation system.
Officials were quick to point to the long-term trend of reduced fatalities, noting that even though the 2012 figure exceeded the 245 deaths in 2011, it still represented the fourth fewest traffic deaths on record since 1910.
The city’s traffic fatality rates were less than one-third of the national average and half the rates of other big cities, officials said. Preliminary national figures for 2012 also suggested an increase in fatalities.
Connecting the statistics to recent calls to install speed-tracking cameras across the city, the Transportation Department said that speeding had accounted for about 30 percent of the deaths. Fatalities associated with hit-and-run crashes increased to 47, an increase of 31 percent compared with 2010.
According to the department, pedestrians who are hit by a car traveling at 30 miles per hour have an 80 percent chance of surviving. But those hit at 40 m.p.h. or more have only a 30 percent chance of survival.
“It’s a matter of physics,” Janette Sadik-Khan, the city’s transportation commissioner, said in a phone interview.
Though the city has long lobbied for a speed camera bill, proposals have languished in Albany. A budget package in the State Assembly has authorized the city to install speed cameras, but a final budget deal for the state has not yet been reached.
Amid persistent prodding from advocates who are often critical of the city’s traffic enforcement, calls for the cameras have intensified in recent weeks, as officials like Raymond W. Kelly, the police commissioner, have encouraged the state to approve their use.
But the plan has faced opposition from the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association.
“Many speeders are unlicensed, some are operating under the influence and sometimes they are fleeing crime scenes or carrying weapons,” the group’s president, Patrick J. Lynch, said in a statement. “Cameras let all those dangers slip by.”
He said that money allocated for speed cameras would be better spent in hiring more officers.
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NYC logged 65% increase last year in fatalities in accidents involving a speeding driver, city says
City DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan said the data underscores need for speed-enforcement cameras to be deployed
By Glenn Blain — Tuesday, March 19th, 2013 ‘The New York Daily News’
ALBANY — The number of people killed on New York City streets last year in accidents that involved a speeding motorist increased by 65% over the prior year, it was revealed Monday.
In 2012 lead-footed drivers played a role in accidents that resulted in 81 deaths, compared to 49 lives lost in 2011.
The stark increase in fatalities was highlighted in traffic data the city Department of Transportation released to show the need for speed enforcement cameras to be deployed on city streets.
A measure to bring the cameras to the city in a pilot program was part of a budget bill approved by the state Assembly last week, and key city officials have since pressed for the proposal to be considered by the Senate.
The data released Monday showed that speeding was a factor in nearly 30% of all traffic fatalities in 2012.
City DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan said the sharp rise in speeding-related deaths last year proves that more needs to be done to combat speeding on city streets.
“Too many people still think they can pull a fast one — that nobody is looking,” Sadik-Khan told the Daily News. “These are preventable tragedies.”
In an exclusive story in The News published in Monday’s editions, NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly supported the concept, arguing that cops can’t be posted on every street and that speed enforcement cameras would have an important deterrent effect. Kelly wrote letters urging Gov. Cuomo and legislative leaders to back the plan.
Speeding drivers create an especially dangerous situation near city schools, Sadik-Khan said.
City officials released a map Monday of 100 schools where at least 75% of cars surveyed within a quarter-mile of the building were found to be speeding.
“It is a real plague on the streets of New York,” the DOT commissioner said.
State lawmakers are debating the Assembly-approved measure, which is backed by Mayor Bloomberg, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and several other councilmembers. It would authorize a pilot program to place speed enforcement cameras in 20 school zones in the city.
The measure has met resistance in the more conservative Senate. The city Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association also opposed the measure last week, with its president arguing that city resources would be better spent hiring additional cops.
Gov. Cuomo, according to a spokesman, has not taken a position on the proposal.
Lawmakers are expected to adopt a final budget for 2013-2014 later this week, and city officials hope the pilot program will be included in the bill.
Assemblywoman Deborah Glick (D-Manhattan), who is sponsoring the camera measure, said she will continue to push for its approval, even if it is not included in the final budget.
“I am more and more convinced of its importance,” Glick said.
City officials said the surge in speeding-related traffic deaths resulted from a large number of multi-victim accidents in 2012, including a horrific April accident near the Bronx Zoo that killed 7 members of a Bronx family.
Overall, the city saw 274 traffic deaths in 2012, up from 245 in 2011. The 2012 fatality total marked the fourth-lowest figure recorded in the city since 1910.
Of those killed in traffic accidents, 73 people were inside motor vehicles, 148 were pedestrians, 18 were on bicycles and 35 were on motorcycles.
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New NYPD Collision Investigation Squad
Harder Look by NYPD At Nonfatal Crashes
By MARK TOOR — Monday, March 18th, 2013 ‘The Chief / Civil Service Leader’
In the wake of complaints about inadequate police response to serious motor-vehicle accidents, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly recently announced that the NYPD will investigate some that don’t involve fatalities. But an expert in policing said the new policy does not go far enough in dealing with the dangers of New York City streets.
“More needs to be done,” Eugene O’Donnell, a former police officer and prosecutor who now teaches at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said in an interview last week. “It’s a good time to have a comprehensive review of the whole traffic-investigation and traffic-enforcement functions.”
No Death, No Probe
At a City Council hearing a year ago, NYPD officials said accident investigators were sent out only to scenes where someone was killed or injured so badly they were considered likely to die. That makes it difficult to prosecute the drivers on anything but traffic violations. Advocates for bicyclists, in particular, testifying at the hearing said the investigations were often perfunctory and incompetent.
Mr. Kelly sent a letter to James Vacca, chair of the City Council Transportation Committee, saying the department was changing procedures for its Accident Investigation Squad. The letter, dated March 4 and first reported last week, said the squad also will be notified if there is “a critical injury or when a Police Department Duty Captain believes the extent of injuries and/or unique circumstances of a collision warrant such action.”
An injury will be judged critical, he continued, when it meets Emergency Medical Service protocols. “According to these guidelines, a critically-injured patient will be defined as a patient either receiving CPR, in respiratory arrest, or requiring and receiving life-sustaining ventilator or circulatory support,” he wrote.
Adding Personnel
Mr. Kelly said additional officers will be sent to bolster both the squad and the Highway Patrol, and that both units will receive new training in investigating collisions.
Mr. O’Donnell said it sounds as though the policy change “is a reaction to highly-publicized cases.” The NYPD, he said, needs to confront the culture of the city’s streets and highways, where speeding and other traffic infractions are epidemic.
“The NYPD has not been a traffic-oriented department as opposed to say, Los Angeles, where they do a lot more,” he said. Although it’s very possible to commit crimes unintentionally behind the wheel, he said, that is not prominent in the department’s mindset.
“Detectives will tell you that if you want to kill somebody, use your car,” he said. “Then jump out and say, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I had no idea’...You can get in your car with no intent to hurt somebody and can be committing a crime if you drive negligently.”
Tough to Make Cases
Mr. O’Donnell conceded that it is difficult to prosecute drivers on vehicular-crime charges. In general, drivers are not prosecuted for causing harm with their vehicles unless they are committing more than one traffic infraction at the time, he said. This principle is known as the “rule of two” and is based on court decisions. Under the rule of two, speeding alone is not enough to justify a conviction.
Recently, he said, the Court of Appeals introduced a new standard that makes vehicular homicide harder to prove: “moral blameworthiness.” One legal commentator defines that as “a level of blameworthy conduct that is greater than ordinary negligence or carelessness.”
Mr. O’Donnell said the lack of traffic enforcement was a failure of Compstat, the department’s computerized crime-analysis system. “There’s excessive number-driven stuff on some issues, but other issues get no attention,” he said.
Mr. Kelly ended his letter to Mr. Vacca by saying the department was replacing the word “accident” with “collision” in all material, forms and manuals—including the name of the Accident Investigation Squad, heretofore to be known as the Collision Investigation Squad.
Connotes Liability
“The term ‘collision,’ which is utilized by other jurisdictions throughout the country, provides a more accurate description,” he wrote. “In the past, the term ‘accident’ has sometimes given the inaccurate impression or connotation that there is no fault of liability associated with a specific event.”
Aaron Naparstek, founder of Streetsblog, which concentrates on public transit, wrote last summer that Accident Investigation Squad officers “don’t think of themselves as homicide Detectives, or cars as weapons, or drivers as killers. The word ‘accident’ implies no fault...The assumption is built into the name of the NYPD bureaucracy itself: Death by motor vehicle is an ‘accident’ before the investigators even get to what may very well be the scene of a crime.”
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911 NYPD Communications Div.
Bolsters Fire Unions’ Charges
Second Study Criticized City Emergency System
By SARAH DORSEY — Monday, March 18th, 2013 ‘The Chief / Civil Service Leader’
(Edited for brevity and law enforcement pertinence)
The fire unions sparred with the Bloomberg administration last week over the emergence March 4 of another consultant’s report critical of the Mayor’s 911 call-system overhaul.
UFA: Selective Disclosure
Those criticisms echoed a report the Mayor released in May 2012 by Winbourne Consulting, which also faulted the city for inconsistently defining emergency-response times and for delays caused by incorrect addresses received through its Unified Call Taking system, long a target of the fire unions. A State Supreme Court Justice granted the unions access to earlier drafts of that paper, which are said to be more scathing than the published version. But they haven’t yet seen it; the case is still tied up in appeals.
A Chilling Honesty?
One of the city’s key arguments in its bid to keep the Winbourne drafts private is that it would discourage the frank assessment of a project’s flaws that can ultimately protect taxpayer dollars.
The Mayor moved to overhaul the 911 system after it failed to handle the flood of calls during the December 2010 blizzard. The unions complained of delays and inefficiencies during Hurricane Sandy, though Mr. McCarthy touted the system’s ability to handle 20,000 calls per hour during the height of the storm.
The UFA is leading a lawsuit demanding earlier drafts of the Winbourne report, which it originally sought as part of a health-and-safety challenge to the UCT system before the Board of Collective Bargaining. Under that program, police operators collect the details of fire calls and transfer them electronically to fire dispatchers. Previously, those calls were immediately transferred to the FDNY. The fire unions charge that NYPD staff, not trained in fire science, don’t always collect the necessary details, and that the computer systems used to transmit information don’t prioritize calls, often resulting in delayed responses to urgent situations.
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Judge Finds Exoneration Group Is Entitled to NYPD Records
By John Caher — Monday, March 18th, 2013 ‘The New York Law Journal’
An organization that examines possible wrongful convictions is entitled to police records on a homicide investigation despite the New York City Police Department's claim that revealing the information could endanger the lives of witnesses and informants, a Manhattan judge has ruled.
Acting Supreme Court Justice Peter Moulton held that the NYPD's withholding of reports from The Exoneration Initiative violated the Freedom of Information Law. In a March 15 decision, he directed the NYPD to disclose information the non-profit has been seeking for a 18 months and said the city's foot-dragging could cost it attorney fees.
Matter of The Exoneration Initiative v. New York City Police Department, 102688/12, spotlights the interplay and tension between the needs for an open government and an effective police force. Here, Moulton found, the NYPD neglected to strike the proper balance in keeping under wraps documents related to the murder conviction of Richard Rosario.
Rosario was convicted of a Bronx murder in 1996 based on the testimony of two witnesses who identified him from a book of mug shots. He has steadfastly proclaimed his innocence. The Exoneration Initiative, which investigates and, when warranted, litigates claims of actual innocence, is looking into Rosario's claims. However, it has yet to decide whether to embrace his cause, largely because its quest for information has been stymied by the NYPD, records suggest.
According to the decision, the organization petitioned for documents related to the murder of George Collazo on Turnbull Avenue, and the NYPD promptly denied access to any of the records on the grounds that releasing it would endanger witnesses.
The Exoneration Initiative appealed, but the NYPD ignored the appeal as well as a follow-up letter until the organization brought an Article 78 action, according to court papers. Eventually, the NYPD released 27 pages of documents, with no explanation why it had procrastinated, and withheld three pages, which it argued were not subject to FOIL. Those three pages, related to a non-testifying "passerby," plus four redacted pages were the subject of Moulton's ruling.
The city argued that disclosure of the "passerby" pages could endanger the safety of the witness and is therefore exempt from FOIL under Public Officers Law §87(2)(f). Courts have broadly interpreted the section, finding that authorities need only establish a possibility that disclosure could jeopardize someone's life or safety. But Moulton said the NYPD couldn't meet even that low threshold.
"The NYPD has not carried its burden to show that there is a possibility that passerby would be endangered by the release of the three pages," Moulton wrote. "Passerby was not a witness who offered trial testimony that led to Rosario's conviction. Instead, the three pages reviewed by the court demonstrate that passerby may have information that helps Rosario as he attempts to prove his innocence."
Moulton also rejected the city's claim for a FOIL exemption under a Public Officers Law provision that allows police to avoid disclosing information that would identify a confidential source or confidential information. He agreed with the NYPD that agencies are not required to show they explicitly promised anonymity to a source in order to invoke the exemption, but said there must be at least a "clear inference" that anonymity was assumed, and there is no such inference here.
"The NYPD has not provided any factual predicate—other than the fact that the passerby was questioned in the context of a murder investigation—that could give rise to the inference of an assumed promise of confidentiality," Moulton wrote. "This fact, standing alone, is not enough to establish an 'assumed' promise of confidentiality. If the legislature wished to exempt from FOIL disclosure all statements made by non-testifying witnesses in homicide investigations, it could have done so. It did not carve out so broad an exception."
Finally, the court rejected the NYPD's argument with regard to the redacted records. The city had claimed that it need do nothing more than make a prima facie showing that disclosure "might" result in an unwarranted invasion of privacy. Moulton disagreed.
"If this argument were correct, then no witness information would ever be available pursuant to FOIL from the NYPD under any circumstances," Moulton said. "The legislature struck a balance in FOIL. It did not impose a blanket prohibition on the disclosure of witness testimony and identifying information."
Moulton ordered all seven pages of contested records produced in unredacted form and said that The Exoneration Initiative is entitled to seek reasonable attorney fees. He scheduled a hearing on fees for April 11.
Robert Freeman, executive director of the New York State Committee on Open Government, said the ruling is well-reasoned and consistent with the law.
"Assuming the decision will stand, I think it is significant in that it clearly places the burden of defending secrecy where it should be, on the government," Freeman said. "Secondly, the decision in my view is fully consistent with precedent indicating that the exemptions are to be narrowly construed. The decision clearly limits the ability to protect witnesses to crimes to specific situations, and not to the possibility that disclosure in unrelated situations would diminish the desire of witnesses to come forward."
There was no immediate reaction from the NYPD.
Glenn Garber and Rebecca Freedman appeared for The Exoneration Initiative.
Krista Ashbery of the NYPD's legal office argued for the department.
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Say Surveillance Chilled Worship
Claim NYPD a Divisive Force Among Muslims
By MARK TOOR — Monday, March 18th, 2013 ‘The Chief / Civil Service Leader’
The NYPD program of monitoring Muslims has used religious activity as an indicator of possible terrorist involvement, discouraging some from worship and causing others who continue to go to the mosque regularly to withdraw from fellow congregants, according to a report released last week by Muslim groups.
The department’s surveillance activities have “stifled speech, communal life and religious practice and criminalized a broad segment of American Muslims,” attorney Nermeen Arastu of the Asian-American Legal Defense and Education Fund, one of three groups that contributed to the report, said March 11.
‘Singled Out for Scrutiny’
“The NYPD took special interest in signs of Muslim religiosity and actively implemented a surveillance program guided by a deeply-flawed theory of Muslim ‘radicalization,’” the report said. “As a result, NYPD agents documented how many times a day Muslim students prayed during a university whitewater-rafting trip, which Egyptian businesses shut their doors for daily prayers, which restaurants played Al-Jazeera, and which Newark businesses sold halal products and alcohol.
“Not only did the NYPD single out American Muslims for surveillance,” the report continued, “but officers found every facet of American Muslim religiosity and outward practice of Islam...worthy of exceptional scrutiny.”
The Police Department insisted that it continues to follow the 27-year-old Handschu guidelines that limit its authority to investigate political, religious and civic groups. One of those guidelines states that such groups cannot be targeted unless there is pre-existing evidence of criminal activity.
Muslim groups say there has been no such evidence of terrorist activity. In a deposition last year, Assistant Chief Thomas Galati, head of the NYPD Intelligence Division, said the years of surveillance and eavesdropping by the division’s Demographics Unit, since renamed the Zone Assessment Unit, had not resulted in a single criminal case.
The report incorrectly portrayed that unit, said NYPD spokesman Paul J. Browne. “It wasn’t designed to develop leads of terrorist activity but to develop an inventory of places a terrorist we may one day be hunting may use to hide or find support,” he said in an e-mail.
Mr. Browne referred to plots the Intelligence Division disrupted, including those by Ahmed Ferhani, who was sentenced to 10 years earlier this month for planning to blow up a synagogue, and Abdel Hameed Shehadeh, a Staten Island resident who allegedly sought to join the Taliban and was scheduled for trial this week on terrorism-related charges.
Sowed Distrust
Ms. Arastu said that Muslim groups had attempted to discuss the problem with the NYPD, but had been rebuffed. The new report, she said, was an effort to bring attention to the problem.
The report says the NYPD penetrated more than 250 mosques in the New York City area. It described one young man who befriended a fellow mosque-goer, only to find out that his friend was an NYPD undercover. He “responded by severing his relationship with the mosque altogether for a year,” the report said. “He has since returned to the mosque, but refuses to involve himself in the mosque’s activities, or to befriend anyone. He just goes to pray...”
The report says some Muslims even fear wearing traditional dress, quoting a community organizer as saying, “A hijab [head covering] or a beard isn’t just about being different and not fitting in. But now...it’s also that people will see me as prone to violence.”
Owners of coffee shops and similar businesses may discourage political conversation for fear of attracting police attention and driving away more cautious customers, the report said. Parents urge their college-age children to avoid being outspoken on political issues.
Wary of ‘New Friends’
The report said Muslims may avoid making friends with people who could be police informants. “I don’t want any new friends,” said one political activist quoted in the report. “If I don’t know you or your family, or know that you have a family that I can check you back to, I don’t want to know you.”
Even in college, “with a general understanding that dealing with ‘politics’ is controversial, Muslim students find themselves steering away from those majors, classes or extracurricular activities,” the report said. One Brooklyn College professor told the authors, “You get this climate, and the parents feel even more emboldened to say, ‘Just be an engineer, just go to med school. Why do you have to do all this other stuff?'''
The report charged that the NYPD has “an anti-Muslim culture—both within the Intelligence Division and outside of it...Documents and statements made by the NYPD reflected a deep misunderstanding of Islam, a conflation of Islam with terrorism, and an alarming level of indifference by NYPD leadership to overt anti-Muslim actions and statements within the department’s ranks.”
One example cited by the report was the screening “of a virulently anti-Muslim film, ‘The Third Jihad,’ on continuous loop during the NYPD’s cadet-training program from October to December 2010.”
Muslim Cop ‘Felt Ostracized’
One Muslim officer left the Intelligence Division because of “hundreds of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab e-mail briefings sent to the unit over the course of two years” despite repeated complaints to superior officers. Another departed because he went on a pilgrimage to Mecca and “when he returned he felt ostracized, that he was no longer trusted.”
The report ended with recommendations to end “the blanket surveillance of the Muslim population of New York City and its environs.”
It was jointly released by AALDEF, the Muslim American Civil Liberties Coalition, and the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR) project, a clinical arm of CUNY Law School.
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F.D.N.Y.
Fire Commissioner’s Son Resigns as Offensive Twitter Posts Surface
By WENDY RUDERMAN — Tuesday, March 19th, 2013 ‘The New York Times’
The son of the Fire Department commissioner, Salvatore J. Cassano, resigned on Monday from his job with the department after a series of offensive Twitter posts, many of them racially inflammatory, surfaced.
Joseph Cassano, 23, who joined the department as an emergency medical technician in October 2012, came under fire for posts that suggested a hatred for Jews, blacks and poor people.
Commissioner Cassano expressed both disappointment and love for his son, adding that the decision to resign was the right one.
“I am extremely disappointed in the comments posted online by my son Joseph, which do not reflect the values — including a respect for all people — that are held by me, my family and the F.D.N.Y.,” the commissioner said in a statement released Monday afternoon.
The Fire Department has faced recent scrutiny for what a judge has characterized as a failure to address racial inequities within its ranks. In a landmark ruling in Federal District Court in Brooklyn in 2011, the judge, Nicholas G. Garaufis, called for a court-appointed monitor to oversee the department’s recruiting efforts and ensure that more minority candidates are hired.
The online posts by Joseph Cassano only served to underscore the difficulty the department faces as it seeks to change its culture.
Using the Twitter handle @jcassano15, Mr. Cassano wrote, “Getting sick of picking up all these Obama lovers and taking them to the hospital because their medicare pays for an ambulance and not a cab,” The New York Post reported on Monday. Mr. Cassano’s account has been suspended.
He also reportedly wrote, “I like jews about as much as hitler #toofar? NOPE.” On Martin Luther King’s Birthday, he posted, “MLK could go kick rocks for all I care, but thanks for the time and a half today.”
At a news conference on Monday, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said that he “found the messages offensive.”
“It is my understanding that he has chosen to resign from the Fire Department and I think that’s the appropriate thing and I’ll leave it there,” the mayor added.
Mr. Cassano, who had earned a salary of nearly $32,000, released a statement on Monday apologizing for his actions.
“My intention was never to hurt anyone, or any group, and these tasteless comments do not reflect the person my parents raised me to be,” Mr. Cassano said.
John Coombs, president of the Vulcan Society, the fraternal order of black firefighters, which joined in the federal lawsuit that led to Judge Garaufis’s ruling, said that Mr. Cassano’s Twitter posts were indicative of a systemic problem and “proof” of the type of issues raised in the lawsuit.
“Our commissioner, if I recall, said not that long ago that he had never been exposed to nor witnessed racism or racist practices in the Fire Department in his 40 years,” Mr. Coombs said during an afternoon news conference. “Well, that lends to a question: I wonder where the younger Cassano got such thinking from? I wonder where he found the courage to tweet what he tweeted, who made comments about people who he was supposedly serving? It lends to the bigger issue. Not only is it embedded, it is accepted.”
Some of Mr. Cassano’s posts on Twitter took issue with the nature of his work. “Got kicked in the shin by a drunk and had to carry a 275 pound guy down 5 flights of stairs,” he wrote in early March. “my job is the worst.”
A more recent post, from March 11, has proved prophetic: “I can’t wait until I don’t have to wake up and dread going to work.”
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New Jersey
N.J. Supreme Court: Police cannot enter home to check on resident in non-emergency
By Christopher Baxter — Tuesday, March 19th, 2013 ‘The Newark Star-Ledger’ / Newark, NJ
TRENTON — The state Supreme Court ruled today that police officers in New Jersey cannot enter a home to check on the well-being of a resident unless they have a warrant, consent from the homeowner or a reason to believe there is an emergency and someone is at risk.
In a 6-1 decision, the court found that police violated a Vineland man's rights protecting him from unreasonable search and seizure when in 2008 officers entered his apartment at the request of a landlord seeking rent from a tenant he had not seen in several weeks.
Although the officers were dispatched only to check on the man, Cesar Vargas, once inside his apartment they found several jars of marijuana. Vargas was later indicted on charges including money laundering, possession with intent to distribute marijuana and unlawful possession of firearms.
The court, in reversing an Appellate Court ruling and agreeing to suppress the drug evidence, rejected arguments by the state Attorney General’s Office that the officers were allowed to enter without a warrant as "community caretakers" concerned about the welfare of a resident.
"Based on the findings of the trial court, the police did not have an objectively reasonable basis to believe that an emergency threatening life or limb justified the warrantless entry into Vargas’ apartment," Justice Barry Albin wrote for the majority.
But Justice Anne Patterson, the lone dissenter, wrote an opinion in which she said the majority had improperly constrained the actions of well-intentioned police officers trying to determine if someone needs help.
"When a law enforcement officer is asked to check on the welfare of someone who is reported missing, as was the officer summoned by the landlord here, it may be impossible to determine whether the resident is in danger without entering his or her home," Patterson wrote.
Peter Aseltine, a spokesman for the Attorney General’s Office, agreed with Patterson, who is the newest member of the court, saying in a statement that the conduct of the Vineland officers "was entirely reasonable and motivated solely by concern" for Vargas.
Aseltine said, "the court has unduly eroded the community-caretaking doctrine in a way that will complicate the task of officers responding to a potentially dangerous situation where the circumstances and danger are not immediately clear."
The New Jersey State Association of Chiefs of Police said it was still reviewing the opinion. An attorney for Vargas did not return a message seeking comment.
On March 17, 2008, after not receiving a rent check from Vargas and not being able to reach him, his landlord, Henry Olaya, knocked at the apartment but no one answered. Other tenants told him Vargas’ mail was piling up, his car was covered in dust and he had not been seen in weeks.
According to court documents, Olaya became concerned about Vargas — whom he described as a "good tenant" who usually paid rent on time — but chose not to enter his apartment because the rental agreement forbade it "except in case of an emergency or possible abandonment."
Olaya called Vineland police to check on Vargas. Court documents note Olaya did not try calling Vargas’ emergency contact number or employer before calling 911 and did not know the details of his "comings and goings," such as if he took vacations or often traveled out of town.
Albin wrote that the situation was unlike a family member calling police about a relative, or someone calling police about a diabetic or sick neighbor that had not been seen in a while, because Olaya and the officers had no basis to assume Vargas’ absence was unusual.
"We need not describe the myriad circumstances that might give rise to an objectively reasonable basis to believe that an emergency requires immediate action for the safety or welfare of another," he wrote. "Suffice it to say, those objectively reasonable circumstances were not found to be present here."
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Connecticut
In Newtown Investigation, Leak Blamed on Police Conference
By Joseph De Avila — Tuesday, March 19th, 2013 ‘The Wall Street Journal’ / New York, NY
Connecticut State Police have said little about their investigation into the shooting rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School, but authorities issued a rare statement Monday after a media report outlined previously undisclosed details about the gunman’s planning before the deadly attacks.
The details emerged from an off-the-record briefing given by Col. Danny Stebbins of the Connecticut State Police at a law-enforcement conference last week in New Orleans, according to a report in the Daily News. Lt. J. Paul Vance, a state police spokesman, confirmed Mr. Stebbins attendance and participation at the conference.
The gathering was organized by the International Association of Chiefs of Police to discuss school safety and included “sensitive information” on “tactical operational approaches employed by first responders on the day of the shootings,” the spokesman said in a news release. “Officer safety and public safety along with lessons learned from the incident were discussed.”
Lt. Vance blamed the leak to the Daily News on “someone in attendance” who “chose not to honor Col. Stebbins’s request” to keep the information confidential so that families affected by the shooting could be informed first.
The Wall Street Journal was unable to confirm the details outlined in the newspaper’s report. The final public report on the deadly shooting is still months away, state police said.
The Dec. 14 shooting inside a school in Newtown, Conn., claimed the lives of 26 people, including 20 schoolchildren. Police have said that the gunman, Adam Lanza, subsequently shot and killed himself.
Organizers of the law-enforcement conference declined to discuss the specific content of Col. Stebbins’s address.
“We understand that someone in a law enforcement position may have disclosed very sensitive information this weekend related to the Sandy Hook shooting tragedy,” said Col. Mike Edmonson, Louisiana State Police Superintendent and a chair of the group behind the conference. “The disclosure was disrespectful to Col. Stebbins, the Connecticut police investigators who continue to work this case and the families of those affected by this tragedy.”
It’s not common for law-enforcement officials to discuss details of open investigations with outside agencies, said Wayne Johnson, a professor in the law-enforcement program at Harper College who previously worked with the Chicago Police Department for 25 years. He said they typically stick to generalities without citing specific details in open cases.
“It would only be general information, it wouldn’t be anything critical to the outcome of the investigation,” Mr. Johnson said. “You are really playing with fire by letting anything out there that can impact your final determination” in an open investigation.
David Wheeler, a father of a child killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School, said Connecticut State Police have been “sensitive” and “prompt” in their communication with the families of survivors. “I’m pretty impressed with them so far,” he said.
The off-the-record briefing, Mr. Wheeler added, should have remained confidential. “Every respectable news agency should respect it as such,” he said.
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U.S.A.
Assault weapons ban loses steam
By: John Bresnahan and Manu Raju — Monday, March 18th, 2013; 8:10 p.m. EDT ‘Politico’ / Washington, DC
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said on Monday that a controversial assault weapons ban will not be part of a Democratic gun bill that was expected to reach the Senate floor next month.
After a meeting with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Monday, a frustrated Feinstein said she learned that the bill she sponsored — which bans 157 different models of assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines — wouldn’t be part of a Democratic gun bill to be offered on the Senate floor. Instead, it can be offered as an amendment. But its exclusion from the package makes what was already an uphill battle an almost certain defeat.
The ban is supported by more than a dozen Senate Democrats and the White House, as well as gun-control groups.
“My understanding is it will not be [part of the base bill],” Feinstein said. “It will be separate.”
Asked if she were concerned about the decision, Feinstein paused and said, “Sure. I would like to [see the bill moved], but the leader has decided not to do it.”
“You will have to ask him [Reid],” she said, when asked why the decision was made.
Reid’s decision highlights the tightrope walked by the majority leader in governing the gun control issue. Trapped between the White House and rank-and-file Democrats who support broad gun control legislation following the shootings last December in Newtown, Conn., Reid must also be mindful of red-state Democrats up for reelection in 2014 who favor gun rights.
And the decision to drop the assault weapons ban from the package illustrates the fact that any big changes to gun control legislation will still be challenging.
Aside from the ban, three other major pieces of gun legislation have been approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee: a gun trafficking bill, a Democrats-only background checks measure and a proposal to increase school safety.
Top Democratic aides said Reid — who is huddling this week with Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) — who will manage the gun bill on the floor — may file the Democratic gun bill as early as this week, as he prepares to bring the measure up for a vote in early April after a two-week congressional recess.
The contents of the Democratic gun package — as well as the amendments that will be allowed on the floor — are the subject of intense maneuvering on and off Capitol Hill.
There are two likely paths: Reid could advance a gun trafficking bill with a school safety provision; some form of background checks and the assault weapons ban would then be offered as amendments. In the other scenario, Reid might offer a background checks bill that includes the gun trafficking and school safety provisions, with assault weapons again offered as an amendment.
The Judiciary panel also approved a bipartisan gun trafficking bill backed by Leahy, Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), among others, that dramatically boosts penalties for “straw purchases” of weapons, in which a person buys firearms on behalf of an individual barred by law from possessing them. Thanks to its support from Republicans, Reid and Leahy want to see this bill as a foundation for the Democratic gun package on the floor.
But Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) are continuing to seek conservative GOP partners for their universal background checks bill. The two Democrats negotiated with Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) on the issue for weeks, but in the end that deal fell apart. Schumer and Manchin are meeting with other Republicans to seek their backing, yet they have not been able to find a partner. Kirk, a moderate, is likely to be part of whatever legislation Schumer and Manchin introduce.
A universal background checks bill with no exemptions was offered by Schumer in the Judiciary Committee and approved by the panel with only Democratic support. But it will not be part of the basic bill that comes to the floor, Democratic insiders said.
Pro-gun control groups want a revised Schumer-Manchin background checks proposal — which is slightly less stringent than the bill offered by Schumer in the Judiciary Committee — in the Democratic bill and are lobbying the leadership to include one, said Senate sources.
There are additional versions of background checks bills being floated — and Manchin may soon introduce a version based on the talks with Coburn — but which one will get Reid’s blessing is up in the air.
“We expect that background checks will be part of the base bill,” said Mark Glaze, director of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns.
But Glaze — along with others advocating universal background checks — said he is not sure which version of the background checks bill would be included in legislation Leahy and Reid send to the Senate floor.
However, it’s clear that the senators involved in the gun control debate would like to have something introduced by the end of this week to sell to constituents at home during the upcoming recess.
Republicans, for their part, strongly oppose any gun-related provisions beyond the gun-trafficking measure, meaning Reid and other top Democrats have to determine which provisions can reach the 60-vote threshold to overcome an expected GOP filibuster.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), the chamber’s minority whip, has pushed for greater scrutiny for gun purchases by the mentally ill, but adamantly opposes any of the Democratic proposals on assault weapons, high-capacity magazines or expanded background checks.
“To truly address gun violence, and do so with broad bipartisan support, we should be addressing the serious deficiencies in our mental health system, improving our background check database and rigorously enforcing existing laws,” Cornyn said after the committee markup.
A proposal barring gun purchases or possession by the mentally ill was introduced recently by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), Mark Begich (D-Alaska) and Mark Pryor (D-Ark.). Graham, Begich and Pryor are up for reelection in 2014.
“I believe that the best way to interrupt the shooter is to have a mental health system that actually records and enters into the database people who should not be able to buy a gun,” Graham said of the proposal.
Reid Epstein contributed to this report.
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Red-light camera firms get heat over tickets
By Jayne O'Donnell — Tuesday, March 19th, 2013 ‘USA Today’
Courts, government officials and motorists seeing red over traffic-light cameras are increasingly directing their fury toward the companies that sell the devices.
At issue: contracts that give companies up to half of ticket revenue and shortened yellow lights that catch more motorists.
Camera companies say they don't set the timing of the lights — cities and counties do. And the manufacturers note that in many communities, local governments aren't allowed to share ticket proceeds with the vendors.
But that hasn't stopped the complaints nor stunted the spread of red-light cameras. Sales of the cameras have nearly quadrupled since companies moved to digital and wireless technology in the mid-2000s. The number of local contracts for cameras was up to 689 last year, from 155 in 2005, according to industry data compiled by market leader American Traffic Solutions (ATS).
Camera maker Brekford, for example, this month announced a nearly 10% increase in revenue in 2012, which it called a "watershed year," because of the company's selection as the red-light and speed camera vendor for Baltimore. The contract is the largest in North America and triples the number of traffic cameras the company has in the U.S.
Yet recent developments continue to darken the picture for the controversial cameras:
• Four top officials of Redflex Traffic Systems, the second-largest camera company, stepped down in the past month after an internal probe showed an employee bribed a city official to get the company's $2 million Chicago red-light camera contract.
• ATS settled 16 New Jersey class-action lawsuits in late December over yellow-light timing.
• The Collier County board of commissioners in Florida voted in December to discontinue its red-light cameras amid rumors that some yellow lights were shortened.
ATS spokesman Charlie Territo says red-light and speed camera programs have nearly always been upheld in court on appeal. But the legal challenges continue. Last week, an Ohio trial judge blocked the village of Elmwood Place's speed camera program, calling it a "scam on motorists" in part because the camera company got 40% of what could be $2 million in ticket revenue in six months. The village is appealing.
"There is a very vocal minority who latch onto these red herrings — saying cameras are only about money, that we set the timing, and they are unconstitutional," says Territo.
Camera companies' control over almost everything to do with the cameras makes them unethical even if they aren't deemed illegal, charges Richard Diamond, editor of anti-red-light-camera website TheNewspaper.com.
Those businesses provide turnkey services that include functions such as "writing talking points for the police for the city council meetings" and helping to decide "which intersections have the most promising engineering deficiencies to exploit," says Diamond. That, he says, raises questions about motives.
HOW IT WORKS
Territo says his company does consult with local government officials on the best places to put cameras but says placement is ultimately up to the people who hire ATS.
"This is a very high-profile industry," says Territo. "In most cases, we find that there isn't a great deal of knowledge about how the programs actually work."
The camera companies typically take all the risk, he says, and local governments don't have to pay anything upfront. They also review and process the violations. Most contracts, he says, charge government entities flat fees although some governments award a percentage of each paid violation to the companies.
Elmwood Place, which has about 2,000 residents and is nearly surrounded by the city of Cincinnati, saw splitting revenue with camera-maker Optotraffic as a way to get commuters to reduce their speeds without having to do all the administrative tasks needed to process tickets, says Optotraffic spokesman Tim Ayers. "We weren't getting terribly rich on it," says Ayers.
Mike Allen, the Ohio attorney who represented the 350 people who sued over the speed cameras, says many of the ticketed drivers were outraged Procter & Gamble employees going to and from work through Elmwood Place.
He says there was no evidence Optotraffic's cameras were ever calibrated so there was no way to ensure the vehicles were actually speeding when drivers were ticketed.
In Florida, Collier County commissioners board Chairman Georgia Hiller blames the previous board for approving red-light cameras there but faults ATS for lobbying state officials "beyond belief" and even "cold-calling citizens to inflame them" so they'd push legislators to keep the cameras. Florida election records show the company has made nearly $500,000 in campaign donations since 2008.
Worse yet, there was no evidence of a safety benefit in the more than two years that red-light cameras were in place, Hiller adds. There were 17 crashes at the 10 intersections involved before cameras due to drivers running red lights — and the same number during roughly the same time period after the cameras, she contends.
"The public should not be subjected to any tax or fine if no public benefit comes back to them," says Hiller, referring to the red-light tickets.
Yellow-light timing questions, Hiller says, were unrelated to the use of red-light cameras.
When done properly, however, the cameras do improve safety, some studies have shown. The 10 Philadelphia intersections with cameras in place for at least three years saw a 24% reduction in crashes, the Pennsylvania State Transportation Advisory Committee reported last fall.
"Red-light cameras are a proven, effective enforcement tool, and they're making intersections safer," says Anne McCartt, senior vice president of research at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. "It's human behavior 101: When drivers know there's a high likelihood of a ticket, they're less likely to run red lights."
Any bad business behavior shouldn't take away from the safety benefits, says Redflex's new CEO, Robert DeVincenzi, who says his company has "confronted the mistakes of our past."
"As an industry ... we have not always met the corporate governance standards that our clients deserve," he said in an e-mailed statement Monday. "We are setting the highest standard for ethical conduct in our industry, and we challenge our competitors to match us."
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Illinois
Drew Peterson son deserved to lose police job, judge rules
By Unnamed Author(s) — Monday, March 18th, 2013 ‘ABC News’ / Chicago, IL
(CHICAGO) (WLS) -- The oldest son of convicted killer Drew Peterson won't get his police job back.
A judge ruled Monday that Stephen Peterson deserved to lose his job with the Oak Brook Police Department.
Stephen Peterson was fired in February 2011 after he testified that he accepted three guns from his father while authorities were investigating the disappearance of Drew Peterson's fourth wife, Stacy.
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Colorado
In Colorado, gun restrictions bring political peril
By KRISTEN WYATT and IVAN MORENO (The Associated Press) — Tuesday, March 19th, 2013; 6:06 a.m. EDT
DENVER (AP) -- Firearms play an outsized role in the hearts of Coloradans. It's a frontier state that adopted gunslingers Buffalo Bill and Doc Holliday as native sons, where treasured guns are routinely passed from generation to generation.
So when Colorado's Democratic governor made known that he plans to ratchet back gun rights Wednesday by signing two limits into law, Republicans and gun-rights supporters gasped.
Then they set to work trying to undo the new laws to limit most ammunition magazines to 15 rounds and to expand required background checks to private and online gun sales.
At least two ballot petitions had been filed. Some Republicans hinted at lawsuits. More predicted political repercussions for Democrats in a state poised to be first outside the East Coast to put new restrictions on firearms after last year's mass shootings in Aurora and Newtown, Conn.
Gov. John Hickenlooper says he supports gun rights. But a few months after famously saying the Aurora movie theater shooting couldn't have prevented by gun control, the self-described moderate started explaining how his thinking changed.
"When you look at what happened in Aurora, a great deal of that damage was from the large magazine on the AR-15 (rifle). I think we need to have that discussion and say, `Where is this appropriate?'" Hickenlooper said in a December interview.
The governor didn't ask for a magazine limit in his opening address to lawmakers this year, but he asked for expanded background checks.
"Surely, Second Amendment advocates and gun control supporters can find common ground in support of this proposition: Let's examine our laws and make the changes needed to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people," Hickenlooper said.
Lawmakers sent him both, plus a measure to revive fees for gun purchasers needing background checks. Both become effective July 1.
When Hickenlooper signaled he'd sign them all, reaction was swift. A suburban Denver gun-accessories maker, Magpul Industries, said it would make good on a threat to leave the state.
"It is disappointing to us that money and a social agenda from outside the state have apparently penetrated the American West," the company said in a statement.
Republicans were angry and saddened, too. GOP lawmakers have tried and failed to expand gun rights in reaction to the mass shootings. They said Monday that the governor's careful reputation as a moderate compromiser was in danger.
"If he signs these bills, I have to come to the conclusion that he's more interested in his national prospects than he is his legacy here in Colorado," said Republican Sen. Greg Brophy, who represents a rural part of the state's eastern plains. "These are not moderate. These are extreme, and just really unpopular."
Other Democratic gun control proposals are pending in the state Legislature but haven't attracted the opposition of the magazine limit and the expanded background checks. Those measures drew thousand to the Capitol to pack legislative hearings, more activists outside regaling lawmakers by honking car horns in protest for hours.
Gun control bills still pending in the state Legislature include a ban on gun ownership by people accused of domestic-violence crimes and a measure to eliminate online-only safety training for people seeking concealed-weapons permits.
Two more Democratic gun control bills were withdrawn when they appeared to lack support for passage. Those included a new liability standard for gun owners and sellers, and a ban on concealed weapons on public college campuses.
Republican gun ideas were hastily rejected earlier this year. Those ideas included expanding gun laws to allow teachers to carry concealed weapons, and a failed attempt to require armed security guards at businesses that ban concealed weapons.
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Mexico
253,000 U.S. guns smuggled to Mexico annually, study finds
By Tim Johnson — Monday, March 18th, 2013 ‘McClatchy Newspapers’
MEXICO CITY — Some 2.2 percent of all U.S. gun sales are made to smuggling rings that take firearms to Mexico, a scale of illegal trafficking that’s “much higher than widely assumed,” an academic study released Monday found.
An average of 253,000 weapons purchased in the United States head south of the border each year, according to the study by four scholars at the University of San Diego’s Trans-Border Institute and the Igarape Institute, a research center in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Profit margins at many gun stores are razor thin, and thousands of U.S. gun vendors would go out of business without the illicit traffic to Mexico, said Topher McDougal, an economist educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who’s one of the study’s authors.
The study’s conclusions are likely to add to controversy over what role U.S. weapons smugglers play in Mexico’s drug violence. Mexican officials have long blamed lax gun laws in the United States for the availability of weapons in Mexico, which has only one gun store and considers gun ownership a privilege, not a right.
The value of the annual smuggling trade is $127.2 million, says the study, “The Way of the Gun: Estimating Firearms Traffic Across the U.S.-Mexico Border.”
The traffic is reflected in the disproportionately high number of federally licensed firearms dealers along the U.S. side of the border, said Robert Muggah, another of the four scholars. Of the 51,300 retail gun shops in the United States that hold federal licenses, some 6,700 of them are concentrated in the four U.S. states that border Mexico, Muggah said. On average, there are more than three gun dealers for every mile of the 1,970-mile border between the countries.
“The Mexican demand explains that abundance and the successful nature of the business,” Muggah said.
Another key indicator of the U.S. influence over gun availability in Mexico is the fact that many killings in Mexico are carried out with handguns, not the high-powered assault weapons that garner much of the attention related to the country’s violence.
“The vast majority of deaths arising from violence in Mexico are from .38s or that caliber of handgun,” Muggah said. “It just so happens that the largest market for .38 Specials is the United States.”
The scholars said their study was the first “empirically robust” effort to “estimate the total flow of arms” heading south from the United States. The authors said they’d determined the likely traffic to Mexico by a complex statistical formula that measured how close a federally licensed dealer was to the Mexican border, then factored out likely local legal demand, based on population and income.
“These findings suggest that the United States is a significant, albeit unintentional, contributor to the global black market in arms and ammunition (and specifically in Mexico),” the study says.
Some 2,200 U.S. manufacturers of firearms, ammunition and parts produce a total of 4.2 million firearms a year, the study says. One in every four U.S. citizens owns a firearm, it adds.
Mexico’s sole gun store, operated by the Defense Secretariat in Mexico City, sells largely .38-caliber or smaller firearms and only to those who obtain licenses first.
Even so, members of organized crime have amassed a growing arsenal of outlawed weapons, including 9 mm pistols, .38-caliber “super” pistols, .45-caliber pistols, AR-15 and AK-47-type assault rifles, grenades and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, the study notes.
Mexican police and soldiers have seized some 140,000 weapons since 2006, when former President Felipe Calderon deployed soldiers and federal police units to contain violence between crime groups and to hunt drug lords.
A soaring homicide rate cast a cloud over much of his six-year term. Some 120,000 homicides occurred while he was in office, and at least 60,000 of them appeared to involve criminal gangs, the study says.
Not all weapons in Mexico come from the United States, the study says, noting that “alternative sources” are suggested by the discovery of a “a wide variety of non-U.S. weaponry . . . including Soviet-era RPG-7s, Korean fragmentation grenades, M60 machine guns, Chinese TK-56s and others.”
The authors said a series of factors – such as sales from gun shows and private dealers – made their estimates, if anything, low.
Gunrunning from the United States was at the heart of a scandal that enveloped the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, a division of the Justice Department, in 2011. In Operation Fast and Furious, ATF agents allowed “straw buyers” to purchase some 2,000 firearms. The agents’ intent was to track the guns to Mexican cartel chiefs.
But the agents lost track of some of the guns, which subsequently were used in scores of crimes that led to death or serious wounds for at least 150 Mexicans and one U.S. Border Patrol agent. Last June, the House of Representatives voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in criminal contempt for refusing to turn over documents related to the botched gunrunning sting.
The number of weapons involved in Fast and Furious, however, would be less than 1 percent of the number of weapons that are reaching Mexico illegally each year, if the study is accurate.
In concluding recommendations, the study suggests that purchasers of firearms in border states be barred from paying cash for the weapons. Requiring the use of checks or credit cards would “help to ensure that funds used to buy guns at legitimate establishments will not originate from illicit business activities,” it says.
The study urges more sophisticated U.S. background checks of buyers to help identify “straw purchasers” and the development of a database of seized guns in Mexico. It suggests that U.S. authorities gather more data on sales tax revenue from gun stores by county “to identify unusual activity that should be investigated.”
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Mike Bosak
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