Christine Quinn clashes with law enforcement unions during interview for endorsement (The New York Daily News) and Other Friday, April 19th, 2013 NYC Police Related News Articles

 

Friday, April 19th, 2013 — Good Afternoon, Stay Safe

 

- - - - -

 

Quinn Is 'Toast' w/ NYC Cops

 

Christine Quinn clashes with law enforcement unions during interview for endorsement
According to a union source, things got heated when Quinn was grilled over her support of an inspector general for the NYPD and her reluctance to bring pension sweeteners to a council vote. A rep for the City Council Speaker denied there were arguments during the interview.

By Rocco Parascandola AND Jonathan Lemire — Friday, April 19th, 2013 'The New York Daily News'

 

 

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn clashed with representatives from 16 law enforcement unions while seeking their endorsement in the mayor's race.

 

Sources say the candidate's hour-long meeting with the unions grew heated when labor reps grilled Quinn over her support for an inspector general for the NYPD and her reluctance to bring pension sweeteners to a council vote.

 

"Her answers were evasive and without merit," said a union source who attended the meeting. "She seemed uncomfortable during the interview process."

 

A person on the Quinn campaign familiar with the meeting acknowledged there were "spirited discussions" over pensions. But the speaker's spokesman denied there was a fight.

 

"It was a frank, honest and respectful discussion on the associations' and the speaker's positions on important issues facing the city, some of which they agreed on and some of which they disagreed on," said Michael Morey.

 

The unions, representing 200,000 workers who largely live in the city, joined forces for the first time this year to issue a joint endorsement that would have more impact.

 

Detectives Endowment Association President Michael Palladino, who heads the new United Uniformed Workers of New York coalition, has previously sparred with Quinn over the inspector general and the NYPD's controversial 2009 shooting of Sean Bell.

 

"We're united, we're focused and we're energized," Palladino said. "And we want to put that focus and energy behind one candidate."

 

Quinn was the final candidate to be interviewed. An endorsement decision is expected next month.

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

68 Precinct Organized Crime Crew:  Ex Brooklyn South Task Force P.O. Ali Oklu

 

Judge blasts away at bad cop
Jail for putting guns on the streets

By ERIN CALABRESE and BOB FREDERICKS — Friday, April 19th, 2013 'The New York Times'

 

 

An angry judge lashed into a dirty ex-NYPD officer who was busted with a gang of cops-turned-cronies for transporting $1 million worth of guns and other loot to New York City.

 

Ali Oklu, 36, was sentenced to 46 months in a federal prison, fined $7,500 and ordered to pay $35,000 to the feds in restitution — the same amount he earned from the criminal operation, prosecutors said.

 

"These were heinous acts by police officers," Manhattan federal court Judge William Pauley scolded Oklu, a naturalized citizen from Turkey living in Sunnyside, Queens.

 

"This country has been very good to you and your parents. It's remarkable that you would betray that."

 

Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara blasted the cop, who didn't speak during his sentencing.

 

"Ali Oklu betrayed the NYPD and the fine men and women who serve there so honorably, even going so far as to conspire to bring firearms into New York where his brother and sister officers — as far as he knew — might have been potentially in the firing line," Bharara said in a statement.

 

The rogue cop was among a dozen current and former cops and law-enforcement personnel who made numerous trips to pick up what they believed were stolen cigarettes in Virginia, slot machines in Atlantic City and 20 guns — including three M16s, a shotgun and 16 handguns — and bring them to New York.

 

The feds had been watching the gang — led by dirty Brooklyn cop William Masso — and supplied the inoperable guns, supposedly stolen cigarettes and slots that were used to snare the crooks in October 2011, 13 months after they launched the criminal enterprise.

 

Masso pleaded guilty in July 2012 and was sentenced to 57 months in federal prison. Oklu pleaded guilty last December to conspiracy to transport firearms and stolen merchandise.

 

Oklu used some of his earnings to lease a 2011 Mercedes-Benz convertible, which he still has possession of until the end of April, prosecutors said.

 

But as Pauley pointedly noted, "Those days are coming to an end."

 

The judge also ordered Oklu, who was assigned to the Brooklyn South Task Force, to remain under the feds' supervision for three years after his release.

 

"There's a compelling need for specific deterrence here," said Pauley, who ordered Oklu to surrender to begin serving his sentence on June 5.

 

The judge noted that the defendant lived somewhat of a charmed life since coming to the United States and becoming a naturalized citizen.

 

"He enjoyed all of the benefits of growing up here. He enjoyed a comfortable, selfish life up to this point," he said.

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

Ex-NYPD Cop Sentenced to 4 Years Behind Bars in Gun-Smuggling Plot

By Joe Parziale — Thursday, April 18th, 2013; 5:43 p.m.  'DNAinfo.Com News' / Manhattan

 

 

NEW YORK CITY — A former New York City cop was sentenced to 46 months in prison for plotting to transport firearms and other contraband across state lines, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara announced Thursday.

 

While an active officer in the NYPD's Brooklyn South Task Force, Ali Oklu hatched a scheme to illegally transport three M-16 rifles, one shotgun and 16 handguns across state lines between September 2010 and October 2011, according to court filings and statements made in court. He also helped transport slot machines from Atlantic City and thousands of cartons of cigarettes from Virginia, all of which he believed to be stolen, according to the filings.

 

Oklu, 36, of Sunnyside, Queens, was paid $35,000 for his role in smuggling the goods, which carried a street value of about $1 million, according to court documents.

 

Oklu and his co-conspirators, including other police officers, used their law enforcement credentials to help expedite the crimes, authorities said. In a March 2011 meeting with the scheme's alleged ringleader, officer William Masso, the two conspired to carry their badges and tell anyone that questioned them that they were officers carrying items to be sold at police auction, according to the filings.

 

Oklu pleaded guilty in December to working with Masso and 11 other co-conspirators to carry out the scheme, court documents show.

 

"Ali Oklu betrayed the NYPD and the fine men and women who serve there so honorably, even going so far as to conspire to bring firearms into New York where his brother and sister officers — as far as he knew — might have been potentially in the firing line," Bharara said in a statement. "With his sentence today, he will now be punished for his crimes."

 

In addition to the prison sentence, U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley also imposed three years supervised release, a $7,500 fine and a $200 special assessment fee, as well as a forfeiture of the $35,000 Oklu made in committing the crimes.

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

Police Academy opening not altered by brief blaze

By Joe Anuta — Friday, April 19th, 2013 'The Times-Ledger' / Queens

 

 

A fire that destroyed portions of a College Point Police Academy wall Tuesday afternoon will not affect the impending opening of the building, police said.

 

The first phase of the 10-story training facility is set to be open in December, and according to an NYPD spokesman, the blaze did not change that time line.

 

The two-alarm fire melted portions of the College Point Police Academy's facade, forcing construction crews off the partially completed job.

 

The two-alarm fire broke out on the second floor around 1:30 p.m., according to the FDNY, and damaged parts of the facade along 28th Avenue. It was under control in a little more than an hour.

 

"We had a challenge out there. We had a significant fire outside the building that was extending inside. Once it got inside, we would have had a catastrophic amount of damage," said Queens Commander and Deputy Assistant Chief Robert Maynes.

 

The first units on the scene knew they had to keep the fire from spreading inside, according to Maynes, and immediately began putting water on the flames after hooking up 1,050 feet of hose from a nearby hydrant.

 

"The fire folks did a great job," he said. "They kept the fire from getting in there, they actually reduced the amount of smoke."

 

Damage to the roughly $650 million building was minimal, he said, although glass and other material that constitute the outer facade appeared to be completely melted away, exposing the inside of the building, and scorched in several places.

 

A police source at the scene said the flames broke out while construction crews were working on what appeared to be a setback or a terrace when some construction materials caught fire, though no one was injured. They may have been tarring the second-story roof, the source said, but fire officials said the cause of the blaze was under investigation by fire marshals.

 

Turner Construction Co., the company working on the job, deferred all questions to the city Department of Design and Construction, which told Times Ledger work had already resumed on other portions of the academy Tuesday. Construction nearest to the location of the fire will resume within days.

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

NYPD Stop, Question and Frisk  / Chief of Department's Office Investigation Review Section & Training Assessment Unit C.O. Insp. Helen McAleer Testifies

 

NYPD Inspector Testifies 'Very Few' Complaints Of Racial Profiling Over Stop-And-Frisk

By Unnamed Author(s) (WCBS News - New York)  —  Thursday, April 18th, 2013; 4:45 p.m. EDT

 

 

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – The court case over the NYPD's controversial stop-and-frisk program has been going on for one month.

 

In court Thursday, NYPD inspector Helen McAleer was called by the plaintiff's attorneys who are attempting to prove that police engage in racial profiling in the streets when carrying out their Stop, Question and Frisk program on predominantly blacks and Hispanics.

 

Inspector McAleer, who reports to the Chief of Department, was asked if complaints of racial profiling reach her office.

 

"Very few," said the inspector.

 

She backed up what the just-retired Chief of Department Joseph Esposito testified to during the trial last week.

 

As WCBS 880′s Irene Cornell reported, Esposito testified that people don't come up to him in minority communities complaining about being stopped because of race.

 

He said they may complain about how a stop was done or that a cop was rude, but not about racial profiling.

 

Esposito said politicians and civil rights or other activist groups are often the ones complaining about racial profiling, Cornell reported.

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

 

NY public housing residents want an end to stop and frisk   (Updated)

By CYRIL JOSH BARKER — Friday, April 19th, 2013 'The Amsterdam News' / New York, NY

 

 

The ongoing trial to make sweeping changes to the NYPD's stop-and-frisk tactic is bringing people of all walks of life who have been negatively affected together. Recently, NYCHA residents let their voices be heard about how the practice is hurting them.

 

Public housing residents and community advocates packed the federal courtroom featuring a historic stop-and-frisk trial to emphasize the impact of stop-and-frisks on NYCHA residents last Wednesday, then later held a press conference.

 

Residents who were stopped and frisked spoke about the emotional toll and the potential eviction from their homes in NYCHA's developments. The demonstration and press conference was organized by a coalition of community groups, including the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) and Families United for Racial & Economic Equality (FUREE).

 

"Every time I come to my cousin's house, the cops stop me, call me all kinds of names and push me around. They have stopped me from coming to see my cousins," said a 23-year-old Black male resident from Claremont Consolidated Houses in the South Bronx, who asked that his name and identity be withheld. "I've been arrested for no reason and held at central booking for two to three days, all for coming to see my family. You become used to it when you look like me. This is an everyday thing."

 

Though housing residents make up about 5 percent of the city's population, in the past seven years, between 11 percent and 15 percent of all documented stops took place on NYHCA's property. Public housing residents are at an even higher risk of negative consequences from stop-and-frisks since the stops within NYCHA developments have not only led to trespass arrests, but those arrests can put residents in jeopardy of being evicted from their homes.

 

"As a Black man and lifelong resident of Mott Haven Houses, I can't walk into my house or buy milk for my daughter in the next development without being stopped and frisked or without the threat of arrest. I have filed over 30 complaints and nothing ever happens—not even a notice that my complaint has been registered. We deserve to live with respect and dignity," said Arnaldo Arzu, member of Community Voices Heard.

 

Baruch Houses resident Carmen Negron recalled several months ago that she asked her 22-year-old son to go get the mail when she begin to realize that it had taken him longer than usual. She got a knock on her door, and she saw her son and two officers standing there when she opened.

 

"The officer said he was loitering in the lobby and had no identification on him," she said. "I explained that he just went to the lobby to get the mail and that he had the key to the mailbox, which could have verified that he is a resident here. They were belligerent and did not want to listen to me. They even ended up threatening me that if they would have decided to place a complaint against us, our tenancy could have been in jeopardy."

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

S.Q.F.  /  NYPD $$ Lawyer Lotto $$  a/k/a  "Going for the Gold"

 

Getting Hard for Him to ♥ New York

By Unnamed Author(s) — Friday, April 19th, 2013 'The Courthouse News Service' / Pasadena, CA

 

 

MANHATTAN (CN) - New York police arrested and prosecuted a man four times for going to his mom's home, where he lived, then the New York Post defamed him by calling him a "homeless burglar," the man claims in court.

 

Aaron Lewitinn sued New York, an assistant district attorney in Richmond County, The New York Post and three of its reporters, in New York County Supreme Court. He also sued 15 Does, employees of the NYPD and the Richmond County District Attorney's Office.

 

"The City of New York, through the New York Police Department and the Richmond County District Attorney's Office, in a pattern of recklessness and wantonness, repeatedly arrested Lewitinn and subjected him to prosecution, only to eventually dismiss the cases in each and every action," the complaint states.

 

Lewitinn was arrested four times in 2010, on March 31, and Sept. 5, 10 and 12, at his mom's house in Staten Island. He lived there with her permission, Lewitinn says. Each time he was charged with criminal trespass, and each time the case was dropped - eventually. The last one was dismissed on Jan. 11, 2012.

 

On Sept. 15, 2010, the Post named him in its "NYPD Daily Blotter" column, calling him "a 'homeless burglar' who had broken into a home ... after he had 'busted the door frame and was in the basement, sifting through his pal's belongings. ...' The article is still on The New York Post's website at the filing of this complaint, and the article is the first entry in a Google search of 'Aaron Lewitinn,'" the complaint states.

 

"Defendants' unlawful conduct was knowing, malicious, willful and wanton and/or showed a reckless disregard for Lewitinn's rights, which has caused and continues to cause Lewitinn disgrace, humiliation and shame, and permanent harm to his professional and personal reputations, and severe mental anguish and mental distress."

 

Lewitinn, who has moved to Manhattan, seeks a restraining order and punitive damages for libel, malicious prosecution and emotional distress. He is represented by Bruno Bier.

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

New NYPD chief to talk to Staten Island youth about 'Stop & Frisk'

By Unnamed Author(s) — Friday, April 19th, 2013  — Friday, April 19th, 2013 'The Staten Island Advance' / Staten Island

 

 

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Newly appointed NYPD Chief of Department Phillip Banks III will represent the force in "Stop and Frisk: A Youth Dialogue" Saturday at 12:30 p.m. in Olivet Presbyterian Church, 97 Myrtle Ave., West Brighton.

 

Young people, boys and young men are especially welcome to attend the two-hour discussion.

 

A relatively new program, Stop and Frisk allows police to detain, question and search civilians at will.  (??) Adherents claim the practice is reducing crime. Critics say it is unfairly applied to young men of color, and violates their rights.

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

 

34th Precinct P.O. Jonathan Wally Not The Sharpest Tool in the Shed 

 

NYPD officer charged with filing fake tax returns and scamming $100,000 in refunds
Jonathan Wally filed phony tax returns for himself and clients between 2009 and 2013. He is also accused of using dozens of fraudulent Social Security numbers to create fictitious dependents for his clients.

By Robert Gearty AND Shane Dixon Kavanaugh — Friday, April 19th, 2013 'The New York Daily News'

 

 

An NYPD officer moonlighting as a tax preparer is charged with scamming the IRS out of nearly $100,000, officials said Thursday.

 

Jonathan Wally, 33, filed a slew of bogus tax returns between 2009 and 2013 to line his and his clients' pockets, according to court documents.

 

In 2009 alone, Wally, who is assigned to the 34th Precinct in Washington Heights and Inwood, filed 33 fraudulent tax returns that netted $95,000 in refunds, court papers show.

 

He is also accused of using dozens of fraudulent Social Security numbers to create fictitious dependents for his clients.

 

Federal prosecutors charged the 10-year NYPD veteran with two counts of tax fraud and three counts of identity theft.

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

Police Officer Charged in Tax Fraud Scheme

By J. DAVID GOODMAN — Friday, April 19th, 2013 'The New York Times'

 

 

It is a scam as brazen as it was familiar to the Internal Revenue Service.

 

Federal authorities charged a New York City police officer with filing more than a dozen fraudulent tax returns for himself and others, including many in which children were falsely claimed as dependents, according to a criminal complaint unsealed on Thursday in Manhattan.

 

The officer, Jonathan Wally, 33, kept a list of names and Social Security numbers of at least 52 children born in 2007, the complaint said. The list was stored in a Bronx office where he had been improperly moonlighting as a tax preparer without authorization from the Police Department, the authorities said.

 

As a result of false returns filed by Officer Wally from 2010 to 2012, the complaint said, the I.R.S. paid refunds of about $120,000.

 

Since 2008, when Officer Wally received a tax preparer number from the I.R.S., he had used 9 of the names on 13 people's tax returns, the complaint said. All of the children have Puerto Rican Social Security numbers.

 

"Individuals with Puerto Rican Social Security numbers who reside in Puerto Rico are not required to file tax returns with the I.R.S.," Robert D. Beranger, a criminal investigator with the agency, wrote in the complaint. "Puerto Rican Social Security numbers are often used by individuals who commit tax offenses similar to the offenses Wally is charged with committing."

 

Officer Wally was arrested on Thursday and suspended from the department pending results of the case, the police said.

 

Messages left for Officer Wally's lawyer were not immediately returned.

 

A 10-year veteran of the department based in the 34th Precinct, Officer Wally told at least two people that they would get bigger refunds if they claimed a dependent and that he would furnish a name for their return, according to the complaint. In at least four cases, he added a dependent to returns without the knowledge of those for whom he was preparing the documents, the complaint said.

 

The complaint said Officer Wally had skimmed from the returns of his clients, which number in the hundreds, and also added a false dependent to his own returns.

 

And, the authorities said, he did not declare the income he made from preparing all these returns: more than $112,652 over three years.

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

NYPD Officer Charged With Tax Fraud, Identity Theft

By Bryan Graham — Thursday, April 18th, 2013; 7:18 p.m.  'DNAinfo.Com News' / Manhattan

 

 

NEW YORK — An NYPD officer was arrested and charged with tax fraud this week, after allegedly filing false tax returns, according to a criminal court complaint.

 

Police officer Jonathan Wally, 33, was charged Wednesday with filing fraudulent tax returns and identity theft, officials said. He appeared in Manhattan Federal Court on Thursday.

 

Wally, a 10-year veteran of the NYPD assigned the 34th Precinct in Washington Heights and Inwood, was accused of filing the falsified returns while moonlighting as a tax preparer for himself and others.

 

Wally was released on a $50,000 bond. He is due back in court on May 20.

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

Patty Lynch and the NYC P.B.A.

 

NYPD and Port Authority cops report to Boston

By Danielle Tcholakian — Thursday, April 18th, 2013;  'Metro New York.Com'  / New York, NY

 

 

About 10 officers from the NYPD and the Port Authority Police Department arrived in Boston on Wednesday to set up camp in some trailers at the intersection of Berkeley and Boylston Streets, near the site of Monday's bombings.

 

The officers handed out coffee and lunch to investigators working tirelessly along the still blood-stained streets, the Daily News reported.

 

"Our department has, unfortunately, been down this road," Port Authority cop Ray Butler told the News.

 

President of the New York City Patrolmen's Benevolent Association noted that crews of Boston officers came to provide support to New York cops after September 11th.

 

"It's our way to say, 'Thank you for what you did for us. You gave us your shoulder. Now here's our shoulder,'" Lynch said.

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

BOROBEAT COP CORNER

By Bob Kappstatter — Thursday, April 18th, 2013;  'The Bronx Times' / Da Bronx

 

 

We know we're entering a lion's den with this one involving Amadou Diallo, but here goes:

 

With that lawsuit in federal court accusing the NYPD's Stop-and-Frisk (whatever happened to the "Question" part?) being more of a numbers-driven game targeting minorities, we had an interesting conversation with a high-ranking boss.

 

They suggested that besides fine tuning Stop-(Question)-and-Frisk, AND re-emphasizing the department motto of "Courtesy, Professionalism and Respect," you might actually get a ton of guns off Bronx and other streets by beefing up the department's narcotics and warrants units.

 

They also bit a political bullet, cautiously suggesting it might finally also be time to bring back the citywide Street Crime Unit.

 

Yes, THAT unit, the one that was disbanded after the tragic chain of circumstances that night on Wheeler Avenue 14 years ago that left Amadou Diallo dead and a city outraged.

 

When it was working – and before it was expanded too rapidly with less training for its cops – the SCU worked, and worked well. As lotsa cops have told us, "those guys could smell a gun."

 

Okay, start beating us up....

 

 

PASSINGS

 

Condolences to family of Jerry Lange, vice president of security at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital and former Patrolmen's Benevolent Association Bronx trustee, with roots at the 47 Precinct. A gentleman and a good guy. RIP.

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

Israel Police Chief Visits NYC Gets Police Tour; Signs Agreement with Kelly

 

Israel's top cop: My guys can learn manners from the NYPD
Yochanan Danino visiting New York, meeting with Ray Kelly

By Thomas Tracy — Friday, April 19th, 2013 'The New York Daily News'

 

 

Israel's top cop wants his police force to have better manners — and he's using the NYPD as his role model.

 

"There is no reason that we can't be like the NYPD," Israel Police Chief Yochanan Danino told the Daily News Wednesday.

 

"(We can be) even better," he said.

 

Danino is visiting the city this week to tour the NYPD's "Ring of Steel" — a surveillance camera network that blankets midtown Manhattan — and to talk to Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly about anti-terrorist tactics.

 

He says he hopes to learn how NYPD officers are trained to address the public and handle quality-of-life complaints.

 

"I want to see how the police officers here treat the people that obey the law," he said. "On one hand they can be very polite and give citizens all the help they need and on the other hand be tough when it comes to criminals."

 

Danino, who was named head of Israel's nationwide security force two years ago, has already taken steps to emulate the NYPD: his agency's new uniforms look just like the ones New York's boys in blue wear.

 

"It's almost the same uniform," Danino explained. But it's hot in Israel, he said, so their uniforms needed to be more lightweight. "We didn't change the colors, but we changed the material."

 

Danino's interest in Big Apple police procedures comes as the NYPD is embroiled in a federal stop-and-frisk trial where police officers are accused of harassing minorities.

 

Some elected officials are also demanding police brass answer to an inspector general.

 

Critics say cops in the land of milk and honey can do better than getting tips from the NYPD.

 

"(Israel is showing) an incredible lack of concern for community relations if they're trying to emulate broken windows policing and out of control stop-and-frisk practices," said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. "There is a lot that is highly professional about the NYPD, but the disdain for the niceties of individual rights isn't one of them."

 

Danino shrugged off the naysayers.

 

"No matter where you are in the world, people will always find things to criticize their police agency," he said.

 

Danino hopes that copying NYPD courtesy, professionalism and respect will help raise his agency's approval rating, which was a miserable 41% when he took over.

 

It's currently at 61%, he said — still lower than the NYPD's 71%.

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

Cooperation with NYPD on Disasters, Fraud, Cyber Crime

By Unnamed Author(s) — Friday, April 19th, 2013 'Arutz Sheva News' / Beit El, Israel

 

 

Israel Police Commissioner Yochanan Danino and New York Police Chief Raymond Kelly reached agreement, Thursday, to establish joint working teams on massive disasters, cyber crime and money laundering.

 

Danino said that the challenges of modern crime in the field of terror demand tightened cooperation and maximum real-time transfer of information between the police forces.

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

Raymond Kelly and the 'Hip Hopping Rappers' 

 

NYPD & Hip-Hop Summit Youth Council Join to Kick Off "Rap 2 Bridge The Gap" Initiative to Connect Police & City Youth

By Unnamed Author(s) — Thursday, April 18th, 2013  'The Brooklyn News' / Brooklyn

(Edited for brevity and Kelly) 

 

 

New York City Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, Charles Fisher and his son Randy Fisher, joined by August Martin High School Principal Gillian Smith, students and members of the Hip-Hop Summit Youth Council (HHSYC) announced Wednesday the beginning of a new initiative aimed at closing the communication space between police and the city's youth.

 

The "Rap 2 Bridge the Gap" program was the inspiration of the Fishers, well-known community activists who established the HHSYC in 2001.

 

"Whether it's promoting literacy, fighting poverty, or combating violent crime, they can always be counted on to bring people together to achieve these goals, including young people and the police," Commissioner Kelly said. "I'm confident this program will be a big success because of their dedication."

 

The initiative, which began Wednesday at August Martin High School in Queens with more than 100 students and will be extended to additional schools citywide, involves groups of young people in open forums candidly asking police officers about sensitive issues ranging in topic from legal definitions to police-involved shootings, from departmental disciplinary processes to school safety, from stop-and-frisk to community policing.

 

"We have been working with Commissioner Kelly and his staff for months to roll out this project and we wanted to make sure that all components were in place to address issues related to Stop, Question and Frisk, as well as bridging the communication gap between students, youth, young adults and the NYPD," said Charles Fisher, founder and chairman of the HHSYC.

 

Commissioner Kelly added that the NYPD will also team with the HHSYC to promote existing police department programs that already service tens of thousands of young people, including the youth police academy, summer employment, the Police Athletic League (PAL), and the department's youth soccer and cricket leagues.

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

New York State

 

Newburgh fires disgraced detective
(Unauthorized Use of  a Police Computer)

By Doyle Murphy — Friday, April 19th, 2013 'The Times Herald-Record' / Middletown, NY

 

 

CITY OF NEWBURGH — The city has fired a detective who used his cop resources to keep tabs on his former girlfriends.

 

Detective John Staton was suspended in June after the city brought civil service charges against him, alleging he used a law enforcement database on 15 occasions to run unauthorized background checks, and then lied when police Chief Michael Ferrara questioned him about it.

 

Former girlfriends told the Times Herald-Record in 2012 they were told by the city that someone had accessed their personal information, such as Social Security numbers. At least one woman's relative also was notified by the city.

 

A notice of claim filed by two women, identified in court papers only as "Jane Doe I" and "Jane Doe II," alleges Staton's victims numbered at least 20.

 

Staton fought the city's allegations, forcing a closed-door disciplinary hearing in City Hall. He was represented by attorneys from Teamsters Local 445, which represents the Police Benevolent Association in Newburgh.

 

In a decision released to the city and Staton on Friday, the hearing officer concluded Staton was guilty of all charges. Teamsters' leadership did not respond to numerous phone messages. City Manager Richard Herbek notified Staton in a letter on Monday he would be fired.

 

"In considering the appropriate penalty, the Hearing Officer noted that you committed multiple acts of moral turpitude, demonstrated a lack of integrity and poor judgment, placed your personal needs above all else and lied to the Chief of Police," Herbek wrote in the letter obtained by the Times Herald-Record.

 

Herbek did not respond to a request for comment. In his letter, he noted that Staton attempted to resign after learning of the hearing officer's decision. Herbek wrote that he rejected the resignation, and the city had chosen to "terminate" his employment.

 

According the Herbek's letter, the hearing officer found Staton violated not only departmental policies but several state laws when he abused the database. It was not clear whether Staton would face any criminal charges as a result. Orange County District Attorney Frank Phillips and Chief Ferrara did not respond to requests for comment about that possibility.

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

U.S.A.

 

How the NRA won                    
(Bloomberg Loses Big)

By Anna Palmer and John Bresnahan — Friday, April 19th, 2013 'Politico' / Arlington, Virginia

 

 

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Rep. Gabby Giffords took on gun reform with the best of modern campaign tactics – spend millions on new groups, air slick TV ads and tap into social media.

 

The gun lobby dusted off the playbook it's used since the 1980s: yield no ground in negotiations, focus on a few targeted senators, galvanize 4 million NRA members with direct mail, and hold up the NRA scorecard as a thinly veiled threat ahead of the 2014 midterms.

 

The winner: the NRA's playbook.

 

When the Senate voted down a bipartisan bill to expand background checks Wednesday, it was a stark reminder that big money groups are still no match for the NRA's ability to get what it wants by playing retail politics — or delivering payback.

 

"They knew the key targets, got the right people to talk to them… and the reality is no matter how much [President Barack] Obama said they lied, it's their political power," said a lobbyist familiar with their effort.

 

"The power of the [NRA] scorecard is still huge," this lobbyist added. "Some people are going to have trouble getting reelected because of what they did."

 

Obama himself acknowledged the NRA's power in an emotional, sometimes angry, speech following the Senate vote.

 

"It came down to politics the worry that that vocal minority of gun owners would come after them in future elections. They worried that the gun lobby would spend a lot of money and paint them as anti-Second Amendment," Obama said.

 

"And obviously, a lot of Republicans had that fear, but Democrats had that fear, too. And so they caved to the pressure, and they started looking for an excuse - any excuse - to vote 'no.'"

 

Obama has now learned what other presidents had to learn as well — the NRA controls gun politics on Capitol Hill and will continue to do so until dethroned. The bill put forth by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) wasn't close to what gun control advocates wanted, but it still went down in defeat.

 

There was a brief moment – immediately after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting – when it looked like it might be different this time. The scope of the tragedy in Newtown, Conn., that left 20 children dead. The president took to the bully pulpit. Giffords, herself a victim of gun violence, joined the cause. Bloomberg, a multi-billionaire who passionately backs more gun regulation, put up millions to push reform.

 

But facing its first real test in more than a decade, the NRA had several factors working in its favor.

 

One of the most critical was that the 2014 Senate map played to their strength. Red state Democrats like Sens. Max Baucus (Mont.), Mark Pryor (Ark.) and Mark Begich (Alaska), all of whom are up next year, who would be leery of supporting the background checks measure while in cycle. All three ended up voting against the measure.

 

And newly elected Democratic Sens. Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.) and Joe Donnelly (Ind.) would also be in a tough position having to cast their first vote on gun-related issue. Ultimately, the two split, with Heitkamp voting against the amendment while Donnelly backed it.

 

The NRA also played a smart inside political game, identifying 20 potential Senate targets early on for special attention. The NRA eventually whittled that list down to between six and eight senators before the vote.

 

NRA officials and lobbyists kept in contact with their allies on Capitol Hill, providing lots of information to senators looking for reasons not to vote for the measure. And they even kept in contact with senators looking to cut a deal on background checks, though sources familiar with the group said they never seriously considered moving off their total opposition to the measure.

 

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), knowing that he couldn't pass them, pulled a ban on assault weapons and prohibition on high-capacity ammunition clips from the Democratic gun bill even before they got to the floor. Democrats gambled that the NRA couldn't oppose background checks after Newtown. But they were wrong.

 

Manchin tried unsuccessfully to find a way to keep the NRA neutral on his background checks bill. Manchin even included provisions in his proposal favored by the organization, such as easing restrictions on interstate gun sales and new protections for gun owners traveling with their weapons. His efforts failed and the group came out strongly against the proposal, threatening to work to defeat those senators who backed it.

 

"The National Rifle Association strongly opposes the Manchin-Toomey-Schumer amendment," said a message sent to senators' offices the night before Wednesday's vote. "Due to the importance of this issue, votes on this amendment will be considered in future candidate ratings and endorsements by the NRA Political Victory Fund."

 

The NRA's one concession was procedural — deciding not to score senators' vote on a cloture motion to proceed to debate on the gun bill. When 68 senators voted to end the GOP filibuster - including 16 Republicans - supporters of the Manchin-Toomey bill thought they had momentum on their side. But it was not be. The NRA's decision helped lawmakers who wanted to be able to start the discussion while not giving anything up politically. And it's one they've made before.

 

While NRA head Wayne LaPierre was vilified in the press, the group used that to its benefit too, arguing to NRA members that new gun laws would create a gun registry and reinforced the narrative of non-gun owners trying to take away their rights.

 

The NRA also played the outside game, turning on its grassroots machine. And that's ultimately how gun-rights supporters believe they won.

 

"The core of this campaign was good old fashioned direct mail," said Pat O'Malley, a veteran gun consultant. "The difference is they were shoveling money and trying to hammer everybody with Astroturf. Our side was very legitimate grassroots inputs."

 

The group's grassroots leaders and lobbying arm worked very closely together in the run up to the vote. Using real time information from shoe leather lobbyists, the group would shift its resources and messages after getting intel on how senators were leaning, according to a source familiar with the NRA.

 

The NRA spent $700,000 during the first quarter of 2013. In addition to its in-house lobbying team lead by Chris Cox and Jim Baker, the group has a slew of hired guns, including Prime Policy Group, SNR Denton, Shockey Scofield, Robison International, C2 Group and Crossroads Strategies.

 

The NRA did not respond to a request for comment.

 

After the Newton shooting, newly created gun-control groups sprung into action. Giffords made an impassioned personal appeal and started Americans for Responsible Solutions, which called for new gun regulations.

 

And Bloomberg, through the group Mayors Against Illegal Guns, was dumping millions of dollars into a TV ad targeting more than a dozen senators. Another Bloomberg-backed super PAC poured more than $2 million into an Illinois special election against former Rep. Debbie Halvorson (D), who was leading the race and had received an "A" rating from the NRA when she was in Congress. Halvorson lost.

 

Yet some of their strategies of the groups backfired. For instance, Bloomberg's group put up ads over the last congressional recess in states like Arkansas and Arizona. Instead of having their intended effect, it gave Pryor and Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) the political cover to say the big city mayor didn't help them make political decisions.

 

Bloomberg's MAIG will now run ads thanking Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) for supporting the Manchin-Toomey proposal. MAIG's Mark Glaze said they are trying to use the outrage over the failed amendment to good use — recording robocalls with one of the Tucson, Ariz., shooting survivors, staging more than a dozen events at senators' offices who voted "no" on Manchin-Toomey in coming days.

 

"Five members are going to need to change their votes and we'll be working very hard to make that happen in every way that we can," Glaze said. "We have lots of means at our disposal."

 

Despite the loss, gun safety advocates like Giffords' husband Mark Kelly vowed to press on. Kelly told reporters Thursday that they plan to run ads thanking lawmakers who supporting the measure, including McCain and Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), and Kay Hagan (D-N.C.).

 

As for 2014, Kelly said, "it's a target rich environment," but declined to give specifics on which lawmakers they may train their sights on.

 

"You have to give it up for the NRA," said a Democratic lobbyist for a gun-control group. "They haven't changed their methods, and they won't until somebody beats them. That's hasn't happened yet."

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

Gun control fight was a lobbyists' magnet; backers insist they'll fight on

By Anita Kumar — Friday, April 19th, 2013 'McClatchy Newspapers'

 

 

WASHINGTON — The activists who launched an unprecedented campaign to impose stricter firearms regulations vowed Thursday to keep pressing Congress, despite a major congressional defeat this week.

 

They pledged to continue holding protests and rallies, vigils and petition drives.

 

"Neither of us is deterred," said Mark Kelly, the husband of former Democratic congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in 2011 outside a supermarket in Tucson, Ariz., where she was holding a public meeting. "When Gabby leaves the house every day to go to therapy, the last thing she says to me, it is, 'Fight, fight, fight.'"

 

Their organization, Americans for Responsible Solutions, and others that launched a national movement to tighten gun laws after the mass shooting of 20 schoolchildren in Newtown, Conn., will continue the campaign by thanking senators who voted for the legislation and trying to "shame" the ones who didn't.

 

"If members of the Senate will not do their jobs and work to keep our community safer, then we are going to have to change who is in Congress," Kelly told reporters Thursday at the National Press Club.

 

But some lawmakers who opposed their efforts appeared to revel in the bill's failure. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who is facing re-election next year, used his campaign's Facebook page to poke fun at the other side. Beside a picture of Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., it shows McConnell using his thumb and index finger to form a "zero" and it reads, "You can have this much gun control."

 

For weeks, President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden traveled the nation to rally support and pressed senators in phone calls and over dinners. Lobbyists roamed Capitol Hill, while armies of volunteers called residents and knocked on doors to drum up public support. Billboards were erected and television ads aired in key states.

 

The Senate defeated a sweeping package of legislation Wednesday night, including proposals to expand background checks on firearm purchases, reinstate the assault weapons ban, prohibit high-capacity magazines and increase penalties for gun trafficking.

 

In a pointed op-ed column published in Thursday's New York Times, Giffords dismissed arguments from opposing senators as "vague platitudes."

 

"I know what a complicated issue is; I know what it feels like to take a tough vote," the former Arizona congresswoman said. "This was neither. . . . I am asking every reasonable American to help me tell the truth about the cowardice these senators demonstrated."

 

But Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who voted against a proposed bipartisan compromise to tighten background checks, said on his Facebook page that the measure "simply goes too far." He said it would have expanded "far beyond commercial sales to include almost all private transfers – including between friends and neighbors – if the posting or display of the ad for a firearm was made public. It would likely even extend to message boards, like the one in an office kitchen."

 

Gun control has been debated before in Washington, but never has it taken center stage the way it has following the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December.

 

"Guns haven't been an issue for quite some time on the national scene," said William Vizzard, a criminal justice professor at California State University, Sacramento, who was a special agent-in-charge at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. "It's the biggest hubbub on guns in a long time."

 

Gun rights groups fought back primarily through news conferences, quiet meetings and swarms of lobbyists. Andrew Arulanandam, a spokesman for the most powerful gun rights group, the National Rifle Association, said its strength comes from its 5 million members and tens of millions of supporters, who pushed senators with letters, emails, phone calls and appearances at town hall meetings.

 

"What our members did and did well was let members of Congress know where they stand," he said.

 

But White House spokesman Josh Earnest alluded to the NRA's efforts – without naming the group – saying Thursday that "attempts to mislead the American public about the contents of the legislation are unconscionable."

 

Since the Newtown shooting in December, 45 lobbyists representing 10 groups have registered to lobby on the issue, according to records filed with the Senate.

 

They include big players, such as the NRA, and prominent gun control organizations like the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence and Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a large national coalition founded by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

 

The Remington Outdoor Co., which bills itself as America's oldest gun maker; the National Organization of Police; and TheTeaParty.net, a non-profit group that supports conservative political values, each hired a professional lobbyist. Dick's Sporting Goods, a national chain that sells guns, and a group representing the Newtown families, Sandy Hook Promise, each hired nine.

 

Brian Malte, the Brady Campaign's director of mobilization, said the group hired its first outside lobbyist in years when it appeared that Newtown might spur action. It hired seven lobbyists to supplement its two on staff.

 

"This time people are getting up off their couches and doing more," Malte said.

 

In past years, gun rights groups have spent millions more dollars than gun control groups on lobbying. For example, gun rights groups spent $6 million on 44 lobbyists in 2012, while gun control organizations spent $240,000 on eight lobbyists, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Similar records are not yet available for this year.

 

Since January, Giffords' group, Americans for Responsible Solution, raised millions of dollars and attracted 300,000 members, said executive director Pia Carusone, a former top aide to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. Carusone appeared with Kelly at the press club.

 

Robert Spitzer, a political scientist at State University of New York-Cortland, who has written extensively on gun control, said the debate has been more intense this time around, in part because of the influential lobbying role of Newtown families and crime victims, such as Giffords.

 

Still, that did not deliver a victory.

 

"These people have been extremely persistent," he said. "Persistence counts for a lot, especially in politics."

 

A glance at this week's schedule underscores how hard-fought the battle became:

 

On Monday, the mother of a gun violence survivor delivered more than 1.3 million petition signatures in favor of legislation to Capitol Hill.

 

On Tuesday, the sixth anniversary of the massacre at Virginia Tech, families of victims from that shooting, Tucson and Newtown held a vigil while Giffords attended the dedication of a room at the Capitol named for a Tucson victim.

 

On Wednesday, a series of so-called stroller jams – a designated time when mothers went office to office on Capitol Hill with children in strollers on Capitol Hill to lobby lawmakers – took place in Washington and at Senate offices across the nation in key states.

 

On Thursday, a flurry of lobbyists and volunteers packed Capitol Hill in the hours during and after the final votes.

 

"If it doesn't happen this year," said Erin Gormley, head of the Maryland chapter of Moms Demand Action, "we'll be back next year."

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

Friday, April 19th, 2013 'The New York Times' Editorial:

Criminalizing Children at School

 

 

The National Rifle Association and President Obama responded to the Newtown, Conn., shootings by recommending that more police officers be placed in the nation's schools. But a growing body of research suggests that, contrary to popular wisdom, a larger police presence in schools generally does little to improve safety. It can also create a repressive environment in which children are arrested or issued summonses for minor misdeeds — like cutting class or talking back — that once would have been dealt with by the principal.

 

Stationing police in schools, while common today, was virtually unknown during the 1970s. Things began to change with the surge of juvenile crime during the '80s, followed by an overreaction among school officials. Then came the 1999 Columbine High School shooting outside Denver, which prompted a surge in financing for specially trained police. In the mid-1970s, police patrolled about 1 percent of schools. By 2008, the figure was 40 percent.

 

The belief that police officers automatically make schools safer was challenged in a 2011 study that compared federal crime data of schools that had police officers with schools that did not. It found that the presence of the officers did not drive down crime. The study — by Chongmin Na of The University of Houston, Clear Lake, and Denise Gottfredson of the University of Maryland — also found that with police in the buildings, routine disciplinary problems began to be treated as criminal justice problems, increasing the likelihood of arrests.

 

Children as young as 12 have been treated as criminals for shoving matches and even adolescent misconduct like cursing in school. This is worrisome because young people who spend time in adult jails are more likely to have problems with law enforcement later on. Moreover, federal data suggest a pattern of discrimination in the arrests, with black and Hispanic children more likely to be affected than their white peers.

 

In Texas, civil rights groups filed a federal complaint against the school district in the town of Bryan. The lawyers say African-American students are four times as likely as other students to be charged with misdemeanors, which can carry fines up to $500 and lead to jail time for disrupting class or using foul language.

 

The criminalization of misbehavior so alarmed the New York City Council that, in 2010, it passed the Student Safety Act, which requires detailed police reports on which students are arrested and why. (Data from the 2011-12 school year show that black students are being disproportionately arrested and suspended.)

 

Some critics now want to require greater transparency in the reporting process to make the police even more forthcoming. Elsewhere in the country, judges, lawmakers and children's advocates have been working hard to dismantle what they have begun to call the school-to-prison pipeline.

 

Given the growing criticism, districts that have gotten along without police officers should think twice before deploying them in school buildings.

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

Friday, April 19th, 2013 'The New York Times' Editorial:

The Constitution and Blood Testing

 

 

Drunken driving kills someone every 53 minutes — 9,878 times in the United States in 2011. But the problem, however grave, should not be solved by policies that violate constitutional rights. The Supreme Court was correct when it ruled Wednesday that a Missouri policy requiring a blood test, even without a search warrant, of anyone arrested on charges of driving under the influence of alcohol violated the Constitution's Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches — unless circumstances demand immediate action and justify a warrantless test.

 

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in an opinion joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and, for the most part, Anthony Kennedy, said that drawing blood to test its alcohol concentration is "an invasion of bodily integrity" that involves an individual's "most personal and deep-rooted expectations of privacy."

 

In Missouri v. McNeely, the police forced a driver to take a blood test at a hospital without a warrant, after he refused to take a breath test with a portable machine when he was stopped for erratic driving at 2:08 a.m. The blood test showed that his blood alcohol content was 0.154 percent, or almost twice the state's legal limit.

 

The Missouri Supreme Court ruled that the warrantless blood test was an unreasonable search: there was no emergency that kept the police from getting a warrant in a timely manner, before the alcohol in the driver's blood dissipated. It is this ruling that the Supreme Court, quite properly, has upheld.

 

Justice Sotomayor acknowledged that in some circumstances it is impractical for the police to get a warrant as soon as needed since the level of alcohol declines gradually when someone stops drinking. But a majority of states let police or prosecutors apply for warrants quickly by phone, e-mail or video conferencing. In this case, a prosecutor was on call to apply for a warrant and a judge to issue one. The officer did not try to get one simply because he thought it was not required. The Supreme Court has said wisely that it was.

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

Baltimore, Maryland

 

Baltimore Police spot error in counting city rape statistics
Oversight panel worked with police to correct undercounting, officials say

By Justin Fenton — Friday, April 19th, 2013 'The Baltimore Sun' / Baltimore, MD

 

 

Baltimore police have been underreporting the number of rapes across the city this year, but officials described the problem as a data error and stressed that it did not affect the number of cases being investigated by sex offense detectives.

 

The mistake resulted in 16 rape cases being miscategorized in the agency's records management system, which reduced the number reported through the Comstat program. The program produces publicly available data that commanders use to track crime trends. Police said they had flagged the problem and were working to correct it.

 

"I'm extremely confident in the process we have to serve victims of sexual assault and rape," said Capt. Martin Bartness, the commander overseeing the sex offense unit. "We are doing right by our victims."

 

The incorrect data showed 45 rapes reported this year through April 13, compared with 81 at the same time last year — a decline of 44 percent, the largest drop of any category of crime.

 

Heather Brantner, the coordinator of the city's Sexual Assault Response Team, said the problem appeared largely superficial. Her group includes victim advocates and was formed in 2010 after The Baltimore Sun reported that police were discarding rape reports at the highest rate in the nation.

 

Members of the team began to notice the drop in recent weeks and had been discussing possible reasons for the decline.

 

Brantner said police took a closer look at the data, and determined that the unit's database of rape investigations showed a higher number. The number of rapes being investigated by the unit instead showed a decline of 25 percent over the same time last year, police said.

 

That's still a notable decline, and Bartness said members of the sexual assault response team are tracking the issue. The sex offense unit's statistics are scrutinized regularly, and Brantner has access to the internal police databases to look over the shoulder of detectives.

 

She said the group also discusses the data with advocacy groups, medical providers and counseling centers to make sure they match the experience on the ground.

 

"We're really dialed in," Bartness said. "At the end of the day, I'm extremely confident in the process we have to serve victims of sexual assault and rape."

 

Deputy Commissioner John P. Skinner said the agency reviewed other categories of crime and have not seen the same problem. He stressed that the records management data are constantly reviewed and not official until they are reported to the FBI, which collects the data nationally.

 

When an officer in the field writes a police report, it is hand-delivered to the agency's records management section. Skinner said the reports are reviewed by a specialist to make sure the category of crime matches what's described in the report. The report is then scanned in and entered into a computer system, he said.

 

Detectives separately enter cases into a database that allows them to enter summaries and progress notes. That database is where the sex offense unit said it keeps its official accounting of cases.

 

Police Commissioner Anthony W. Batts has said he wants to upgrade both systems.

 

Skinner said the undercounting in the records management system appeared to be the result of clerical errors — for example, he said, a crime that was supposed to be classified as a "3J" being entered as a "3G" — and was not "downgrading" of the incidents, because sex offense detectives were still investigating them as serious crimes.

 

Skinner said the sex offense unit will submit its statistics directly to the Comstat program until the problem is resolved. He said police take the same approach with "shootings," a category that appears on Comstat reports but is not one that the agency has to report to the FBI. Shootings are broadly counted among aggravated assaults, but police count them separately on internal records so they know where they stand.

 

In 2010, The Sun reported that sex offense detectives were consistently discarding a high percentage of reports as "unfounded," meaning no crime occurred. Officials acknowledged a widespread problem, and made a number of reforms, including the formation of the sexual assault response team and launching a public awareness campaign.

 

While 31 percent of cases were deemed "unfounded" in 2009, just 1.7 percent were classified that way last year, Brantner said.

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

Homeland Security

 

One on One: Tim Jones of Buzzient, Hunting Chatter on Explosives

By AMY O'LEARY — Friday, April 19th, 2013 'The New York Times' 'Technology Bits'

 

 

When two bombs exploded at Monday's Boston Marathon, good Samaritans of all sorts rushed in, from off-duty medical personnel to residents who opened their homes to evacuees. Tim Jones, the chief executive of Buzzient, a Boston-area social media management start-up, felt a similar urge to help, using his company's ability to search Web history on forums, comments and social media, to focus on specific topics —  like explosives.

 

Mr. Jones also happens to be the former head of an explosives-detection company. Given his background, he jumped in when this week's news broke — as a kind of virtual bystander. Nearly two years ago, he had offered his company's social media monitoring tools to the Boston Police Department, pro bono. This week, his first thought was to tweak his company's search algorithms to target online chatter about explosives, in case the police department would seek that kind of data as their investigation continued. The following is condensed and edited from an interview with Mr. Jones about his company's volunteer efforts to assist with the investigation.

 

 

Q.  Your company, Buzzient, has been working pro bono with the Boston Police Department since 2011, shortly after the London riots. How did that relationship begin?

 

A.    We were big proponents of Boston's "innovation district" about two years ago, and with that started to work more closely with the mayor's office. I received an inquiry from the mayor's chief of staff, and this was right after the London riots.

 

The London police weren't paying attention to social networks, they had no idea that groups of people were communicating on social networks saying: "Hey, five guys, take tube and start something here. Another five guys take the tube and start something there." The Boston Police Department saw that, thought, "Hmm, this is something we should pay attention to."

 

Police Commissioner Ed Davis reached out to me and said, "Hey, we're interested in what you guys are doing, we'd like to know a little bit more." He came over to our office, sat down with us, and saw that there was kind of a shared vision of how we could use emerging technology to at least give them a little bit of an early warning system. So what we offered to do was make this available to them pro bono. To be clear, there's no financial relationship between Buzzient and the City of Boston, we've never been formally requested by the City of Boston or the F.B.I. to use Buzzient. It's something we just did because it was the right thing to do.

 

 

Q.   How did you first hear the news on Monday about the explosions at the Boston Marathon?

 

A.   I saw a couple of alerts on the phone. The first thing I did was I sat down and just logged into the system myself and started making changes, based upon my knowledge of explosives. (In a prior life I ran an explosives detection company that I spun out of Georgia Tech.) There is a timeliness to this around gathering data and the best thing to do was to sit down and up the tempo of the system that we had running. So we began to focus on social media conversations and content around explosives.

 

 

Q.  With your background in explosives detection technologies, what kinds of things did you think would be helpful to look for on the social Web?

 

A.   As it has turned out, I believe these explosives are going to turn out to be either black powder or TNT-based. But a lot of what I worked on before was on the detection of plastic explosives and plastic explosive variants — C4, RDX, HMX, PETN and TATP. The analysis we conducted here was really around: were people around online talking about these much more destructive explosives? That's to figure out if there were any telltale signs of someone asking about these complex explosives becoming frustrated, deciding they would go for less destructive explosives, like TNT. It was also to determine whether there is any ongoing threat of people trying to use these more complex explosives.

 

 

Q.   How did you get involved in the field of explosives detection?

 

A.   At the time I was a venture capitalist with a particular focus on spinning technology out of our national labs and major universities. 9/11 comes along and I'm sitting there thinking, "I'm making good money as a venture capitalist, but is there more to life?"

 

I had previously seen technology coming out of Georgia Tech that enabled you to take the equivalent of a chip, a semiconductor, and identify either explosives or biological elements to detect them based on the vapor trail they create. Every time an explosive comes into contact with air it creates a unique vapor trail, a unique signature. So the signature for TNT is different than the signature for C4. By deploying this low-cost chip technology, the thesis was, one could build a very, very low cost, very ubiquitous detector grid that you could then deploy in things like mailboxes, lamp posts, airports, etc.

 

The frustration we ultimately found was at that time I think the attention of the venture capital community had already shifted away from homeland and global security back to the Internet, particularly the consumer Internet. When everything happened on Monday, I kind of tilted my head and said, "I told you so." This is the stuff we knew we needed to do and, quite frankly, there wasn't a lot of appetite for doing so.

 

 

Q.   What would be the holy grail for mining social analytics in the Boston Marathon case?

 

A.   The holy grail would be something similar to what happened with the ricin letters that were sent to the White House: someone who has logged onto a forum, and has logged in with some identifying piece of information —  a user name, an e-mail address —  has asked particular questions, commented, maybe, on other posts. Someone who has, in effect, self-identified, where someone basically puts out enough information you could say, "Oh, this person is kind of asking pretty much the same sorts of questions that correspond to what we found in the physical forensics."

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

Boston bombing probe highlights expansion of surveillance

By DAVID CRARY (The Associated Press)  —  Friday, April 19th, 2013; 6:34 a.m. EDT

 

 

As the investigation of the Boston Marathon bombings illustrates, getting lost in the crowd is no longer an easy feat. There are eyes — and cameras — everywhere.

 

Investigators swiftly obtained a vast quantity of amateur photos and videos taken by onlookers, often with their cell phones, as well as extensive footage from surveillance cameras in the area of the blasts. The FBI released images Thursday from one of those cameras, zeroing in on two men in caps who proved to the suspects in the case.

 

One of the men was killed overnight in a gun battle with police; his brother remained at large Friday.

 

With the crucial role played by video in the Boston case, surveillance cameras — which have proliferated in London, Chicago and elsewhere — may take on new allure. Informal surveillance by private citizens may proliferate as well; the FBI says it expects the public to be its "eyes and ears."

 

The upside of this expanding surveillance network is clear — a greater potential for law enforcement to solve crimes and, in some instances, to prevent them. David Antar of New York-based IPVideo Corporation says video surveillance can be set up to trigger warnings if bags are left unattended or suspicious activity takes place before or during a large-scale event.

 

Is there a downside?

 

Some civil libertarians say yes. While they welcome any tools that can help solve a crime as brutal as the bombings, they worry about an irrevocable loss of privacy for anyone venturing into public places.

 

"It's now harder and harder to go about our lives without being tracked everywhere," said Ben Wizner, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union who specializes in privacy and technology issues.

 

"The ACLU doesn't object to cameras at high-profile public places that are potential terrorist targets," he said. "What we do object to is a society in which cameras are so pervasive that we can't go about our lives anywhere without them being recorded and stored in data bases forever."

 

Within the past decade, the scope of surveillance — both private and government — has increased incalculably. Just this week, security video helped lead to the arrests of a Texas couple in the slayings of two prosecutors and the wife of one of them. Authorities say the accused man, a former justice of the peace, was embittered because he had been convicted of stealing government computer monitors — an offense which was itself captured on security video.

 

And then there is self-surveillance. Millions of people check in regularly with Foursquare to communicate their whereabouts; many millions more passively enable themselves to be tracked simply by carrying their cell phones.

 

Photographs and videos can rocket through cyberspace, instantly viewable by strangers on the other side of the world or by law enforcement agencies, courtesy of Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and other social media.

 

Attitudes toward surveillance and privacy may be shifting. There's a generation of teens and young adults who have grown up with social media and may be more reconciled than older Americans to the prospects of being tracked.

 

"Americans still cite privacy as one of the core values they cherish, but what's happening is this slow, insidious erosion of it," said Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University.

 

"Humans need at times to feel they can exist freely and without constant observation — it is essential to our right to association and expression," he said. "And yet we have a generation being raised in a fishbowl society. They're more tolerant of government surveillance, and that can be a danger to a free society."

 

Compared to the United States, surveillance cameras are far more pervasive in Britain, where they were first used decades ago to protect against attacks from Irish militants. Up to 4 million or so cameras are now in place, including some around the house of George Orwell, the author of "1984," which foretold of a "Big Brother" society.

 

Among the British public, the cameras seem to be widely accepted — especially in the aftermath of the 2005 suicide bombings that killed 52 commuters during morning rush-hour traffic in London. Evidence from closed-circuit cameras helped crack that case.

 

"If you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to be worried about," said Joseph Clarke, 32, a London banker. "I'm out all of the time and I don't even notice them. We need them."

 

Nonetheless, a London-based organization called Big Brother Watch has been campaigning to cut back on the surveillance network.

 

"While it provides a sometimes useful tool after an event, it doesn't address the root causes of crime and doesn't protect the public," said the group's director, Nick Pickles. "The public has been desensitized, and so have the perpetrators of crime. The initial deterrent effect has largely disappeared because people just take it for granted."

 

Last year, Big Brother Watch issued a report revealing that more than 200 high schools had installed surveillance cameras in bathrooms and locker rooms. School officials defended the initiative, saying it was needed to combat bullying and did not reveal images of students using the toilets.

 

In the United States, Chicago has the most comprehensive network of surveillance cameras, estimated at more than 10,000. They are mounted on street poles and skyscrapers, aboard buses and in train tunnels; the rail system alone has more than 3,600 cameras.

 

Police credit the network for thousands of arrests in recent years. Cameras have recorded drug deals, bike thefts and other crimes; footage from a camera on a city bus helped convince a suspected gang member to plead guilty to shooting a high school student in 2007.

 

After the Boston Marathon bombings, Mayor Rahm Emanuel was quick to tout Chicago's surveillance cameras.

 

"They serve an important function for the city in providing the type of safety on a day-to-day basis — not just for big events like a marathon," he said.

 

Police say they get few complaints about the network. And even the local branch of the ACLU says Chicagoans generally seem at peace with the system — except when they get a traffic ticket for a camera-recorded infraction.

 

Police have not always had their way in expanding surveillance networks. In Washington, D.C, the city council balked at appropriating money in 2008 for a network of more than 5,000 cameras after privacy and civil liberties groups campaigned against the plan.

 

Attorney Hanni Fakhoury of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which advocates for online free speech and privacy rights, said the data amassed by police from surveillance cameras and personal devices has enormous crime-solving potential. But he said there were worrisome questions about how long such data would be stored, and who could access it.

 

"There seems to be a suggestion, that just by walking in a city square, you give up your rights to be anonymous," he said. "We could stop all sorts of crime ahead of time if we monitored everything everywhere. But do we want to live in that kind of society?"

 

———

 

Associated Press writer Paisley Dodds in London contributed to this report.

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

Why Hasn't the FBI's Facial Recognition Technology Found the Boston Bombers?

By Rebecca Greenfield — Thursday, April 18th, 2013 'The Atlantic Wire' / Washington, DC

 

 

According to multiple reports, the FBI's investigation into potential perpetrators in the Boston Marathon bombings now centers on "clear video images" that may be released today — possibly without names to faces or answers to America's questions. And while the case is a "fast moving" one with real progress on the horizon, the FBI's newest facial recognition hardware — and even its fancy 3D software — isn't quite the stuff of Hollywood. (Update: Here are the suspect photos.)

 

The FBI agent in charge of the search has encouraged local business around the crime scene to "review and preserve surveillance video" from what the Boston police commissioner calls "probably one of the most photographed areas in the country," while insisting that investigators will "go through every frame of every video we have." Turns out, the FBI might have had even more and better frames of surveillance footage preserved, but an important — if controversial, and expensive — state-of-the-art ID system is not yet in place across the country.

 

As for the particulars of the ongoing Boston investigation, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Thursday before a Congressional committee that "there's lots and lots of video. There is some video that has raised the question of those that the FBI would like to speak with. I wouldn't characterize them as suspects under the technical term. But we need the public's help in locating these individuals." Which raises a somewhat obvious question with a high-tech answer: Isn't FBI facial recognition software good enough to track down these guys on their own? Don't they do that on Homeland? Of course, location is not the same as positive identification, but normally the feds can run even grainy surveillance stills against various databases for a match. This, however, is far from a normal case.

 

The FBI already has a billion dollar project just for this kind of thing, called Next Generation Identification. Unfortunately — at least it's unfortunate in this case — the next-gen initiative only consists of pilot programs in a few states right now: Michigan, Hawaii, Maryland, and possibly Oregon. The $1 billion project is rolling out in phases and won't be fully deployed until 2014.

 

Generally the NGI aims to "offer state-of-the-art biometric identification services and provide a flexible framework of core capabilities," according to the FBI's description. That includes developments such as improved fingerprinting and iris scanning technologies. But it also specifically includes the building up a facial recognition database. (There are privacy concerns, obviously.) The program funding is also set to go toward an increase in closed-circuit security cameras, which have a proven track record of helping to find bad guys in particularly bad counterrorism investigations. As of 2007, Boston had 147 CCTVs on its streets. And that was before the NGI initiative started rolling out last fall. It's very possible that these types of standard surveillance cameras provided some of the footage we've been hearing about — at the Lord & Taylor across the street from the blast sites and elsewhere at the crime scene. (The Boston Globe reports today that "the best video has come from surveillance cameras on the same side of Boylston Street as the explosions.")

 

But, in addition to the funding of more cameras, the FBI's initiative will also attempt to integrate better with state and local databases. In the best case scenario, the image in question matches with something linked with an identity. Even if that happens, however, the information isn't evidence of anything, as Major Andrew Ashmar, director of the bureau of criminal intelligence for the Pennsylvania State Police, explained to the Philadelphia Inquirer's Allison Steele. "It's not fingerprints," he said. "It's not DNA. But what it does do is provide an investigative lead to follow."

 

Indeed, as Napolitano said before the House Homeland Security Committee on Thursday, "This is not an NCIS episode." And since the next-gen surveillance initiative is contained to those pilot programs, the FBI will likely try and run the video stills against official passport, visa, and drivers' license databases in addition to their own criminal databases, Paul Schuepp, CEO of Animetrics, a facial recognition company, told Fox News. Several states already have such databases of drivers' licenses to try and mitigate identity theft; the NYPD's Facial Recognition Unit uses Facebook and Instagram to run suspect photos against its databases.

 

Veteran White House counter terror advisor Richard A. Clark outlines a scenario in which the FBI may also try to recreate the blast by "using snippets from dozens of surveillance cameras," and in which "there may be store surveillance camera video of customers present when the phones were sold" — so-called "burner phones" may make up a trail for potential suspects' whereabouts, even names don't surface right away.

 

Before doing all that — and likely before showing any of us — the FBI has likely been analyzing what photos it apparently has of a person or persons of interest. That analysis, based on current facial recognition software capability, tends to convert the image to numbers in order to create a 3D version of the video stills, like the images pictured above. (The next-gen hardware would take it a step further, but the software can still do wonders with adding dimension.) Unlike older systems, which needed a straight facing photo, the FBI can now create that 3D image and manipulate it, making it easier to find a match, as Schuepp of Animetrics explained. Even if it's not the best photo, the FBI system can narrow down the search, Clarke told ABC News. "It's not 100 percent, but even a 70 or 80 percent correlation would narrow down the number of people that the FBI has to go after." If the FBI's images are, in fact, as "clear" as reports make them seem to appear, there may be enough data to extract a 3D rendering. But there are always shadows, poor angles, hats, and camouflage with which to contend.

 

And, hey, even if the photos don't bring up any matches, the FBI always has the sleuths of the Internet to lend a helping hand, which, so far, well, hasn't turned out so well. Stay tuned for updates on the Boston case here and here.

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

 

Boston Bombers Can't Elude City's Tech Infrastructure

By John Foley — Friday, April 19th, 2013 'Information Week Magazine' / San Francisco, CA

 

 

We don't yet have a conclusive report on the data gathered and analyzed in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings on Monday, but this much we do know: Video surveillance and other information technologies played a huge role in identifying the two main suspects, one of whom was killed by police early Friday morning amid a shootout.

 

In fact, the city's Office of Arts, Tourism and Special Events was testing a new operations dashboard from IBM on April 15, the day of the marathon, and Boston CIO Bill Oates was on hand to oversee its use.

 

Oates talked to InformationWeek contributor Michael Fitzgerald that morning from Boston's call center on the eighth floor of City Hall, where he and IT staffers were able to view on a monitor the marathon route and a two-block span around it. At the time, just a few hours before the bombings, Oates said the goal was to use the marathon "to get a sense of what the system is going to show us, so we can look at leveraging how to improve our coordination of events."

 

The system wasn't available to police and emergency management officials in their event-control trailers near the finish line. But the city does plan to add 911 data and potentially video surveillance feeds in the future, Oates said. "Following the event, we'll be able to go to all the folks that have planned and operate the event and show them what's in this system so they can think about it," he said on Monday morning.

 

[Beware of hackers who exploit tragedy for malicious purposes. Read Malware Attackers Exploit Boston Marathon Bombing. ]

 

In the wake of the terrorist attack, the data gathered by Boston's operational dashboard could be invaluable. Oates certainly had high expectations that it would help the city plan, coordinate and manage the marathon more effectively. "It's the city's job to make sure all goes according to plan," he said in a blog post on the morning of the marathon.

 

Among the challenges to be addressed, Oates wrote, "How many emergency personnel will we need, and where do we place them?" That blog post has since been taken down from the IBM website where it appeared. InformationWeek hasn't been able to reach Oates to ask about how the operational dashboard performed or whether data useful to the investigation was generated.

 

 

Valuable Clues

 

Video recorded in the vicinity of the explosions provided important clues to law enforcement. On April 18, the FBI distributed a video clip and still images in hopes of identifying two suspects, now identified as brothers from Chechnya: Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, the man killed by police Friday morning, and Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, who as of this writing was still on the run.

 

In recent years, cities worldwide have been investing in video surveillance in an attempt to lower crime and improve public safety. The Boston Police Department in 2010 opened a "real-time crime center" that gets video feeds from dozens of street cameras positioned across the city. During the center's unveiling, the police demonstrated how they used video from a closed-circuit TV camera to arrest suspects in a shooting incident.

 

Boston is now expanding its smart city initiative with sensors, predictive analytics software from IBM and performance-reporting software from SAP. In recent years, Boston has expanded the number of surveillance cameras on its street corners, under its bridges and in its local shopping areas, according to The Boston Globe.

 

In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, New York, San Francisco and other U.S. cities have done the same, often with funding from the federal government. Municipal IT pros tend to favor broader use of cameras and related technologies. 58% of respondents to InformationWeek Government's Future Cites Survey, completed in October by 198 municipal IT pros, say that cameras, motion sensors and other public safety devices have high potential for improving city operations and performance.

 

Video surveillance on city streets is increasingly being used to deter and solve criminal activity. Scotland Yard used video footage to identify suspects in 2011 when rioters wreaked havoc on the streets of London and other English cities after the shooting death of a man who had traded gunfire with police. Last year, the New York Police Department used video to identify, arrest and charge a Staten Island man -- dubbed John Doe Duffel Bag because he was seen in pictures carrying a duffel bag -- in the slayings of three Brooklyn store owners.

 

New York City is deploying a full-scale surveillance system, the Domain Awareness System, that pulls in data from 3,000 closed-circuit TVs, 2,600 radiation detectors and 100 license plate readers. Microsoft, which developed the system with the NYPD's Intelligence Division and Counter-Terrorism Bureau, is marketing the platform to other municipalities. The day after the Boston bombings, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg outlined steps his administration has taken to guard against similar attacks. "Our camera network now has the capacity to alert police to abnormalities it detects on the street, such as an abandoned package that is left on a corner," he said.

 

Inevitably, the rising number of street cameras feeding into police nerve centers raises cries of Big Brother from privacy watchdogs. In Seattle, activists earlier this year destroyed more than a dozen security cameras to protest the city's growing surveillance network.

 

But the Boston attack and the effectiveness of video in identifying the suspects provide a clear message to mayors and CIOs that they can't be deterred from taking additional steps to prevent and respond to acts of terrorism as well as everyday crimes. And there's more that city officials can and must do.

 

Facial recognition, analytics and other advanced technologies can sift for signs of trouble in real time. IBM, as part of its Smarter Public Safety line of products, sells a video correlation and analysis suite that offers real-time alerts, facial recognition and "situational awareness" of a location. The FBI is developing facial recognition capabilities as part of its $1 billion Next Generation Identification program.

 

At the same time, city officials must be transparent about their use of surveillance technologies. In January, Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, which counts the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security among its clients, announced it had received an $18 million contract to install a municipal transportation security and surveillance system for "one of the largest municipalities in the United States, located in the Northeast." Such obfuscation is what makes people nervous.

 

Yet, as Boston reminds us, cities must take decisive action. Responsible use of video surveillance is part of the answer.

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

 

                                                          Mike Bosak