Thursday, April 25, 2013

Quinn to Allow Vote on a Profiling Bill (The New York Times) and Other Thursday, April 25th, 2013 NYC Police Related News Articles

 

 

Thursday, April 25th, 2013 — Good Morning, Stay Safe

 

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Having It Both Ways   a/k/a   ‘Being Two Faced’

Quinn to Allow Vote on a Profiling Bill

By KATE TAYLOR and J. DAVID GOODMAN — Thursday, April 25th, 2013 ‘The New York Times’

 

 

Christine C. Quinn, the New York City Council speaker and a Democratic candidate for mayor, said on Wednesday that she would not support a proposed bill to open state courts to claims of racial profiling by the Police Department, but would allow the bill’s sponsors to submit it for a vote.

 

The move allowed her to head off some criticism from her opponents in the mayoral primary, whom she faced on Wednesday evening in a televised debate on public safety. Even so, two of her opponents, the public advocate, Bill de Blasio, and the city comptroller, John C. Liu, accused her of turning a blind eye to profiling by the police.

 

Ms. Quinn made her comments about the bill, part of a broader package of proposals known as the Community Safety Act, in a speech on policing in the afternoon.

 

The bill has the support of a majority on the Council, and Ms. Quinn has never allowed a bill to come for a full vote without her support in her seven years as Council speaker. She said to reporters after the speech that it “very likely could pass.”Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, an independent, and the police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly — as well as Republican candidates for mayor — strongly oppose the Community Safety Act. Last month, before the first mayoral debate on public safety, Ms. Quinn announced that she would support a different element of the package: the creation of an independent monitor for the police.

 

The current version of the bill removed what had been among the most contentious aspects: the ability to seek monetary damages from the Police Department. Lawsuits could now be brought only for injunctive relief from the courts.

 

“In communities of color, the profiling bill is most important,” said Javier H. Valdes, an executive director of Make the Road New York, a group involved in the negotiations.

 

In the debate, Mr. de Blasio brought up Ms. Quinn’s opposition to the racial profiling bill, saying, “I think we need that bill as another step toward healing and strengthening the relationship between police and community.”

 

Later, after Ms. Quinn said that racial profiling was already “illegal in the City of New York,” Mr. Liu, who has proposed banning police stop-and-frisk tactics, jumped into the discussion.

 

“Speaker Quinn says racial profiling is prohibited in this city of New York,” he said, raising his voice to a shout. “Unfortunately, stop and frisk in New York City is the biggest form of systemic racial profiling we have anywhere in the United States of America, and it has to be ended.” At that, the audience applauded.

 

Later in the debate, after another candidate, Sal F. Albanese, said that the City Council had failed to effectively oversee the Police Department, Ms. Quinn forcefully defended her record, saying that Council legislation had compelled the Police Department to report the number of stops its officers made annually. She also took credit for an agreement in which the police gave the Civilian Complaint Review Board the power to prosecute substantiated cases of misconduct by police officers.

 

In a bitter exchange at the end of the debate, Mr. de Blasio accused Ms. Quinn of “revisionist history” regarding her record of police oversight, saying that she had previously opposed a bill he had advanced that would have given the board prosecutorial authority.

 

“Let’s be clear and not act like this is something you’ve been committed to long-term,” he said.

 

Ms. Quinn shot back that it was Mr. de Blasio who was engaged in “revisionist history,” saying that she had opposed the bill at the time because it was not “legally doable.” In the end, the Police Department signed a memorandum of understanding with the board giving it prosecutorial authority.

 

Supporters of the Community Safety Act vowed to move forward with the bill in the City Council and to press for each mayoral candidate to take a public stand in support or opposition.

 

But Councilman Peter F. Vallone Jr., the chairman of the public safety committee and a vocal opponent of the bill, said he “could not think of a worse time for her to do something for the first time,” referring to Ms. Quinn.

 

Ms. Quinn said that allowing such cases in state court — where the barrier to entry would be different from federal court — would create “a real risk that a multitude of state court judges issue rulings that could take control of police policy away from the mayor and commissioner” if the profiling bill became law.

 

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Dems duke it out over cops
Stop-frisk and race profiling fuel 1st debate

By SALLY GOLDENBERG — Thursday, April 25th, 2013 ‘The New York Post’

 

 

Democrats battling for Mayor Bloomberg’s job squared off in their first debate last night, sparring over stop-and-frisk and a City Council bill that would make it easier to sue the Police Department for racial profiling.

 

“We need to pass legislation to ban racial profiling . . . I think we need that bill,” Public Advocate Bill de Blasio said.

 

In a speech earlier, Council Speaker Christine Quinn had said the bill — which would let people who claim they were racially profiled during stop-and-frisks sue for NYPD policy changes — would give courts too much power over police.

 

That set her up for jabs from her opponents. Comptroller John Liu, who also backs the bill, charged: “Stop-and-frisk is the biggest use of racial profiling in the United States of America.’’

 

Former City Comptroller Bill Thompson, who tried to unseat Bloomberg in 2009, claimed that had he been elected mayor four years ago, the use of stop-and-frisk would not have escalated.

 

“If we would’ve had a different mayor in City Hall — to be honest about it, if I would’ve been the mayor of the City of New York — stop-and-frisk wouldn’t be a problem. We wouldn’t have to address that,” Thompson said in one of the livelier moments of an otherwise tepid debate.

 

“To be blunt about it, if we hadn’t changed term limits we wouldn’t have this problem right now” — an obvious shot at Quinn, who backed Bloomberg’s bid to seek a third term.

 

Despite the sparring, no candidate landed anything close to a knockout blow.

 

The hour-long debate heated up only in the last few minutes, when de Blasio and Quinn accused one another of “revisionist history.”

 

De Blasio said Quinn agreed to support the NYPD inspector-general bill only after she came under fire from advocates, and claimed that she rebuffed his attempts to strengthen the Civilian Complaint Review Board.

 

“It’s very clear you were not willing to challenge [Police Commissioner] Ray Kelly,” de Blasio said, addressing Quinn, who has said she would keep Kelly as commissioner if she is elected.

 

“You’re simply making that up,” she shot back.

 

Quinn insisted de Blasio’s effort to strengthen the board was outside the power of the council.

 

The debate, sponsored by and aired on NY1, started off with a question about New York City’s preparedness for a terrorist attack in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing.

 

Quinn called for installing mobile surveillance cameras.

 

“This really is going to help us have more eyes on the street, (a), and, (b), criminals and terrorists are never going to know exactly where the cameras are,” she said.

 

De Blasio responded by crediting first responders.

 

“The events in Boston unquestionably were not only tragic, they were sobering. But the response of the first responders there was extraordinary and I think reassuring to us all,” de Blasio said.

 

On their overall approach to public safety, several of the candidates repeated their proposals to hire more cops for a department that has been shrinking in manpower over the past decade.

 

Quinn called for 1,600 new cops, Thompson called for 2,000 and de Blasio said the force cannot shrink lower than its current size of roughly 34,000 officers.

 

De Blasio’s campaign immediately sent out an e-mail to supporters, saying Quinn, as speaker, allowed the force to be slashed to record levels through budget cuts.

 

All six candidates were onstage last night, including lesser-known Democrats Sal Albanese, a former city councilman from Brooklyn, and Erick Salgado, a Staten Island minister.

 

Albanese slammed de Blasio for not firing two staffers who tweeted anti-police comments, which were reported by The Post. One resigned.

 

Salgado got a rise out of the audience when he recalled being halted by a cop during a stop-and-frisk four weeks ago. “I said ‘I’m running for mayor!’ and he said, ‘Shut up, go back in the car, sir.’ ”

 

Additional reporting by David Seifman

 

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Democratic Mayoral Candidates Debate Public Safety Issues

By: Zack Fink — Thursday, April 25th, 2013 ‘NY 1 News’ / New York, NY

 

 

The city's Democratic mayoral candidates tackled the subject of public safety in the campaign's first televised mayoral debate held Wednesday night at John Jay College and hosted by NY1 News. NY1's Zack Fink filed the following report.

 

Although the six Democratic candidates in NY1's Wednesday debate were not that far apart on many issues, there were some points of disagreement.

 

The debate focused on public safety, and one of the most controversial issues of the night was whether to end the current New York City Police Department practice of stop, question and frisk.

 

"Speaker Quinn, the fact is, you only moved on stop-and-frisk because there was tremendous public pressure," said Public Advocate Bill de Blasio. "You weren't willing to challenge Ray Kelly previously, and you only moved on Civilian Complaint Review Board because, again, other people were moving on the issue."

 

"Bill, you are engaged in revisionist history," Quinn responded. "What I said to you and Councilmember Garodnick is that the legislation you had to give the CCRB prosecutorial authority was not legally doable."

 

On Wednesday, Quinn said she opposes a City Council bill that would ban racial profiling and allow more lawsuits to move forward against the police department.

 

"Speaker Quinn says that racial profiling is prohibited in the city of New York," said City Comptroller John Liu. "Unfortunately, stop-and-frisk in New York City is the biggest form of systemic racial profiling we have anywhere in the United States of America, and it has to be ended."

 

Another topic that has sparked public debate is whether to appoint an inspector general to oversee the police. The candidates are split on whether to support it.

 

The issue is also tied to complaints in African-American and Latino neighborhoods that stop-and-frisk operations unfairly target people of color.

 

"If you had a mayor who said, 'Not in my watch. We are not going to have profiling, we are not going to have stop-and-frisk being misused,'" said former City Comptroller William Thompson. "If we had a police commissioner who understood that, we wouldn't have the problems right now."

 

The candidates were also asked about the Boston Marathon bombings, and whether or not anything different could be done in New York City to prevent those kinds of attacks. For the most part, the candidates did propose anything radical or new, although Quinn did say she would like to see more mobile street cameras.

 

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Speaker Quinn will oppose bill allowing stop-and-frisk lawsuits
City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, the leading Democratic candidate for mayor, says she would oppose the bill proposed by Councilmen Brad Lander and Jumaane Williams, noting it would be obstructive to police operations.

By Erin Durkin — Thursday, April 25th, 2013 ‘The New York Daily News’

 

 

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said Tuesday she will oppose a bill to allow New Yorkers to file lawsuits in state courts alleging racial profiling by cops — but that she would permit the Council to vote on measure.

 

It would be the first time she’s ever allowed a bill to come to the Council floor without her backing. Her decision to do so underscores the political pressures the legislation has created.

 

Advocates like the Rev. Al Sharpton have been urging her to come off the fence and back the measure — much as she did in eventually supporting legislation to create an inspector general overseeing the Police Department.

 

Supporters of both proposals say they would rein in abuses arising out of the Police Department’s controversial stop-and-frisk policy.

 

But in a speech Wednesday outlining her public safety agenda, she made clear that backing the right-to-sue proposal was a bridge too far.

 

“I believe this presents a real risk that a multitude of state court judges issue rulings that could take control of police policy decisions away from the mayor and commissioner.”

 

“Just as importantly, it could hamstring individual police officers, and make them fearful of the decisions they have to make on a moment’s notice, putting both their safety and the public’s safety at risk,” she said.

 

Allowing a vote on the bill represents an olive branch to the bill’s supporters. “This is not going to be a twisting-arms type of situation,” she said.

 

The bill has 32 co-sponsors, a majority of the Council, though just shy of the number needed to override an expected veto by Mayor Bloomberg, her frequent ally. Quinn’s office refused to say whether her pledge to allow a vote applied to a veto override vote as well.

 

The bill’s sponsors, Brooklyn Councilmen Brad Lander and Jumaane Williams, said they planned to bring it to a vote though they are “disappointed” by her opposition.

 

“We plan to do whatever we can to get the bill passed,” said Williams. “It’s either we are against racial profiling or we are not.”

 

In an effort to compromise, supporters already stripped out provisions that would allow people to sue for monetary damages if they think they are profiled. Many feared that could prompt a flood of frivolous lawsuits.

 

“The goal is not to have people go to court. The goal is to stop the NYPD from using profiling,” Lander said.

 

Quinn’s position drew criticism from the NAACP, the Sharpton, and the New York Civil Liberties Union.

 

But it pleased Bloomberg, who went after Quinn hard after she lent her support to the inspector general bill.

 

“We opposed that bill. It was a terrible bill. I’m glad to see that she does as well,” Bloomberg said.

 

Seeking to tread the middle ground between critics and supporters of NYPD strategies, Quinn said it was not inconsistent to support keeping Ray Kelly as police commissioner while supporting the inspector general bill and complaining about excesses in the use of stop and frisk.

 

“Anyone who doesn’t recognize the incredible work that Ray Kelly has done as police commissioner is simply out of touch with the reality of New York City,” she said. “Our city would be incredibly lucky to keep Ray Kelly as our police commissioner.”

 

She said the surge in stop and frisk that has happened under Kelly’s watch has “sown distrust of police among many communities of color, and has not led at these levels to a major increase in the confiscation of a significant amount of weapons.”

 

She said that the inspector general, unlike state courts, would not be able to force the NYPD to follow its recommendations.

 

It “will not, as some have said, pose any kind of threat to the authority of the mayor or the police commissioner. The buck will and should stop with the mayor.”

 

Quinn also proposed hiring 1,600 more cops, to bring the total force to 36,000. One of her foes, ex-controller Bill Thompson, has already proposed hiring 2,000 more cops. Quinn said the $151 million cost of her plan could be paid for by the retirement of older cops who make more money and the use of civilians instead of cops to do some office jobs.

 

She called for creation of a smart phone app that would work like a “panic button” to allow people to summon the cops in situations where they can’t call 911, and another app called “Text Something” to allow New Yorkers to report suspicious activity by text or photo.

 

She also said members of the Departments of Sanitation, Transportation and MTA, should get basic counter-terrorism training, and the city should buy the NYPD 1,000 new mobile security cameras.

 

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Quinn Calls for More NYPD Officers    

By Michael Howard Saul — Thursday, April 25th, 2013 ‘The Wall Street Journal’ / New York, NY

 

 

New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn on Wednesday proposed adding 1,600 police officers over the next three years and voiced opposition to legislation that would prohibit the Police Department from profiling based on race, religion, immigration status and gender identity.

 

Quinn, the frontrunner for the Democratic mayoral nomination, recently announced her support for the creation of an inspector general to monitor the NYPD, a policy vehemently opposed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. But her decision to oppose a companion bill that bans officers from engaging in discriminatory profiling comes as a blow to the liberal-wing of the council, which is vowing to continue to fight for the bill.

 

Issues surrounding public safety have emerged as a flash point in this year’s race for mayor, and Quinn’s speech on Wednesday is aimed at bolstering her credentials as someone who will keep the city safe. She is walking a political tightrope, trying to appease the most liberal members of her party who will play a significant role in the primary while positioning herself as the candidate who will best continue the successes of the Bloomberg administration.

 

Quinn is not the first mayoral candidate to call for additional police officers – Democratic rival Bill Thompson has made that issue a centerpiece of his campaign – but as council speaker, she has the power to make it happen because she has tremendous influence over the city budget.

 

As of June 30 of last year, the NYPD had 34,510 uniformed officers, down from more than 40,000 in 2000.

 

On Wednesday, Quinn unveiled a number of public safety proposals, including the expansion of mobile cameras, but her opposition to the racial-profiling bill could become an easy target for her liberal opponents on the campaign trail.

 

The city’s current ban on NYPD profiling covers race, ethnicity, religion and national origin. The proposed legislation, sponsored by Council Members Jumaane Williams and Brad Lander of Brooklyn, would expand the categories to age, gender, gender identity or expressions, sexual orientation, immigration status, disability and housing status. The bill would allow plaintiffs to bring intentional discrimination lawsuits against the city, but a recently revised version of the legislation would no longer allow plaintiffs to seek monetary damages.

 

“I appreciate the intent behind this piece of legislation,” Quinn said. “But I’m opposed to expanding this cause of action against the NYPD to state court in New York.”

 

Following the speech, in a surprise move, Quinn said she would not block the bill from coming to the floor for a vote and that she would not pressure council members to vote it down. During Quinn’s seven-plus years as head of the council, a bill has never come to the floor without her backing.

 

During the past several years, the speaker had blocked the council from voting on another bill that would require city employers to provide paid sick leave to their workers. Last month, as political pressure mounted, Quinn struck a compromise with the bill’s supporters, and the bill will now move forward.

 

By allowing the profiling bill to come to a vote without her support, Quinn is signaling she is unwilling to engage in another protracted battle with the majority of her members over a controversial proposal.

 

In a statement, Williams and Lander said they are disappointed Quinn opposes the effort to ban “bias-based profiling.”

 

“New York City needs to end discriminatory policing,” the council members said. “It violates fundamental civil liberties, breaks down the bonds of trust necessary for good policing, sets New Yorkers against each other, and has never been proven to work.”

 

The council members said it’s essential that the bill comes to a vote this session. The bill currently has 32 sponsors, which is enough to win passage, but is not enough to override a veto from Bloomberg. The council needs 34 votes to override a veto.

 

Last year, council member Peter Vallone Jr., chairman of the council’s Committee on Public Safety, described the bill as the “most irresponsible and dangerous bill” to ever be considered by the council.

 

“It will blow a massive hole in the city budget and end NYPD policing as we know it, by taking control of the NYPD from Ray Kelly and giving it to judges,” he said at an October hearing.

 

At that hearing, Michael Best, counselor to the mayor, said the breadth of legal exposure from the bill would be “unprecedented.” The bill would give a wide variety of organizations the right to sue over “virtually any type of police activity,” Best said.

 

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Longtime officer to be named new chief of NYPD's Community Affairs Bureau

By PHILIP MESSING — Thursday, April 25th, 2013 ‘The New York Post’

 

 

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly will announce tomorrow the promotion of NYPD Assistant Chief Thomas Chan, the current commanding officer of Patrol Borough Brooklyn South, as the new chief of the NYPD Community Affairs Bureau, The Post has learned.

 

Chan, 55, who joined the NYPD in January 1982 and was already the first Asian-American in department history to rise to the rank of a “two-star” chief, will become the first Asian-American “three-star” chief.

 

Chan is replacing Philip Banks III, who was promoted last month as the new Chief of Department, taking over the spot previously held by Joseph Esposito, who retired.

 

“Commissioner Kelly has named Chief Chan to the post and he will make the appointment official at promotion ceremonies on Friday,” said NYPD spokesman Paul Browne last night.

 

Chan, a resident of Lower Manhattan, has previously been assigned to the 5th Precinct (Chinatown), where he was the commanding officer and the 7th Precinct (the Lower East Side) and the 26th Precinct (West Harlem), two commands where he served as executive officer, or second-in-command.

 

He’s also served in Highway Units 1and 2; the Traffic Division; the Office of the Chief of Department; Patrol Borough Manhattan South; Patrol Borough Staten Island; and Manhattan South Detective Operations.

 

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Tomorrow's Tentative Promotions

(Auditorium, 1 Police Plaza Friday, April 26th, 2013)

 

 

Managerial Appointment To Deputy Commissioner

 

Vincent D. Grippo                                        D.C.M.B.

 

NOTE: Designated Deputy Commissioner, Management & Budget

 

 

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To Assistant Chief:

 

CHARLES F. DOWD                                   COMMUNICATIONS DIVISION

 

 

To Deputy Chief:

 

DONNA G. JONES                                      CDD-PERF. ANALYSIS SECTION

 

 

To Inspector:

 

THOMAS J. BURNS                                     EMPLOYEE RELATIONS SECTION

JOHN F. BURKE                                          FIREARMS SUPPRESSION DIVISION

 

 

To Deputy Inspector:

 

KEVIN M. MALONEY                                 101 PRECINCT

JOSEPH B. VENEZIANO                             122 PRECINCT

CHRIS D. MORELLO                                   POLICE SERVICE AREA 5

THOMAS J. MCGRATH                              INTERNAL AFFAIRS BUREAU

 

 

To Probationary Captain:

 

JOHN T. GANLEY                                       063 PRECINCT

EMMANUEL GONZALEZ                           070 PRECINCT

JOHN A. MASTRONARDI                          083 PRECINCT

WINSTON M. FAISON                                088 PRECINCT

LIJU P. THOTAM                                         I.A.B.

GILBERT A. MORALES                              PSB RES.MGMT.SECT.

ROSALIND D. KNOXRITTER                     AUX.POL.SECT.

ROBERTO MELENDEZ                               026 PDS

KENNETH J. HARSCH                                FIREARMS.SUPP.DIV.

PHILIP AVERSANO                                     NBBN

KENNETH J. WINTERS                              NBBN

CHRISTOPHER J. GIAMBRONE                NBQ

 

 

To Probationary Lieutenant:

 

PERRY R. BRIJMOHAN                              MTN PCT

DOMINICK M. NASSO                                025 PCT

WILLIAM P. CONWAY                               028 PCT

MARY J. KING                                             046 PCT

DANIEL N. MUFADDI                                 046 PCT

MICHAEL J. BRACCIA                               062 PCT

DAVID J. POGGIOLI                                    062 PCT

JAMES A. TRABULSY                                066 PCT

SCOTT J. FORSTER                                    070 PCT

RONALD C. RAMOS                                   083 PCT

MICHAEL P. ZANLEONE                            103 PCT

JUN J. ZHEN                                                            103 PCT

PETER L. CASSIERE                                   104 PCT

JOHN M. SLOAN                                         104 PCT

JONATHAN K. CERMELI                           105 PCT

ANTONIO FIDACARO                                106 PCT

RICHARD M. HEALEY                               106 PCT

JOSEPH R. KOPACK                                   106 PCT

ASHRAF K. AHMED                                   114 PCT

BRUCE P. CEPARANO                               120 PCT

JOHN MONTAPERTO                                 122 PCT

GREGORY T.                                               123 PCT

TIMOTHY A. JENKINS                               TB DT 4

GABRIEL M. HEALY                                   PSA 6

ARI L. MAAS                                                O.M.A.P.

TONY R. BROWN                                        QAD DCSI

SEAN G. COLLINS                                       WTC CMD.

JASON M. LUNSFORD                                WTC CMD.

HECTOR M. PEREZ                                     INTEL.DIV.

JOHN R. GUZZO                                          QUARTERMASTER SECT.

CAREN L. MCCORMICK                            MEDICAL DIVISION

ANDREW R. ARIAS                                    I.A.B.

CHRISTOPHER G. KENNIS                        I.A.B.

JIMMY S. KOUTROUMANOS                    I.A.B.

MICHAEL E. MORAN                                 I.A.B.

EYNAT NAOR                                             I.A.B.

BRYAN D. NATALE                                    I.A.B.

SEAN M. WALKER                                      I.A.B.

YASER SALIM                                             BKLYN.CT.SECT.

ANGELINE A. OZUNA                                HB INV.UNIT(820I01)

GLENN A. TERMINE                                   PSB INVEST. & EVAL.SECT.

ARSENIO CAMILO                                      BN 83 PCT.IZ(165T68)

CHRISTOPHER S. OBERDING                   PBBN

AHMAD Y. OTHMAN                                 BN 79 PCT.N.IZ(165T59)

JOSHUA M. MENDEZ                                 QS 103 PCT.IZ(171T63)

JOHN P. GAZZOLA                                      HWY. UNIT 1

THOMAS P. SMITH                                     HWY. UNIT 5

COURTNEY B. NILAN                                006 PDS

ROHAN D. GRIFFITH                                  114 PDS

PETER HSIEH                                              AUTO CRIME DIV.ZN.I(126O01)

 

 

To Detective Second Grade:

 

MANUEL RODRIGUEZ                               INTEL.MSS.UNIF.OPER.

JENIMARIE GARCIACRUZ                        A.P.D.

ROBERT J. SORICELLI                               I.A.B.

ANTOIN N. MALLOY                                  SCHOOL SAFETY DIVISION

MARIO INGUAGGIATO                              AVIATION UNIT

JOHN HASTINGS                                        DETECTIVE BUREAU

ANIBAL N. BATISTA                                  CENTRAL INV. & RESOURCE DIV.

MAUREEN S. SHEEHAN                            DB BKLYN.SPL.VIC.SQD.

ERIC T. LASCHKE                                       LATENT PRINT SECTION

GARNETT C. GOLDING                             WARRANT SECTION

SIMON T. CHAN                                          005 PDS

PATRICK BUBB                                          034 PDS

MICHAEL A. CONNOR                               045 PDS

JIMMY SCHMALENBERGER                     101 PDS

DAVID K. BUXBAUM                                 O.C.C.B.

STEVEN A. BALSAMO                               AUTO CRIME DIV.ZN.I(126O01)

 

 

To Detective Investigator:

 

CHRISTOPHER J. RETOS                           I.A.B.

DESHAWN C. WARE                                  I.A.B.

HECTOR E. DELEON                                  CRIME SCENE UNIT

GEORGE M. VELEZ                                    CRIME SCENE UNIT

JAVIER M. CORDERO                                040 PDS

LYNNE R. DENICE                                      DB BSVS

DANIELLE M. KENNY                                DB BSVS

SANDRA D. WILLIAMS                              DB QSVS

ADE T. AJASA                                             NBBS

 

 

To Detective Specialist:

 

BRIAN T. MCCABE                                     100 PCT.

DORRIN O. FERGUSON                             113 PCT.

RICHARD H. BROWNE                               INTEL.PSS

THOMAS H. HEIMINK                                A.P.D.

TRICIA MORETTI                                        A.P.D.

ANNY Y. RIVAS                                          A.P.D.

DARLENE Y. CAINROWE                          P.B.Q.N.

 

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Sloppy Bookkeeping, Idiot or a Fool?:  Man. D.A.O. Squad Det. Michael Bazerman Collared on 391 Counts

 

NYPD detective arrested for forging expense reports and stealing $6,000

Michael Bazerman was arrested Wednesday on a 391-count indictment after internal affairs investigators found he pocketed almost $6,000 in cash courtesy of fake expense and petty cash reports.

By Rocco Parascandola , Shayna Jacobs AND Joe Kemp — Thursday, April 25th, 2013 ‘The New York Daily News’

 

 

A veteran NYPD detective was arrested Wednesday on a 391-count indictment after internal affairs investigators found he fudged two years of expense reports to pocket almost $6,000 in cash, prosecutors said.

 

Michael Bazerman, 40, who headed a wiretap and surveillance squad for the Manhattan district attorney’s office, turned himself in at the 1st Precinct about 8:45 a.m., sources said.

 

The 18-year veteran was released without bail after he appeared in Manhattan Supreme Court, where he was arraigned on the indictment charging him with forgery and grand larceny.

 

Prosecutors from the Bronx DA’s office, who are handling the case, said the charges stem from a string of bogus petty cash reimbursement invoices the cop filed between 2009 and 2011.

 

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Cop in DA's Wiretaps Squad Filed $5K in Bogus Invoices, Prosecutors Say

By Murray Weiss and Alan Neuhauser — Wednesday, April 24th, 2013; 5:20 p.m. ‘DNAinfo.Com News’ / Manhattan

 

 

NEW YORK — An 18-year veteran of the NYPD was hit with more than 300 counts of grand larceny and forgery for allegedly submitting fake invoices totaling $5,800, authorities said.

 

Detective Michael Bazerman, who was in charge of a wiretaps and surveillance squad at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, surrendered to the 1st Precinct at 8:45 a.m. Wednesday, sources told DNAinfo.com New York.

 

The 40-year-old married father of two was arraigned in Manhattan Supreme Court and released on his own recognizance. The Bronx DA's office was appointed special prosecutor in the case to avoid the appearance of impropriety, since Bazerman was on the Manhattan DA's squad.

 

"It is alleged that between 2009 and 2011 Bazerman submitted falsified and forged petty cash reimbursement invoices to the Manhattan District Attorney’s office where he was assigned to the DA’s Squad," the Bronx DA's office said in a statement.

 

Bazerman — who joined the NYPD in 1995 — had been placed on modified duty at the Manhattan DA's office earlier this year during the investigation, sources said.

 

Bazerman insisted that he bought the equipment and turned it over to the DA's office, but blamed poor accounting practices for its loss, sources said.

 

"Detective Bazerman faithfully and loyally served this city and we ask the public to withhold judgment," James Moshella, an attorney for Bazerman, said in a statement.

 

The Manhattan DA's press office said it "has been recused" from the investigation and referred all questions to the Bronx DA.

 

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Manhattan DA's detective arrested for faking expenses

By JESSICA SIMEONE and DOUG MONTERO — Thursday, April 25th, 2013 ‘The New York Post’

 

 

A detective on the Manhattan District Attorney’s Squad was arrested yesterday for getting phony petty cash reimbursements, authorities said.

 

Michael Bazerman, 40, was charged with grand larceny and forgery for the crime that took place between 2009 and 2011, said a spokesman for the Bronx DA.

 

The veteran detective allegedly submitted and forged falsified invoices to the Manhattan District Attorney’s office totaling $5,800.

 

He was arraigned in Manhattan State Supreme Court and released without bail, the spokesman said.

 

Bazerman is due back in court on May 20.

 

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Sgt. Solangel Ruiz-Diaz

 

Cop in ‘park’ row            (Updated)
Off-duty NYPD sergeant busted in assault over parking space

By NATASHA VELEZ — Thursday, April 25th, 2013 ‘The New York Post’

 

 

An NYPD sergeant got so enraged in a parking-space dispute that she knocked a man to the ground and sent him to the hospital with an open gash that required surgical staples, cops said.

 

Sgt. Solangel Ruiz-Diaz, 49, was off duty when she allegedly got into the scuffle in the Gramercy Park area yesterday.

 

She was charged with assault.

 

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Kelly's Obsession with Getting More Face Time   a/k/a   ‘Never Letting a Horrific Tragedy Go to Waste’

 

Kelly: Boston Bombing Suspects Wanted To "Party" Afterwards In NYC
By Unnamed Author(s) — Wednesday, April 24th, 2013; 2:32 p.m. ‘NY 1 News’

(Edited for Raymond Kelly)

 

 

As investigators search for a motive behind the Boston Marathon bombings, police now believe the Tsarnaev brothers were headed to New York after the attacks, but to celebrate rather than cause further harm.

 

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said on Monday that based on preliminary information from the driver of the car the suspects hijacked on April 18, Boston investigators believe the two brothers were coming to the city to party.

 

"The two individuals were speaking in either Chechen or Russian language that the driver didn't understand, but he thought he heard the word 'Manhattan,'" Kelly said. "It may have been word to the effect of 'coming to party in New York.'"

 

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NYPD Will Release Non-Toxic Gas in Subways for Airborne Weapons Test

By Ben Fractenberg — Wednesday, April 24th, 2013; 3:16 p.m. ‘DNAinfo.Com News’ / Manhattan

 

 

NEW YORK CITY — Police will release "harmless tracer gases" into subway stations throughout the city this summer to test the flow of noxious chemicals that could be used as airborne weapons.

 

The study is scheduled for July in underground and street-level locations along 21 subway lines and several dozen stations through all five boroughs to test the effects of airborne contaminants including chemical, biological and radiological weapons that could be released into the subway system, police said.

 

The exact subway lines remain secret for security purposes, police said.

 

"It is an effort funded through a grant from Homeland Security to determine the flow of toxic material through the subway system and also in the streets as well," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said during an unrelated press conference Wednesday. "What the public will see is perhaps as many as 200 detection devices. It will be done on three non-consecutive days in July.''

 

Researchers will release low concentrations of non-toxic gases known as perfluorocarbons, which are odorless and invisible.

 

During the study, commuters may notice boxes holding air-sampling equipment in subway stations, on street light poles and being carried by researchers.

 

A previous airflow study was conducted in Manhattan in 2005, but this is the first test to take place in all five boroughs, police said.

 

''If we get that type of material dispersed in the city, where does it go, how do you track it, is it transported more rapidly if something is done in the subway system?" Kelly added. "These are questions we've had out there for a while, and this will give us some answers.''

 

With reporting by Trevor Kapp

 

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NYPD: Subway test involving release of harmless gas set for summer
The experiment is an effort to study how airborne materials spread through the system — and to prepare defenses against possible incidents.

By Joe Kemp — Thursday, April 25th, 2013 ‘The New York Daily News’

 

 

The NYPD will release harmless gasses into the subway this summer in an extensive test of how the material spreads through the system, officials said Wednesday.

 

Cops will use the results to strengthen their tactics for responding to hazards ranging from possible chemical spills in the tunnels to potential terrorist attacks, officials said.

 

The citywide testing, which will be conducted with the help of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, will include the release of the gasses in various subway lines and stations during three non-consecutive days in July, officials said.

 

“The NYPD works for the best, but plans for the worst when it comes to potentially catastrophic attacks such as ones employing radiological contaminants or weaponized anthrax,” Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said in a statement.

 

“This field study with Brookhaven’s outstanding expertise will help prepare and safeguard the city’s population in the event of an actual attack.”

 

The study will be the biggest of its type ever conducted, officials said.

 

A similar study was performed in Manhattan in 2005. Previous tests were conducted in the subway systems of Boston and Washington, D.C.

 

Cops said the public will be given advance warning to the tests, which are not expected to delay any traffic.

 

“This study will bolster the NYPD’s understanding of contaminant dispersion within the subway system as well as between the subway system and the street, thereby improving its ability to better protect both our customers and the city population at large,” said Fernando Ferrer, acting chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which is assisting in the tests.

 

The project, dubbed S-SAFE for Subway-Surface Air Flow Exchange, will be funded by a $3.4 million Department of Homeland Security Transit Security Grant, officials said.

 

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Gases to Be Dispersed Across City  (Exhale: It’s a Test)

By PATRICK McGEEHAN — Thursday, April 25th, 2013 ‘The New York Times’

 

 

On three separate days this July, invisible and odorless gases will be released in subway stations and at street level in all five boroughs of New York City. But officials in the New York Police Department will not be alarmed — it was their idea.

 

The gases, known as perfluorocarbons, will be dispersed to study how airborne toxins would flow through the city after a terrorist attack or an accidental spill of hazardous chemicals, the department said on Wednesday.

 

Researchers supervised by the Brookhaven National Laboratory will use about 200 monitors to trace the paths of the gases they release. The police intend to use the information gathered in the test, which they said would be the biggest such urban airflow study, to hone their plans for emergency responses.

 

One answer they seek is how the subway system affects the flow of air above and below ground. Knowing that will help them decide which subway lines may have to be shut down to limit the spread of hazardous material, said Paul Kalb, division head for environmental research and technology in the environmental sciences department at Brookhaven National Laboratory.

 

“The subways play a major role in how air moves through Manhattan and the five boroughs,” Mr. Kalb said. “If you’re in the subways and there’s something released on the surface, you could be vulnerable.” In the same way, he said, a gas released in the subway could affect people in a different part of the city. “It can spread further and in a way that you might not anticipate,” he said.

 

Researchers got a glimpse of that complication from a smaller study conducted in Manhattan eight years ago, Mr. Kalb said. In the summer of 2005, a different group of researchers released similar harmless gases in several locations in Midtown, including one subway station.

 

Wanting to know more, the Police Department commissioned the laboratory, which is on Long Island, to conduct the more extensive two-year study at a cost of $3.4 million, Mr. Kalb said. The money came from a federal grant the police received from the Department of Homeland Security.

 

“The N.Y.P.D. works for the best but plans for the worst when it comes to potentially catastrophic attacks, such as ones employing radiological contaminants or weaponized anthrax,” Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said in a statement. “This field study with Brookhaven’s outstanding expertise will help prepare and safeguard the city’s population in the event of an actual attack.”

 

Mr. Kalb said his colleagues planned to enlist about 100 college students as interns to help set up the test and gather air samples to be analyzed. He said they would install small black-and-gray boxes containing monitoring equipment on subway platforms and lamp posts poles around the city. Then, the traceable gases will be released in seven different locations — three above ground and four below — on three nonconsecutive days in July.

 

The results will be tracked by researchers from Brookhaven, the Argonne National Laboratory and the Los Alamos National Laboratory. To minimize fear, each release will be announced to the public a day in advance and the boxes will show a phone number and a Web site people can contact for information, the police said.

 

“We’re a little bit concerned that people are going to be nervous, especially after what happened in Boston,” Mr. Kalb said. “Clearly, people are trained to say something if they see something.”

 

The authorities’ approach to this study is a world apart from the way the Army examined the spread of biological poison in the subways in the mid-1960s. According to a 1975 article in The New York Times, about 20 employees of the Army laboratory at Fort Detrick, Md., threw “bulbs” of a “simulated biological poison” on the tracks of two subway lines in Manhattan.

 

“The bulbs burst and the wind of the passing subway trains” quickly spread the fake poison from 15th Street to 58th Street, the article said. It said the project’s engineer had concluded that the subway system could not be safeguarded against that type of attack. If the attack were carried out during rush hours, the engineer said, it would “put New York out of commission.”

 

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1st Precinct P.O. Artur Kasprzak    (Deceased)

 

Cops take care of their own by funding repairs to home where Artur Kasprzak died
Officer was a poster boy for the NYPD. He died trying to save others during Hurricane Sandy.

By Thomas Tracy — Thursday, April 25th, 2013 ‘The New York Daily News’

 

 

Cops gave the family of heroic Staten Island officer Artur Kasprzak $50,000 to repair the South Beach home where their son died during Hurricane Sandy.

 

Kasprzak was off-duty when floodwaters crashed into the house. The 1st Precinct cop rushed seven members of his family to the attic, then raced to the basement to make sure nobody was left behind — but never returned.

 

“We’ll use the money for home repairs,” said Marta Kasprzak, the officer’s sister. “My mom and dad still have no place to live.”

 

Marta said her family is dedicated to rebuilding, even though the home is now flooded with painful memories.

 

“It’s hard for my parents because they’re alive and he risked his life to rescue them,” she said.

 

The NYPD’s Disaster Relief Fund has cut checks to more than 900 cops in need, but the $50,000 given to Kasprzak’s family is the largest donation, organizers said.

 

“He gave his life to protect his family and they will never get him back,” said Roy Richter, president of the NYPD’s Captains Endowment Association. “The donors wanted to acknowledge his ultimate sacrifice.”

 

With Mark Bonifacio

 

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U.S.A.

 

Police hope for big edge with tiny DNA dots
High-tech micro-dots applied to property could help identify stolen goods more quickly.

By J.D. Gallop — Thursday, April 25th, 2013 ‘USA Today’

 

 

PALM BAY, Fla. -- Residents in central Florida will be the first in the U.S. and Canada to use a new high-tech tool using a DNA-like adhesive to combat property crime.

 

The Cop Dots DNA program, Palm Bay Police Chief Doug Muldoon said, allows people to mark their property with a unique (and very tiny) number sequence that can be scanned by police who recover stolen goods.

 

"The fact that we can readily identify property wherever it is makes a big difference," Muldoon said during a news conference Tuesday announcing the program's rollout. "This technology changes the way law enforcement approaches property crime."

 

Introduced at the Palm Bay Police Department as part of a prototype program several years ago, the technology will eventually be promoted nationally.

 

Nationally, the FBI reported just over 9 million property crimes in 2011. Often, police recover stolen goods but are unable to identify its owner, Muldoon said, adding that the Cop Dots program could make recovering and returning property easier, particularly items such as electronics, computers, jewelry or bikes.

 

"It's like DNA for your property," said Shawn Andreas, president of Cop Dots. His Suntree-based company will be providing mobile readers to officers at no cost.

 

Residents must purchase the $29.95 package, which includes decals and the pen, now available at 41 Lowe's Home Improvement stores in Central Florida.

 

Property owners swipe the pen across their property, leaving behind a clear-coating of the dot-packed adhesive. Police can then use a mobile phone app or special UV lighting to identify the item's owner using the registered numbers found on the dots.

 

The new tool won't help Amelia Pignatelli recover items stolen from her home in January, but the 82-year-old Palm Bay resident does plan to purchase it to prevent future losses. Pignatelli walked into her home and found her jewelry box opened, family heirlooms missing and much of what was left behind strewn across the floor.

 

"It broke my heart, it really did," she said. "It was my mother's jewelry. A lot of it was gone."

 

Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey also lauded the technology and said he eventually hopes to see all of his deputies utilizing the tool to solve property crime.

 

The crucial selling point for law enforcement agencies is its mobility and its ability to be used as evidence in court, Ivey said.

 

"It's just another layer of protection and it can bring you closure if you've been the victim of a crime and it can put the bad guys in jail," Ivey said.

 

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OxyContin a gateway to heroin for upper-income addicts
Powerful prescription painkillers have become pricier and harder to use. So addicts across the USA are turning to this more volatile drug. The new twist: Heroin is no longer just an inner-city plague.

By Donna Leinwand Leger — Thursday, April 25th, 2013 ‘USA Today’

 

 

Heroin in Charlotte has become so easy to get that dealers deliver to the suburbs and run specials to attract their young, professional, upper-income customers.

 

These lawyers, nurses, cops and ministers are showing up in the detox ward at Carolinas Medical Center, desperate to kick an opiate addiction that often starts with powerful prescription painkillers such as OxyContin and Vicodin.

 

The center analyzed the patients' ZIP codes to find out where heroin had taken root, says Robert Martin, director of substance abuse services at the medical center.

 

"Our heroin patients," he said, "come from the five best neighborhoods."

 

What Martin and others like him are witnessing is a growing and more dangerous wave of drug addiction sweeping the country, ensnaring a new population — several hundred thousand Americans — in the heroin trap and importing crime to America's suburbs. Feeding the frenzy: Prescription painkiller addicts are finding their drug of choice in short supply, so heroin becomes their drug of last resort.

 

As addicts move from legitimate prescriptions to the black market of pure, precisely measured narcotic pain pills to the dirty world of dealers, needles and kitchen table chemists, health officials and police are noting sharp increases in overdoses, crime and other public health problems.

 

"When you switch to heroin, you don't know what's in there from batch to batch," says Karen Simone, director of the Northern New England Poison Center, which in September documented a spike in heroin overdoses in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. "It's a big jump to go to heroin. It may be strong; it may be weak. They don't know what they are getting. Suddenly, the whole game changes."

 

America arrived at this moment after a decades-long increase in the number of people using, and abusing, powerful pain pills. The narcotics had become easier to obtain — some pain clinics issued prescriptions by the thousands — and many found a quick path to the black market.

 

To stem the abuses, authorities over the past decade began cracking down on clinics, and drug companies began creating pill formulations that made them harder to crush and snort for a quick high. Thus, opiate addicts have found it more difficult, and expensive, to get their fix. An 80 mg OxyContin can cost $60 to $100 a pill. In contrast, heroin costs about $45 to $60 for a multiple-dose supply.

 

OxyContin, a narcotic painkiller in the opiate family, came on the market in 1996. By 2001, it became the nation's best-selling brand name narcotic pain reliever. Although it's a highly effective drug for people suffering from chronic pain from diseases such as cancer, the Drug Enforcement Administration noted high levels of abuse, particularly in West Virginia and Kentucky, where it became known as "hillbilly heroin."

 

Once tighter restrictions were in place, prescription painkiller abuse declined, particularly among young adults 18 to 25, according to the most recent National Survey of Drug Use and Health. At the same time, the number of heroin abusers rose sharply.

 

•The number of people who say they regularly abuse painkillers dropped from 5,093,000 in 2010 to 4,471,000 in 2011, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Young adults who said they regularly abused painkillers dropped from a high of 1.62 million in 2006 to 1.22 million in 2011, the survey found.

 

•The survey estimated that 281,000 people 12 and older regularly used heroin in 2011, up from a decade low of 119,000 in 2003.

 

•Another study that measures the number of people seeking treatment for heroin found increases in 30 of 39 states reporting data in 2011 to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. In 2011, 238,184 sought treatment for heroin addictions, up from 224,198, SAMHSA spokesman Brad Stone said.

 

 

A LETHAL SUBSTITUTE

 

Doctors, substance abuse counselors, police and federal agents from Portland, Maine, to San Diego, in cities such as Charlotte and small towns in central Pennsylvania, also report surges in heroin use. In Illinois, the state crime commission in March called heroin an epidemic after authorities noted that the Chicago metro area ranks first in the nation for people admitted to the emergency room for heroin use.

 

Public health authorities in Portland, Maine, which struggled with pain killer abuse for nearly a decade, expected an increase in heroin abuse and are dealing with the fallout of overdoses, says Ronni Katz, substance abuse prevention program coordinator for the city. Portland issued an alert Feb. 5 about a potent batch of heroin that apparently led to a rash of overdoses.

 

"One substance will go down, but another will go up. And unfortunately, I think (heroin abuse) is going to grow," Katz said.

 

The trend to heroin bore out in Mark Publicker's 24-bed detox ward at Mercy Hospital Recovery Center in Portland, where as many as half the patients are addicted to opiates. Publicker saw a startling change six to eight months ago as patients, who once favored oxycodone, reported intravenous heroin as their opiate of choice.

 

IV heroin is particularly dangerous because addicts may share needles, exposing themselves to blood-borne diseases such as HIV and hepatitis, and can easily overdose when injecting heroin directly into their bloodstream, Publicker said.

 

"As bad as oxycodone is, heroin is worse," Publicker said. "It's worse because here in Maine, it's injected. We're talking about a novice population of drug injectors who are not educated about needle use."

 

Most frightening, he says, is how young the users are. "We're talking 18-, 19-, 20-, 21-year-olds," he said.

 

One young patient who entered treatment in February started using painkillers properly prescribed after ankle surgery but became addicted within a year, Publicker said. About 18 months ago, she switched to IV heroin and shared needles with her boyfriend.

 

"I don't think this is an atypical story," Publicker says.

 

Supervisory Special Agent Tom Lenox of the DEA's San Diego's office says he, too, has seen teens progress from popping pills to smoking heroin. "It's unbelievable that we're talking about this stuff with teenagers," he said.

 

In Charlotte, many of the opiate addicts in the Carolinas clinic got their start with powerful painkillers prescribed after surgery or a broken bone, said Martin, the substance abuse services director. As doctors cut off their prescriptions and the black market supply withered, they turned to cheaper, easier-to-find heroin.

 

The going rate for a tiny balloon filled with a dose of heroin costs $9, Martin said. A heavy user may take up to 10 doses a day. In contrast, prescription pain pills containing oxycodone sell for up to a dollar a milligram — $80 for an 80 mg pill.

 

"A lot of dealers, if you buy nine balloons, they give you one free," he says. "You can call or text a dealer, and they'll deliver."

 

 

'HEROIN IS HUGE'

 

Once considered an urban drug, heroin has found an unwelcome home in small towns and suburbs.

 

In Minnesota, one in five people seeking treatment is addicted to opiates, says Carol Falkowski, the former drug abuse strategy officer for Minnesota and a member of the Community Epidemiology Working Group at the National Institute of Drug Abuse, which tracks trends in drug use.

 

"Heroin is huge. We've never had anything like it in this state," she says. "It's very affordable. It's very high purity. Most people did not believe that heroin would happen here in Lake Woebegone, but it really has a grip, not only in the Twin Cities, but all around the state."

 

In Elizabethtown, Pa., a borough of 12,000 people in Lancaster County, Police Chief Jack Mentzer noted prescription pill addicts gradually turn to heroin over the past 18 months.

 

"Folks are looking for that better high," Mentzer said. "Lots of them started with prescription drugs. When that didn't do it, they would start crushing them. And when that didn't work, they turned to more of the street drugs."

 

With the street drugs came the crime wave.

 

"The No. 1 thing that we see are the crimes that are directly or indirectly related to the drug abuse," Mentzer said. "They will do almost anything for a quick dollar, stealing from mom and dad, committing burglaries."

 

In Delaware, heroin investigations have soared over the past two years, says Sgt. Paul Shavack, spokesman for the Delaware State Police and a former commander of the state's drug task force.

 

In 2011, Delaware State Police conducted 578 heroin investigations. Last year, the number of investigations more than doubled to 1,163, Shavack says. This year, heroin continues to be the top street drug, and the whys in Delaware are the same as in other states from coast to coast: It's cheaper and easy to get. Crime, too, has spiked — particularly burglaries and thefts from vehicles, Shavack says.

 

"You look for your next hit or your next high," he says. "You have to have money to do that, so they look for quick-turn items like jewelry and electronics. They sell (the items) very quickly and go get their next bundle of heroin."

 

For many, it's simple economics, says DEA Special Agent Amy Roderick in San Diego.

 

When pain pill addicts in San Diego can't find or afford OxyContin, which sells for as much as $100 a pill there, they'll purchase heroin for $80 a gram, she said.

 

"You're just getting more bang for the buck," Roderick said. "Once you're addicted to an opiate, you're addicted. If you can't get what you want, you'll take what you can get," even if it means using a needle to get high.

 

Many of the heroin users and dealers whom federal agents arrest in San Diego are younger than 30, and some are as young as 17, she said.

 

"They're telling us as we're arresting them, 'We can't find the Oxy. We can't find the Vicodin,' " Roderick said. "It's a very dangerous drug. Once you're addicted, it takes over your life."

 

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Assault on the 2nd Amendment

 

GE Capital to stop financing gun purchases

By Paul Davidson — Thursday, April 25th, 2013 ‘USA Today’

 

 

General Electric has stopped financing gun purchases, highlighting the wide-ranging impact of the Sandy Hook school shooting in Newtown, Conn. last December and the recent debate in Washington over restricting firearm sales.

 

GE Capital Finance ceased providing consumer financing for new gun-shop customers in 2008, and recently extended the policy to existing customers. The decision affects fewer than 75 retailers, which GE says is about .001% of all gun retailers.

 

MORE: Gunfight in America

 

The company implemented the new policy "in light of industry changes, new legislation and tragic events that have caused widespread reexamination of policies on firearms," GE Capital spokesman Russell Wilkerson said in an e-mail.

 

Loans to gun customers is "an immaterial part of our sales volume," Wilkerson added.

 

Some of the nation's largest lenders don't finance gun purchases.

 

Wells Fargo stopped the practice in 2004 for business reasons, company spokeswoman Lisa Westerman said. Citigroup doesn't finance firearm loans, says spokeswoman Liz Fogarty. Bank of America would not comment on whether it provides consumer financing for firearms.

 

GE Capital's new policy affects only retailers that sell firearms exclusively and not general merchandise stores, such as Wal-Mart, that sell guns and other products. Some stores have changed their product mix in recent years to just firearms and the new policy will cut off financing at those shops, Wilkerson says.

 

Midwestern Firearms of East Peoria, Ill., offers layaway plans for customers but not financing. Still, owner John Meek called GE Capital's move "an injustice as far as their thinking goes — blaming the instrument rather than the perpetrator."

 

GE is based in Fairfield, Conn., not far from Newtown, where Adam Lanza killed 27, including 20 children, and his mother, before killing himself. Lanza's father, Peter, is a GE executive.

 

Other companies are also backing away from the gun business after the tragedy. Private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management has said it wants to sell Freedom Group, which manufactures Remingtons, Bushmasters, Marlins, H&R and other well-known firearm brands.

 

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GE Capital Cuts Off Lending to Gun Shops

By JOE PALAZZOLO and KATE LINEBAUGH — Thursday, April 25th, 2013 ‘The Wall Street Journal’ / New York, NY

 

 

General Electric Co. is quietly cutting off lending to gun shops, as the company rethinks its relationship to firearms amid the fallout from the school shooting in Newtown, Conn.

 

This month, Glenn Duncan, owner of Duncan's Outdoor Store in Bay City, Mich., said he received a letter from GE Capital Retail Bank in which the lender said it had made "the difficult decision" to stop providing financing services to his store. Other gun dealers have received similar notices.

 

GE is at least the second big financial firm to retreat from the gun business following the school shootings, which claimed the lives of 20 first-graders and six adults in December.

 

Days after the killings, private-equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP said it would try to sell the gun company it owns—Freedom Group Inc.— which makes brands including Remington, Bushmaster, Marlin and H&R.

 

The moves highlight how companies, closely attuned to the concerns of investors and employees, have reacted to public horror caused by the attacks, even as complicated political considerations doomed new gun-control legislation in the Congress.

 

GE is based in Fairfield, Conn., and many of the GE's employees live around Newtown, and several have children in the Sandy Hook elementary school, where the shootings took place. Peter Lanza, the father of Sandy Hook gunman Adam Lanza, is an executive at GE Capital. GE Chief Executive Jeff Immelt held a town hall meeting with affected employees after the shooting, and the board has been updated on efforts to help staff, a person familiar with the matter said.

 

"Industry changes, new legislation and tragic events" led GE Capital to reexamine its policies on financing firearms, spokesman Russell Wilkerson said.

 

The company's exit has little overall impact in a U.S. gun market, where sales last year totaled $11.7 billion, according to IBIS World. While a typical handgun can cost more than $300, financing remains a marginal activity.

 

GE's ban applies only to retailers whose sole business is selling firearms, an "insignificant and immaterial" part of GE Capital's business, Mr. Wilkerson said. The lender is still doing business with merchants with more diverse lines of business, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the nation's largest seller of guns and ammunition, and Dick's Sporting Goods Inc., he said.

 

But GE's withdrawal has symbolic significance, as well as real consequences for the companies that used the service. Gun sellers said financing leads customers to spend more on firearms and accessories.

 

GE has grown to be a bigger lender than all but four of the country's commercial banks in large part by catering to specialized niches and hundreds of thousands of smaller customers like fast-food franchises and retailers that weren't a priority for bigger rivals.

 

The company's involvement in gun finance dates back to 2006. Rex McClanahan, co-owner of Buds Gun Shop in Lexington, Ky., remembered first meeting GE representatives at an outdoor trade show called Nation's Best Sports in Fort Worth, Texas, in 2007.

 

"GE showed up there wanting to sell their service. We signed up, and it took off right away," he said, adding that thousands of customers took advantage of the financing in the first year.

 

In 2008, GE shifted gears and stopped taking on new customers whose primary business is firearm sales. The financing for Mr. McClanahan's store along with other existing customers was grandfathered in. But this February, he was informed that GE was terminating the financing program. Mr. McClanahan said he is talking with other lenders to re-establish a credit program.

 

"Your options are very limited by being in our business," he said.

 

A spokeswoman for Wells Fargo & Co. said bank officials decided to exit gun financing nearly a decade ago. Bank of America Corp., which got out of the business in 2008, didn't respond to requests for comment. A spokeswoman for Citigroup Inc. said the bank doesn't finance loans for firearms.

 

Smaller lenders have helped fill the gap. Last July, Randy Frazier opened a new division of his direct-marketing business called Gun Financing, promising on its website to arrange loans for the "hottest firearms." Mr. Frazier said his audience is young men with spotty credit seeking high-end rifles and equipment for sport shooting.

 

Law Enforcement Finance, a company that launched about two weeks before the Sandy Hook massacre, offers police officers low-interest financing for rifles and body armor.

 

Daniel Johnson, a patrolman in the Bourbonnais Police Department in northern Illinois, said he got a loan to purchase a $2,250 Daniel Defense M4 Carbine, a sleek looking black rifle with plenty of "bells and whistles," after he was selected for the county SWAT team.

 

"It's kind of like, do you want to play basketball with Michael Jordan, or do you want to play with a local high school kid?" he said, explaining why he didn't use the standard-issue AR15 supplied by the force. Married with two kids and a mortgage, he found the three-year financing deal a "great help."

 

On a recent morning, half a dozen customers were browsing ammunition, sights and personal protection firearms over the thumping of gunfire from the attached shooting range at Duncan's Outdoors Store in Bay City. A flier from GE Capital was displayed above a case of handguns, saying in red marker: "6 mo same as cash."

 

Mr. Duncan, the owner, said the financing made it easier for buyers to spend more. Now that he's been cut off by GE, he may offer a layaway plan. "So we are the finance company, not GE Capital," he said.

 

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The 4th Amendment, Law Enforcement and Your Computer

 

Updating an E-Mail Law >From the Last Century

By SOMINI SENGUPTA — Thursday, April 25th, 2013 ‘The New York Times’

(Edited for brevity and generic law enforcement pertinence) 

 

 

Congress is now set to bring the quarter-century-old law, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, or E.C.P.A., in line with the Internet age.

 

On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee will start deliberating a measure that would require the government to get a search warrant, issued by a judge, to gain access to personal e-mails and all other electronic content held by a third-party service provider.

 

The current statute requires a warrant for e-mails that are less than six months old. But it lets the authorities gain access to older communications — or bizarrely, e-mails that have already been opened — with just a subpoena and no judicial review.

 

The law governs the privacy of practically everything entrusted to the Internet — family photos stored with a Web service, journal entries kept online, company documents uploaded to the cloud, and the flurry of e-mails exchanged every day. The problem is that it was written when the cloud was just vapor in the sky.

 

Silicon Valley companies as well as advocacy groups from the political left and right have been lobbying for change for many years, and reform legislation seems to be gaining broad political support. Even the Justice Department appears to have approved one major change: requiring law enforcement to get a search warrant for all kinds of electronic content, no matter how long it has been in electronic storage or what exactly electronic storage means.

 

“Changing the law has become more of an imperative because of the growth of cloud computing, because everyone including members of Congress are storing sensitive info with third-party providers and they want it to be protected,” said Greg Nojeim, senior counsel at the Washington-based Center for Democracy and Technology, which is financed partly by Silicon Valley companies and which is part of a coalition pushing for reform. “The technology is advancing and people realize the law has to keep pace.”

 

Updating the bill could have a broader impact on civil cases as well, clarifying who can gain access to e-mails, photos and Facebook posts in corporate litigation and divorce court.

 

And it could lay out clearer rules for government agencies like the Internal Revenue Service to follow to gain access to private citizens’ e-mails. The agency told Congress recently that it seeks search warrants before reading taxpayer e-mails, though its written policy says otherwise, according to an information request filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.

 

Courts across the country, apparently baffled by how to apply the existing law, which applies to content held in “electronic storage,” have ruled in sometimes contradictory ways over the privacy of electronic material in both civil and criminal cases.

 

-

 

Facebook says it turns over content created by users — pictures, posts, messages — only after it is served with a search warrant, though a subpoena suffices for basic subscriber information, including a user’s name and e-mail address.

 

Twitter, too, says “requests for contents of communication require a U.S. search warrant,” and informs users when it receives a request for information from a government agency.

 

Microsoft, which operates e-mail and cloud storage services, follows a similar practice, insisting on a search warrant for “content,” including documents, photos, e-mail and instant messages. With a subpoena, the company can divulge a user’s Internet Protocol record, though, which can be used to establish a person’s location.

 

“The law is so old it doesn’t account for how we have turned into a digital society,” said Bryan Schilling, a lawyer at Microsoft. He offered an offline analogy: “If somebody had a storage unit, law enforcement would be required to get a search warrant,” he said. “It’s the same thing now, as we store more and more of our content in the cloud, consumer or enterprise.”

 

The original sponsor of the 1986 law, Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, has called its overhaul his top priority for the year. He and Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, have introduced a measure requiring law enforcement to obtain a warrant for all electronic content, including e-mails, regardless of how old they are.

 

That overhaul is backed by an unlikely coalition. Amazon and Google, which offer cloud-based services to consumers and businesses, are lobbying for the change, along with start-ups like Evernote and Tumblr, which operate modern-day private diaries. They have joined with advocacy groups as diverse as the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans for Tax Reform.

 

The issue of e-mail privacy received the greatest attention last year, when Gen. David H. Petraeus, the former director of the C.I.A., resigned after an inquiry into his e-mail correspondence turned up evidence of an extramarital affair. He and his biographer, Paula Broadwell, had exchanged amorous correspondence in a “draft” folder of a shared Gmail account, apparently to elude detection.

 

Those draft messages, because they had not been transmitted across the Internet, could have been viewed by federal authorities with nothing more than a subpoena, according to current law.

 

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Immigration Enforcement  /  Illegal Aliens

 

Texas: Skepticism on Immigration Law
(Federal Judge’s Preliminary Ruling Finds That the Obama Administration Violated Immigration Law)

By JULIA PRESTON — Thursday, April 25th, 2013 ‘The New York Times’

 

NOTE:  Notice how the misleading N.Y. Times header shows their agenda!  - Mike Bosak

 

 

In a preliminary ruling, a federal judge found that the Obama administration violated immigration law with a program last year that offered reprieves from deportation to hundreds of thousands of young illegal immigrants who came to the United States as children. The ruling on Tuesday came in a lawsuit brought by immigration enforcement agents against Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. Judge Reed O’Connor rejected most of the administration’s arguments and found that the agents were “likely to succeed” in the case. He delayed a final ruling, asking both sides to submit more information by May 6.

 

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Mexico

Mexico's Zetas Cartel Recruiting Americans Since 2010

By Andrew O'Reilly — Wednesday, April 24th, 2013 ‘Fox News Latino’

 

 

Mexico’s ultra-violent Zetas drug cartel has made connections and collaborated with U.S. gangs throughout the United States since at least 2010, a leaked, confidential FBI document revealed.

 

The FBI intelligence bulletin, published by the free information group Public Intelligence, showed that the Zetas have formed strong bonds with gangs of both Mexican and non-Mexican Americans to facilitate drug trafficking and enforcement on both sides of the border. The presence of Zetas-linked gangs is especially prominent along Texas’ southwest border and in Houston.

 

“The FBI judges with high confidence that Los Zetas will continue to increase its recruitment efforts and establish pacts with non-military trained, non-traditional associates to maintain their drug trafficking and support operations,” the report stated.

 

Experts argued that this move is a natural progression of the inroads Mexico’s cartels have made in the U.S. and other parts of the world. Associates of Mexico’s cartels already have a large presence in major U.S. drug trafficking hubs such as Chicago, Houston and Atlanta.

 

“They are trying to distance themselves from the middlemen,” said Adam Isacson, a senior associate from the Washington-based think tank the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA). “We’ve seen this happening in the Andes and now it’s happening on our side of the border.”

 

The FBI bulletin revealed a 2010 Zetas deal with the Texas-based prison gang, the Mexican Mafia, to collect debts, carry out hits and traffic drugs in and through Laredo, Texas. The Zetas also bought AK-47 assault rifles from the Houston-based street gang Tango Blast and attempted to recruit a number of American citizens to join the cartel’s war against the Gulf Cartel.

 

This attempt to enlist American gang members into one of Mexico’s top drug cartels indicates that the Zetas have started to rely on non-traditional, non-military trained associates. Originally made up of former members of Mexico’s Special Forces, the Zetas are the former paramilitary-wing of the Gulf cartel and considered to be one of two dominant cartels in Mexico, along with Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán's Sinaloa cartel.

 

“It’s puzzling that they recruit non-trained people,” said Peter Hakim of the president emeritus of the Washington-based think tank, the Inter-American Dialogue. “They would want people who were well-trained and knew how law enforcement works. Maybe they are hiring people for jobs that do not require the skilled use of firearms or deadly tactics.”

 

There are also rumors that the Zetas have been weakened due to a split into two rival factions that are battling for control of the central states of Zacatecas and San Luis Potosi, as well as for parts of Yucatan peninsula. While authorities have not confirmed the split, local media and some experts claim that there is enough evidence of internal strife within the Zetas.

 

"If it is true, a split would likely hinder the ongoing attack on Sinaloa groups and strongholds, as Zeta groups turned on each other," Shannon O'Neil, a Douglas Dillon Fellow for Latin America Studies at the Council of Foreign Relations, told Fox News Latino. "With this different dynamic, it is unclear that the levels of violence would change – killings would continue, the 'teams' and actors may have shifted."

 

While the Colombian drug cartels of the 1980s and 1990s made wide connections throughout the U.S., these reports indicate that Mexican cartels have stepped up their efforts to take a more central role in the trafficking of their products north of the border.

 

A wide-ranging Associated Press review, released earlier this month, of federal court cases and government drug-enforcement data, plus interviews with many top law enforcement officials, indicate the groups have begun deploying agents from their inner circles to the U.S. Cartel operatives. They are also suspected of running drug-distribution networks in at least nine non-border states, often in middle-class suburbs in the Midwest, South and Northeast.

 

"It's probably the most serious threat the United States has faced from organized crime," said Jack Riley, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Chicago office.

 

Besides the U.S., Mexican cartels – particularly the Sinaloa group – have expanded their operations across the globe.

 

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) recently announced documented links between Mexican cartels and criminal groups in Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, and Nigeria. The Sinaloa Cartel is also known to have ties not only in Europe but throughout Latin America, Africa, Asia and Australia, where a booming trade has developed in the country’s cities.

 

“It’s not surprising,” Isacson said of the cartel expansion around the globe. “The power of the Mexican cartels keeps growing both upstream and downstream.”

 

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Homeland Security

 

CIA wanted Boston suspect on terror watch list
FBI interviewed mother in Dagestan on Wednesday. She has vigorously denied that her sons were involved in the attacks.

By Kevin Johnson and Donna Leinwand Leger — Thursday, April 25th, 2013 ‘USA Today’

 

 

WASHINGTON — The CIA submitted the name of one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects for a terrorist watch list in fall 2011 after an inquiry about Tamerlan Tsarnaev from Russian authorities concerned about his possible ties to extremists, a U.S. intelligence official said Wednesday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to discuss the case publicly.

 

The FBI had received a nearly identical request from the Russian government six months earlier, prompting a review of Tsarnaev's activities that turned up nothing improper, a federal law enforcement official said.

 

Tsarnaev, 26, was killed in a confrontation with police early Friday, hours after photos of him and his brother, Dhokhar Tsarnaev, were circulated as suspects in the Boston attacks. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, now recovering from a neck wound, was charged Monday and faces a possible death sentence if convicted.

 

Tsarnaev's inclusion on the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE), a list of more than 500,000 names, is raising questions from lawmakers about why federal authorities did not continue to monitor Tamerlan Tsarnaev who, following the FBI inquiry, left for a six-month trip to Russia on Jan. 12, 2012. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told a Senate panel this week the watch system alerted authorities of his departure. By the time he returned, she said, the FBI investigation had been closed.

 

Reps. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, and Pete King, R-N.Y., have called on the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security to provide more information.

 

The law enforcement official, who is not authorized to comment publicly, said the CIA was aware of the FBI review and referred the new request back to the FBI. The CIA may not conduct intelligence operations on U.S. soil.

 

The FBI again contacted its Russian counterparts, asking if they had additional information on Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Russian authorities, the official said, never responded.

 

In Boston, Dhokhar Tsarnaev has told federal investigators that the deadly attacks were launched last week without a rehearsal.

 

The federal law enforcement official said Dhokhar Tsarnaev said he and his brother did not test fire the pressure-cooker devices before planting them near the crowded finish line of the race, where three people were killed and 264 injured.

 

Earlier Wednesday, their father said he and his wife would travel to the United States from Dagestan on Thursday to assist with the investigation.

 

FBI agents traveled to the Russian republic to interview Anzor Tsarnaev and his wife, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, to try to determine how their sons became radicalized.

 

She took a taxi to the offices of the Russian security services, or FSB, in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, where she was interviewed by U.S. and Russian officials. But Anzor Tsarnaev was not questioned, telling officials he felt ill.

 

He later told the Russian news agency RIA Novosti that the couple would travel to the United States the next day to offer assistance.

 

A lawyer for the family said, however, that the family had not finalized their plans.

 

Investigators are looking into whether Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who spent six months in Russia's Caucasus in 2012, was influenced by the religious extremists who have waged an insurgency against Russian security services in the area for years. The brothers have roots in Dagestan and neighboring Chechnya, but neither spent much time in either place before the family moved to the United States a decade ago.

 

Shortly before he died, Tamerlan called his mother, The Wall Street Journal reported, telling her: "The police, they have started shooting at us; they are chasing us. Mama, I love you." Then the phone went dead.

 

Dzhokhar, who has answered some questions of U.S. investigators regarding the April 15 bombings at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, has said that he and his brother acted alone and without any help from anyone, foreign or domestic, according to a law enforcement official.

 

He has also said that the brothers were motivated by religious fervor and anger over U.S. involvement in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

 

The parents returned to Dagestan without their children several years ago. They have claimed that their sons are innocent of involvement in last week's bombings and are being framed by police.

 

"It's a big show, a spectacle. Americans love a show," Zubeidat Tsarnaeva told The Daily Telegraph.

 

She also gave an exclusive interview to Britain's Channel 4 News, calling the bombing a "a terrible thing."

 

"But I know that my kids have nothing to do with this," she said. "I know it. I am mother. I know my kids."

 

The U.S. Embassy delegation made the trip on Tuesday "because the investigation is ongoing, it's not over," said an embassy official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. He said the U.S. team is working with the FSB.

 

"This is a horrible tragedy for our country, but one positive development might be closer cooperation on this set of issues with the Russian government," the embassy official said.

 

Anzor Tsarnaev is an ethnic Chechen born in Kyrgyzstan. Zubeidat Tsarnaeva is an ethnic Avar from Dagestan.

 

It was unclear exactly which officials were carrying out the interviews, but the AFP news agency quoted an embassy official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, who said that the FBI is receiving cooperation from the Russian government in its investigation.

 

Heda Saratova, a prominent Chechen rights activist providing support to the distraught mother, said she first went in for questioning on Tuesday, returning late at night. Saratova said she had no details about the discussions, but that Zubeidat Tsarnaeva said they were "cordial."

 

A Dagestan security source told AFP that the parents, asked about Tamerlan's trip to Dagestan in 2012, replied that he did not make contact with radical Islamists.

 

Abdurashid Magomedov, Dagestan's interior minister, has also denied that Tamerlan became a follower of radical Islam while in the republic, according to Russia's Interfax news agency.

 

Contributing: Doug Stanglin, Michael Winter; The Associated Press

 

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2 U.S. Agencies Added Boston Bomb Suspect to Watch Lists

By ERIC SCHMITT and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT — Thursday, April 25th, 2013 ‘The New York Times’

 

 

WASHINGTON — Despite being told in 2011 that an F.B.I. review had found that a man who went on to become one of the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings had no ties to extremists, the Russian government asked the Central Intelligence Agency six months later for whatever information it had on him, American officials said Wednesday.

 

After its review, the C.I.A. also told the Russian intelligence service that it had no suspicious information on the man, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed in a shootout with the police early last Friday. It is not clear what prompted the Russians to make the request of the C.I.A.

 

The upshot of the American inquiries into Mr. Tsarnaev’s background was that even though he was found to have no connections to extremist groups, his name was entered into two different United States government watch lists in late 2011 that were designed to alert the authorities if he traveled overseas.

 

The picture emerging Wednesday was of a counterterrorism bureaucracy that had at least four contacts with Russian spy services about Mr. Tsarnaev in the year before he took a six-month trip to Russia in 2012, but never found reason to investigate him further after he returned, or at any time before last week’s attacks in Boston that killed 3 people and injured more than 260.

 

Lawmakers this week criticized federal officials for failing to share investigative leads in the months leading up to the attack, and the new disclosures are likely to increase Congressional scrutiny of why the authorities did not pay more attention to an overseas visit that may have helped radicalize Mr. Tsarnaev.

 

After the C.I.A. cleared him of any ties to violent extremism in October 2011, it asked the National Counterterrorism Center, the nation’s main counterterrorism agency, to add his name to a watch list as a precaution, an American intelligence official said Wednesday. Other agencies, including the State Department, the Homeland Security Department and the F.B.I., were alerted.

 

That database, the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, or TIDE, contains about 700,000 names. It is the main repository from which other government watch lists are drawn, including the F.B.I.’s Terrorist Screening Database and the Transportation Security Administration’s “no fly” list.

 

The information conveyed to the watch list included a transliteration from Cyrillic of Mr. Tsarnaev’s name — “Tamerlan Tsarnayev” — two dates of birth (both incorrect, officials said), and one possible variant spelling of his name.

 

The first Russian request came in March 2011 through the F.B.I.’s office in the United States Embassy in Moscow. The one-page request said Mr. Tsarnaev “had changed drastically since 2010” and was preparing to travel to a part of Russia “to join unspecified underground groups.”

 

In response, counterterrorism agents in the F.B.I.’s field office in Boston, near where Mr. Tsarnaev was living, began a review to determine whether he had extremist tendencies or ties to terrorist groups. The review included examining criminal databases and conducting interviews with Mr. Tsarnaev and his family.

 

The agents concluded by June 2011 that they could not find any connections to extremists, and in August the results of the assessment were provided to the Russians, according to the United States official. At the time, F.B.I. agents requested additional information on Mr. Tsarnaev and asked to be informed of any further developments.

 

In closing out its report, the F.B.I.’s field office in Boston added Mr. Tsarnaev’s name to a second watch list, the Treasury Enforcement Communications System, or TECS, which was set up to send an electronic message to customs officials whenever Mr. Tsarnaev left the country.

 

Shortly thereafter, the F.B.I. repeated its request to the Russians for more information. The Russians, however, did not respond with anything new.

 

But a month later, the Russians sent the C.I.A. the same request for information on Mr. Tsarnaev that they had sent the F.B.I. .

 

That request prompted the C.I.A. to review its databases for information on Mr. Tsarnaev, but the agency came to a similar conclusion as the F.B.I. Around that time, the F.B.I. learned of the request to the C.I.A. and for the second time since providing its findings to the Russians in June, it went back and asked them for additional information on Mr. Tsarnaev, according to the official.

 

The official said the Russians never provided any additional information on Mr. Tsarnaev until after he was killed as he and his brother, Dzhokhar, tried to evade police officers who were chasing them in Watertown, Mass.

 

When Tamerlan Tsarnaev left the country on Jan. 12, 2012, for a six-month trip to Dagestan and Chechnya, predominantly Muslim republics in the North Caucasus region of Russia, his flight reservation set off a security alert to customs authorities, the homeland security secretary, Janet Napolitano, told a Senate committee on Tuesday.

 

But Mr. Tsarnaev’s departure apparently did not set off a similar alert on the TIDE watch list because the spelling variants of his name and the birth dates entered into the system — exactly how the Russian government had provided the data months earlier — were different enough from the correct information to prevent an alert, a United States official said.

 

When Mr. Tsarnaev returned in July, the travel alert “was more than a year old and had expired,” Ms. Napolitano said.

 

The new details about the investigation and the coordination between American intelligence emerged as the deputy F.B.I. director, Sean Joyce, and other top counterterrorism officials briefed lawmakers for a second day Wednesday.  But members of the House Intelligence Committee left closed briefings on Capitol Hill with many unanswered questions about what or who radicalized the suspects.

 

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NYPD Video Surveillance  (Pro & Con)

 

Mayor Bloomberg Is a Surveillance-State Extremist, Not a Pragmatic Centrist
He talks as if 9/11 and the Boston marathon bombing justify cameras everywhere. But that wouldn't have stopped either attack.

By Conor Friedersdorf — Thursday, April 25th, 2013 ‘The Atlantic’ / Washington, DC

(Op-Ed / Commentary)

 

 

Even when Mayor Michael Bloomberg is criticized, he is regarded as "a pragmatic, apolitical, solution-oriented centrist," as Joe Nocera once described him in The New York Times. But it isn't so.

 

The conventional wisdom is wrong.

 

Although Mayor Bloomberg belongs to neither the conservative movement nor the progressive movement, he is an ideologue: his response to events is influenced by his paternalistic ideas about the direction society "needs to" head more than by a dispassionate response to the facts. This makes him a lot like most politicians. The conceit that he is a pragmatist is based in nothing more than the fact that he is more willing than most to transgress against norms of personal liberty.

 

The latest illustration of his ideological approach: this response to the Boston marathon bombing.

 

"Look, we live in a very dangerous world," he said. "We know there are people who want to take away our freedoms. New Yorkers probably know that as much if not more than anybody else after the terrible tragedy of 9/11."

 

He continued:

 

We have to understand that in the world going forward, we're going to have more cameras and that kind of stuff. That's good in some senses, but it's different than what we are used to. And the people who are worried about privacy have a legitimate worry, but we live in a complex world where you're going to have a level of security greater than you did back in the olden days, if you will. And our laws and our interpretation of the Constitution I think have to change.

 

It is hardly surprising that an unapologetic paternalist who frequently shows disregard for civil liberties would favor creating a more expansive surveillance state than the one that presently exists.

 

But ponder the examples Bloomberg cites as if they justify his conclusion.

 

Security cameras wouldn't have prevented hijackers from flying airplanes into the World Trade Center. In Boston, there were already enough private security cameras in place to identify the bombing suspects, and more cameras couldn't have stopped two guys with backpacks from dropping them.

 

There's no reason to think more surveillance cameras or fewer Constitutional rights would've saved lives in either case*. Yet Bloomberg invokes 9/11 and Boston in support of that preexisting agenda, exploiting the terrorist attack to advance his purposes as blatantly as Dick Cheney.

 

I don't doubt that Bloomberg earnestly believes America would be better off with omnipresent  surveillance and fewer Constitutional protections, any more than I doubt that Dick Cheney really believed that invading and occupying Iraq was in the long term interests of the United States. But neither man advocated rational responses to the terrible attacks we actually suffered, even though both improved the odds of getting their way by invoking the specter of terrorism. 

 

At least the political press understands that Cheney is an ideologue, even when those who share his agenda try to represent it as pragmatic. Despite it all, Bloomberg is still treated as a pragmatist.

 

That should end.

 

A solution-oriented pragmatist wouldn't respond to the Boston attack by telling people they need more security cameras and fewer rights. He or she would look at facts specific to the case, many of which are still being discovered, and suggest solutions grounded in what actually happened. Invoking a tragedy isn't off limits. If you want to argue that the FBI should pay more attention to tips it receives from foreign governments, of course you're going to cite Tamerlan Tsarnaev. What's unpersuasive is invoking Boston in service of a policy that wouldn't have stopped it.   

 

A certain kind of surveillance is almost certainly going to be more common in the future: the sort that we all participate in by walking around with smart phones that take GPS tagged, high resolution photos and videos. Between smart phones and private security cameras, it's increasingly hard to imagine any notable event happening in a big crowd without someone noticing.

 

Right now, it takes a major crime for all that visual data to be accessed. In other words, it is made available to authorities after a mass casualty attack, but is of no use to someone like, say, a busybody mayor who wants to monitor the size of soda cup held by the patrons exiting a particular bodega. I doubt that's the specific reason that Bloomberg wants more surveillance cameras. But I'm confident he's imagined all sorts of paternalistic ways to make use of NYC's surveillance cameras that have nothing to do with protecting Americans from future terrorist attacks.

 

Just wait until removing the cameras is unthinkable.

 

Meanwhile, many who write about all the cameras he's installed in NYC don't ask any hard questions.

 

This MSNBC story is particularly amusing:

 

If you put your backpack down in lower Manhattan and walk away, a "smart" camera may just focus in on it. And if you don't retrieve it within a few minutes, a bomb squad might storm your knapsack. More and more "smart" surveillance cameras are being used to identify potential threats in New York City, according to Ray Kelly, the city's police commissioner. "You can put an algorithm in these cameras" that can spot potential threats like a discarded backpack or large package, Kelly explained.

 

When a bag was left outside the New York Stock Exchange, Kelly said it was "smart" cameras who alerted the NYPD. The police quickly deemed it a threat and sent out a bomb squad. That bag didn't contain a bomb, he said, but it's a prime example of how "smart" surveillance cameras work.

 

So that's a prime example? A false positive? The story never mentions an instance when cameras actually stopped a terrorist plot. Or how easy it would be to plant a bomb in a crowded subway car or department store instead of on the street, if the cameras really did get good enough to rush police to the scene of a bomb and diffuse it before it exploded, which is itself an unlikely scenario. Of course, this comes from the mayoral administration that defends years of racially profiling innocent Muslim Americans, at great costs to their community, even though the divisive, resource intensive work "never generated a lead or triggered a terrorism investigation."

 

That isn't very pragmatic.

 

And Bloomberg isn't a pragmatist. He is ideologically committed to the proposition that increasing the power of authorities and impinging on once sacrosanct liberties is necessary to keep people safe, whether from terrorists or themselves. Of course he wants to watch us all more closely.

 

We'd be fools to let him.

_____

 

*The massacre at Columbine high school, the movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado, the Newtown, Colorado shooting, and the killing spree at Fort Hood: none of these horrific acts would've been prevented by increasing police surveillance in public places.

 

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Judith Miller: How to Stop Terrorists Before They Kill
The NYPD's surveillance program was designed to detect local terrorists before they strike—and it's working.

By JUDITH MILLER — Thursday, April 25th, 2013 ‘The Wall Street Journal’ / New York, NY

(Op-Ed / Commentary)

 

 

The Boston Police Department responded with extraordinary skill to last week's marathon bombing, but some terrorism experts say that the attack, which killed three people and injured more than 200, may well have been prevented entirely had the perpetrators lived in New York City.

 

Part of the difference is a matter of numbers and resources. The New York Police Department has a vastly larger force—roughly 35,000 uniformed officers versus Boston's 2,000—and a far larger budget. The NYPD spent $330 million of its $4.6 billion annual budget in 2011 combating terrorism. Yet that is perhaps not New York's most telling advantage.

 

In the dozen years since 9/11, the city has developed a counterterror program that is a model of how to identify and stop killers like the Tsarnaev brothers before they strike. The 1,000 cops and analysts who work in the NYPD's intelligence and counterterrorism divisions, for instance, would likely have flagged Tamerlan Tsarnaev for surveillance, given Police Commissioner Ray Kelly's insistence on aggressively monitoring groups and individuals suspected of radicalization.

 

New York cops almost surely would have monitored Tamerlan—the elder of the two brothers—if they had known that Russia had warned the FBI in 2011 that he was an Islamic radical, that he was potentially dangerous, and that he had spent several months in Dagestan, a Russian republic with an Islamic insurgency, in 2012. "We would have been very reluctant to shut down an investigation if we knew all that it seems the bureau knew or could have known, especially once he had traveled to a region of concern," says Mitchell Silber, the former director of intelligence analysis for the NYPD, who now works at K2, a New York-based private security firm.

 

In August 2007, Mr. Silber and Arvin Bhatt, then also an NYPD analyst, wrote what was then considered a controversial police-department report arguing that with the attrition of al Qaeda's leadership, the primary threat to New York would come from "homegrown" Muslims under the age of 35 who had become Islamists in the West.

 

Based on an analysis of 11 plots against Western targets between 9/11 and 2006, their report, "Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat," concluded that most of the plotters were "unremarkable" citizens who had undergone often rapid radicalization, 90% of them in the West. The analysts identified a pattern of radicalization and listed common characteristics before a person committed a terrorist act. The report also warned: "The Internet is a driver and enabler for . . . radicalization."

 

Since 2007, the NYPD has looked for such warning signs among New York's Muslim population of 600,000 to 750,000—about 40% of whom are foreign-born—as homegrown terrorist plots have increased. In 2005, there was one homegrown terrorist plot in the U.S.; by 2010, there had been 12.

 

Tim Connors served as an Army officer in Afghanistan and now works for CAAS LLC, a New York-based consulting company that, among other things, trains police officers. He says that Tamerlan Tsarnaev fit the NYPD's radicalization profile perfectly. "His behavioral changes alone—never mind his overseas trip and Russia's warning to the FBI that he was a radical—would have been more than enough to trigger NYPD scrutiny," Mr. Connors says.

 

For instance, Tamerlan experienced a "family crisis" when his father left his mother in 2010 and then returned home to Dagestan. The 2007 NYPD report warned that such incidents often trigger radicalization. He also began exhibiting what the report calls "self-identification," when a person begins exploring radical ideas and dramatically changing his behavior—for instance, "giving up cigarettes, drinking, gambling and urban hip-hop gangster clothes" in favor of "traditional Islamic clothing" and "growing a beard."

 

Another red flag would have been Tamerlan's ejection from his local mosque, the Islamic Society of Boston, as reported by the Los Angeles Times. The paper disclosed last week that the elder brother was thrown out of the mosque after a shouting match with the imam during a Friday prayer service. The paper quoted several worshipers as saying that Tamerlan had yelled at the imam for having cited Martin Luther King Jr. as a role model for Muslims. Tamerlan protested, the paper said, because King was "not a Muslim."

 

The NYPD report cites "withdrawal from the mosque" as an indication of the onset of the "indoctrination" phase of radicalization. That is when a believer rejects traditional Islamic mentors in favor of "Salafist," or more radical, fundamentalist preachers and friends.

 

In New York, Tamerlan Tsarnaev's mosque quarrel and his sudden behavioral changes might well have been reported by concerned worshipers, the imam himself, or other fellow Muslims. The NYPD maintains close ties to Muslim preachers and community leaders, as well as a network of tipsters and undercover operatives.

 

Once the department had Tamerlan under surveillance, the NYPD's cyber unit might have detected his suspicious online viewing choices and social-media postings. Other detectives might have picked up his purchase of a weapon, gunpowder and even a pressure cooker—an item featured in an article, "How to Build a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom," in the online al Qaeda magazine Inspire.

 

Even if the NYPD hadn't been watching Tamerlan, it might have been tipped off to such suspicious purchases thanks to its Nexus program. Since the program's launch in 2002, the department has visited more than 40,000 businesses in the metropolitan area, encouraging business owners and managers to report suspicious purchases or other activities potentially related to terrorism.

 

The NYPD also maintains a "Ring of Steel," a network of 4,000 sophisticated security cameras that feed information into a central monitoring system to detect questionable or unlawful activity. It is at least possible that these cameras might have alerted officials to the presence of the abandoned backpacks containing the bombs. The department has focused its camera network on the Financial District in Lower Manhattan and on such iconic sites as the Empire State Building and Grand Central Terminal. Yet at least 220 cameras have been installed with views of Central Park, where the New York Marathon reaches its finish line.

 

Finally, there is the NYPD's continuing effort to understand Muslim communities and follow tips and leads by sending plainclothes officers to mosques, restaurants and other public venues where Muslims congregate. This effort—which follows court-ordered guidelines—might have secured information preventing last week's bombings.

 

Reporters for the Associated Press won a Pulitzer Prize last year for a series of articles critical of the NYPD's surveillance program. But the NYPD credits the program with helping to thwart as many as 16 terrorist attacks on the city since 9/11. That sort of police work isn't singled out for prizes, but maybe it will inspire police in other American cities—wondering about stopping their own version of the Tsarnaevs—to take a fresh look at how New York does it.

 

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                                                          Mike Bosak

 

 

 

 

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