Wednesday, May 8th, 2013 — Good Afternoon, Stay Safe
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Former 47 SNEU P.O. Richard Haste
Cop's rap in Ramarley Graham slay could be tossed over grand-jury glitch
By DOUGLAS MONTERO and CYNTHIA R. FAGEN — Wednesday, May 8th, 2013 ‘The New York Post’
A Bronx judge may dismiss the manslaughter charges against an NYPD officer who shot and killed an unarmed teen last year.
Judge Steven Barrett said in Bronx Criminal Court yesterday that he reviewed grand-jury minutes and was concerned about a prosecutor’s instructions that the panel should ignore whether the defendant, Officer Richard Haste, thought 18-year-old Ramarley Graham was armed.
Both sides must submit arguments by May 15. If the judge decides to throw the case out, the prosecutor’s office may resubmit the charges.
Haste testified in his own defense in front of the grand jury.
The February 2012 shooting of Graham, who is black, by Haste, who is white, sparked accusations of racial bias and overaggressive policing, and prompted comparisons to the Trayvon Martin shooting in Florida.
A surveillance tape captured Haste and other members of his undercover narcotics unit chasing Graham on foot into his Wakefield home. Haste then shot the teen in the chest in the bathroom in front of his grandmother and 6-year-old brother, as Graham flushed some marijuana down the toilet.
After yesterday morning’s pre-trial hearing, defense attorney Stuart London hailed the judge’s decision. “The fairness of the procedure has been compromised,” he said. “There may not have been an indictment if the charge had been read properly.”
Steven Reed, spokesman for Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson, said, “The legal papers which we will file in support of our argument that the indictment is sound will place the instructions to the grand jury in the proper context.”
Haste, 31, who is on modified duty, is currently out on $50,000 bond. If found guilty, he could face up to 25 years in prison.
Graham’s disappointed mother, Constance Malcolm, vowed, “We will continue to fight. We want justice.”
The teenager’s family has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit that also accuses the NYPD of manhandling Graham’s grandmother and of verbally abusing her after the shooting.
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Ramarley Graham judge 'officially concerned' by possible legal errors
Steven Barrett says grand jurors may have received erroneous instructions in case of black teenager shot dead by NYPD officer
By Ryan Devereaux in New York — Thursday, May 9th, 2013 ‘The Guardian’ / London, England
More than a year after their unarmed son was killed in his bathroom by a police officer; the parents of a New York teenager have been confronted with the prospect of starting the lengthy grand jury process all over again.
Constance Malcolm and Franclot Graham, the parents of Ramarley Graham, arrived to the Bronx county hall of justice Tuesday in hopes that judge Steven L Barrett would set a trial date for officer Richard Haste.
Haste shot and killed Graham in his Bronx apartment bathroom on 2 February 2012, as his six year-old brother and 58 year-old grandmother looked on. Haste's attorney has maintained that his client feared for his life, and that radio calls prior to the shooting reported that Graham had a gun. No weapon was ever found. After the incident, Haste and his supervisor, sergeant Scott Morris, were stripped of their badges and guns.
In June, Haste turned himself in and was arraigned on charges of first- and second-degree manslaughter. He pleaded not guilty. The four-year veteran of the force is the first serving NYPD officer to face criminal charges for a fatal shooting since 2006. He could serve a maximum of 25 years in prison if convicted.
On Tuesday, however, Judge Barrett revealed that he was deeply worried about portions of the grand jury minutes outlining the justification for Haste's indictment.
"I am officially concerned," Barrett said. The judge told lawyers with district attorney Robert Johnson's office, as well as Haste and his counsel, Stuart London, that he believed the grand jurors may have received erroneous instructions during their consideration of the case.
Barrett said passages contained in the minutes indicated jurors were told to disregard whether Haste was under the impression that Graham was armed. "I have reviewed this charge very closely," Barrett said. The judge added that the question of Haste's justification is "central to this case," noting that in Haste's pursuit of a suspect he allegedly believed was armed, "there might be a different measure of reasonableness" with respect to the use of deadly force.
Graham caught the attention of the police when he adjusted his waistband after leaving a corner store near his home. Officers in an observation vehicle followed, radioing to other members of the unit that he might be armed.
According to NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly, the call was put out on a tactical radio frequency that was likely only being monitored by the pursuing unit (it is common for reports of a gun spotted to be broadcast over a wider frequency). The following radio call, again broadcast over the tactical frequency, reported with certainty that Graham was armed.
"What he heard may very well have informed what he did," Barrett said. The judge informed the attorneys in the case that he would provide them with the portions of the grand jury minutes in question. They were then instructed to write up memos in response. Both sides will return to court 15 May and, depending on the judge's decision, the trial will continue as planned or the district attorney's office will be instructed to present their case again with a new grand jury.
Speaking outside the courthouse Tuesday, Royce Russell, attorney for the Graham family, said, "Clearly the family is disappointed, in that justice is being delayed."
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Ramarley Graham case may return to grand jury
By Unnamed Author(s) — Tuesday, May 7th, 2013; 8:20 p.m. ‘News 12 Bronx’
THE BRONX - The judge overseeing the Ramarley Graham shooting case says he's concerned with how things have been handled and may send the case back to the grand jury.
Officer Richard Haste says he shot 18-year-old Graham last year after fellow police officers told him that the teen was armed.
Months ago, a grand jury heard testimony from the officers who allegedly told Haste that Graham was armed. Apparently, the Bronx District Attorney told the jury not to consider the testimony, which concerns Bronx Supreme Court Justice Steven L. Barrett.
"What he heard may have informed what he did,” Barrett says. “At the very least, the grand jury should have the option to consider it.”
Haste faces manslaughter charges. His next court date is scheduled for May 15.
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Questions Emerge In Case Against Officer Who Shot, Killed Unarmed Bronx Teen
By Unnamed Author(s) — Tuesday, May 7th, 2013; 11:46 p.m. ‘NY 1 News’ / New York, NY
Questions are emerging over the indictment of an officer who shot and killed an unarmed Bronx teen last year.
Officer Richard Haste was indicted by a grand jury in the death of Ramarley Graham, who was killed after being chased into his home by officers who just saw the teen take part in an alleged drug deal.
Now, the judge in the case said the District Attorney's office may have told the grand jury not to rely on what fellow officers said to Haste before the shooting, including warnings that Graham had a gun.
Officer Haste's attorney said his client's state of mind at the time of the shooting was directly effected by thinking Graham was armed.
He said he is seriously concerned that the integrity of the grand jury process was compromised.
The case has been adjourned to next week, when the judge will hear arguments on whether the jury received the right instructions.
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Divide on Police-Stop Drop
By TAMER EL-GHOBASHY and JOE JACKSON — Wednesday, May 8th, 2013 ‘The Wall Street Journal’ / New York, NY
New York City officials drew strikingly different conclusions on Tuesday from the latest statistics which showed that stop-and-frisk reports filed by police declined by 51% in the first quarter while crime continued to drop.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg and New York Police Department Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the reduction in street stops was a reflection of the deterrent effect the tactic has had, with fewer people venturing into the streets carrying illegal weapons or committing crimes that would draw police attention to themselves.
City Council Speaker and Democratic mayoral candidate Christine Quinn said the decline in both the use of the tactic and the crime rate illustrates that public safety could be achieved without broad use of stop-and-frisk, which has been the subject of legal challenges.
"That shows us we can stay the safest big city in America without overly aggressive policies being implemented that causes us real tension between the community and the police," Ms. Quinn said.
On Monday, the City Council was given statistics by the NYPD showing that in the first three months of 2013, officers conducted 99,788 stops, compared with 203,500 during the same period in 2012. According to the latest available NYPD crime statistics, through May 5, overall major crime in New York City is down 2.4% from the same period last year. Murders are down 27%, while shootings have declined 22%. There have been 25% fewer shooting victims, the statistics show.
For many critics of stop-and-frisk, the dramatic decline in stops in the first quarter of 2013 represents a rebuke to the Bloomberg administration's repeated assertions that the tactic was one of the main drivers of the historic crime drop.
Mr. Bloomberg said the numbers vindicate the policy.
"Crime is going down so you would expect that the number of stop and frisks would go down," he said. "[Stops] are based on criminal activity, not political formulas or anything else…the fact is stops do have a deterrent."
"That's the results of this," he added. "If you think you're going to get stopped, you don't carry a gun."
Police officials have said the reduction in stops was also driven by the redeployment of so-called Operation Impact officers—rookie officers assigned to high-crime areas who account for many of the street stops the department logs. On Tuesday, Mr. Kelly said training of officers has also contributed to the dip.
"There's been a concerted effort to train officers who are on patrol in the proper means and methods to use in conducting stop, question and frisk," he said. "You know we're not unaware of the controversy surrounding it."
The stop-and-frisk tactic is the subject of a civil trial in federal court in Manhattan in which plaintiffs argue that the NYPD is unconstitutionally using it to disproportionately target minorities. Since 2002, more than 85% of those stopped were either black or Latino, and nearly 90% of those stopped were released without being charged.
Attorneys for the city and the police have argued that the tactic focuses on areas where crime is highest and that the percentage of minorities stopped is consistent with the percentage of crime suspects who are minorities.
On Tuesday, Mr. Kelly said stop-and-frisk is "integral to policing" but was only "a tool in the toolbox" that has lead to historic drops in crime over the past decade.
Asked if it was a coincidence that the reduction in stops came amid increased public and legal scrutiny, Mr. Kelly said: "I'm not going to characterize it. It is what it is."
—Lisa Fleisher and Andrew Grossman contributed to this article.
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A Message for Ray from His Alma Mater
The Fire This Time
By Dennis O. Ojogho (Crimson Editorial Writer) — Wednesday, May 8th, 2013 ‘The Harvard Crimson’ / Cambridge, MA
(Op-Ed / Commentary)
Of the 533,042 individuals stopped and frisked by the New York City Police Department last year, 87 percent were either black or Latino and 89 percent were completely innocent. If this is not considered racial profiling, then I don’t know what is.
Ever since the Supreme Court’s decision in Terry v. Ohio, NYPD officers have had the authority to stop people on the streets when there is reasonable cause to suspect that that individual is about to commit a crime. Officers have the power to frisk an individual when they suspect that he or she possesses a weapon.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the NYPD continue to defend the stop and frisk policy as a way to keep the city safer, but because the overwhelming majority of those stopped are both minorities and innocents, there is a real cause for concern. To NYPD officers, every stop represents an insignificant and forgettable part of the day. If they find no criminal activity, as occurs the vast majority of the time, they move on and stop the next individual they deem suspicious. But the dehumanization that comes with being treated like a criminal can haunt the person for life.
With as many at 1,800 individuals stopped per day, one must wonder what each of these individuals did to be considered suspicious. Was it the type of clothes they were wearing? Did their skin color simply not match the neighborhood they happened to be in at the time? Or maybe, they just gave off some type of vague, subjective criminal vibe. The problem with the NYPD’s stop and frisk policy is that it is completely based on presumption. All one has to do is look like someone who might commit a crime in the eyes of an officer, and one can be legally stopped and frisked under the current status quo.
With such a broad definition of suspicious and with so much discretion in the hands of NYPD officers, the potential for abuse is boundless. For a long time, it’s been difficult for the public to sympathize with victims of stop and frisk since no personal stories of maltreatment had come to light. But in 2011, a young teen named Alvin, who had already been stopped earlier that day, decided to record the incident. Like the Rodney King video that broadcast to the world what police brutality meant in Los Angeles, this 17-year-old’s audio recording, which marked the first public recording of a New York stop and frisk in action, revealed troubling truths.
When listening to the audio, the first thing you might realize is that the ordeal is not as harmless as the name “stop and frisk” may mislead you to believe. The police officer shoves Alvin and proceeds to call him “a piece of shit” and “a fucking mutt.” He also threatens to arrest and “break [Alvin’s] fucking arm off.” This is what the city of New York calls a stop and frisk. If you ask me, this sounds more like a “stop, harass, intimidate, belittle, and abuse.”
It is time for Mayor Bloomberg and NYPD Police Chief Raymond W. Kelly to put an end to this cruel practice. New York’s stop and frisk policy is just one of many ways America continues to perpetuate institutional racism. We often like to think that our country is post-racial, but if you asked any minority who has been stopped in New York or any other major urban city, they’d tell you otherwise.
As cities continue to under serve public schools, black and Latino dropout rates will continue to remain high. Without a high school diploma, these young people must survive in a country that dedicates more resources to putting them behind bars than seeing that they can find a good job or pursue higher education.
The culture of mass incarceration endemic in cities such as New York can be compared to what Arizona tried to do with Senate Bill 1070. Signed into law in 2010, it gives law enforcement similar powers to detain an individual if “reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States.” It made me proud to see President Obama strongly criticize this bill and the rest of the nation stand with him against it. They understand that what Arizona is doing violates both the 4th amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure and the 14th amendment’s equal protection of all people under the law.
We cannot stand idly by as 1,800 New Yorkers continue to racially profiled every day. I call on the president and defenders of civil liberties everywhere to stand up again, this time against the NYPD and its stop and frisk policy.
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The Politics of Policing / NYPD's Stop, Question & Frisk Search
Safer Streets Start with Real Police Reform
By Public Advocate Bill de Blasio — Tuesday, May 7th, 2013; 4:30 p.m. ‘The Amsterdam News’ / New York, NY
(Op-Ed / Commentary)
This past March marked two big milestones for the NYPD’s controversial 'stop-and-frisk' policy. The five millionth New Yorker was stopped and frisked, and a federal lawsuit against the policy began, which could end in federal oversight of the whole department.
Both are menacing signs for the future of our city.
We’ve reached this point because the stop-and-frisk policy is broken. It lacks real oversight, and has become so overused that many stops are little more than racial profiling—stopping innocent people on the street for no reason other than their race. Few neighborhoods in New York tell the story as starkly as Harlem. In East Harlem, Central Harlem North and South, at least 95 percent of the people stopped in 2012 were black or Latino. And the overwhelming majority of those persons stopped had committed no crime, and were issued no summons.
These facts are tearing apart the bond between police and community. People feel they are targeted because of their race or ethnicity; they feel frustrated because they are being stopped despite doing nothing wrong; and all of this is brewing antipathy toward law enforcement. Police officers on the beat see this with their own eyes. When I talk to officers who patrol the streets, they worry the quota-driven pressure to stop innocent people is costing them allies and information they need to do their jobs. They resent the time they’re spending to make bad stops instead of doing the kind of police work they were trained for—going after the real bad guys.
It doesn’t have to be this way. We can keep neighborhoods safe and go after the real criminals when police and the community are working and communicating together. And that means reforming the stop-and-frisk policy that’s driving a wedge between cops and neighborhoods.
First, it’s time for real oversight at the NYPD. We need an independent Inspector General who has the power to review police procedures like stop-and-frisk before they get out of control. Right now, the NYPD is the exception among big law enforcement agencies for not having an independent monitor. The police departments in Chicago and Los Angeles have Inspector Generals, as do the FBI and CIA.
We would never have gone from 100,000 stops per year when Mayor Bloomberg took office to nearly 700,000 stops in 2011 if we had a monitor in place. An Inspector General must have real subpoena powers to investigate, and would have a truly independent budget. This position would oversee the police department, right-size policies like stop and frisk, and ensure that we have real accountability.
Second, we need to pass the Racial Profiling Bill introduced by Councilmembers Jumaane Williams and Brad Lander in the New York City Council. We cannot continue to allow hundreds of thousands of young men to be stopped in the street for no other reason than the color of their skin. The new law would finally ban racial profiling and contrary to Mayor Bloomberg’s fear-mongering, it would still allow the police to follow legitimate leads and descriptions to apprehend suspects.
Finally, there needs to be new leadership at the helm of the NYPD—a leader who will work with and not against community interests and foster better relations between law enforcement and residents. The NYPD would be well served by these reforms because they protect officers just as readily as they protect residents. These reforms will help police and the community work better together and ultimately reduce crime and keep our streets safe.
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NYPD Counterterrorism and Intel Div.
Muslim watch is OK: Mike
Rips ‘disgraceful’ stand by Liu & Bill T.
By SALLY GOLDENBERG — Wednesday, May 8th, 2013 ‘The New York Post’
Mayor Bloomberg defended the NYPD’s Muslim surveillance program and took a swipe at two Democrats running for his job who oppose the strategy, saying he “hopes they’re smarter than what they say.”
Two days after City Comptroller John Liu called the post-9/11 surveillance unconstitutional and his rival Bill Thompson said it was “disgraceful,” Bloomberg pounced on their pandering.
“They’re saying things for the campaign. Let’s get serious here. This is not a policy [proposal]. You can only hope they’re smarter than what they say,” the mayor snapped when asked about the remarks made during a forum on Islamic issues Sunday afternoon.
He said police have acted legally in their use of the program, under which the NYPD has monitored Islamic groups and places they gather. They also crossed into New Jersey to conduct some operations.
The practice prompted scorn from the American Civil Liberties Union and other left-leaning politicians.
“We’ve been consistent with the law — we listen, we look and we try to, before things happen, look to see where there might be a problem, and shame on us if we don’t do that,” Bloomberg said during a press conference to unveil a tech startup, Urban Compass, in Manhattan.
“We don’t do anything that’s illegal — we don’t tap lines; we don’t go to sites where we’re not allowed to go,” he said. “But if it’s in the public domain, we have a right to look at it, and you would expect us to do that. Would you really want the Police Department to not do that?”
During the Arab American Association mayoral forum on Sunday, Liu lambasted his rivals for not deeming the NYPD’s program unconstitutional.
“No offense to you guys here — how can anybody think that it’s OK to surveil or spy on people just because they’re Muslim?” Liu asked incredulously.
Thompson said he would abolish the practice if elected.
“To single a group out, to follow people, to infiltrate mosques and bookstores, to be able to do all of those things — is it right? Absolutely not. Should it be done? Positively not. Would I allow it? Definitely not,” Thompson said.
City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Public Advocate Bill de Blasio have defended the program, but, realizing the audience at the forum was not on their side, avoided the topic and shifted to platitudes about stop- and-frisk and police-community relations.
In April, Quinn said, “The program they have conducted I do support continuing,” according to a video from Capital New York.
De Blasio told the outlet, “The NYPD has handled it in a legal and appropriate manner, with the right checks and balances.”
The mayor yesterday also defended stop and frisk when asked whether the steady drop in crime proves the policing program, which was reduced at the same time, is unnecessary.
“That’s the results of this. If you think you’re going to get stopped, you don’t carry a gun,” Bloomberg said. “So you would expect that the number of stop and frisks would go down.
“We don’t do stop and frisks with quotas. ... You don’t want an officer on the street not questioning someone because they’re concerned about hitting some politically driven maximum; that’s just craziness. People get killed that way.”
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NYPD $$ Lawyer Lotto $$ Bonanza / Brooklyn South Anti-Crime Sgt. Mourad Mourad and P.O. Jovaniel Cordova
Parents of 16-year-old boy shot by police plan to file wrongful-death lawsuit against city
Carol and Geraud Gray, along with their daughter Mahnefah, are expected to file a notice of claim on Wednesday informing the city of their intent to file a wrongful-death lawsuit that, alleging that the police used excessive force in the March 9 shooting of their son, Kimani Gray.
By Oren Yaniv — Wednesday, May 8th, 2013 ‘The New York Daily News’
A 16-year-old boy shot by police in Brooklyn two months ago lay mortally wounded on the ground for 15 minutes before getting medical attention, according to the teen’s family.
The parents of Kimani Gray are expected to file a notice of claim Wednesday, informing the city of their intent to file a wrongful-death lawsuit that alleges police used excessive force in the March 9 shooting.
Family lawyer Kenneth Montgomery said he can prove NYPD cops left Gray to die in East Flatbush.
“We have a videotape that shows all these police personnel who pretty much militarized the block,” he said. “And this young man is on the pavement, perceived not to be getting any medical attention for up to 15 minutes.”
Police officials, who have said Gray pointed a loaded .38-caliber handgun at cops, referred questions to the city’s Law Department. The Law Department declined comment, because it hadn’t seen the notice of claim.
At least two witnesses heard cops warn the teen not to move, but a neighbor disputed that. Gray was hit by seven bullets — three of them in the back.
The shooting sparked riots and protests. Dozens of people were arrested, including Gray’s sister. At least two cops suffered minor injuries in the clashes.
Montgomery said the dying teen wasn’t the cops’ priority in the critical moments that followed the shooting. He said the medical examiner is being helpful in providing them with records of the wounds.
The Brooklyn district attorney’s office continues to investigate the shooting, a spokesman said.
The teen’s relatives cleared the last bureaucratic hurdle before filing a notice of claim when his parents Carol and Geraud Gray were appointed court administrators alongside their daughter Mahnefah, 19.
The process was drawn out because the couple is estranged and neither is a U.S. citizen, so the dead teen’s sister was added as administrator.
There is a 90-day deadline from the time of an incident for plaintiffs to file a notice of claim with the city. If the claim isn’t settled within a year, a lawsuit can then be filed.
“The one concern I have is that the statute of limitations has to be met,” Surrogate’s Court Judge Margarita Lopez Torres told representatives of the parents Tuesday, urging them to reach an agreement.
The issue was eventually resolved when the couple agreed on a joint administration.
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NY / NJ Port Authority Police Dept.
Lhota ‘malls’ PA cops
By DAVID SEIFMAN — Wednesday, May 8th, 2013 ‘The New York Post’
GOP mayoral candidate Joe Lhota dismissed the Port Authority police force as nothing more than “mall cops” last night, saying he has no confidence in them to handle security at the city’s airports.
Lhota fired the stinging shot during a mayoral forum at Pace University hosted by the National Organization for Women.
“I don’t think the Port Authority does a good enough job in anything that they do, quite honestly,” he said.
“Those cops get paid more than NYPD cops and, quite honestly — I know I’m going to get in trouble for saying this — they’re nothing more than mall cops.”
He explained afterward that he thinks the NYPD should help manage security at the airports.
A PA official, who asked not to be named, fired back: “Joe Lhota is just a mediocre bureaucrat who doesn’t understand law enforcement.”
Meanwhile, Lhota yesterday landed the backing of the Staten Island Republican Party, the city’s largest GOP organization.
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Law Enforcement Unions Go After Joe Lhota For Calling Port Authority Police "Mall Cops"
BY Celeste Katz — Wednesday, May 8th, 2013 ‘The New York Daily News’
Police organizations are coming down on GOP mayoral hopeful Joe Lhota for dissing Port Authority officers as "mall cops," with several telling the Daily News the comment shows the ex-MTA boss isn't fit for City Hall.
"My phone’s been ringing off the hook from my members. Some of my widows are not happy," said Paul Nunziato, head of the Port Authority PBA. "They suffered enough and then they've got to read statements like this from a guy who wants to be mayor of New York? They’re just devastated. They have no idea why he would say something like that. Neither do we."
Thirty-seven Port Authority police officers were killed in the September 11 attacks.
Lhota made the controversial comment Tuesday night when addressing a forum question about sex trafficking through Kennedy airports. "I don't think the Port Authority does a good enough job in anything they do, particularly in the area of security," the former deputy mayor said.
He noted that PAPD cops make more than their NYPD counterparts, adding, "I know I'm going to get in trouble for saying this, but they're nothing more than mall cops."
UPDATE: Lhota apologized for his comment this morning in the following statement. Read on.
"In response to a question at last night's National Organization of Women debate regarding the proliferation of human trafficking at JFK Airport, I regret my unfortunate characterization of the Port Authority Police Department. It was an inappropriate answer that does not accurately reflect the hard work of its officers. I apologize for my insensitive remarks and look forward to working collaboratively with them to find ways to better combat sex trafficking throughout the city."
Nunziato, who said his union would actively campaign against Lhota -- but believes he's got no shot at winning -- said "just for him to make such a stupid statement shows you what kind of mayor he would be.
"I have guys dangling off the George Washington Bridge last week. I have guys down in the Path train chasing armed robbers - and catching them," he said. "I don't know what kind of malls Joe hangs out at."
City PBA President Patrick Lynch said in a statement: “New York City police officers have worked side by side with Port Authority police officers for many years and we have found them to be well-trained and highly experienced professional police officers.
"On 9/11 we searched together for 23 NYPD officers and 37 PAPD officers who sacrificed their own lives while evacuating others to safety. If that doesn’t speak to professional policing, then I don’t know what does."
James Carver, head of the Nassau County PBA, told the Daily News about 100 of his members live in the city, but many more have relatives there -- and the union will tell them not to support Lhota, who made the "mall cops" crack despite having "never ever spent one day in the police academy" or uniform.
"It’s insulting and it’s demeaning and it belittles the great job that every cop does every day, putting their life on the line," said Carver -- who's in Albany today for police memorial observances.
"We’re going to get our members know what this man thinks of police officers and that the should not get the votes of our families and friends," he said. "If you’re going to be that stupid, to say something that stupid, you don’t deserve to be the mayor of New York City."
Lhota primary rival George McDonald this morning sent out an email listing the names of the 37 fallen PAPD officers.
"In memory of all those members of the Port Authority Police lost in the line of duty, and with respect and thanks to all those who bravely serve; Joe Lhota owes them an apology," he said.
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Brooklyn D.A. Charles Hynes Political Pandering
Brooklyn DA to launch program allowing female felons to serve sentences at home
The prosecutor believes it will help single mothers and their children. Violent women will not be eligible for the JusticeHome program.
By Joanna Molloy — Wednesday, May 8th, 2013 ‘The New York Daily News’
Just in time for Mother’s Day, Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes will launch a program to allow women convicted of felonies to serve out their sentences in their homes.
The progressive prosecutor believes it will help single mothers and their children most of all.
Hynes’ office will partner with the Women’s Prison Association in its new JusticeHome program, in which the moms will get the social services they need to clean up their act, and kids will still have their primary caregiver.
“Seventy-three percent of women convicted of a crime have children,” said Teri Fabi, Hynes’ chief of crime prevention. “What happens when Mom goes to jail?”
Some children are taken in by relatives, where they may become a financial burden. Most prisons are upstate in rural areas, and many inmates do not see their kids for their entire incarceration.
Other kids end up in foster care. Prior to 2007, convicted women with children in foster care for more than 15 months lost their parental rights and the children were put up for adoption.
JusticeHome builds on the success of Hynes’ Drew House, a group residence opened in 2008 where convicted moms can live with their kids and receive social services as an alternative to jail.
A 2011 Columbia University study found that not one graduate of the home had committed another crime, and said the concept should be replicated.
JusticeHome takes the “alternative to incarceration” concept one step further.
According to the Women’s Prison Association, which has been helping women prisoners in the city since 1844, more than 80,000 kids in the state have a parent in jail. Most of those kids “live in a handful of low-income communities of color in New York City.”
“This program will help the future of the next generation,” Fabi proclaimed.
Fabi will begin training all Brooklyn assistant district attorneys to consider several factors when deciding on charges and the sentence recommendations for women perpetrators.
“From a correctional standpoint, women have such different issues than men,” Fabi noted. “Their No. 1 concern is their children. And they may have a history of trauma and mental health issues.”
Women accepted into JusticeHome will receive individual and group therapy, substance abuse counseling if needed, GED prep and job training.
They will not have to wear electronic ankle bracelets. In fact, they don’t actually have stay home. They can take the kids to school, go grocery shopping, go to church and visit Grandma.
Fabi says the threat they pose to the community is low. Two-thirds of women jailed in the U.S. committed nonviolent crimes, and really violent women won’t be eligible for JusticeHome.
Is this get-out-of-jail card for women fair to men convicted of equivalent crimes? While 58% of male convicts are fathers, most are not the primary parent. Eighty percent of single families are headed by women.
WPA Executive Director Georgia Lerner, who created the program, has seen an increase in women committing crimes since the 1980s, but often for reasons different from men’s.
“We’ve seen women who’ve sold drugs in order to buy groceries for their family, or diapers or formula. They’re expensive,” Lerner said.
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Westchester
Terrance Raynor, ex-Mount Vernon police chief, may take force's helm
Rumored Davis pick retired as cop for Westchester D.A.
By Will David — Tuesday, May 7th, 2013 ‘The Journal News’ / White Plains, NY
MOUNT VERNON — Terrance Raynor, who is believed to be the leading candidate to head the city’s police force, has retired from his post as chief investigator in the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office.
Raynor, a former Mount Vernon police chief, retired April 30, district attorney spokesman Lucian Chalfen said Tuesday.
Acting police Commissioner Richard Burke has introduced several changes aimed at preventing ethical lapses like those that have dogged the department recently.
Burke said he transferred nine members of the department last week to help curb corruption and prevent anyone on the 214-member force from associating with gang members.
“I did this to be proactive,” Burke said.
Four officers allegedly have ties to gang members and are under investigation by federal authorities. Burke declined to discuss the probe but said he is trying to clean his own house.
Although no one has publicly said that Mayor Ernest Davis will appoint Raynor as commissioner, he has been mentioned as a leading candidate.
Davis said Tuesday that he would soon name a new commissioner but did not say when.
Burke transferred everyone out of the Internal Affairs Unit last week. He named Lt. Dennis Lifrieri, a 30-year veteran of the force, to head it. A sergeant, Alec Francis, who has experience as a military investigator, was transferred to Internal Affairs to work with Lifrieri.
Detective Sgt. Robert Scott, the former head of Internal Affairs, was transferred to the Patrol Division.
Burke also increased the number of police officers on the Patrol Task Force that deals with street crime and quality-of-life offenses from six to eight officers.
Other transfers were made in the patrol and the detective divisions. In April, he transferred Deputy Chief James Dumser, who worked during the day, to nighttime duty to oversee the department and inspect police on the streets. He also changed supervision in the Detective Division.
Burke has rewritten codes of conducts dealing with allegations of corruption and serious misconduct against officers, standards of conduct, and guidelines of dealing with confidential informants. The new codes are fashioned after those used by the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the New York Police Department, Burke said.
Burke said Davis has been supportive.
“The guy has allowed me to make every change, and he has been completely supportive of every change,” Burke said.
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New York State
Annual police memorial ceremony set in Albany
By Unnamed Author(s) (The Associated Press) — Wednesday, May 8th, 2013; 6:27 a.m. EDT
ALBANY, N.Y. — Friends and relatives of police officers who have died in the line of duty will join state leaders and law enforcement officials for the annual Police Officers Memorial remembrance ceremony in Albany.
The ceremony is being held Wednesday afternoon at the New York State Police Officers Memorial in the Empire State Plaza.
The black granite memorial lists the names of more than 1,300 police officers, state troopers, sheriff's deputies and other law enforcement personnel who have died in the line of duty in New York state. More than half of the officers served with the New York Police Department.
Sixteen officers will be added to the memorial, including four who died last year.
Lt. Gov. Robert Duffy and state police Superintendent Joseph D'Amico are among the officials expected to attend the ceremony.
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New Jersey
New Jersey searching for solutions to rampant heroin problem
BY REBECCA D. O’BRIEN — Wednesday, May 8th, 2013 ‘The Bergen Record’ / Hackensack, N.J.
(Edited for brevity and generic law enforcement pertinence)
There is a renewed effort to crack down on a heroin scourge that is spreading beyond the street corners of cities like Paterson out to leafy suburbs, the very middle-class communities once thought to be immune to the ravages of the drug. The breadth of heroin addiction in New Jersey has spurred a response that seems to have political momentum. Many hope it is strong enough to make a dent in a problem that has seen 50 deaths in Bergen County since the beginning of 2011, chronic gang violence in Paterson, countless overdoses and dozens of arrests.
New Jersey is a hub of East-Coast heroin trafficking, officials say. But the soaring popularity of prescription painkillers — often a precursor to heavier drug use — along with cheap, easy-to-buy, high-quality heroin, has strengthened the drug’s grasp, particularly among suburban youth.
For decades, the “war on drugs” in New Jersey has been fought in fits and spurts, a patchwork of buys, busts and task forces. It has been fought by families, doctors and police on highways, in courtrooms and in private homes.
Now, officials are thinking in different directions.
The moves are small, but meaningful. They involve law enforcement, new treatment protocols, grass-roots campaigns and efforts to increase awareness about heroin addiction.
And although past efforts have had limited success, there is hope that a new push, if it has enough backing, could help stem a heroin problem that has long been rooted in cities like Paterson, Newark and Camden.
“It is a very interesting time,” said Ellen Elias, director of the Center for Alcohol and Drug Resources in Hackensack. “It has set off a lot of activity.”
Much of this momentum can be seen in new state initiatives.
Governor Christie has charged the Governor’s Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse with creating a Blueprint for a Drug Free New Jersey by 2020. The council’s task force on opiate and heroin addiction is expected to release recommendations in the coming months.
The Department of Human Services’ Division of Mental Health and Addiction Services has funded coalitions across the state seeking to curb underage drinking, abuse of prescription drugs, illegal drugs, and new and emerging drugs, such as “bath salts.”
Bergen is one of the three counties selected for a $2.5 million pilot program to expand drug courts, part of a law signed last year by Christie that would require drug treatment for low-level offenders who would otherwise serve jail time.
And last Thursday, Christie signed a good Samaritan law that provides immunity to those who report or assist in helping those who have overdosed on drugs.
“Our preconceived notions regarding gateway drugs, drug addiction and drug enforcement must be revisited,” Philip Degnan, executive director of the state Department of Investigation, told the task force last year.
“We can’t remain wedded to the old distribution motto that we know. We now live in a state where non-medical use of prescription pills serves as an entree to heroin addiction.”
Frank Greenagel Jr., a counselor who oversees recovery housing — a resource for students who are recovering addicts — at Rutgers University, has witnessed a dramatic increase in the number of students recovering from heroin and opiate addictions. In 2009, there was just one; the following year, there were eight.
Last fall, 15 of the 36 students in rehabilitation housing were recovering from opiates or heroin — and still more live in off-campus housing, he said. For more than a decade, Greenagel has counseled teenagers as young as 14 who are abusing prescription drugs and heroin.
“This age group is just getting pummeled,” he said. Greenagel, who also served on the state opiate and heroin task force, wants to see stronger, more dramatic reform of drug policy at the state and federal levels.
Greenagel said the task force report, in its effort to push small-scale, feasible policy measures, may find larger problems — such as the abuse of prescription medications that can lead to heroin addiction and the lack of insurance options for addicts seeking treatment — tougher to solve.
“I really think we have an obligation to address some of that right now, even if it’s unpopular,” Greenagel said.
The push for some of that is already under way. On Monday, an Assembly panel approved legislation requiring health insurers in the state to provide the same levels of coverage for a broad array of mental illnesses and substance abuse addictions as they do for treating other diseases.
If the bill becomes law, inpatient and outpatient programs, including detoxification treatment, would be covered under state-sponsored health benefits plans.
Insurance companies often deny coverage for mental health and addiction programs, Greenagel said — a concern that was echoed by many families of addicts.
Grass-roots organizations, particularly those with parents of current and former heroin and opiate addicts, have been behind many recent drug policy successes.
Take the good Samaritan bill, which Christie had originally vetoed.
The governor changed his mind, he said, after hearing from advocacy groups and parents.
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U.S.A.
Chart of the day: Gun homicides are down 49 percent since 1993
By Brad Plumer — Wednesday, May 8th, 2013 ‘The Washington Post’ / Washington, DC
A new report from Pew Research finds that gun homicide rates in the United States have dropped 49 percent between 1993 and 2010. Other types of gun violence have dropped 75 percent over that period.
Here it is in chart form: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2013/05/SDT-2013-05-gun-crime-1-1.png
Even with the drop, there’s still plenty of violence. All told, there were 31,672 deaths from guns in the United States in 2010.
There are a few twists here. As the chart makes clear, virtually all of the decline in gun homicides took place during the 1990s. That downward trend stopped in 2001 and only started falling again in 2007, albeit more slowly. The same is true for other types of gun violence — assaults, robberies, sex crimes.
Meanwhile, even as gun homicide rates have plummeted, gun suicide rates have declined at a much slower pace. As a result, Pew reports, “gun suicides now account for six-in-ten firearms deaths, the highest share since at least 1981.”
So why has gun violence declined? The report lists a whole slew of theories, from demographics to the economic boom during the 1990s to the drop in lead in the environment.
By the early 1990s, crack markets withered in part because of lessened demand, and the vibrant national economy made it easier for even low-skilled young people to find jobs rather than get involved in crime.
At the same time, a rising number of people ages 30 and older were incarcerated, due in part to stricter laws, which helped restrain violence among this age group. It is less clear, researchers say, that innovative policing strategies and police crackdowns on use of guns by younger adults played a significant role in reducing crime….
Another theory links reduced crime to 1970s-era reductions in lead in gasoline; children’s exposure to lead causes brain damage that could be associated with violent behavior. The National Academy of Sciences review said it was unlikely that either played a major role, but researchers continue to explore both factors.
Curiously, Pew reports, most Americans are also unaware of this drop: “According to a new Pew Research Center survey, today 56% of Americans believe gun crime is higher than 20 years ago and only 12% think it is lower.”
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Reports show gun homicides down since 1990s
A study released by the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that gun-related homicides dropped 39% from 1993-2011
By Alan Fram (The Associated Press) — Wednesday, May 8th, 2013; 6:40 a.m. EDT
WASHINGTON — Gun homicides have dropped steeply in the United States since their 1993 peak, a pair of reports released Tuesday showed, adding fuel to Congress' battle over whether to tighten restrictions on firearms.
A study released Tuesday by the government's Bureau of Justice Statistics found that gun-related homicides dropped from 18,253 in 1993 to 11,101 in 2011. That's a 39 percent reduction.
Another report by the private Pew Research Center found a similar decline by looking at the rate of gun homicides, which compares the number of killings to the size of the country's growing population. It found that the number of gun homicides per 100,000 people fell from 7 in 1993 to 3.6 in 2010, a drop of 49 percent.
Both reports also found that non-fatal crimes involving guns were down by roughly 70 percent over that period. The Justice report said the number of such crimes diminished from 1.5 million in 1993 to 467,300 in 2011.
But perhaps because of the intense publicity generated by recent mass shootings such as the December massacre of 20 school children and six educators in Newtown, Conn., the public seems to have barely noticed the reductions in gun violence, the Pew study shows.
The non-partisan group said a poll it conducted in March showed that 56 percent of people believe the number of gun crimes is higher than it was two decades ago. Only 12 percent said they think the number of gun crimes is lower, while the rest said they think it remained the same or didn't know.
The data was released three weeks after the Senate rejected an effort by gun control supporters to broaden the requirement for federal background checks for more firearms purchases. Senate Democratic leaders have pledged to hold that vote again, perhaps by early summer, and gun control advocates have been raising public pressure on senators who voted "no" in hopes they will change their minds.
Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, a member of the Senate Republican leadership, said the figures show that gun control groups have emphasized the wrong approach to controlling firearms violence.
"That's what many of us have argued all along, is that focusing just exclusively on the guns is not the correct approach to this," he said. Thune said lawmakers should aim instead at preventing future mass killings by improving mental health programs and increasing the records that state governments send the federal background check system so the checks can do a better job of keeping guns from people who shouldn't have them.
Gun control supporters said the numbers have declined but remain too high, with U.S. rates of gun killings remaining far greater than most other nations.
"None of these studies change the impact of Newtown and other recent mass slayings, showing the need for common sense measures" restricting guns, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said.
The Justice study said that in 2011, about 70 percent of all homicides were committed with firearms, mainly handguns.
The trend in firearm-related homicides is part of a broad nationwide decline in violent crime over past two decades, including incidents not involving firearms.
Both studies concluded that most of the decline in gun homicide rates occurred in the 1990s. The Justice report found that since 1999, the number of firearm homicides increased from 10,828 to 12,791 in 2006 before declining to 11,101 in 2011.
Though researchers differ over all the reasons why gun violence has declined, many attribute it to the aging of the baby boomers. The crime rate was higher in the 1960s and 1970s when many in that large generation were teenagers, an age when higher proportions of people commit crimes.
Crime rates dropped in the early 1980s as that generation aged, rose in the latter part of that decade as the use of crack cocaine grew, then dropped again in the 1990s as the nation's economy improved, analysts say.
The Pew report also said:
— The gun suicide rate is 6.3 per 100,000 people, and there were 19,392 suicides by firearms in 2010. That rate has declined more slowly than the firearms homicide rate, with 6 in 10 gun deaths now suicides, the highest proportion since at least 1981.
— More than 8 in 10 victims of gun homicides are men and boys.
— Fifty-five percent of gun homicide victims in 2010 were black, far beyond their 13 percent share of the population.
The Pew study chiefly used federal data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Justice Department's National Crime Victimization Survey, a household survey conducted by the Census Bureau.
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New Data on Gun Crimes Demonstrates Why the Senate is in Limbo
By Philip Bump — Wednesday, May 8th, 2013 ‘The Atlantic Wire’ / Washington, DC
The number of crimes committed with firearms has dropped significantly since the early 1990s. That's the good news. The bad news is that firearms are still a common component of crime, and that gun shows are still a source of the guns criminals use in crime. The data offers both advocates and opponents of expanded gun measures fodder for their arguments, and rationalization for their votes.
Two days ago, it seemed as though Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona was receptive to an expansion of background checks to cover sales at gun shows and online, key components of the compromise proposal from Senators Joe Manchin and Pat Toomey that he voted to filibuster last month. But that was a different day than yesterday. Yesterday, the Washington Post reports, he was much more forceful.
“I’m not reconsidering my position, I think they ought to go back to the drawing board,” Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) said. “I want to strengthen our background check system, but whether they can do that with the Toomey-Manchin proposal, I don’t know.”
Nor did New Hampshire's Kelly Ayotte — another senator closely watched for a potential reversal on the measure — seem chastened by the political damage she took after the vote. In an opinion piece posted at the news site Patch, she defended her support of background checks:
Despite what the false attack ads say, I helped introduce and voted for the Protecting Communities and Preserving the Second Amendment Act, which improves the existing background check system, addresses mental health gaps in the criminal justice system, boosts resources to improve school safety, and criminalizes gun trafficking and straw purchases. The legislation also puts teeth into the law by creating a high level federal task force to increase the prosecution of gun-related violence.
The bill to which Ayotte refers was centered around an NRA-approved emphasis on increasing consideration of mental health in background checks.
Into this crowded political moment stepped new data on gun violence from the Department of Justice. A lengthy report from its Bureau of Justice Statistics crunched data on gun violence and crime since 1993.
The key finding is that there's been a massive drop. Since the early 1990s, in parallel with overall crime rates, the number of incidents of gun violence decreased steadily and then remained fairly flat.
Interestingly, Pew Research found that people are largely unaware of this drop. Forty-five percent of Americans thought gun crimes had increased since the 1990s; 10 percent thought they'd gone down.
That may in part be due to the fact that the use of firearms in crimes have remained fairly steady. In other words — crime overall has declined, but guns are still as commonly used in crime as they used to be.
More relevant to the current discussion is how the firearms used in crimes were obtained. Parsing the data from the Department of Justice, it's clear that overall trends have remained consistent. Between 1997 and 2004 — the two years for which data is provided — the firearms felons used in crimes were most likely acquired from family or friends or acquired illegally.
View the chars and grafts:
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U.S. Is Weighing Wide Overhaul of Wiretap Laws
By CHARLIE SAVAGE — Wednesday, May 8th, 2013 ‘The New York Times’
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration, resolving years of internal debate, is on the verge of backing a Federal Bureau of Investigation plan for a sweeping overhaul of surveillance laws that would make it easier to wiretap people who communicate using the Internet rather than by traditional phone services, according to officials familiar with the deliberations.
The F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, has argued that the bureau’s ability to carry out court-approved eavesdropping on suspects is “going dark” as communications technology evolves, and since 2010 has pushed for a legal mandate requiring companies like Facebook and Google to build into their instant-messaging and other such systems a capacity to comply with wiretap orders. That proposal, however, bogged down amid concerns by other agencies, like the Commerce Department, about quashing Silicon Valley innovation.
While the F.B.I.’s original proposal would have required Internet communications services to each build in a wiretapping capacity, the revised one, which must now be reviewed by the White House, focuses on fining companies that do not comply with wiretap orders. The difference, officials say, means that start-ups with a small number of users would have fewer worries about wiretapping issues unless the companies became popular enough to come to the Justice Department’s attention.
Still, the plan is likely to set off a debate over the future of the Internet if the White House submits it to Congress, according to lawyers for technology companies and advocates of Internet privacy and freedom.
“I think the F.B.I.’s proposal would render Internet communications less secure and more vulnerable to hackers and identity thieves,” said Gregory T. Nojeim of the Center for Democracy and Technology. “It would also mean that innovators who want to avoid new and expensive mandates will take their innovations abroad and develop them there, where there aren’t the same mandates.”
Andrew Weissmann, the general counsel of the F.B.I., said in a statement that the proposal was aimed only at preserving law enforcement officials’ longstanding ability to investigate suspected criminals, spies and terrorists subject to a court’s permission.
“This doesn’t create any new legal surveillance authority,” he said. “This always requires a court order. None of the ‘going dark’ solutions would do anything except update the law given means of modern communications.”
A central element of the F.B.I.’s 2010 proposal was to expand the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act — a 1994 law that already requires phone and network carriers to build interception capabilities into their systems — so that it would also cover Internet-based services that allow people to converse. But the bureau has now largely moved away from that one-size-fits-all mandate.
Instead, the new proposal focuses on strengthening wiretap orders issued by judges. Currently, such orders instruct recipients to provide technical assistance to law enforcement agencies, leaving wiggle room for companies to say they tried but could not make the technology work. Under the new proposal, providers could be ordered to comply, and judges could impose fines if they did not. The shift in thinking toward the judicial fines was first reported by The Washington Post, and additional details were described to The New York Times by several officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Under the proposal, officials said, for a company to be eligible for the strictest deadlines and fines — starting at $25,000 a day — it must first have been put on notice that it needed surveillance capabilities, triggering a 30-day period to consult with the government on any technical problems.
Such notice could be the receipt of its first wiretap order or a warning from the attorney general that it might receive a surveillance request in the future, officials said, arguing that most small start-ups would never receive either.
Michael Sussman, a former Justice Department lawyer who advises communications providers, said that aspect of the plan appeared to be modeled on a British law, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act of 2000.
Foreign-based communications services that do business in the United States would be subject to the same procedures, and would be required to have a point of contact on domestic soil who could be served with a wiretap order, officials said.
Albert Gidari Jr., who represents technology companies on law enforcement matters, criticized that proposed procedure. He argued that if the United States started imposing fines on foreign Internet firms, it would encourage other countries, some of which may be looking for political dissidents, to penalize American companies if they refused to turn over users’ information.
“We’ll look a lot more like China than America after this,” Mr. Gidari said.
The expanded fines would also apply to phone and network carriers, like Verizon and AT&T, which are separately subject to the 1994 wiretapping capacity law. The FBI has argued that such companies sometimes roll out system upgrades without making sure that their wiretap capabilities will keep working.
The 1994 law would be expanded to cover peer-to-peer voice-over-Internet protocol, or VoIP — calls between computers that do not connect to the regular phone network. Such services typically do not route data packets through any central hub, making them difficult to intercept.
The F.B.I. has abandoned a component of its original proposal that would have required companies that facilitate the encryption of users’ messages to always have a key to unscramble them if presented with a court order. Critics had charged that such a law would create back doors for hackers. The current proposal would allow services that fully encrypt messages between users to keep operating, officials said.
In November 2010, Mr. Mueller toured Silicon Valley and briefed executives on the proposal as it then existed, urging them not to lobby against it, but the firms have adopted a cautious stance. In February 2011, the F.B.I.’s top lawyer at the time testified about the “going dark” problem at a House hearing, emphasizing that there was no administration proposal yet. Still, several top lawmakers at the hearing expressed skepticism, raising fears about innovation and security.
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Maine
Bill to allow police to use drones without search warrant heads to Maine Senate
By Scott Thistle — Wednesday, May 8th, 2013 ‘The Bangor Daily News’ / Bangor, ME
AUGUSTA, Maine — In a narrow decision, lawmakers accepted an amendment to a bill offered by Sen. John Patrick, D-Rumford, that could allow police to use a drone without a search warrant.
In a 7-6 vote on May 1, the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee sided with Maine Attorney General Janet Mills on the issue of how police can employ unmanned aerial vehicles in criminal investigations.
The bill, as approved by the committee, sets a one-year moratorium on the use of drones by law enforcement in Maine, except in emergencies, while the state’s Criminal Justice Academy studies drone use and issues a report to the Legislature in 2014, including suggested protocols for police use.
Sen. Linda Valentino, D-Saco, the committee’s Senate chairwoman, said no law enforcement agencies in Maine are using drones, so the moratorium wouldn’t affect current activity.
“What we felt was the moratorium safeguards the public now,” Valentino said. “The moratorium does have exceptions in it for emergency situations.”
Those situations would include search-and-rescue operations or other situations in which an individual or the public’s safety was in imminent danger, she said.
Valentino said the legislation allows those developing unmanned aerial vehicles in Maine, either for the military, law enforcement or the private sector, to continue research-and-development efforts.
The committee had to consider the economic interests of companies that were working in that sector and also what the development of an unmanned aerial vehicle industry could mean for the state in the future, Valentino said.
Mills said the effort to sort out how Maine should regulate drones is an important one. It points out that the kinds of drone surveillance people find the most offensive and intrusive are already constrained by existing law, she said.
Mills delivered a copy of a 30-page search warrant to help drive home the point that domestic law enforcement couldn’t currently use a drone to trail a person.
Most search warrants are specific to place and do not necessarily allow potential suspects to be tracked, she said. Another issue that could be covered in existing law is whether incidental footage could be collected and later used against a person other than a suspect as detailed in a warrant.
All of those issues would be addressed by the academy’s board, which includes civilians not in law enforcement, Mills said.
Those opposed to leaving police free to use drones without warrants, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine, said the measure doesn’t go far enough to protect citizens’ constitutional rights. It also doesn’t protect against an unwarranted invasion of a person’s privacy, said Patrick, the original bill’s author.
Patrick said Tuesday he would have preferred the bill to have come out of committee requiring a search warrant whenever police wanted to use drones in any criminal investigation. “I would have wanted it just the opposite,” he said.
He credited the committee with spending plenty of time with the bill and working hard to reach a compromise on an issue that was emotional for many involved.
Patrick said he believed laws would be passed in the next few years to limit the use of drones, based on what kind of usage of the aircraft Maine sees on the private and public side of things.
He said he favors police getting a warrant to use drones when they are “looking for something” in a criminal investigation, “just like they do now [for other searches].”
Shenna Bellows, executive director of the ACLU of Maine, said the warrant requirement was important to her organization.
“The big question is whether or not there should be a warrant requirement for domestic drone surveillance,” Bellows said. “The ACLU thinks that law enforcement should have a warrant before spying on Mainers with a drone and the [attorney general] does not. That’s the one issue where we cannot compromise.”
Bellows said letting the Criminal Justice Academy set the rules on drone use in Maine was “letting the police police themselves and is not sufficient to protect the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution — protection against unwarranted search and seizure and that includes surveillance by drones.”
The bill will come to the Senate floor within the next few weeks.
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Seattle, Washington
SPD reforms need interim chief’s full backing, monitor says
In an appearance before the Seattle City Council, Merrick Bobb said interim Police Chief Jim Pugel needs to dispel “scary stories” about federally mandated changes.
By Steve Miletich — Wednesday, May 8th, 2013 ‘The Seattle Times’ / Seattle, WA
Interim Seattle Police Chief Jim Pugel needs to address concerns in the department about federally mandated reforms and make clear that the settlement agreement to enforce them is “not going to go away,” the independent monitor tracking the changes told the City Council on Tuesday.
In a briefing on his first official report, which he issued April 26, Merrick Bobb said the absence of an explanation from the top has spawned “urban myths” and “scary stories” within the department regarding the scope of the agreement.
Bobb, the founder of a Los Angeles-based police-accountability center, said he believes that Pugel, who last month was appointed interim chief to replace outgoing Police Chief John Diaz, is committed to educating the department and allaying anxiety about the agreement, which calls for measures to address excessive force and discriminatory policing.
Shortly after his appointment, Pugel said the department needed to put the turmoil behind it and move forward with the reforms.
Bobb, who was appointed as monitor last year after the city and Department of Justice reached the agreement in July, appeared Tuesday afternoon before the council’s public-safety committee.
During his presentation, he reiterated the key findings of his report: that progress is being made but that resistance in the ranks remains a hurdle.
When Councilmember Bruce Harrell, chair of the committee, asked what could be done if the rank-and-file never fully accepted the reforms, Bobb said he believed that officers could be shown how the agreement will benefit them.
Specifically, Bobb said, the measures will enhance the safety of officers, help exonerate them in most cases through the use of tools such as video and improve the level of supervision they get by adding more sergeants who can teach them standards and provide advice on handling difficult situations.
Bobb also told the council that the department needs to make significant improvements in data collection and retrieval in order to manage the conduct of officers.
Although it will be costly, he said, the upgrade is critical to the success of the agreement.
Bobb also told the council that it is his belief that the court-supervised agreement “trumps” collective-bargaining provisions when the two are in conflict.
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Homeland Security
Russia: F.B.I. Director in Moscow to Discuss Boston Bombings
By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT — Wednesday, May 8th, 2013 ‘The New York Times’
The F.B.I. director Robert S. Mueller III met with Russian law enforcement and intelligence officials in Moscow on Tuesday to discuss the bureau’s investigation of the Boston Marathon bombings, according to American officials.
The investigation has focused in part on intelligence the Russian government provided the F.B.I. in 2011 that one of the bombing suspects was a Muslim extremist.
Since the attacks, President Obama and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia have pledged to work closely together as law enforcement officials in both countries have tried to determine how they could have thwarted the attacks. In 2011, the F.B.I. investigated the Russian warning about one of the suspects, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, but ultimately told the Russians that it had not found any information to back their assertions.
In response to several follow-up requests from the F.B.I., the Russians declined to provide more information about the intelligence. In recent weeks, however, the Russians have provided F.B.I. agents with that additional information.
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Mueller to Moscow; bombing probe discussed
By PETE YOST (The Associated Press) — Tuesday, May 7th, 2013; 7:12 p.m. EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) -- FBI director Robert Mueller discussed the Boston Marathon bombings investigation with his Russian counterparts during a trip to Moscow and engaged in talks on security cooperation between the two countries.
FBI spokesman Michael Kortan said Tuesday's visit was productive and that Mueller is now on his way to other overseas destinations. Kortan declined to elaborate on conversations in Moscow about the Boston bombing probe.
The U.S. and Russia have been collaborating on the criminal investigation into the two suspects in the Boston case.
Russian agents placed the elder Boston bombing suspect, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, under surveillance during a six-month visit to southern Russia last year, then scrambled to find him when he suddenly disappeared after police killed a Canadian jihadist, a Russian security official has told The Associated Press.
U.S. law enforcement offic6ials have been trying to determine whether Tamerlan Tsarnaev was indoctrinated or trained by militants during his visit to Dagestan, a Caspian Sea province that has become the center of a simmering Islamic insurgency.
The Russian security official with the Anti-Extremism Center, a federal agency under Russia's Interior Ministry, told the AP that Russian agents were watching Tsarnaev, and that they searched for him when he disappeared two days after the July 2012 death of the Canadian man, William Plotnikov, who had joined the Islamic insurgency in the region. The Russian official spoke only on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the news media.
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Revisiting Post-9/11 Law
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL — Wednesday, May 8th, 2013 ‘The New York Times’
(Op-Ed / Commentary)
Politico reported today that senators from both parties want to revisit the Authorization for the Use of Military Force, the Congressional resolution passed in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
That’s mostly good news. We argued in an editorial on March 10 that Congress should repeal the law in concert with the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan, which is scheduled to happen at the end of 2014 (an unnecessarily long wait).
The expansive resolution gave the president authority to deploy all “necessary and appropriate force” against those who “planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks.” President George W. Bush abused it. He used it to justify the indefinite detention of “enemy combatants,” illegal warrantless wiretapping and, more broadly, a never-ending war with no geographic boundaries. The Obama administration, in turn, has relied on the resolution to justify targeted killing (including of American citizens) without due process.
As one of the senators involved in these discussions, Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, told Politico: “None of us, not one who voted for it, could have envisioned we were voting for the longest war in American history, or that we were about to give future presidents the authority to fight terrorism as far flung as Yemen and Somalia. I don’t think any of us envisioned that possibility.”
Reviewing the force resolution is not optional. And yet, the risk is obvious: this sort of discussion can go badly awry in a Congress that has preyed on Americans’ fear of terrorism to needlessly attack civil liberties and the rule of law. Congress could broaden, rather than rein in military power.
Just for instance, the most recent National Defense Authorization Act — which Mr. Obama signed last year — seemed to expand the military’s authority on American soil.
And as Politico pointed out, Mr. Obama’s implacable Republican enemies in Congress could hijack the debate over the resolution as a pretext to launch yet another attack on the president.
Still, it’s worth at least trying to have an open and honest discussion. It will be up to Senator Carl Levin, who is chairman of the Armed Services Committee and plans a hearing on the resolution on May 16, to make that happen.
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Mike Bosak
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