NYC's new 911 system crashes for 12 minutes (The New York Daily News) and Other Thursday, May 30th, 2013 NYC Police Related News Articles

 

Thursday, May 30th, 2013 — Good Morning, Stay Safe

 

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City's new 911 system crashes for 12 minutes
On the first day of use, the city's emergency system for the NYPD and EMS shut down, forcing operators to write notes by hand and have radio room dispatchers make calls to precincts.

By Ginger Otis AND Juan Gonzalez — Thursday, May 30th, 2013 ‘The New York Daily News’

 

 

Help! 911’s in trouble.

 

The city’s emergency response system crashed Wednesday, less than a day after officials rolled out a newfangled and long-delayed computerized dispatch program for the NYPD and EMS.

 

At 4:21 p.m., hundreds of computer screens at the main 911 call center in downtown Brooklyn suddenly went dark.

 

So did computer terminals in separate police and EMS radio rooms where dispatchers assign units to respond to emergency calls.

 

“It was pandemonium,” one veteran NYPD telephone operator said of the crash, which lasted for 12 minutes.

 

Call takers had to resort to jotting down emergency information on slips of paper. They then handed those slips to runners who rushed them to the NYPD and EMS radio rooms. There, dispatchers grouped slips by precinct or neighborhood and figured out which units to assign on calls.

 

“There weren’t a lot of runners,” the operator said. “We were all waving our slips in the air.”

 

“We were told this new system would never go down,” said another 911 worker, “and it crashes on the first day, when there’s not even a big call volume.”

 

Sources told the Daily News that EMS dispatchers started noticing significant delays for at least two hours before the crash.

 

City Hall spokesman John McCarthy denied any problems with the new $73 million computer system developed by Alabama-based Integraph Corp.

 

“A single EMS server — part of a decades-old system — was temporarily down,” McCarthy said. “During this time, no incoming calls were lost, and calls were taken and responded to — without delay — because backup systems and procedures immediately went into effect.”

 

By “backup systems,” McCarthy must have been referring to pencils and paper slips, workers said.

 

Paul Browne, chief spokesman for the NYPD, confirmed that paper slips were used during the brief system failure and said that it does not appear any calls went unanswered.

 

This week’s crash is only the latest in a string of embarrassing failures and delays dogging the Bloomberg administration’s $2 billion upgrade of the city’s emergency communications.

 

The new police and EMS dispatch system, for instance, was supposed to have been installed seven years ago, but the original contractor, Hewlett-Packard, repeatedly failed to deliver it, prompting the city to bounce HP and hire Integraph in 2008 to complete the project.

 

With Rocco Parascandola

 

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NYPD Stop, Question and Frisk  Search

Thompson Sees No Need to Bar a Police Tactic

By MICHAEL BARBARO — Thursday, May 30th, 2013 ‘The New York Times’

 

 

The aggressive era of stop-and-frisk policing in New York City is, in every sense of the word, on trial: the subject of a high-stakes federal court case, scorching denunciations from civil rights leaders and emotional calls for its dismantlement by liberal lawmakers.

 

But in a stand that is surprising black leaders and worrying some allies, William C. Thompson Jr., the sole African-American candidate for mayor, is steadfastly unwilling to join the tear-it-down chorus.

 

Instead, Mr. Thompson is embracing elements of the polarizing crime-fighting strategy and winning praise from an unlikely duo deeply associated with it: Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani.

 

On Wednesday, Mr. Thompson’s restrained approach paid by far its biggest political dividend when a coalition of unions representing about 100,000 city law enforcement officials voted to endorse his Democratic campaign, making clear that what appealed to its members was his comparatively conservative posture on criminal justice, according to people told of the decision.

 

But in a city whose racial politics are never far from view, Mr. Thompson’s moderate stance on an issue that has consumed the city’s black and Latino community is inflaming a number of high-profile African-American Democrats, even holding up the endorsement of a party stalwart, the Rev. Al Sharpton.

 

Mr. Sharpton, who likens opposition to stop-and-frisk tactics to a snowballing social movement, has let Mr. Thompson know that he is displeased with his views on policing and should not assume that black voters will automatically support his candidacy.

 

“I don’t think it’s wise to be distant from a social movement if you are going to run for mayor of this city, especially as a black candidate,” Mr. Sharpton said in an interview. “I have expressed this to Thompson.”

 

“This,” Mr. Sharpton added, “is not a marginal issue.”

 

Mr. Thompson’s message, more law-and-order than reactive liberal activist, is upending assumptions about a black candidate for mayor in a city where David N. Dinkins struggled with the perception that he could not control crime and urban decay in the early 1990s.

 

In an interview, Mr. Thompson spoke of an “overreaction to stop and frisk” that he said glossed over its usefulness as a police tool, even as he forcefully criticized its excesses over the past few years.

 

As rivals call for the abolition of stop-and-frisk tactics as a routine police procedure, and an independent inspector general to monitor the police, Mr. Thompson said the right way to curb abuses was by asserting his values on the Police Department when he becomes mayor, not through a patchwork of quick fixes that could hamstring him once in office.

 

His criminal justice platform, he said, “isn’t about running for mayor; it’s about governing.”

 

Still, Mr. Thompson is now bucking the left wing of his party on three fronts: by pledging to keep stop-and-frisk operations as a crime-fighting tool; proposing an inspector general who operates within the Police Department, rather than outside of it (“I don’t want to create additional bureaucracy,” he said); and opposing a City Council bill that would open state courts to legal claims of racial profiling by the Police Department. (He said it would divert precious city finances to endless legal bills.)

 

In each case, at least one of his rivals in the mayor’s race — and in some cases, several of them — has staked out territory to his left, forcing Mr. Thompson to defend his Democratic credentials on what are possibly the most emotional questions of the 2013 campaign.

 

During a candidate forum a few weeks ago, John C. Liu, a Democratic candidate, called on Mr. Thompson to join him in demanding the abolition of stop-and-frisk policing.

 

The exchange that followed produced the most memorable — and poignantly personal — exchange in the mayor’s race.

 

“I’m the one who has to worry about my son getting shot on the street,” Mr. Thompson thundered.

 

In the interview, Mr. Thompson said he was deeply affected watching crime overtake and oppress neighborhoods like Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, where he grew up, in the early 1990s.

 

But his personal experiences cut both ways, simultaneously fueling his fury over what he calls the “misuse and abuse” of the stop-and-frisk policy. Friends and acquaintances have been stopped by police “for no other reason than who you are,” he said.

 

And Mr. Thompson recalled his discomfort at having to prepare his stepson, then 13, for the likelihood that he could be stopped by the police, a conversation that Mr. Thompson said his own father never had to have with him. “Be calm,” Mr. Thompson counseled.

 

“Why am I having this conversation with a 13-year-old, who really is just a child?” he recalled thinking to himself.

 

Though it has won him new political partners, like the United Uniformed Workers of New York, the coalition of 20 law enforcement unions, Mr. Thompson’s measured police plan may have cost him old friends.

 

On Wednesday, District Council 37, the city’s largest municipal labor union, decided to endorse Mr. Liu, after backing Mr. Thompson in 2009. Mr. Liu’s outspoken opposition to the stop-and-frisk policy played a role, according to a union official involved in the discussions, who said rank-and-file members saw less courage in Mr. Thompson’s position.  

 

The question, for Mr. Thompson, is whether black and Latino voters, who will prove crucial to his Democratic campaign, will share those reservations.

 

A Quinnipiac University poll, released last month, showed that while 59 percent of white voters approved of the stop-and-frisk tactic, 72 percent of black voters and 58 percent of Latino voters disapproved of it.

 

Those numbers, combined with the surging rates of police stops in recent years, have left several black leaders scratching their heads over Mr. Thompson’s policies.

 

Jumaane D. Williams, a city councilman from Brooklyn who has sponsored legislation against stop-and-frisk tactics, bluntly suggested that Mr. Thompson was taking the allegiance of black voters for granted.

 

“I think he believes that the color of his skin is what’s needed to get to communities of color, rather than standing on the correct substance of issues,” he said.

 

Mr. Thompson dismissed that claim as “ridiculous.” He added: “I would never take support of black voters for granted. Ever.”

 

As he outlines his position, Mr. Thompson at times echoes the oratory of Mr. Bloomberg, stop-and-frisk policing’s biggest champion, who has said: “I understand that innocent people don’t like to be stopped. But innocent people don’t like to be shot and killed, either.”

 

Unlike Mr. Bloomberg, however, he also gives voice to the anger and pain of those who find the tactic dehumanizing.

 

And, underscoring his desire to reassure those uneasy about a return to lawlessness in post-Bloomberg New York, he has pushed for the hiring of 2,000 additional police officers.

 

“It’s an extremely tricky balance,” said Representative Hakeem Jeffries, a Democrat from Brooklyn and Queens, who is black and has yet to make an endorsement in the mayor’s race. Mr. Jeffries has repeatedly spoken out against excessive use of stop-and-frisk policing.

 

“He has to convince one set of New Yorkers that he will continue dramatic declines in crime and keep our city one of the safest in the country,” Mr. Jeffries said, “and on the other hand, he has to convince an aggrieved community of color that the Police Department on his watch will behave in a dramatically different fashion.”

 

Inside Mr. Thompson’s political operation, there have at times been open disagreements over his policies on policing.

 

But Mr. Thompson has argued back that every neighborhood deserves the sense of security that has become the new normal in the city’s wealthier precincts.  “I haven’t been shy,” he said, “about making sure that all communities in this city are entitled to safety.”

 

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Bill Thompson warns of an 'overreaction to stop-and-frisk'

By Azi Paybarah — Thursday, May 30th, 2013 ‘Capital New York’ / New York, NY

 

 

On the substance, most of the Democratic mayoral candidates have the same position on stop-and-frisk.

 

But how they talk about it is very different.

 

In an interview with the New York Times' Michael Barbaro, Bill Thompson cautioned against what he called an "overreaction to stop-and-frisk."

 

That puts Thompson, the former city comptroller and 2009 Democratic mayoral nominee, rhetorically, near City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who initially cited the tactic as a reason behind the city's crime drop, but later said there was no "correlation" between rates of stop-and-frisk and the rate of crime.

 

Earlier this week, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio told a Democratic club in Harlem he wanted to "end it as we know it," before saying it shouldn't be prohibited entirely.

 

(Only Comptroller John Liu has called for banning stop-and-frisk outright.)

 

The Times article says Thompson's position on stop-and-frisk and other police issues could be off-putting to his more progressive would-be supporters, like Al Sharpton, who endorsed Thompson in July of 2009 but has yet to back a candidate this year.

 

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Will ‘stop-and-frisk’ be a factor in the NYC mayor’s race?

By Errol Louis — Wednesday, May 29th, 2013; 3:30 p.m. ‘The Grio’ (NBC News)

(Op-Ed / Commentary)

 

 

The guy who could have the biggest influence on the race for mayor of New York City isn’t a candidate. In fact, he has never run for office.

 

But the candidates running for mayor – and the city’s voters – are turning the fall elections into a kind of referendum on the legacy and tactics of longtime police commissioner Ray Kelly, especially his controversial use of the crimefighting strategy known as “stop-and-frisk.”

 

It has long been accepted police policy – blessed by the courts – to briefly detain and question people who appear to have committed a crime.

 

In New York, however, the number and quality of police stops has led to vocal complaints and lawsuits.

 

 

To double down on or drop stop-and-frisk?

 

“The police are stopping hundreds of thousands of law abiding New Yorkers every year, and the vast majority are black and Latino,” says the website of the New York Civil Liberties Union, which successfully sued the NYPD to get data on the volume of stops.

 

The NYCLU numbers showed that about 90 percent of the 3.8 million stops New York cops made over the last decade yielded nothing – no guns, knives, drugs or outstanding warrants.  But activists, noting that 86 percent of the people stopped were black and Latino, are calling the policy a form of racial profiling and demanding that stop-and-frisk be changed, curtailed or abolished.

 

Kelly defends the high number of stops as essential to lowering New York’s crime rate, and even doubled down on the policy, recently telling ABC News that “African Americans are being understopped in relation to people being described as perpetrators of violent crime.” [emphasis added]

 

The comment outraged many community leaders, some of whom sued the NYPD in federal court for civil rights violations, leading to a high-profile trial before a judge who is expected to hand down a ruling soon.

 

 

Courting Ray Kelly

 

Kelly has many fans in civic leadership circles, including the editorial boards of the daily papers. He regularly scores higher approval ratings in polls than any elected officials in the city — including his boss, Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

 

Kelly’s amen corners includes the three Republicans running for mayor. In the words of Joseph Lhota, who is leading the GOP field in the polls, New York’s plunge in crime since the early 1990s is a “fragile” advance that could be lost if the next mayor doesn’t keep up the pressure against crooks.

 

The other Republican candidates, George McDonald and John Catsimatidis, are also Kelly fans, and have offered to keep him on as commissioner if they win. In fact, before entering the race, Catsimatidis publicly asked Kelly to run. (Kelly, who has repeatedly been approached by Republican party leaders, regularly turns down requests to pursue elected office, although he also has not ruled out the possibility.)

 

 

Democrats dance around the issue

 

Things are a little more complicated on the Democratic side of the mayoral campaign.  Frontrunner Christine Quinn, the speaker of the City Council, says she would keep Kelly as police commissioner, a stance that drew boos at a candidate forum hosted by the Rev. Al Sharpton.

 

Quinn says she would reduce and refocus stop-and-frisk, but keeping Kelly is widely viewed as a virtual endorsement of the current program.

 

Another Democratic hopeful, city comptroller John Liu, is at the other end of the spectrum, calling stop-and-frisk an illegal act of racial profiling that he would simply abolish if elected mayor.

 

Most other Democrats are offering variations on “mend it, don’t end it.”  An inspector general of the NYPD would allow for independent review of the department, says Bill de Blasio, the city’s Public Advocate (a largely ceremonial office whose most important power is to assume the mayoralty if the mayor should die, quit, or become incapacitated while in office). De Blasio recently released a report debunking some of the NYPD’s claims about the relationship between stop-and-frisk and New York’s decline in crime.

 

Bill Thompson, a former comptroller who ran for mayor in 2009, says an inspector general would simply add a layer of bureaucracy.  Thompson’s preferred solution is to replace Kelly and order the next commissioner to reduce the scope and reach of stop-and-frisk.

 

The newest entrant into the race, former congressman Anthony Weiner, opposes an inspector general, which he says would “blur lines of authority.”

 

 

Voters will have a clear choice

 

With just over 100 days to go before the September 10 primary, New Yorkers of all races will weigh in on the tricky question of helping police do their job without trampling on the rights and civil liberties of black and Latino young men.

 

Voters will have a clear choice between candidates who want to keep some version of the status quo and those who want to increase oversight of the NYPD.

 

While the city is making up its mind, Kelly – the man at the center of the commotion – will continue the business of making and keeping New York the safest big city in America. And thousands more young people, mostly black and Latino, will have encounters with law enforcement that breed bad feelings and complaints, but will solve no crimes.

 

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Thursday, May 30th, 2013 ‘The New York Post’ Editorial:

 

Ignore Ray, you pay
(City's Security and S/Q/F)

 

 

Screening visitors after rather than before they board boats to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island is nuts. But what do you expect when you disregard Ray Kelly’s advice on security issues?

 

On Monday, the city’s police commissioner and the state’s senior senator, Chuck Schumer (D), blasted a National Park Service plan to scrap the Battery Park screening site and allow visitors aboard boats to Liberty and Ellis Islands unchecked. Only after they land at Ellis would they be screened. Which might be too late.

 

“It’s like screening people after they get off airplanes,” Schumer rightly says. But the Park Service is ignoring these warnings from him and Kelly.

 

This isn’t the first time officials have bypassed Kelly on security. After 9/11, the Pataki folks drew up a blueprint for rebuilding the World Trade Center without consulting the police. Big mistake: After Kelly cited its key security flaws, the plan had to be re-done, which set it back more than a year.

 

Today there’s a long line of would-be police commissioners hoping to override Kelly — starting with federal Judge Shira Scheindlin, who’s about to rule in the just-concluded stop-and-frisk case. Plaintiffs want her to appoint a monitor to oversee the NYPD, and she’s already shown notable bias in their favor. Another mistake.

 

Then there’s the City Council. It’s got not one but two bills to steal control of the police. The first would set up an inspector general for the cops whose recommendations would have huge sway no matter what Kelly thought. Really serious mistake.

 

The second bill would target supposed racial profiling by police — to the point, Mayor Bloomberg says, where any male, youth or minority member they stop could sue, citing police activity that has a “disparate impact” on that person’s “group.” Cops would have to refrain from making vital stops (and maybe arrests) or face a judge’s censure, including the prospect of a monitor. Potentially catastrophic mistake.

 

The Democratic mayoral wannabes are all second-guessing the commish, too. Meanwhile, Kelly’s keeping crime low and the city safe from terror. Are these pols really willing to set a different course — and take the blame for any resulting tragedies?

 

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Mayoral Race and Raymond Kelly

 

Test Poll: Kelly Would Shake Up Race

By Jacob Kornbluh — Thursday, May 30th, 2013 ‘The Jewish Press’ / Brooklyn, NY

 

 

Throughout the current mayoral race, Democrats in NYC have expressed their eagerness to take control of the city after 20 years of Republican rule. However, there is one guy that could destroy the dream for the Democratic hopefuls: Ray Kelly.

 

A new test poll of 600 likely voters in New York City shows the entrance of Police Commissioner Ray Kelly into the mayoral campaign would dramatically shake up the race and catapult him to instant front runner status in both the Republican primary and the general elections.

 

As an undeclared candidate, Kelly already edges out two leading Democratic candidates tested in head-to-head match-ups in this survey, conducted by the polling company, inc/Woman Trend. As the Republican nominee in the general election, Kelly would likely beat both Christine Quinn (41 to 38) and Bill Thompson (40 to 39).

 

Kelly also has a decisive lead among Independent voters. He leads Ms. Quinn by 9 points (40-31) and Mr. Thompson by a whopping 25 points (51-26).

 

Against Quinn, Kelly leads in four of the five boroughs and only trails by three points among women . Against Thompson, Kelly leads in three of the five boroughs and has an edge among both men and women, eliminating the gender gap.

 

Voters were asked if they had a favorable or unfavorable opinion of the candidates: more voters said they were favorable toward Kelly than anyone else tested (49% favorable to 19% unfavorable), including Mayor Michael Bloomberg, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and other announced candidates. His support is wide and deep, with a positive image among every age group, ethnicity, income level, in all five boroughs, even among liberals and Democrats.

 

To the dismay of John Catsimatidis and Joe Lhota, Ray Kelly is also in a great position to win the Republican nomination, should he enter the race. On the Republican primary ballot, Kelly leads with more than 50% of the vote and is ahead of all other candidates tested. Similarly, 54% of Republican primary voters say that Kelly has the best chance to win in November.

 

But there is one major barrier standing in Kelly’s way, if indeed he decides to shake up the race by running. To get on a major party line, he’d need a Wilson-Pakula, or permission from three out of five county committees from any given party, Azi Paybarah notes.

 

A critical number of Republican county officials are at the moment committed to John Catsimatidis, who has donated a substantial amount of money to their organizations.  That ain’t happening.

 

In a statement responding to the poll, Catsimatidis said, “I think the world of Ray Kelly, and I hope he would stay on as Police Commissioner in a Catsimatidis administration. I’m in this race to stay and, frankly, with petitioning starting next Tuesday, it’s really too late in the game to enter the race.”

 

Joe Lhota, in a previous conversation, told this reporter that as far as he was aware, “Ray Kelly is focused on his job as Police commissioner.”

 

NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly would not rule out running for mayor when asked Tuesday about the telephone poll.

 

Kelly told reporters “I’m not aware of who’s behind the polling,” and added that he’s focused on his job as commissioner and has no plans to run for office.

 

When pressed on whether he was ruling it out, Kelly would only say: “no plans.”

 

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Lupica: No way we will get Ray in race

A poll on Kelly, criticized as flawed, suggests he would be in a statistical dead heat against a couple of top Democrats.
By Mike Lupica — Thursday, May 30th, 2013 ‘The New York Daily News’

(Op-Ed / Commentary)

 

 

All evidence and wisdom and plain common sense say that Ray Kelly, the city's police commissioner, won't run for mayor, even if he would be better for his city than anybody else in the race. Because, let’s face facts, this isn’t a mayoral campaign right now in New York City as much as it is a desperate cry for help.

 

That may explain some polling on Kelly that we got on Wednesday that suggests he would be in a statistical dead heat against a couple of top Democrats. Independent experts have pointed out flaws in the poll, which was apparently commissioned by somebody who wants Kelly to run in the worst way.

 

It is still worth talking about today.

 

One thing polling like this tells you, whoever paid for it and however flawed it might be, is that despite the way Kelly’s critics have banged away at him for years, residents of the city who have been made to feel safer because of the job Kelly has done continue to give him approval ratings that you can put up in lights.

 

These are approval ratings Kelly has earned in all the years he has worked for Michael Bloomberg, and continues to earn even as you have to believe he will be moving toward the door as soon as somebody has succeeded Bloomberg as mayor.

 

Maybe even the thought of ever reporting to Anthony Weiner — a celebrity candidate in a world where we no longer care what kind of celebrity it is, good or bad or very creepy — has Kelly not just moving toward the door but willing to kick it down if he has to.

 

“It is nearly inconceivable that he could or would run,” Mark Green, former Public Advocate and the Democratic candidate who lost to Bloomberg in 2001, said on Wednesday. “But it was also inconceivable that a multibillionaire could run and win in ’01. And inconceivable that Weiner would enter the race two weeks ago.”

 

Then Green was responding to some of The Polling Company’s numbers on Kelly, who has not only been the best police commissioner in the city’s history, but managed to do that in a 9/11 world and a world where illegal guns keep coming into Kelly’s city every day like tourists.

 

“He has to know that his 63% favorable would be 40 by the election," Green said, “because that always happens. And does Ray Kelly, after everything he’s done, really want that?”

 

Then Green said: “I don’t think he has the political gene or the patience or the back-slapping capacity to deal with all the issues of the city from A to Z.”

 

All of that might be true. And it might be true that Kelly’s wife, Veronica, does not want her husband anywhere near a mayor’s race after seeing him be on the line the way he has been on the line since he succeeded Bernie Kerik, whose life after being declared a great hero police commissioner by his boss Rudy Giuliani didn’t involve getting into politics, just prison clothes.

 

It also might be true that this is the time in Kelly’s life, after the long and honorable way he has served his city and his country for him to go back into the private sector — he was working in a midtown office of Bear Stearns when the planes hit — and make himself some serious money.

 

On Tuesday I had contacted a former member of the Bloomberg administration who worked with Kelly about the possibility of Kelly getting into the race before June 10, by which time he would need to have the signatures of enough registered voters to qualify for either the Democratic or Republican ballot.

 

“Not running” is the message that came back to me.

 

But there has to be a part of Kelly, big part, that has him looking at the current field and imagining beating every one of them straight-up.

 

There really are powerful people from both parties — the true measure of Kelly's independence is that he has no known political affiliation — who have been telling Kelly for a year that he should run for mayor, even if he will turn 72 this year, which makes him five months older than Bloomberg.

 

It’s why it is a tribute to the job he has done and is doing that people are still talking about this and conducting polls about this (The Polling Company still won’t reveal who paid the $17,000 to finance the questionnaire on Kelly) as close to June 10 as we are.

 

Again: It really is inconceivable to see Kelly running.

 

He has to know how much he has to lose, in what would be such a mean campaign against him. Or maybe Ray Kelly simply realizes it is much too late in the game for him to step down in weight class.

 

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77 Pct. P.O. Michael McManus Throws His Sergeant, Juan Moreno Under the Bus

 

Cops slapped
‘Gay Pride’ arrest is tossed by Brooklyn judge

By Oren Yaniv — Thursday, May 30th, 2013 ‘The New York Daily News’  

 

 

A Brooklyn man who plans to sue the NYPD for an allegedly homophobia-fueled arrest was vindicated Wednesday when a judge declared him innocent of criminal charges stemming from the incident.

 

Jabbar Campbell — who filed a notice of claim with the city after cops raided a Gay Pride party at his house Jan. 13 — was found not guilty of attempted assault and disorderly conduct charges stemming from an alleged altercation with the sergeant who oversaw the raid.

 

Arresting Officer Michael McManus acknowledged during the Brooklyn Supreme Court non-jury trial he never witnessed any violence. Sgt. Juan Moreno insisted he was struck by Campbell, but struggled to explain why he moved an outside surveillance camera that could have captured the encounter, or why another interior camera caught him and several other cops rummaging through drawers without a warrant minutes later. Moreno also had no injuries.

 

“I’m scared of the fact that these officers will go to the lengths of breaking into my home and assaulting me like it was a daily business for them,” said Campbell, 32.

 

Moreno and McManus each have one unrelated pending federal lawsuit claiming false arrest, records show.

 

Campbell’s collar is being reviewed by the Internal Affairs Bureau and the Brooklyn district attorney’s office, sources said.

 

The 77th Precinct cops claimed they stopped at Campbell’s Crown Heights brownstone because a crowd gathered outside. Most revelers dispersed, Moreno testified, but the officers decided to knock on the door even though there were no 911 calls, nor did they have search or arrest warrants.

 

“I was afraid to be shot,” Moreno said, explaining that he “adjusted” the privately owned camera to face the wall “for safety reasons.”

 

Campbell, who works in computer forensics, said he believes his guests’ sexual orientation led officers to his stoop.

 

“The treatment I was subjected to that night was inhumane,” said Campbell of getting nine stitches and spending hours in a freezing holding cell. He intends to move ahead with a lawsuit against the cops and the city. “It’s always disturbing when the people we pay to protect us commit these types of criminal activities,” said defense lawyer Jonathan Strauss.

 

Justice Dena Douglas earlier tossed a drug possession count stemming from the January raid, ruling a baggie of weed allegedly found in Campbell’s pocket was recovered unlawfully. “No testimony was given that the defendant was seen attacking the sergeant, not that the defendant made any threatening moves,” Douglas said. “Since the defendant’s arrest was unlawful, the marijuana is precluded as an unlawful search.”

 

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Homi of 75 Pct. Hero Peter Figoski

 

Final member of burglary crew found guilty of murdering NYPD Det. Figoski

By JOSH SAUL and LARRY CELONA — Thursday, May 30th, 2013 ‘The New York Post’

 

 

The final member of a violent burglary crew that killed NYPD Det. Peter Figoski during a botched burglary of a Brooklyn drug den in 2011 was found guilty of felony murder today and will face 25 years to life behind bars when he’s sentenced June 20.

 

Kevin Santos, 32, didn't react as the Brooklyn Supreme Court jury read the guilty verdict.

 

The slain cop's mother clasped her hand to her mouth as she and the two eldest of his four daughters heard the verdict.

 

“The family is ecstatic. We feel that we’ve gotten justice and a tremendous weight is off all of us. I think my brother can now rest," said Robert Figoski, the murdered cop's brother.

 

“While the trials are over, the pain and suffering of the Figoski family will continue for a lifetime,” said police union president Pat Lynch.

 

Figoski partner Det. Glenn Estrada was also in court to see the sentence. Estrada grappled with Santos before chasing down shooter Lamont Pride.

 

“We’re disappointed in the verdict and we plan to appeal,” said defense attorney Harold Baker.

 

The ringleader of the crew, Nelson Morales, 28, was convicted last Friday of felony murder. He rounded up the five-man burglary team that broke into the home of an East New York drug dealer in 2011.

 

Pride was convicted earlier this year of murdering Figoski while trying to escape the botched burglary.

 

Accused getaway driver Michael Velez was acquitted earlier this year, while thug-turned-snitch Ariel Tejada testified against his former pals in exchange for a plea deal.

 

During the trial Baker said Santos was only riding along with the burglars because he wanted to buy and mooch marijuana.

 

“Kevin Santos is a pothead, and he might not be too swift, but he’s always thinking about how he can get high,” Baker said.

 

Assistant district attorney Howard Jackson gave homicide division chief Ken Taub a congratulatory slap on the back after the guilty verdict was announced. When the prosecutors walked out into the courthouse hallway, the gathered cops gave them a big round of applause.

 

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Another Man Convicted in 2011 Killing of an Officer

By MOSI SECRET — Thursday, May 30th, 2013 ‘The New York Times’

 

 

A Queens man who participated in a botched drug robbery that led to the shooting death of a New York police officer was convicted of second-degree murder and burglary on Wednesday, becoming the fourth member of his robbery crew to be convicted or to plead guilty.

 

Prosecutors argued during his trial that the man, Kevin Santos, was one of the first to barge into the basement apartment of a marijuana dealer living on a quiet block in East New York, Brooklyn, ransacking the place in search of drugs and cash before fleeing when the police arrived. Another man, Lamont Pride, shot the officer, Peter J. Figoski, during the melee, but Mr. Santos was convicted of murder because under state law, if someone is killed during a felony, the person who committed the felony can be charged with murder even if he did not directly cause the death.

 

In State Supreme Court in Brooklyn on Wednesday, Mr. Santos, 32, hardly moved when the jury forewoman read the guilty verdict. A lawyer for Mr. Santos, Harold Baker, said outside the courtroom that his client was “calm and determined to pursue his appeal.”

 

After Mr. Santos was led away, police officers in the courtroom gallery hugged the prosecutors who handled the case, Kenneth Taub and Howard Jackson. Relatives of Officer Figoski sighed in relief.

 

The conviction of Mr. Santos concludes another trial stemming from Officer Figoski’s death. Last week, Nelson Morales, who was tried alongside Mr. Santos but in front of a separate jury, was convicted of second-degree murder. At an earlier trial, Mr. Pride was convicted of murder; Michael Velez, who drove the others to the apartment but said he did not know their intentions, was acquitted. The fifth and last member of the crew, Ariel Tejada, pleaded guilty and testified for the prosecution as part of a cooperation agreement.

 

By all accounts, Mr. Santos was among those who frequented the Queens apartment of Mr. Morales, whom prosecutors described as a drug dealer and stickup man who used his criminal ties to identify other drug dealers to rob.

 

Early on the morning of Dec. 12, 2011, Mr. Santos and the four other men drove to the home of a drug dealer living on 25 Pine Street in East New York, according to prosecutors. When the police arrived, Mr. Santos tussled with Officer Figoski’s partner, Officer Glenn Estrada, before sprinting off, prosecutors said.

 

But Mr. Baker, the defense lawyer, said in closing arguments that the prosecution’s account was a fabrication, built on false evidence from unscrupulous police detectives and Mr. Tejada, who would say anything to save himself. Mr. Baker said Mr. Santos had never entered the house and ran from the scene only because he heard a gunshot.

 

“The police are not honoring the memory of Peter Figoski by coming in here and lying to you,” Mr. Baker told the jurors, causing the prosecutors to shift in their chairs.

 

One of the prosecutors, Mr. Jackson, disputed that statement, saying it lacked a shred of evidence.

 

Mr. Santos is scheduled to be sentenced on June 20. He faces a maximum sentence of 25 years to life in prison.

 

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Kevin Santos convicted in shooting death of NYPD Officer Peter Figoski
The fifth and final robber is found guilty of burglary and second-degree murder for wrestling with the slain officer's partner as the father-of-four was shot in the face. He is facing 25 years to life at sentencing June 20.

By Oren Yaniv — Thursday, May 30th, 2013 ‘The New York Daily News’

 

 

The fifth and final member of an inept crew of robbers who caused the death of Officer Peter Figoski was convicted of murder Wednesday.

 

Kevin Santos was found guilty of burglary and second-degree murder for wrestling with the slain officer's partner outside an East New York basement in December 2011 as the fleeing gunman shot the veteran cop in the face.

 

Santos, 32, betrayed no emotion after the jury announced the verdict in Brooklyn Supreme Court after three hours of deliberations.

 

He's facing 25 years to life in prison at the June 20 sentencing.

 

The elderly parents of Figoski, 47, were in attendance along with two of his four daughters. The family was greeted with applause from a cadre of police personnel as they exited the courtroom.

 

"Today was a relief for the Figoski family," said police union chief Patrick Lynch. "[The verdict] guarantees the citizens of this city will not be abused by these monsters."

 

The conviction concludes the prosecution of all the culprits in the death of the cop with 22 years' experience.

 

Three were convicted at trial, including the shooter Lamont Pride, who was sent upstate for 45 years to life in February.

 

One cohort, Ariel Tejada, pleaded guilty to robbery and will get 18 years in exchange for his testimony. Alleged getaway driver Michael Velez was acquitted.

 

Santos claimed he was never inside the shabby apartment where a small-time drug dealer was robbed. He claimed police found no fingerprints, but prosecutors countered that he was wearing socks over his hands.

 

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Police in Brooklyn Are Told Not to Seize Condoms of Prostitutes

By J. DAVID GOODMAN — Thursday, May 30th, 2013 ‘The New York Times’

 

 

It has been a paradox of New York City government long assailed by aid groups for sex workers: the Health Department hands out millions of condoms to stem the spread of deadly diseases, while the Police Department collects condoms as evidence in arrests for prostitution.

 

Now in Brooklyn, prosecutors have a message for the police: stop taking the condoms.

 

In a letter sent last week to Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, the Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, said his office would not use possession of condoms as evidence of prostitution or loitering for the purpose of prostitution.

 

“Accordingly,” Mr. Hynes wrote in the letter, dated Friday, “the collection and vouchering of condoms as evidence by members of your department” in such cases in Brooklyn “should immediately cease.”

 

Advocates for sex workers have argued that officers’ use of condoms to support their arrests discouraged prostitutes from using condoms, presenting a public health risk. A 2012 report by the group Human Rights Watch found that such arrests sowed a fear of carrying condoms among sex workers.

 

Asked about Mr. Hynes’s call for policing changes, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, Paul J. Browne, said the department agreed that “it is not necessary to seize condoms as evidence of the intent of an individual to engage in prostitution.”

 

But Mr. Browne added: “We do not rule out their evidentiary value when going after pimps and sex traffickers. If there is a bowlful of condoms in a massage parlor, we want our officers to be able to seize them as evidence against the trafficker.”

 

While prosecutors are generally wary of excluding whole categories of evidence, there is a growing consensus that condoms should not be part of prostitution cases that do not involve sex trafficking. Prosecutors in Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx said that while their offices had no formal policies in place, in practice condoms were rarely if ever introduced in prostitution cases.

 

“Because of public health policy considerations, it is now the practice of the Manhattan D.A.’s office not to introduce condoms as evidence in individual loitering for prostitution or prostitution cases," said Erin M. Duggan, the chief spokeswoman for the office.

 

But the city’s district attorneys — including Mr. Hynes in Brooklyn — said they would continue to view condoms as potential evidence in trafficking cases. (Sex trafficking, a felony charge, is often brought against pimps.)

 

A vast majority of the nearly 2,500 arrests for misdemeanor prostitution in the city last year — including more than 600 in Brooklyn — never make it to trial and many are resolved at arraignment, said Steven Banks, the chief lawyer for the Legal Aid Society, with cases dismissed or suspects released after accepting pleas for time served after a night in jail.

 

“Our front-line staff see these sorts of charges every day,” he said.

 

The new policy in Brooklyn mirrors, in part, one adopted in February in Nassau County and comes amid continued efforts in Albany to pass a bill, first introduced in 1999, that would prohibit condoms from being used as evidence in criminal court, including in sex trafficking cases.

 

Nassau prosecutors already reject condoms as evidence, even in more serious cases. “It was very important to me to also extend the ban to traffickers,” said Kathleen M. Rice, the Nassau County district attorney. Without it, she said, “traffickers will refuse to hand out condoms to their workers and in fact prohibit their use,” putting the victims of trafficking at risk.

 

Indeed, for many advocates in New York City, Mr. Hynes’s policy shift, while welcome, does not go far enough.

 

“People ask me how many condoms is it legal to carry,” said Andrea Ritchie, a lawyer with Streetwise and Safe. “I tell them that there’s no law against carrying condoms, but it’s true that police and prosecutors will use them as evidence. That’s why we’re pushing for state legislation.”

 

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PSA # 6 P.O. Isaias Alicea

 

Surveillance video pins NYPD officer on felony frame-up charges
Crooked cop Isaias Alicea, 29, was found guilty on 10 counts of lying about a 2012 drug bust. Surveillance video showed an empty lobby at the time and place he claimed the arrest occurred.

By Bill Hutchinson — Thursday, May 30th, 2013 ‘The New York Daily News’

 

 

A city housing cop was convicted Wednesday of falsifying reports in a 2012 drug bust after prosecutors confronted him with a smoking-gun video that proved he was lying.

 

A Manhattan Supreme Court jury found NYPD Officer Isaias Alicea, 29, guilty of 10 felony counts of offering false instrument for filing and one misdemeanor charge of official misconduct.

 

A seven-year veteran of the force, Alicea faces a maximum sentence of four years in prison when he faces sentencing July 12.

 

Drug charges against two men framed by Alicea have been dismissed.

 

“The defendant ... was entrusted with keeping public housing residents and their guests safe. By falsely accusing a man of a drug sale, this defendant betrayed the public’s trust,” said Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.

 

Alicea claimed that while on patrol Feb. 19, 2012 at the Manhattanville Houses on W. 126th St. in Harlem he arrested two men in the lobby of a building after watching them engage in a drug transaction.

 

The officer stuck to his story when questioned by supervisors and an assistant district attorney about the bust.

 

Not only did surveillance video show no illegal drug exchange occurred, the two men arrested never even came in contact with each other inside the lobby, officials said.

 

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Jury Convicts Officer Over False Claim of Drug Deal

By CHANNING JOSEPH — Thursday, May 30th, 2013 ‘The New York Times’

 

 

A New York City police officer was convicted on Wednesday of falsely claiming that he saw two men conducting a drug deal in West Harlem last year, the authorities said.

 

The officer, Isaias Alicea, 29, was convicted by a State Supreme Court jury of 10 felony counts of filing a false document and one misdemeanor count of official misconduct. He will be sentenced in July and faces up to four years in prison for each felony count, though he is likely to face not more than four years in total.

 

Mr. Alicea said he had witnessed the two men, Makibu Francis and Willie James, engaged in an illegal drug sale on Feb. 19, 2012, in the lobby of a building that is part of the Manhattanville Houses public housing project, and arrested them. Surveillance video from the day of the arrests, however, later showed that Mr. Francis and Mr. James did not come into contact with each other, prosecutors said, and the drug charges against them were dismissed.

 

Mr. Alicea was “entrusted with keeping public housing residents and their guests safe,” Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney, said in a statement. “By falsely accusing a man of a drug sale, this defendant betrayed the public’s trust.”

 

The Police Department’s chief spokesman, Paul J. Browne, offered no comment on the case.

 

The officer had been placed on administrative duties until Wednesday, but he is now suspended from the department, his lawyer, Angelo D. MacDonald, said.

 

“We were obviously disappointed with the verdict,” Mr. MacDonald said, adding, “My client is going to lose his job, and he wanted to remain a police officer and continue to serve the public.”

 

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Sgt. Jonathan Murad

 

NYPD sergeant will deliver Harvard commencement as he receives master's degree
Sgt. Jonathan Murad will deliver the speech on behalf of the school's graduate students. He got his undergraduate degree from Harvard and served in the NYPD since 2005.

By Shane Dixon Kavanaugh — Thursday, May 30th, 2013 ‘The New York Daily News’

 

 

One of New York’s Finest will have the high honor of addressing his graduating class at Harvard.

 

Sgt. Jonathan Murad, who will earn a master’s degree from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, will deliver a commencement speech on behalf of the school’s graduate students on Thursday.

 

Murad, 40, who got his undergraduate degree from Harvard, joined the NYPD in 2005 and has worked beats patrolling public housing projects in Harlem and in the Bronx. Two other NYPD officers, Lt. Frank Merenda and Sgt. Matthew Delaney, will also earn degrees from the Kennedy School of Government on Thursday.

 

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Intel Sgt. Kevin Brennan

 

Thursday, May 30th, 2013 ‘The New York Daily News’ Editorial:

 

NYPD Sgt. Kevin Brennan is a real New York hero
Cop shot in the head in Brooklyn project busts an armed suspect in same neighborhood

 

 

Few of New York’s Finest deserve that name more than Sgt. Kevin Brennan.

 

Barely 16 months ago, he took a bullet in the back of his skull while tussling with a gang member near the Bushwick Houses.

 

He not only survived that brush with death but returned to duty with a desk job in the NYPD’s Intelligence Division.

 

Then, on Tuesday, Brennan showed that his courage and crimefighting instincts are very much intact — by taking yet another armed thug off the streets.

 

Returning to the scene of last year’s shooting to prepare for the trial of his attacker, Brennan and partner Michael Burbidge happened to spot a pair of suspects in a recent home invasion.

 

The two cops jumped out of their car and gave chase. After pinning one man against a fence, Brennan felt the butt end of a gun in the suspect’s waistband. It turned out to be a 9-mm. pistol. And, yes, it was loaded. “The juices were flowing for the first time in a while,” was the 29-year-old hero’s modest comment.

 

Once again, Brennan put his life on the line to keep New Yorkers safe. Once again, he came out on top — for which the entire city can be immensely grateful and proud.

 

This brings to nearly 100 the number of gun arrests credited to Brennan’s account — and his career is still a mere eight years old.

 

May he serve many more.

 

New York’s Finest, indeed.

 

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Ret. Sergeant James Monahan Now Convicted Felon

 

Former NYPD sergeant pleads guilty in $4.7 million fraud

By Unnamed Author(s) — Thursday, May 30th, 2013 ‘Empire State News.Net’ / Albany, NY

 

 

NEW YORK - The owner of a real estate investment company called Panam Management Group, Inc., and a former sergeant in the New York City Police Department (“NYPD”), pled guilty in Manhattan federal court to wire fraud, mail fraud, and conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud in connection with his participation in a fraudulent real estate scheme. As part of that scheme, James Monahan misappropriated approximately $4.7 million he obtained from investors for a real estate development project he claimed to be constructing in the Dominican Republic. The real estate project was never developed and investors lost all of their money. 

 

In connection with the project, Monahan and a co-conspirator, Edward Adams, who was a New York-based attorney, executed agreements that required investor funds to be deposited into escrow accounts that were to be managed by Adams. The agreements required that the majority of the funds be deposited in an account to which the defendants would not have access. From October 2008 through February 2009, approximately $4.7 million in investor funds were deposited into the escrow accounts. Shortly after the deposits were made, the funds were improperly withdrawn from the account by Adams without disclosure to investors.

 

Monahan, 43, of New York City, pled guilty to one count each of wire fraud, mail fraud, and conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud, each of which carries a maximum potential penalty of 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000, or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense.  He is scheduled to be sentenced on October 4,.

 

Adams is scheduled to go to trial starting July 8.

 

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NYPD School Safety Division       (Alleged Racial Discrimination)

 

Thursday, May 30th, 2013 ‘The New York Times’ Editorial:

The School-to-Prison Pipeline

 

 

School officials across the country responded to a surge in juvenile crime during the 1980s and the Columbine High School shootings a decade later by tightening disciplinary policies and increasing the number of police patrolling public schools. One unfortunate result has been the creation of a repressive environment in which young people are suspended, expelled or even arrested over minor misbehaviors — like talking back or disrupting class — that would once have been handled by the principal.

 

The policies have not made schools safer. However, by criminalizing routine disciplinary problems, they have damaged the lives of many children by making them more likely to drop out and entangling them, sometimes permanently, in the criminal justice system. The policies are also discriminatory: black and Hispanic children are shipped off to court more frequently than white students who commit similar infractions.

 

The need to chart a new course in school discipline is underscored in a report scheduled to be released on Thursday by the New York City School-Justice Partnership Task Force, a working group led by Judith Kaye, the former chief judge of the State of New York, and composed of people from the fields of law enforcement, education, philanthropy, civil rights and child advocacy.

 

The task force examined disciplinary practices in the city’s 1.1 million-student system during the 2011-2012 school year. It found that “the overwhelming majority of school-related suspensions, summonses and arrests are for minor misbehavior, behavior that occurs on a daily basis in most schools.”

 

The numbers are startling. The city schools imposed nearly 70,000 suspensions in the 2011-2012 school year, 40 percent more than the period six years earlier. Of the 882 arrests during the school year studied, one in every six was for “resisting arrest” or “obstructing governmental administration,” charges for which there is often no underlying criminal behavior. The authorities also issued more than 1,600 summonses — tickets that require the student to appear in criminal court and that can lead to arrest for those who fail to appear.

 

The discriminatory application of disciplinary policy is particularly troubling. For example, the study found that black students in New York City are 14 times more likely to be arrested because of school-based incidents than their white peers; Hispanic students are five times more likely to be arrested than whites. Special-needs children are also disproportionately affected, and are four times more likely to be suspended that than their peers.

 

The good news is most of the city’s schools manage to handle misbehavior without resorting to draconian measures. Only a small percentage of schools account for a disproportionate number of the suspensions, summonses and arrests. As the report notes, New York City can fix this problem by embracing comprehensive, system wide guidelines that have proved successful in places like Baltimore, Cincinnati and Clayton County, Ga.

 

The report makes many detailed recommendations. For starters, it calls on the next mayor to convene an interagency leadership team — including educators, social service officials, court officials and others — to keep more students safely in school while cutting down on the use of the harshest measures. It also suggests a “graduated response protocol” that would show schools how to resolve nonserious misbehavior themselves, reserving the court system for the most egregious cases. And it asks schools with low rates of suspensions, arrests and summonses to share solutions with schools that struggle with this problem. All of these ideas make good sense for Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s successor.

 

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Brooklyn D.A.O.

Brooklyn Prosecutor’s Office Is Accused of Detaining Trial Witnesses

By MOSI SECRET — Thursday, May 30th, 2013 ‘The New York Times’

 

 

The office of the Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, routinely detained trial witnesses against their will in hotel rooms as a part of forced interrogations, according to depositions taken in a civil rights lawsuit against the city, calling into question whether strong-handed tactics by prosecutors played a role in dozens of troubled convictions already under review.

 

The detentions, which a top paralegal described in detail in a sworn deposition, took place during the 1990s under the office’s now defunct “hotel custody program.” Investigators held witnesses who prosecutors believed could help build cases in undisclosed hotels, under armed guards, cutting them off from visitors and telephone calls.

 

Witnesses were also brought to the office of the district attorney, where they were compelled to testify, according to the testimony from the paralegal, Liz N. Fitzpatrick. Many elements of her testimony were echoed by two other former employees with the district attorney’s office who were deposed.

 

The claims came in court documents filed on Wednesday in the case of Jabbar Collins, who is suing the city after winning his release after serving 16 years in prison for a murder he said he did not commit. His conviction was tossed out after he provided evidence that the police and prosecutors coerced false testimony.

 

Joel Rudin, a lawyer for Mr. Collins, filed the documents as part of a motion asking a federal judge to force Mr. Hynes to testify about several issues that Mr. Rudin said he found troubling, including the hotel custody program. Mr. Rudin also filed testimony from Ms. Fitzpatrick, saying that many of the arrest warrants used to compel witness testimony were signed and notarized by paralegals in the name of prosecutors rather than by the prosecutors themselves, which is illegal.

 

City lawyers have fought the subpoena for Mr. Hynes to testify, arguing in a motion filed last week that he should not be deposed because other prosecutors in the office can answer questions without his involvement.

 

In a statement on Wednesday, Jerry Schmetterer, a spokesman for Mr. Hynes’s office, said: “We are not commenting on the ongoing civil suit. But it is not, nor has it ever been, the practice of this office to hold people in hotel rooms against their will without judicial intervention.”

 

The city’s law department also released a statement: “Mr. Rudin’s hyperbolic characterizations of various alleged practices in the Brooklyn D.A.’s office are irresponsible and absurd. Our court papers fully address the legal issues.”

 

Mr. Collins’s civil rights lawsuit claims that his wrongful conviction was not an isolated episode, but rather the result of office policies that encouraged unconstitutional behavior. In his efforts to prove that claim, Mr. Rudin will also seek a deposition from Michael F. Vecchione, a top prosecutor in the office and close associate of Mr. Hynes who has repeatedly been accused of misconduct.

 

Mr. Hynes’s office is now investigating more than 50 of its own murder convictions that have been called into question because of their connection to a rogue police detective, Louis Scarcella. The investigations come after federal judges who reviewed prosecutions from the office pointed to instances of prosecutorial misconduct.

 

The district attorney’s office ran the custody program from the early 1990s through at least 1997, according to the sworn testimony. Many of Mr. Scarcella’s convictions occurred during that period.

 

Mr. Collins was convicted of killing Abraham Pollack in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in 1995, based on the testimony of three witnesses. His conviction was tossed out following a successful post conviction claim in which he argued that prosecutors did not turn over evidence that one of the witnesses who testified against him had recanted his statement.

 

The judge presiding over Mr. Collins’s lawsuit, Frederic Block, said the facts showed that officers working on the case, Vincent Gerecitano and Jose. R. Hernandez, had pressured a heroin addict to implicate Mr. Collins, and that Mr. Vecchione had threatened the addict with prosecution and bodily harm unless he agreed to testify against Mr. Collins. Two other witnesses made similar accusations.

 

Judge Block is scheduled to hear oral arguments on whether Mr. Rudin can depose Mr. Hynes on June 12.

 

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Hell in ‘Hotel Hynes’ - Brooklyn DA accused of coercing witnesses to give false testimony, suit claims

By MITCHEL MADDUX — Thursday, May 30th, 2013 ‘The New York Post’

 

 

Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes’ prosecutors used hotel rooms as private jail cells to hide away reluctant witnesses and coerce them into giving false testimony, a bombshell court filing claims.

 

The attorney for Jabbar Collins — who was freed after 15 years in prison for the murder of a rabbi after a federal judge found prosecutorial missteps by Hynes’ office — filed court papers yesterday claiming the witness-badgering tactic was part of widespread misconduct in the DA’s Office and was a clear violation of constitutional protections.

 

Lawyer Joel Rudin, who has already filed a $150 million wrongful-prosecution suit against the DA’s Office, cited a deposition of a former Hynes employee who said investigators “were trained to bring material witnesses directly to the DA’s Office, instead of to court, for investigative questioning, and they would later be held against their will at hotels.”

 

“Hynes’s office was running a private jail system where witnesses were illegally interrogated and forcibly detained indefinitely,” Rudin wrote in the Brooklyn federal-court filing.

 

The explosive new allegations expand upon a wide range of similar charges Collins made two years ago in a federal civil-rights lawsuit, where he says such illegal tactics played a central role in his wrongful conviction.

 

Collins’ suit charged that a rogue Hynes prosecutor “would gain the involuntary custody of witnesses from which he would coerce false statements and testimony,” often using unethical methods to secure a court order sanctioning the detention.

 

Collins has accused Hynes of turning a blind eye to his investigators’ misconduct during the high-profile probe into the killing of Rabbi Abraham Pollack in Williamsburg during a 1995 armed robbery.

 

His lawsuit claims that two key prosecution witnesses in the murder case against him were coerced.

 

One was Angel Santos, who later told a federal judge that he had been threatened by Hynes’ Rackets Bureau chief, Michael Vecchione, after Santos balked at taking the witness stand at Collins’ trial.

 

“He told me he was going to hit me over the head with a coffee table or lock me up for a couple of years for perjury,” Santos told a federal judge at a 2010 hearing.

 

Collins’ lawsuit alleges that Santos was “unlawfully imprisoned” in a Bronx jail as “a material witness,” and threatened with physical harm if he did not testify as directed.

 

“Santos was locked behind bars at the Bronx House of Detention, housed with accused criminals, for more than a week,” the lawsuit charges.

 

Another witness, Edwin Oliva, was coerced into becoming a prosecution witness and hidden away in an upstate jail, the lawsuit claimed.

 

“Oliva was sent to Ulster Correctional Facility. He was informed that he would remain imprisoned upstate until he agreed to ‘cooperate’ with the DA’s Office,” Collins says in his 2011 lawsuit.

 

Two weeks ago, Rudin asked Brooklyn federal Judge Frederic Block to order the DA’s Office to produce evidence about “material witnesses held in ‘Hotel Custody’ and/or against their will” and a wealth of other information as part of the mandatory evidence exchange process that precedes a civil trial.

 

The judge has not yet ruled on the issue, but Hynes’ office has argued that some of this material is private and cannot be released. Several sealed court hearings have focused on this struggle over evidence in Collins’ federal civil-rights case.

 

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Limousine Liberal and 2nd Amendment Adversary:  Michael Bloomberg  

 

Cops: Letters to NYC mayor test positive for ricin

By COLLEEN LONG (The Associated Press)  —  Thursday, May 30th, 2013; 6:08 a.m. EDT

 

 

NEW YORK — Two threatening letters containing traces of the deadly poison ricin were sent to Mayor Michael Bloomberg in New York and his gun-control group in Washington, police said.

 

The anonymous letters were opened in New York on Friday at the city's mail facility in Manhattan and in Washington on Sunday at an office used by Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the nonprofit started by Bloomberg, police said Wednesday.

 

Chief New York Police spokesman Paul Browne said preliminary testing indicted the presence of ricin in both letters but that more testing would be done. He said the threats contained references to the debate on gun laws and an oily pinkish-orange substance.

 

The billionaire mayor has emerged as one of the country's most potent gun-control advocates, able to press his case with both his public position and his private money.

 

The people who initially came into contact with the letters showed no symptoms of exposure to the poison, but three officers who later examined the New York letter experienced minor symptoms that have since abated, police said.

 

Browne would not comment on what specific threats were made or where the letters were postmarked. He also wouldn't say whether they were handwritten or typed and whether investigators believe they were sent by the same person.

 

"In terms of why they've done it, I don't know," Bloomberg said at an event Wednesday night.

 

One of the letters "obviously referred to our anti-gun efforts, but there's 12,000 people that are going to get killed this year with guns and 19,000 that are going to commit suicide with guns, and we're not going to walk away from those efforts," said Bloomberg, adding that he didn't "feel threatened."

 

The letters were the latest in a string of toxin-laced missives. In Washington state, a 37-year-old was charged last week with threatening to kill a federal judge in a letter that contained ricin. About a month earlier, letters containing the substance were addressed to President Barack Obama, a U.S. senator and a Mississippi judge. A Mississippi man was arrested in that case.

 

Federal officials and NYPD were investigating. Browne would not say whether the letters were believed to be linked to any other recent ricin cases.

 

Police said the letter in Washington, D.C., was opened by Mark Glaze, the director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns. He was working out of the offices of The Raben Group, a Washington lobbying firm where he keeps an office. Glaze happened to open the letter while sitting outside over the Memorial Day weekend, said the firm's founder, Robert Raben.

 

"I'm very concerned about our employees and co-workers and clients. I'm sorry that we live in a world in which people do such awful things. Thank God, right now, everybody's physically fine," Raben said by phone Wednesday, adding that the firm would do whatever needed to ensure safety.

 

A mayor's spokesman also speaking for the nonprofit said he had no comment.

 

According to the Centers for Disease Control, ricin is a poison found naturally in castor beans. Symptoms can include difficulty breathing, vomiting and redness on the skin depending on how the affected person comes into contact with the poison.

 

Bloomberg and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino founded Mayors Against Illegal Guns, which now counts more than 700 mayors nationwide as members. It lobbies federal and state lawmakers, and it aired a spate of television ads this year urging Congress to expand background checks and pass other gun-control measures after the school shooting in Newtown, Conn. The background check proposal failed in a Senate vote in April, and other measures gun-control advocates wanted — including a ban on sales of military-style assault weapons — have stalled.

 

Separately, Bloomberg also has made political donations to candidates who share his desire for tougher gun restrictions. His super PAC, Independence USA, put $2.2 million into a Democratic primary this winter for a congressional seat in Illinois, for example. Bloomberg's choice, former state lawmaker Robin Kelly, won the primary and the seat.

 

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Associated Press Writer Jennifer Peltz contributed to this report.

 

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Letters Threatening Mayor Tested Positive for Ricin

By JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN — Thursday, May 30th, 2013 ‘The New York Times’

(Edited for brevity and NYPD pertinence) 

 

 

Two letters that contained threats to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg — one addressed to him, the other to a lobbyist who works on his gun control campaign — have tested positive for the deadly poison ricin, the authorities said on Wednesday.

 

The first letter was opened at a New York City mail center in Lower Manhattan on Friday, the police said. Although staff members at the mail center do not appear to have become ill, several police officers who came into contact with the letter’s contents “indicated some mild symptoms the next day, including diarrhea,” and they are being treated in hospitals, the New York Police Department’s spokesman, Paul J. Browne, said on Wednesday afternoon. “They’re being checked out as a precaution.”

 

The second letter, which was opened on Sunday in Washington, was addressed to Mark Glaze, the director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a group Mr. Bloomberg helps run and finances, officials said. Mr. Glaze opened the letter, an official said. No injuries were reported, Mr. Browne said.

 

Both letters were identical in content, bore references to the debate over gun regulation and contained written threats to Mayor Bloomberg, Mr. Browne said. “It’s threatening, and it’s very clearly about one issue,” one official said of the letters.

 

Both letters had a Louisiana postmark, said one official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is continuing. Earlier, Mr. Browne said that “something about the way it was addressed” raised suspicion about the letter sent to New York.

 

A spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, J. Peter Donald, confirmed that the bureau was investigating the letters, but declined to comment further.

 

The letters contained a “pink, orange oily substance,” Mr. Browne said, which tested positive for ricin on Wednesday at the National Bioforensic Analysis Center in Maryland. Earlier tests, performed locally, also indicated ricin, Mr. Browne said.

 

Ricin can be made from castor beans, and a quantity as small as a grain of salt can be lethal if ingested.

 

Mr. Browne said the Police Department, whose Intelligence Division is investigating the case along with the F.B.I., has handled “scores, if not hundreds” of emergency calls involving suspicious powders over the years. But since the anthrax attacks of 2001, Mr. Browne said, “each of those cases have been negative,” until this one.

 

J. David Goodman and William K. Rashbaum contributed reporting.

 

_______________________________________________________________________

NYPD: Ricin-Laced Letters Sent to Bloomberg Are City's First Mail Attack Since 9/11

By Julianne Welby — Wednesday, May 29th, 2013 ‘WNYC News’ / / New York, NY

 

 

In an interview with WNYC on Wednesday evening, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said the letter sent to Mayor Bloomberg that preliminarily tested positive for the poison ricin is the first of its kind in the city since the anthrax attacks in weeks after 9/11.

 

Browne said a letter opened at a city government building on Gold Street on Friday, and one opened by the head of Mayors Against Illegal Guns in Washington on Sunday, threatened the mayor and made references to the debate on gun laws. He said it's not unusual for the NYPD to investigate threat letters with powders, but that this one was different.

 

"Since the aftermath of 9/11 with the anthrax letters, this is to the best of my recollection...the first ricin or toxin that indicates the presence of this toxin in a letter," Browne said.

 

Browne said the address on the letter sent to New York was suspicious, and a worker who took precautions while opening it was not harmed by the ricin.

 

"They took the precautions that have been in place since 9/11," he said.

 

Browne said the worker inserted gloved hands inside a protective box to open the letter without coming into contact with it. Three NYPD officers who handled the letter were treated for mild symptoms of ricin exposure that have since abated.

 

A lab in Maryland is conducting further tests on the letters, and the FBI and NYPD are investigating who sent them.

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

Ricin-laced letters mailed to Bloomberg, Mayors Against Illegal Guns: cops
The mayor and Mark Glaze, the head of his antigun group in Washington, were both sent mail tainted with the poison. Whoever sent the letters made threats to Bloomberg 'with references to the debate on gun laws,' an NYPD spokesman said.

By Rocco Parascandola AND Corky Siemaszko — Thursday, May 30th, 2013 ‘The New York Daily News’

 

 

THREATENING letters laced with poisonous ricin and bearing a Louisiana postmark were sent to Mayor Bloomberg in New York and to his anti-gun group in Washington, police said Wednesday.

 

But Bloomberg vowed he wouldn’t let the incident stop his group from fighting gun violence.

 

“There’s 12,000 people that are going to get killed this year with guns ... and we’re not going to walk away from those efforts,” he said at a museum gala Wednesday night.

 

The letter for Bloomberg did not reach its intended target, but the one sent to the head of Mayors Against Illegal Guns was “opened more casually,” NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said.

 

“In both letters there was this suspicious substance, a pink-orange oily substance” that was initially thought to be some kind of organic food product, he said.

 

Nobody was hurt, but three members of the NYPD Emergency Service Unit who handled the letter Friday came down the next day with mild diarrhea — a symptom of ricin exposure.

 

In Washington, the group’s director and other people who touched the letter “remain asymptomatic,” Browne said.

 

Both the NYPD Intelligence Division and the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force are investigating.

 

Browne said he believes this is the first time a New York City elected official has been targeted with a ricin-laced letter. Whoever sent the poison made threats to Bloomberg “with references to the debate on gun laws,” Browne said.

 

The letter to Bloomberg arrived at the city’s mail center at 100 Gold St. and was flagged by a worker who deemed it suspicious.

 

The mayor’s push for stricter gun control has stirred up a hornet’s nest of criticism from the National Rifle Association and other firearms advocates. But Hizzoner insisted he isn’t frightened.

 

“I don’t feel threatened,” he said. “I’m not angry. There are people who, I would argue, do things that may be irrational, do things that are wrong. But it's a very complex world out there, and we just have to deal with that, I think.”

 

In April, President Obama and two U.S. senators were targeted with ricin letters tainted with ricin. Those letters also missed their marks.

 

With Jennifer Fermino

 

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F.D.N.Y.  Bklyn. Engine Co. 225  /  Attempt by Hair Bag to Turn Probie into His Firehouse ‘Bitch’

 

FDNY ‘hazing’ bust

By NATASHA VELEZ and ERIN CALABRESE — Thursday, May 30th, 2013 ‘The New York Post’

 

 

A firefighter on his first day at a Brooklyn station allegedly choked a fellow smoke-eater into unconsciousness after reacting angrily to hazing gone wild, sources said.

 

Baraka Smith, 43, was charged with assault and strangulation after he put fellow firefighter Salvatore Corallo, 41, in a chokehold in the locker room of a Cypress Hills firehouse Sunday, according to law-enforcement sources.

 

Smith repeatedly told Corallo, “Say you want to be my bitch!” according to court documents.

 

Smith’s lawyer said in court yesterday that hazing drove him to attack Corallo.

 

Firefighters at the Engine 225 Battalion 39 station downplayed the incident.

 

“This is a disagreement between two men. This is no one’s business,” said one firefighter at the Brooklyn station. Smith was released yesterday without bail.

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

New York F.B.I.

FBI Agent’s Car Stolen in Queens, With Rifle in Trunk

By Tamer El-Ghobashy — Thursday, May 30th, 2013 ‘The Wall Street Journal’ / New York, NY

 

 

For the second time in less than a year, a Federal Bureau of Investigation special agent was the target of a car theft in Queens – but this time, it was his government-issued vehicle that was stolen, along with a high-powered rifle stored in its trunk.

 

The agent, who works in a cyber division, reported the theft to police at about 8:00 pm on Tuesday after he noticed the 2011 Toyota Camry was no longer where he parked it near his home on Sutter Avenue in South Ozone Park, a law enforcement official said.

 

In July 2012, the same agent shot and wounded a 24-year-old man who he believed was trying to break into his personal car, two law enforcement officials said.

 

According to the FBI, Tuesday’s car theft is under investigation, and the serial numbers of the items in the vehicle have been registered in a federal crime database in case they turn up outside of the New York region.

 

Of particular concern to investigators is a Colt M4 AR-15 rifle in the trunk of the vehicle. A law enforcement official said the weapon, along with four loaded 20-round magazines, is in an unlocked case in the trunk. In addition, the trunk contains a green bullet-resistant vest with FBI emblazoned on it along with a similarly marked raid jacket, the official said.

 

The trunk is secured by a metal chain and padlock, and the key to the padlock is in the agent’s possession, the official said.

 

A government-issued parking plaque and a Nikon camera are also in the Camry, the official said.

 

The agent, whose name is being withheld by The Wall Street Journal because the FBI said he has taken part in undercover work, told police he parked the Camry at about 1 p.m. near his home and then went somewhere in his personal car. When he returned hours later, the Camry was gone.

 

In March, the agent was cleared of criminal charges stemming from the July incident, in which he shot his weapon from the second-story window of his house at three men he believed were trying to break into his personal car. The shot struck Adrian Ricketts in his back, wounding him.

 

Mr. Ricketts and his 22-year-old brother, who was allegedly present at the scene, had been charged with criminal mischief and petit larceny, but those charges were dropped in March when both sides agreed not to testify against each other.

 

The FBI conducted an investigation into the July incident but declined to say on Wednesday if the agent faced any internal disciplinary charges.

 

According to New York Police Department statistics, there were 220 vehicles reported stolen in 2012 in the 106 Precinct, where the agent lives. In the first 5 ½ months of this year, 55 vehicle thefts have been reported there.

 

- Sean Gardiner contributed to this article

 

_______________________________________________________________________

Missing FBI Agent's Car Found, Police Say

By Unnamed Author(s)  — Thursday, May 30th, 2013 ‘NY 1 News’

 

 

Police say they have found an FBI agent's car that was stolen Tuesday night.

 

Police say the car was found in the vicinity of Woodhaven Boulevard and Yellowstone Boulevard in Forest Hills.

 

Authorities say the 2010 Toyota Camry was originally stolen at approximately 8 p.m. Tuesday from 130th Street and Sutter Avenue in South Ozone Park.

 

Law enforcement sources told NY1 that the agent's FBI-issued M4 rifle was stored in a lock box in the car.

 

Sources say the agent whose car was stolen confronted three people outside his home last summer who were trying to break into his car and shot one of them.

 

He wasn't charged in the incident.

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

Westchester

Terrance Raynor, ex-Mount Vernon police chief, tapped as commissioner

By Ned P. Rauch  — Thursday, May 30th, 2013 ‘The Journal News’ / White Plains, NY

 

 

MOUNT VERNON — Mayor Ernest Davis has chosen Terrance Raynor to be the city’s new police commissioner.

 

“I think he’s far and away the best available,” Davis said of Raynor. “He’s my first choice.”

 

Raynor retired April 30 from his role as chief investigator for the Westchester County district attorney. Before that, he rose through the ranks of the Mount Vernon Police Department to become police chief. He left the department in 2006.

 

Davis cited Raynor’s experience and deep familiarity with Mount Vernon as key factors in his selection process.

 

“He’s a good detective, and we need detectives,” Davis said. “He understands we have to forge a relationship with the community.”

 

Raynor follows Carl Bell, whom Davis fired during the winter.

 

Since then, Richard Burke, another former Mount Vernon officer to come out of retirement, led the department on an interim basis as a deputy commissioner. Davis said Burke would remain in office.

 

“I think they will make a good team,” Davis said.

 

“I think we have the foundation for a good Police Department, and that’s essential.”

 

Raynor will be sworn in June 7, Davis said, but will likely begin working a few days before that date.

 

The mayor said Raynor’s salary would be about $126,000, well below his pay while working for the district attorney.

 

To collect both his full salary as police commissioner and his pension, Raynor would have to apply for a waiver from the state Civil Service Commission.

 

Earlier this year, Raynor paid back about $20,000 in school-tax exemptions he improperly received.

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

New York State

N.Y. State Police graduates 192 new troopers

By Jessica Bakeman — Thursday, May 30th, 2013 ‘The Press & Sun-Bulletin’ [Gannett News] / Binghamton, NY

 

 

ALBANY — The ranks of the State Police grew by 192 troopers Wednesday after a commencement ceremony in the state capital honored the 199th session of the New York Police Academy.

 

A graduating class in October 2012 was the first new group since 2009 because budget cuts had stopped new hiring. With Wednesday’s group, the police force is now more than 4,500, and another class of new troopers will begin training next month.

 

There are 27 women in the latest group, and 15 of the members are minorities, state officials said.

 

Gov. Andrew Cuomo addressed the class, offering each of the troopers a pin he designed for his staff when taking office in 2011. The pin displays a phrase that he uses as guidance: “I work for the people.”

 

“It sounds simple enough. But actually, it’s not that simple. Some days, it will get complicated. And some days it will get confusing. ... Everybody will have an opinion,” Cuomo said.

 

“At the end of the day, the responsibility that you carry is to the people of this state,” he told the troopers. “The people is the collective. The people is the community. And you don’t work for an individual; you work for all individuals as part of that community.”

 

Trooper Carlos Spencer, of Buffalo, was elected by his class to represent them at graduation. He addressed the class, thanking the troopers for their support of each other and congratulating their perseverance through six months of training.

 

“It is time for us to serve, protect and defend the people. It is truly our time,” Spencer said. “We have both struggled and achieved together; we are troopers here today together. We have learned to trust each other. We have learned that we are more than a group of individuals. We have learned that we are a part of something larger.”

 

Trooper Colin Dempsey, 28, of Fairport, Monroe County, who graduated with the class Wednesday, said he became interested in a career in public service after admiring his father, who was a firefighter.

 

Dempsey has been stationed in Ogdensburg, St. Lawrence County. He said he hopes to eventually return to the Rochester area.

 

“It feels great,” he said of his graduation. “You know, six months is a long time. A lot of work and preparation went into this day. The class itself did great throughout the six months.

 

“It’s a lot of pride,” he said, “a lot of pride.”

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

New Jersey

 

6 troopers sue Conrail over Paulsboro derailment

By Jim Walsh — Thursday, May 30th, 2013 ‘The Courier-Post’ / Cherry Hill, NJ

 

 

CAMDEN — Six New Jersey State Police troopers have sued Conrail in the wake of a train derailment that sent a cloud of toxic gas through Paulsboro last year.

 

The troopers, who responded to the Nov. 30 accident, contend Conrail ignored signs of potential problems on a rail bridge between West Deptford and Paulsboro.

 

Their lawsuit said the freight carrier’s actions “caused great peril to first responders, and constitute outrageous conduct.”

 

The accident caused four tanker cars to leave the rails at the Jefferson Street Bridge over Mantua Creek.

 

More than 100,000 pounds of vinyl chloride, a chemical used to produce plastics, spewed from one of the cars.

 

Residents were evacuated from some parts of Paulsboro, with others were told to remain inside for days after the incident.

 

Conrail spokesman Michael Hotra said the rail line would respond to the troopers’ lawsuit “in the appropriate forum and through our legal filings.”

 

In court papers filed in a Pennsylvania court this month, Conrail has cited the common carrier doctrine as part of its defense against another lawsuit arising from the derailment.

 

Under that doctrine, common carriers are not subject to strict liability for accidents involving hazardous cargo.

 

The troopers’ suit, filed Wednesday in federal court in Camden, is the latest legal challenge to Conrail over the Paulsboro accident.

 

Earlier this month, a suit was filed by a dozen police officers from Paulsboro and Greenwich who responded to the derailment.

 

More than 250 residents and workers affected by the derailment have filed lawsuits in federal court and in the Court of Common Pleas in Philadelphia.

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

F.B.I.

Obama expected to pick James Comey as next FBI chief: source

By Steve Holland (Reuters)  —  Thursday, May 30th, 2013; 3:07 a.m. EDT

 

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama is expected to nominate former Justice Department official James Comey as his next head of the FBI, a source said on Wednesday.

 

If confirmed by the Senate, Comey, a Republican, would replace FBI Director Robert Mueller, who has led the agency since just before the September 11, 2001, attacks. Mueller is expected to step down this fall.

 

The White House would not comment on Obama's decision but the source said Obama had been leaning toward Comey in recent days. It was unclear when an announcement would be made.

 

White House homeland security adviser Lisa Monaco, who emerged as an instrumental aide to Obama during the Boston Marathon bombings last month, also had been under consideration.

 

Comey, 52, served as deputy U.S. attorney general for President George W. Bush. He had previously been the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.

 

In an earlier post as assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Comey handled the Khobar Towers bombing case that arose out of an attack on a U.S. military facility in Saudi Arabia in 1996. Seventeen U.S. military members died in the attack.

 

Comey gained notoriety for refusing in 2004 to certify the legal aspects of National Security Agency domestic surveillance during a stint as acting attorney general while John Ashcroft was hospitalized with pancreatitis.

 

That refusal prompted senior White House officials, counsel Alberto Gonzales and chief of staff Andrew Card, to try to persuade Ashcroft to sign the certification. Comey, who was in the room, said Ashcroft refused.

 

Comey later told the Senate Judiciary Committee at a 2007 hearing that the situation was "probably the most difficult night of my professional life." His actions endeared him to many Democrats opposed to the Bush's domestic surveillance program.

 

After leaving the Justice Department in 2005, Comey was general counsel to aerospace giant Lockheed Martin until 2010.

 

Comey most recently joined Columbia University's law school as a senior research scholar after working for Bridgewater Associates, an investment fund, from 2010 to 2013. He was general counsel for aerospace giant Lockheed Martin from 2005 to 2010.

 

(Additional reporting by Mark Felsenthal and David Ingram; Editing by Stacey Joyce and Bill Trott)

 

_______________________________________________________________________

Former Bush Official Said to Be Obama Pick to Lead F.B.I.

By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT — Thursday, May 30th, 2013 ‘The New York Times’

 

 

WASHINGTON — President Obama plans to nominate James B. Comey, a former hedge fund executive who served as a senior Justice Department official under President George W. Bush, to replace Robert S. Mueller III as the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to two people with knowledge of the selection.

 

By choosing Mr. Comey, a Republican, Mr. Obama made a strong statement about bipartisanship at a time when he faces renewed criticism from Republicans in Congress and has had difficulty winning confirmation of some important nominees. At the same time, Mr. Comey’s role in one of the most dramatic episodes of the Bush administration — in which he refused to acquiesce to White House aides and reauthorize a program for eavesdropping without warrants when he was serving as acting attorney general — should make him an acceptable choice to Democrats.

 

It is not clear when Mr. Obama will announce the nomination. Senior F.B.I. officials have been concerned that if the president does not name a new director by the beginning of June, it will be difficult to get the nominee confirmed by the beginning of September, when Mr. Mueller by law must leave his post.

 

The White House declined to discuss Mr. Comey on Wednesday. But according to the two people briefed on the selection, Mr. Comey traveled from his home in Connecticut in early May to meet with the president at the White House to discuss the job. Shortly afterward, he was told that he was Mr. Obama’s choice, and they met again for a further discussion.

 

Mr. Comey, 52, was chosen for the position over the other finalist, Lisa O. Monaco, who has served as the White House’s top counterterrorism adviser since January. Some Democrats had feared that if the president nominated Ms. Monaco — who oversaw national security issues at the Justice Department during the attacks in Benghazi, Libya, last September — Republicans would use the confirmation process as a forum for criticism of the administration’s handling of the attack.

 

In the 2004 episode that defined Mr. Comey’s time in the Bush administration, the White House counsel, Alberto R. Gonzales, and Mr. Bush’s chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., sought to persuade Attorney General John Ashcroft — who was hospitalized and disoriented — to reauthorize the administration’s controversial eavesdropping program.

 

Mr. Comey, who was serving as the acting attorney general and had been tipped off that Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Card were trying to go around him, rushed to Mr. Ashcroft’s hospital room to thwart them. With Mr. Comey as well as Mr. Mueller in the room, Mr. Ashcroft refused to reauthorize the program. Mr. Bush later agreed to make changes in the program, and Mr. Comey was widely praised for putting the law over politics.

 

According to testimony Mr. Comey provided to Congress in 2007, Mr. Ashcroft rose weakly from his hospital bed when Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Card approached and refused to approve the program.

 

“I was angry,” Mr. Comey said in his testimony. “I had just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man, who did not have the powers of the attorney general because they had been transferred to me. I thought he had conducted himself in a way that demonstrated a strength I had never seen before, but still I thought it was improper.”

 

Mr. Comey, whose nomination was first reported by NPR, will inherit a bureau that is far different from the one Mr. Mueller took over a week before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. In the aftermath of those attacks, Mr. Mueller undertook the task of remaking the bureau into an intelligence and counterterrorism agency from one that had concentrated on white-collar crime and drugs. The number of agents has grown to roughly 14,000 from 11,500 under Mr. Mueller, and the bureau has heavily invested in its facilities and capabilities, improving its computer systems, forensics analysis and intelligence sharing.

 

But the bombings at the Boston Marathon have raised questions about Mr. Mueller’s legacy, as well as the effectiveness of the bureau’s counterterrorism efforts. While the F.B.I. has been praised for helping to catch one of the bombing suspects, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Congressional Republicans have raised questions about whether the bureau missed a chance to avert the attack. In 2011, it closed a file it had opened on the other suspect, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed in a shootout with the police.

 

In the year to come, Mr. Comey, who teaches at Columbia Law School after having served as general counsel for the large Connecticut hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, will be confronted by the bureau’s budgetary shortfalls, created by across-the-board cuts. He will also be forced to expand his knowledge of cybersecurity, which Mr. Mueller made one of the bureau’s chief priorities after counterterrorism.

 

Mr. Comey, who at 6-foot-8 usually towers over anyone in his presence, graduated from the University of Chicago Law School in 1985, and then had a meteoric rise at the Justice Department, culminating in his service as deputy attorney general from 2003 to 2005.

 

His first job was as an assistant United States attorney in Manhattan trying criminal cases. He worked briefly in private practice and went on to oversee the United States attorney’s office in Richmond, Va., where he made a name for himself as he pioneered Project Exile, a program that helped cut the high homicide rate in the city by shifting firearm prosecutions from state court to federal court, where there were stiffer sentences.

 

While Mr. Comey was working in Richmond, Mr. Ashcroft asked him in 2001 to take over the government’s foundering investigation of the 1996 terrorist bombing at Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 American service members.

 

The F.B.I. director at the time, Louis J. Freeh, had urged Mr. Ashcroft to take the case away from federal prosecutors in Washington who had been investigating for five years but had not brought charges.

 

With a legal deadline looming, Mr. Comey and a colleague feverishly moved forward with the case and within three months indicted 14 men.

 

Mr. Comey’s work on that case caught the attention of the White House, which two months after the Sept. 11 attacks nominated him to become the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, one of the highest-profile jobs in the department. In that position, Mr. Comey oversaw the prosecutions of Martha Stewart, WorldCom executives and international drug dealers.

 

Mr. Mueller had been required to leave his job in 2011 because of a 10-year term limit that was imposed by Congress in 1976. That measure had been put in place in an effort to prevent directors from amassing the power that J. Edgar Hoover had during his 48-year tenure leading the bureau.

 

But in 2011, Mr. Obama asked Mr. Mueller to remain in his post. His administration had considered candidates like Raymond W. Kelly, New York City’s police commissioner; Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the United States attorney in Chicago; Kenneth L. Wainstein, a former assistant attorney general for national security; and Mr. Comey. But administration officials did not think they were good fits, and they wanted to keep Mr. Mueller on because the Defense Department and the Central Intelligence Agency were getting new leaders.

 

The president asked the Senate to extend Mr. Mueller’s tenure by two years, and the measure was unanimously approved in July 2011.

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philly police fatally shoot suspect in gun battle, 3rd police-involved shooting in 24 hours

By Unnamed Author(s) (The Associated Press)  —  Thursday, May 30th, 2013; 8:00 a.m. EDT

 

 

PHILADELPHIA — Philadelphia police have shot and killed a suspect during a gun battle, marking the third police-involved shooting in the city in 24 hours.

 

Authorities say the latest shooting happened Wednesday night in the city’s Germantown section. Police say they were pursuing at least three suspects and at least one officer fired, killing one of the suspects. A 2-year-old boy also suffered a graze wound during the exchange.

 

Officers are searching for the remaining suspects.

 

It marked the third police-involved shooting in the city on Wednesday, hours after the police commissioner announced a review of the department’s use of deadly force. In the other incidents, officers shot a man in the buttocks after police say he pointed a gun; another man was critically injured after he was shot by officers who said he fired at them.

 

_______________________________________________________________________

Philadelphia police commissioner asks feds to review department’s use of deadly force

By Unnamed Author(s) (The Associated Press)  —  Wednesday, May 29th, 2013; 11:54 a.m. EDT

 

 

PHILADELPHIA — Philadelphia’s police commissioner has asked federal authorities to take a look at the police department’s use of deadly force.

 

Commissioner Charles Ramsey tells Philly.com (http://bit.ly/12gM5dm ) that he is seeking the review because of the rising number of police-involved shootings.

 

Philadelphia police shot 52 suspects last year, killing 15 of them. In 2011, police wounded or killed 35 people.

 

Officers shot and killed a man Saturday, the fourth police-involved shooting in as many days and the third resulting in a suspect’s death.

 

Ramsey says the number of shootings “gets people wondering if they were all justified.”

 

He says police have been looking at the issue since December and the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice “agrees this is a good course of action.”

 

_______________________________________________________________________

Homeland Security

 

Terrorists gaining momentum after Boston, London attacks: NYPD Commish

By JAMIE SCHRAM — Thursday, May 30th, 2013 ‘The New York Post’

 

 

The NYPD’s top cop says he’s “concerned” that terrorists may continue to carry out their savage attacks around the globe – and said they were gaining momentum in the wake of their recent strikes in Boston and London.

 

Commissioner Ray Kelly’s remarks came at the FBI National Executive Institute and the Major City Chiefs Conference in Houston, Texas, this morning.

 

“We are concerned that the success, from a terrorist point of view, of the latest attacks in Boston and London, coupled with the notoriety they’ve received, could inspire even more attempts in venues beyond major cities,” Kelly warned, citing last weekend’s stabbing of a French soldier outside Paris.

 

 

The Commish laid out three troubling points:

 

• The U.S. is still at great risk due to an “enduring threat” by Al Qaeda, which has been diminished by our military, but still has key leaders, such as Ayman al-Zawahiri, who hope to launch another 9/11-style attack.

 

• Medium sized cities, like Boston, are now in the crosshairs of terrorists.

 

• Al Qaeda members are realizing that they can do major damage using their crude and simplistic attack methods.

 

 

During his speech, Kelly also pointed out that Al Qaeda has “allies and affiliates” across Africa and the Middle East with such names as Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen and Al Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb in Algeria.

 

These factions pose a major threat to U.S. security, according to Kelly.

 

“For one thing, they send Americans back home to attacks us here,” Kelly said, citing several examples, including a 2009 case in which al Qaeda leaders flew Queens native Najibullah Zazi back to New York City to carry out attacks. But Zazi was arrested before he could attack the subway system by dispatching suicide bombers.

 

Kelly also noted the differences between larger and smaller scale terrorist attacks.

 

“The challenge with big, complicated terrorism plots is the potential for catastrophic consequences,” he said. “But they are easier to spot.

 

“The challenge with the attacks we saw in Boston and Woolwich [London] and the several that have failed in New York are that they’re small and hard to detect.”

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly to U.S. cities: Terrorists have changed
The deadly attacks at the Boston Marathon and in the Woolwich section of London show that the threat is 'smaller scale, yet still very lethal,' the city's top cop tells other police chiefs gathered in Grapevine, Texas.

By Rocco Parascandola — Thursday, May 30th, 2013 ‘The New York Daily News’

 

 

The terror threat against America extends beyond big cities like New York - and likely will be carried out by homegrown fanatics, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Wednesday.

 

The city's top cop issued the warning to police chiefs from around the country gathered at a conference in Grapevine, Texas.

 

He said the deadly Boston Marathon bombings and last week's murder of a British soldier who was run over with a car then hacked to death in the Woolwich section of London "could inspire even more attempts in venues beyond major cities."

 

Those attacks, he pointed out, were carried out by homegrown fanatics with "smaller scale, yet still very lethal" intentions.

 

The "new normal," he said, is something with which New York City is most familiar, most notably with the attempted Times Square bombing three years ago.

 

"The challenge with big, complicated terrorism plots is the potential for catastrophic consequences," Kelly said. "But they are easier to spot. The challenge with the attacks we saw in Boston and Woolwich and the several that have failed in New York are that they're small and hard to detect.

 

"For the individual jihadist, size matters less. You can't get much less complicated than running someone down with a car and then hacking him to death with a meat cleaver and long knives."

 

Kelly also noted that the traditional path for a would-be terrorist to become a successful one - attending training camps overseas - is increasingly "not part of the profile we uncover when a homegrown terrorist is revealed."

 

Intelligence gathering, and sharing, he said, is the key way to prevent these attacks.

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

Terror fears keep toxic plants hidden from public

By JACK GILLUM, DINA CAPPIELLO and RAMIT PLUSHNICK-MASTI  (The Associated Press)  —  Thursday, May 30th, 2013; 9:51 a.m. EDT

 

 

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Until the local fertilizer company in West, Texas, blew up last month and demolished scores of homes, many in that town of 2,800 didn't know what chemicals were stored alongside the railroad tracks or how dangerous they were. Even rescue workers didn't know what they were up against.

 

"We never thought of an explosive potential," said Dr. George Smith, the EMS director who responded to the factory fire by running to a nearby nursing home to prepare for a possible chemical spill.

 

Firefighters feared that tanks of liquid ammonia would rupture. But while they hosed down those tanks to keep them cool, a different chemical - a few tons of ammonium nitrate - exploded with the force of a small earthquake.

 

Smith and his colleagues should have known that ammonium nitrate was also a significant hazard. Neighbors should have known, too.

 

Around the country, hundreds of buildings like the one in West store some type of ammonium nitrate. They sit in quiet fields and by riverside docks, in business districts and around the corner from schools, hospitals and day care centers.

 

By law, this shouldn't be a mystery. Yet fears of terrorism have made it harder than ever for homeowners to find out what dangerous chemicals are hidden nearby. Poor communication can also keep rescue workers in the dark about the risks they face.

 

And some records are so shoddy that rescuers could not rely on them to help save lives.

 

That reality is reflected in a monthlong effort by The Associated Press to compile public records on hazardous chemicals stored across America. Drawing upon data from 28 states, the AP found more than 120 facilities within a potentially devastating blast zone of schoolchildren, the elderly and the infirm.

 

At least 60 facilities reported to state regulators as having about as much or more ammonium nitrate than the 540,000 pounds West Fertilizer Co. said it had at some point last year. The AP contacted 20 of the facilities individually to confirm the information, and three companies disputed the records. Some of the facilities stored the chemical in solid form, which is among the most dangerous.

 

Exactly how many other facilities exist nationwide is a mystery.

 

Ammonium nitrate is an important industrial fertilizer and mining explosive that, stored correctly, is stable and safe. But industrial history is dotted with dozens of deadly accidents involving the chemical.

 

Before Texas, the most recent incident occurred at a fertilizer factory in Toulouse, France, in 2001. An explosion killed 31, prompting France to pass a law requiring tougher regulations on the chemical.

 

Texas investigators still don't know what caused the fire that triggered the West explosion, but the devastation was a reminder of the chemical's power. Anti-government terrorist Timothy McVeigh used a truckload of ammonium nitrate to destroy the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995.

 

Because of that explosive potential, if a fire were to break out at an ammonium nitrate company, everyone within a quarter- to a half-mile radius could be at risk, according to scientific papers. Debris from the Texas explosion landed more than two miles away.

 

In the states that provided verifiable data, the AP's analysis found more than 600,000 people who live within a quarter-mile of a facility, a potential blast zone if as little as 190 tons of ammonium nitrate is detonated. More send their children to school or have family in hospitals in those blast zones.

 

More often than not, census data show, the danger zones are middle-class or poor neighborhoods.

 

In the western Michigan farming town of Shelby, the Rev. Ruth D. Fitzgerald said she walks by the local branch of the Helena Chemical Co. every day. Her church is just around the corner.

 

The building doesn't look like a factory, she said, so she never thought about what was there. State records show that the company, which sells fertilizer to large farms, orchards and golf courses, reported storing as much as 1 million pounds of ammonium nitrate on any given day last year.

 

"I don't have any understanding of this at all," Fitzgerald said.

 

Recently, an abandoned house caught fire a half a block away from the chemical company, said Tim Horton, a real estate agent who sits on the local hospital board and the Shelby Area Chamber of Commerce.

 

Horton also didn't know how much ammonium nitrate was there: "I would say people don't know and don't care."

 

"Ignorance is bliss," he said.

 

And that's in a state where officials make the information available.

 

More than a half-dozen others, including Ohio, Connecticut, Hawaii, Idaho and South Carolina, refused to provide such information to the AP, citing the risk of terrorist attacks and their interpretations of federal law. Others, such as West Virginia, said the AP had to review paper records in person or request records one by one.

 

The result is a peculiarity of the post-9/11 age: Statistically, Americans are more likely to be hurt from chemical or industrial accidents like the one in Texas than from terrorist attacks like the one in Boston. Yet information intended to keep people safe is concealed in the name of keeping people safe.

 

Since the 1980s, states have been required under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act to tell people where dangerous chemicals are stored and how much is nearby.

 

That law followed a chemical leak in Bhopal, India, that killed more than 1,700 people and another in West Virginia that led to an evacuation. Ammonium nitrate has been responsible for some of the largest industrial disasters in history. In fact, what remains the worst industrial accident in the nation's history was an ammonium nitrate-triggered explosion in 1947 that killed more than 570 people in Texas City, Texas, and injured about 5,000.

 

But times have changed. Fears of chemical spills have given way to fears of terrorism.

 

In Hawaii, for example, officials said people must prove a "need to know" before they can obtain information. Though the state did not respond to a request for an explanation, the policy echoed others that cited a 2007 federal law intended to protect chemical plants from terrorist attacks. But the need-to-know requirement does not apply to the data submitted for Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know, said Bob Stephan, a former Homeland Security Department assistant secretary who was in charge of the U.S. government's chemical facility anti-terrorism program from 2007-09.

 

"They are giving you incorrect information or incorrect rationale for not providing the data," Stephan said.

 

Under Hawaii's interpretation of the law, people who want information about specific chemical facilities near their homes are qualified to see it. But that presupposes they already know enough to ask. Clarence Martin of the state's Hazard Evaluation and Emergency Response Office said people deserve to know what's in their neighborhoods.

 

But, he added, "I'm not going to let you tell them."

 

Even when the information is available, though, it's not always accurate. Years of lax oversight and scant enforcement have resulted in shoddy records. Hundreds of companies listed approximate or inaccurate amounts of dangerous chemicals, not just ammonium nitrate.

 

For instance, data from Louisiana said a Jimmy Sanders Inc. facility stored nearly 50 million pounds of ammonium nitrate. But the company said it never had any at all.

 

Others misidentified their locations. One plant in Tucson, Ariz., listed an ambiguous address ("end of cement plant road") and a geographic coordinate so off base that the Environmental Protection Agency's reporting software flagged the facility as being in a different county.

 

Arkansas reported that the Polk County Farmers Association stored 50,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate in the rural town of Mena. But the store's manager, Paul Stanley, said it had been moved to a facility about three miles outside of town years ago.

 

"I'm happy that it's not in town," he said, "because people don't understand it and they jump to conclusions."

 

Wisconsin documents showed that the C. Reiss Coal Co.'s facility had stored tons of ammonium nitrate in a facility in Sheboygan last year. But people would be hard pressed to use that information when deciding where to buy a home or send their kids to school. That's because state officials say the facility is inactive and should not have been on the list.

 

The fertilizer building that exploded in West had been there since 1962. As the years passed, a nursing home, school and apartment buildings sprung up nearby. Townspeople thought little of the facility; it was as common a sight in the farming community as a tractor driving down the road.

 

The company filed the required reports listing the hazardous chemicals on site. There's no indication that the documents were incorrect. But the county's emergency planners had not read them.

 

The Monroe County Co-Op in Aberdeen, Miss., stored as much as 1 million pounds last year, according to state records. But David Hodges, the store manager, said he had about half that on site and has sold it for about 50 years without a problem.

 

"I've been here, oh, 34, 35 years, and it's always been there," said Larry Middleton, a retired English teacher who lives up the street and visits to buy weed remover and snake repellent.

 

Horton said the same about the building in Shelby. Many townspeople have lived there all their lives, he said, and the fertilizer has been there, too. Though he didn't think most people knew the explosive potential, he said he feared that public knowledge of the building's contents would attract terrorists.

 

"I can't predict when an accident is going to happen. It just happens," he said. "Terrorists are actively seeking ways to harm us."

 

Behavioral scientists call this "probability neglect": People are far more likely to overreact to emotional, extremely unlikely events such as terrorism than to address potential problems that are far more likely to occur.

 

What's more, people are more afraid of risks brought on by outsiders, like terrorists, than threats closer to home. In experiments, people were more outraged by the thought of being exposed to radiation from nuclear waste than from radon in their own basements - even when they were told the danger was the same and the likelihood of radon exposure was much higher.

 

"It's been here all this time," Middleton said, "and nothing has happened."

 

---

 

Gillum, Cappiello and Associated Press writers Matt Apuzzo and Stephen Braun reported from Washington; Plushnick-Masti reported from Houston.

 

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Florida Friend of Boston Marathon Bombers

 

Man Shot in FBI Scuffle Was Unarmed

By DEVLIN BARRETT — Thursday, May 30th, 2013 ‘The Wall Street Journal’ / New York, NY

 

 

A Florida man shot dead last week during an interview with investigators probing the Boston bombing was apparently unarmed, a law-enforcement official said Wednesday.

 

The late-night confrontation came after a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent had been questioning Ibragim Todashev at his Orlando, Fla., apartment for hours about an unsolved 2011 triple homicide outside Boston.

 

The May 22 shooting is under review by the FBI, a process that is likely to take months, the law-enforcement official said. Mr. Todashev, who had a Chechen background, was being questioned by the FBI agent alongside two Massachusetts State Police investigators, according to officials familiar with the matter.

 

Mr. Todashev made statements incriminating himself and Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev in the triple killing, then unexpectedly lunged at the agent, according to officials. Initially, authorities believed the man had some kind of knife or cutting instrument that left a gash on the agent's arm. Now, according to one official, it appears the man was unarmed and the agent might have been cut by a piece of furniture in the scuffle.

 

The agent fired his weapon, killing the man. The two police investigators didn't fire their weapons, according to the law-enforcement official. All three have given statements to investigators about what happened, the official said.

 

A lawyer representing the agent in the incident declined to comment on the case Wednesday.

 

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Why'd the FBI Kill Tamerlan Tsarnaev's Accomplice-to-Be if He Was Unarmed?

By Alexander Abad-Santos — Thursday, May 30th, 2013 ‘The Atlantic Wire’ / Washington, DC

 

 

Law enforcement officials are walking their claims of self-defense all the way back a week after the shooting of Ibragim Todashev — the 27-year-old man who was about to officially confess to a triple murder in Massachusetts and finger Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev while he was at it — in his Orlando home by an FBI agent.

 

The Washington Post and Orlando's NBC affiliate,  both now report that Todashev was unarmed and alone in a room with the single FBI agent when he was killed early on the morning of May 22, two evolving details that continue to raise questions about why investigators used lethal force against a man who may not have posed a lethal threat but who definitely had key information on Tsarnaev.

 

The Post's Sari Horwitz and Peter Finn report that Todashev "lunged at the agent and overturned a table," at which point, according to Orlando's WESH, "the FBI agent believed he could have possibly been going for his gun or the sword in the room, and that's when the agent opened fire." So, yes, there may have been a giant sword somewhere in Todashev's apartment near Universal Studios, and there could yet be missing pieces in the bizarre public puzzle of this terrorism subplot — the FBI said in a second statement about the case Wednesday that an internal review of the incident was still underway, and the Boston bombing investigation has not been short on misinformation coming from anonymous law enforcement officials. But some initial reports after the Jack Bauer-style saga surfaced last Wednesday insisted that Todashev, after orally confessing to a grisly 2011 killing in Waltham, Massachusetts, attacked the agent with a knife. Within a day, but under the radar, some of the anonymous officials began to change their story, backtracking about the Todashev confession standoff and telling outlets like the AP that "it was no longer clear what had happened." The FBI has only said in a statement that "a violent confrontation was initiated by the individual."

 

Todashev's family and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which pressed for a separate Department of Justice inquiry on Wednesday, have insisted that he did not have access to a weapon and that the killing "was not justified." Of course, at that point Todashev was a half-confessed murderer in the grisly throat-slitting of a drug-deal setup turned violent killing himself, but at his apartment late last Tuesday night, he was clearly outnumbered and outgunned: After weeks of cooperating with investigators, Todashev was being interviewed for multiple hours by multiple federal agents and, according to the FBI, at least two Massachusetts state police officers and other law enforcement officials. The narrative floating around the press had been that Todashev, a mixed martial arts fighter and friend of Tsarnaev back in Boston, was going to or could have killed someone. The Washington Post's sources may debunk that:

 

An agent sustained non-life-threatening injuries, later described by one law enforcement official as "some cuts and abrasions."

 

An official said that according to one account of the shooting, the other law enforcement officials had just stepped out of the room, leaving the FBI agent alone with Todashev, when the confrontation occurred.

 

Again, pass the salt with this anonymous reporting, and we still don't have details on the confrontation between this would-be Bauer and Tsarnaev's would-be accomplice. But that "some cuts and abrasions" line does jibe with what FBI officials told CNN on May 23 — that the agent "sustained non-life-threatening injuries," and if Todashev was alone with one agent, well, maybe he wasn't exactly outnumbered and maybe he made his move. Increasingly this is becoming a sideshow between one agent and one strange man when it might have been something of a major break in the case against the Tsarnaev brothers — at the very least, a written confession from Todashev before he died would have provided a legally justified sign that Tsarnaev had been a drug dealer or a killer before he took what had been thought as the fateful trip to Russian in 2012, that he had been criminally violent before he was hypothetically radicalized.

 

But if we are now discounting stories about the knife and a standoff with multiple agents, what makes us so sure those stories about how Todashev was supposed to sign a confession implicating him and Tsarnaev are so solid themselves? Todashev's father is now stating that the 2011 triple homicide in Waltham, which Todashev reportedly confessed to, was not part of Todashev's earlier interrogations with the FBI. No, that's not supposed to make you feel better.

 

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                                                          Mike Bosak