Monday, May 27th, 2013 — Good Morning, Stay Safe
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Grateful gratitude and appreciation to all those who have served, and God bless all those who gave their all protecting our great country and all its glorious freedoms guaranteed under our magnificent Constitution and 'Bill of Rights.' - Mike
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'One Police Plaza'
"48 Hours" — Lipstick on a Pig, Lots of Mascara
By: Leonard Levitt – Monday, May 27th, 2013 'NYPD Confidential.Com'
(Op-Ed / Commentary)
Unless the people at CBS's "48 Hours" are holding back something in their press releases concerning their six-part series "Brooklyn DA," one might be tempted to believe the words of professor emeritus Melvin Mencher of the Columbia School of Journalism: Don't ever confuse anything you see on TV with journalism.
There is nothing more harmful to society than an unprincipled district attorney and no district attorney in New York City, if not the state of New York, has been as unprincipled as Hynes, who is running for a seventh term.
Longevity is the norm for the city's district attorneys, where being elected the first time is tantamount to lifetime employment. [See Robert Johnson in the Bronx, DA since 1988; Richard Brown in Queens, DA since 1991; or the granddaddy of them all, former Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, who served 35 years, retiring as he closed in on 90.
Elected in 1989 as an idealist and reformer, Hynes is now closing in on 80.
His 24-year incumbency has been marked by a coziness with the politically powerful Hasidic Jewish community, which until this last election cycle led him to ignore two decades of sexual assaults, including allegations of rape, by pillars of the Hasidic community.
Worse, Hynes has sent at least two men away for long prison stretches for the murders of Hasidic rabbis that they apparently did not commit.
In 1995, one of Hynes's top assistants, Michael Vecchione, prosecuted one of those men, Jabbar Collins, for the murder of Rabbi Abraham Pollack.
In 2010, a federal judge freed Collins, citing Vecchione's prosecutorial misconduct.
In her decision overturning Collins's conviction, federal judge Dora Irizarry cited "compelling evidence" that Vecchione had "wrongfully withheld a key witness's recantation, had coerced and knowingly relied on false testimony and argument at trial, had knowingly suppressed exculpatory and impeachment evidence and had acted affirmatively to cover up such misconduct for 15 years."
Meanwhile, Hynes continues to defend Vecchione's professionalism and integrity. Vecchione heads the key Rackets Bureau with a salary of $189,000.
Collins, meanwhile, spent 16 years in prison.
Last March, David Ranta, another man apparently falsely accused, was released from prison where he had served 23 years for the 1990 murder of Rabbi Chaskel Werzberger.
The New York Times reported that Hynes's office had sent Ranta and scores of others to prison on false evidence turned up by Detective Louis Scarcella.
Hynes then announced the formation of an "Integrity Unit" to examine some 50 of Scarcella's cases. This after 24 years.
Enter now the folks from "48 Hours."
Starting Tuesday, they will provide Hynes and his office with national exposure through "Brooklyn DA."
Producers, looking for a subject for the popular ten o'clock summer time slot, came up with what a CBS news release calls "a tough, candid behind-the-scenes look at the men and women prosecutors and their cases in one of the largest district attorney's offices in the country."
"What makes this series so unique," says the release, "is getting into the lives and personalities of the individual DAs, led by Charles 'Joe' Hynes…"
Whether this includes a candid look at Hynes's and Vecchione's records remains to be seen.
Asked whether Hynes and/or Vecchione would appear on camera, spokesman Richard Huff said, "The team on 'Brooklyn DA' doesn't publicly discuss editorial process."
Such claptrap allowed Huff to obscure the fact that, according to news accounts, Vecchione helped negotiate the terms of the deal.
One of Hynes's election opponents, Abe George, filed suit to stop the series from airing, claiming that it violates state campaign finance laws because the series is entertainment, not news. A judge dismissed the suit. On Tuesday the show goes on.
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WAKE UP, BARACK. Adam Goldman, Matt Apuzzo and Eileen Sullivan are three AP reporters whose phone records the federal government subpoenaed a year ago after they reported on a foiled Yemeni-originated airplane bomb plot.
The three also won the Pulitzer Prize last year for exposing the NYPD's pervasive spying on Muslims.
Much of their reporting came from secret documents they obtained from the NYPD's Intelligence Division.
So far as anyone knows, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly — who cares as little for freedom of the press as does President Obama [his recent remarks defending the importance of a free press notwithstanding] — did not subpoena any of those reporters' phone records.
At least in this instance, Kelly was more restrained than our usually cautious President.
Perhaps Kelly's restraint stemmed from a letter he wrote in 2008 to then Attorney General Michael Mukasey, claiming that the Justice Department was "doing less than it is lawfully entitled to do to protect New York City."
Specifically, Kelly accused senior Justice Department officials in the administration of George W. Bush of foot-dragging when the NYPD requested wiretap warrants.
Mukasey shot back, accusing Kelly of ignoring probable cause standards, stating that the "driving force behind NYPD's complaints … is contrary to the law."
The Obama administration apparently operated with no such standards.
The President said the decision to seize the records of 20 office, cell and home phone lines of AP reporters and editors — as well as those of Fox News reporter James Rosen, who the government called a possible "co-conspirator" for publishing information about a potential North Korean missile test — devolved from the Justice Department, not the White House.
Attorney General Eric Holder said he recused himself from the AP investigation and that his deputy — not he — made the decision to subpoena the records. As though this absolves him and Obama of responsibility.
Obama's announcement last week that he now subscribes to the importance of freedom of the press is either hypocritical or an indication he has been sleep-walking through much of his presidency. Take your pick as to which is worse.
Those remarks are the opposite of what he indicated when revelations about the AP's subpoenas first became public.
Then, the idea of "freedom of the press" seemed not to have crossed his mind. Rather, he said that he would not apologize for being "concerned about information that could compromise their [Americans'] missions or might get them killed."
Neither he nor Holder has explained how, by publishing the AP's stories on the failed Yemeni airplane plot or Fox News's stories on the North Korean missile tests, reporters comprised "national security."
Chances are they never will because they can't.
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THE KELLY COUNTDOWN. So what's it going to be for Ray Kelly? He has until June 10th to decide if he's actually running for mayor.
Here is NYPD Confidential's take on his chances. It's a more candid appraisal than you'll find anywhere else.
Kelly's plusses: A weak field of opponents.
Democratic candidates: Quinn talks out both sides of her mouth. Impossible to understand her intentions amidst her statements both supporting Stop and Frisk and keeping Kelly as police commissioner.
De Blasio: a true liberal but with pandering inclinations, such as parading his black, former Lesbian wife. Liu: beset by finance scandal. Thompson: perhaps potentially the strongest candidate but described by people who know him as "lazy." Weiner: enough said.
Republicans: No better. The Gristedes guy, Catsimatidis, is going nowhere.
Rudy Giuliani's former deputy mayor Joe Lhota may run as a law-and-order candidate but his crack about the Port Authority police being "mall cops" has probably cost him the support of law enforcement groups.
There's also his advising Giuliani in 2000 to select Bernie Kerik as NYPD Commissioner over then Chief of Department Joe Dunne.
Kelly is better known than all the candidates, with the highest popularity ratings of any city official. No matter how one may feel about him personally, most New Yorkers respect the job he has done.
Kelly's minuses: Do popular ratings as police commissioner translate to popular ratings as mayor? Is he too law enforcement-rigid for a political job? Will he able to control himself when asked a question he cannot or doesn't want to answer?
Like questions about an Inspector General or a police monitor, which most New Yorkers now think is a pretty good idea.
Or about the freebies he gets from the Police Foundation, unheard of for any previous commissioner, which may go beyond his expenses at the Harvard Club?
Will people then see him as he really is? Mean, short-tempered, vindictive and unforgiving? Such qualities may make a strong police commissioner but not necessarily a strong mayor.
In short, he is a mirror-image of Giuliani, who fired him as police commissioner in 1994 and whom Kelly has never forgiven. No doubt Kelly remembers that in early 2008 Giuliani led all Republicans in popularity as a presidential candidate. And ended up with one delegate.
Edited by Donald Forst
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Ret. NYPD Sergeant Michael Schmitt
Michael Schmitt Sr. and Michael Schmitt Jr. deployed at same time
By Unnamed Author(s) — Sunday, May 26th, 2013 'News 12 Long Island'
HUNTINGTON - A Long Island military family worried for nine months as both father and son served overseas.
Michael Schmitt Sr., a retired NYPD sergeant, decided to give the Army a try at the age of 49. He and his son, Michael Schmitt Jr., a United States Marine, were simultaneously deployed.
While the pair mourns their fallen comrades, they are thankful they don't have to mourn each other.
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Ret. NYPD Captain Eric Adams
The Unlikely Borough President
By Unnamed Author(s) — Monday, May 27th, 2013 'City & State.Com'
There is no battle for Brooklyn Borough Hall.
State Sen. Eric Adams is in a rarefied place for a candidate seeking a wide open seat: He does not really need to campaign. With only a sole long-shot opponent and virtually the entire Brooklyn Democratic Party behind him, Adams is poised to replace the wisecracking Borough President Marty Markowitz, who has reigned over the borough as its No. 1 booster for close to a dozen years.
Adams' campaign kickoff in March, fittingly on the steps of Borough Hall, was a show of strength typically reserved for a longtime incumbent. Mayoral candidates like City Comptroller John Liu and Public Advocate Bill de Blasio swooped in to give Adams ringing endorsements. Leaders from Brooklyn's wide-ranging ethnic and religious communities flocked to the event, extolling the character, strength and intelligence of the retired police captain.
"First, President Obama got a mandate from the American people," Liu told the cheering crowd. "Now Senator Eric Adams is going to get a mandate from the people of Brooklyn!"
Adams, who was elected to the state Senate in 2006, is currently a darling of the Democratic Party, a future power broker on track to make history as Brooklyn's first African-American borough president. Yet his probable path to Brooklyn's highest office is surprisingly winding, including stints as a registered Republican, antiestablishment gadfly and upstart challenger to a popular congressman. In May he was named as one of the elected officials who was wiretapped by then state Sen. Shirley Huntley, who was sentenced to a year in a prison for embezzling nearly $90,000 from a sham nonprofit. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, eight of the nine people whom Huntley secretly recorded are the subjects of an ongoing investigation, including Adams.
Following the bombshell revelation about the Huntley wiretap, Adams stated that he had not been contacted by any prosecutors. "I believe deeply in transparency and the pursuit of justice—and that is why I committed 20 years of my life to law enforcement," he said in a statement. "I am more than willing to help with any investigation."
No Contest
Brooklyn is sandwiched between two highly competitive borough president races in Queens and Manhattan. Even candidates with far larger war chests than Adams, like Julie Menin in Manhattan and Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. in Queens, have not scared away challengers.
"There are some serious lifers who want that seat," said a Brooklyn Democratic insider about the crowded Queens borough president race. "So then what does it say about the Brooklyn BP spot if no one wants it except Eric Adams and John Gangemi? Markowitz was good, but he wasn't that good as to scare away all others. It's very odd."
Adams' lone challenger is the relatively unknown John Gangemi, who has raised a measley $12,265 as of the latest filing. Gangemi, a former councilman-at-large, last held elected office more than 30 years ago.
Before he decided to run for Congress, the term-limited City Councilman Domenic Recchia was believed to be Adams' chief competition. According to multiple sources familiar with the Kings County Democratic Party, Recchia was persuaded by the party, now based in southern Brooklyn after Canarsie resident Frank Seddio was named its chair last year, not to challenge Adams.
Seddio, who is white, did not want a clash between a southern Brooklyn white elected official and a northern Brooklyn black elected official, according to Democratic sources. After years of infighting under Assemblyman Vito Lopez, Seddio has sought to unify a once-fractured party.
Some Democratic insiders believe he did not want a scenario where a white county leader and white borough president would preside over a borough that U.S. census figures show is now only half white. According to Seddio, however, the party did not dissuade Recchia from running for borough president. A Recchia spokeswoman confirmed Seddio's statement.
"We're trying to bring a much more cohesive Brooklyn. The days of fractured politics are gone, in my mind," Seddio said. "We worked very hard with the different candidates that wanted to run, thought about running. It's kind of like going into a good clothing store, trying to find a suit that fits … I think we managed to get everyone into a suit that they're going to be able to wear, and wear with pride."
Adams declared his intention to run early last year, giving him a head start in lining up support from the borough's various ethnic blocs and putting some distance between himself and his potential opponents. He has now raised almost a half million dollars, a substantial figure that could serve as a deterrent to any future challengers. Recchia's decision not to seek the seat, coupled with both Councilwoman Letitia James and State Sen. Daniel Squadron opting to run for public advocate, created a clear path for Adams. Carlo Scissura, Markowitz's former chief of staff, once also a candidate, ultimately left the race to lead the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce.
Since news of the Huntley wiretap surfaced, there has been speculation that James will switch gears and instead challenge Adams, but she issued a statement earlier this month saying the rumors were "unfounded." She officially declared for public advocate on May 19.
"On the Brink of Inciting Controversy"
At his kickoff in early March, Adams portrayed himself as a fiscal progressive able to unite a diverse and rapidly changing borough. Known as a strident opponent of stop-and-frisk, Adams recently testified against the controversial anticrime policing tactic in a class-action suit challenging its constitutionality. Adams, who agreed to be interviewed by City & State only by email, said he would use the power of the borough presidency to introduce legislation, something Markowitz did not do, while focusing on job-training programs and "financial literacy" initiatives.
"Yes, we have drawn great interest and investment in recent years—but there are still many who live here who haven't benefitted from that," Adams said via email. "The office must offer access to government resources to those who need them, but also be proactive in its approach by growing the Brooklyn economy and working with businesses that will look out for working families."
For a candidate running virtually unopposed, Adams has remained strikingly guarded. It is rare for elected officials running for higher office to consent only to emailed questions and no in-person interviews. Adams' public appearances since his raucous kickoff have been limited as well. On May 9, a day after a federal judge revealed that Huntley had recorded his conversations with her, Adams canceled a scheduled appearance at the Bay Ridge Democratic Club. According to a source close to the Brooklyn Democratic Party, a meeting to officially endorse Adams was postponed.
Adams did appear at a Brooklyn Young Democrats meeting a week later, where he insisted that Huntley's wiretap would turn up nothing incriminating.
"There's nothing on those tapes that's detrimental to me," Adams said. "I don't have to wonder what was said, what wasn't said; I don't have to do that. … If you come to talk to me about breaking the law, you're going to find my handcuffs. I'm not here to break the law. I'm here to serve the people of the state and I'm consistent about that."
Adams, a retired transit police officer who had a hardscrabble upbringing in Queens, entered the political world long before being elected to the state Senate in 2006. In the 1990s he became known as the combative leader of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, a law enforcement advocacy group focused on crime and race-related issues. In 1994 he launched a challenge against then Central Brooklyn Congressman Major Owens, a well-established political figure in the borough.
Though Adams was knocked off the ballot in that race, he would make headlines for criticizing Owens and former Rep. Herman Badillo. According to a 1994 story in New York magazine, Adams, then 33, did not appear to be someone who two decades later would have practically the entire political establishment at his back.
"Adams seems always on the brink of inciting controversy," journalist Craig Horowitz wrote in New York. According to multiple published reports, Adams took aim at Badillo, a former comptroller and mayoral candidate, for having a Jewish wife. "It's insulting to the Hispanic community that he can go to the Hispanic community for support, but he can't go to the Hispanic community when he's picking a wife," Adams said at the time.
Adams now insists that the comment was a "theory" on the state of Hispanic voters at the time and not a personal opinion or criticism of Badillo and his wife.
Adams also supported the anticrime tactics of the Nation of Islam and their controversial leader, Louis Farrakhan, according to several published reports. Adams' praise of Farrakhan upset members of the Jewish community who viewed Farrakhan as an anti-Semite. In 1993 Adams blasted then Mayor David Dinkins for keeping his distance from Farrakhan.
"Eric Adams, president of the Grand Council of Guardians, an organization of 15,000 black police and correction officers, charged that Dinkins 'shies away' from black Muslims because he does not want to be associated with Louis Farrakhan, the black Muslim leader who has been accused of anti-Semitism," reporter Michael Cottman wrote in Newsday.
When Owens virulently denounced Farrakhan during the race, Adams responded, "Those who feel people shouldn't gravitate toward Farrakhan should realize there wouldn't be a need if Owens and so many of our other leaders in Washington and Albany were actually bringing home the victories to the communities they represent."
Adams now says he expressed admiration only for Farrakhan's anticrime initiatives and nothing else, otherwise repudiating the Nation of Islam leader, who has said in the past that Jewish people "control" Hollywood, the media and the banking industry.
Adams remained politically active in the latter half of the decade, even changing his party registration. The Brooklyn Democratic Party's current standard-bearer self-identified as a "conservative Republican" in a 1999 New York Times profile. According to the Board of Elections, Adams was a registered Republican from 1997 through 2001, during the last term of Republican Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.
Calling his party switch a "symbolic action," Adams said he briefly made the eyebrow-raising registration change because Democrats, in his estimation, were not tough enough on crime. He said he never voted for a Republican.
"It was for that reason and that reason only that I decided to motivate my Democrat brothers and sisters for a short time by taking symbolic action, in order to make real change on what I thought was New York's most pressing issue during those years," he said.
Brooklyn district leader Jo Anne Simon, a member of the party's "reform" wing, did not see Adams' party switch as an indictment of his character. "I've heard he was a registered Republican, but the mayor was a Democrat, and I don't see him doing too many Democratic things," she said. "I'm not sure what that says. It's not a particular concern that someone has seen the light."
In 2003 Adams appeared in brochures financed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg that promoted the idea of nonpartisan elections, an idea denounced by the Democratic establishment. Three years later Adams would be elected to the state Senate as a Democrat.
"In Brooklyn, registered voters received a brochure declaring: 'Here are some Black, Hispanic and Asian mayors elected in Nonpartisan Elections,'" wrote reporter Dan Janison in Newsday. "To black areas went pieces with Eric Adams, co-founder of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, and black civic activists Robert Lovick of Brooklyn and Debi Rose of Staten Island."
"Show Me the Money"
Once elected to the state Senate, Adams began to amass a relatively progressive voting record. Early into his tenure, though, the fiery Adams took to the Senate floor to argue for pay raises for state legislators, raising eyebrows with his confrontational rhetoric.
"I don't know how some of you are living on $79,000; to tell you the truth, you qualify for public assistance," Adams said in 2007. "Don't be insulted for yourselves. You should be insulted for your children that you are not allowed to give your children an affordable, decent form of living because all of us know when we're up here, our children are down there. … I deserve a raise, I deserve to be paid more, and I'm only a freshman and I'm already complaining."
Adams boomed, "Show me the money, show me the money, that's what it's all about, we deserve more money."
For those in the Senate at the time, it was the combative way the demand for pay raises was delivered, not the message itself, that surprised legislators and staffers. One former staffer to a New York City state senator present at the time of the speech said Adams shocked many in the chamber.
"People were definitely taken aback by the words," the former staffer said. "But the bigger ramification of that speech was that it was used against Democrats, in what I would call a false context, by Republicans that fall."
The pay raise was not granted, and state legislators still earn $79,500. Of course, Adams and many of his fellow lawmakers have other sources of income. In addition to his legislative pay, Adams collects a pension from the NYPD.
A year later Adams aggressively defended fellow state Sen. Hiram Monserrate, a Queens Democrat charged with assaulting his girlfriend. Monserrate would be convicted of misdemeanor assault and sentenced to three years of probation. In 2009 the Senate voted overwhelmingly to expel Monserrate. Adams voted against immediate expulsion, though he supported a second resolution that would have ousted the senator had he lost the appeals process and his conviction been upheld.
"As a former NYPD captain, I have some serious concerns regarding the unusual handling of the case against Councilman Monserrate," Adams said in 2008, when Monserrate had been elected to the Senate but had not yet been sworn in. "The primary goal of investigating a complaint of domestic violence is to ensure the safety of the innocent victim."
After explaining several concerns he had about the case, including Monserrate being forced to take a "perp walk" past television cameras, Adams added that the investigation against him was suspect.
"It is well known that Councilman Monserrate has been an outspoken advocate for police reform," Adams added. "I believe his role as an agent for change cause him to be denied his rights and a thorough investigation."
Adams' support of Monserrate angered some of his fellow Democrats. State Sen. Diane Savino, who represents Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn, described a furious confrontation with Adams and Brooklyn state Sen. Kevin Parker in February 2010.
"We were going around the room and everyone was voicing their opinion, and I made the point that since the recommendation for the penalty had come from the Select Committee—which was a bipartisan committee appointed by the leader—that it's possible that they should have some say as to whether we bring this resolution to the floor," Savino said in an interview with blogger Colin Campbell. "And in the midst of me making my point, Eric Adams starts yelling about how, pardon, "They have no f—ing right, to dictate…" and then Kevin [Parker] started screaming, "They have no f—ing right! They have no f—ing right! F— you!" So I'm no shrinking violet. Kevin stood up, and I stood up and said: "I didn't interrupt you, don't interrupt me. I'm speaking." He starts screaming: "F— you! F— you!" and so I said, 'No, f— you!' "
An October 2011 trip Adams took to South Korea with Brooklyn State Sen. John Sampson has drawn additional scrutiny since Sampson was indicted on embezzlement charges in May. Adams, through his consultant Evan Thies, refused to provide any further details to the Times Union about the four-day trip, other than to state that it was financed with campaign and private funds. Adams also traveled with Stacey Rowland, a lobbyist for the top Albany lobbying firm Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker. Filings show that Adams paid more than $3,000 for the trip out of his campaign funds. The lobbyist, according to a source, was the girlfriend of Sampson, then the Senate majority leader and the organizer of the trip.
"When he went to South Korea and doesn't tell anyone why he was there, I think he owes a little more to the public than what he's been telling them," said Gangemi, Adams' long-shot opponent.
Adams elaborated only slightly on the South Korea trip at the Brooklyn Young Democrats meeting in May, where he disputed the Times Union story written by James Odato (who declined to comment for this piece).
"[In] 2011, I went to Korea to look at converting garbage to energy and a reporter questioned my trip, and I spoke with him for hours and gave him the information of the trip," Adams said, referring to Odato. "He wrote an article attacking the trip back then, which I could've paid for the entire trip through my campaign fund, but since my lady was traveling with me, I said, 'I don't want any problem, I'll pay for the hotel.' He rewrote the same article Monday and said that I didn't talk with him, and I spoke with him Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. My team spoke with him and said, 'If you want to see Eric's American Express, he said he'll give you a copy of that, here's how it's paid for, he put it on his website,' and they still wrote the article saying, 'Eric is hiding something.' "
"Listen, when people hate you, they're out to get you, there's nothing you can do about it," Adams continued. "I'm at the point now where people have to start staying, 'We know the man and what he represents.' "
Problems at Aqueduct
Since returning to the Democratic fold, Adams has faced criticism for the role he played in the flawed bidding process to bring casino gaming to the Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens. The state Lottery Division in 2010 disqualified a winning bid from the Aqueduct Entertainment Group. A scathing Inspector General's report later that year would call the bidding process a "political free-for-all" in which lobbyists and campaign donations slanted the competition toward AEG.
Adams, then the chairman of the Racing, Gaming and Wagering Committee, was castigated in the report for not being diligent enough in his oversight of the bidding process.
"Aside from the obvious disregard for the analysis and diligence involved in creating these documents, it seems reasonable to expect the Chairman of the Racing and Wagering Committee in the Senate to actually review all proffered information thoroughly before recommending a vendor for a 30-year contract that meant billions of dollars to New York State," Inspector General Joseph Fisch wrote.
Adams, along with several other state senators, mingled with AEG lobbyists at a "victory celebration" held at the Albany home of Carl Andrews, one of the lobbyists and a former state senator, according to the report. During the bidding process Adams also received several thousand dollars in campaign donations from groups and individuals associated with AEG. How AEG was ultimately chosen, according to the report, was a "murky" business: Fisch wrote that he was given "contradictory accounts of the climax of the process by the 'three men in a room' and Senator Adams." On this count Adams disagrees, arguing that Fisch "made what I'm sure was an innocent oversight in its report, which unfortunately led to misperception."
"A Great Borough President"
Despite the senator's unconventional history and rumors of wrongdoing, the son of the congressman whom he attempted to unseat two decades ago says he thinks Adams is now qualified to be Brooklyn's next borough president.
"I believe he wants to do really good work, and I think he's committed to that," said Chris Owens, a Democratic district leader in Brooklyn. "I am shocked he has no opposition, but I'm also very pleased. There's long been talk of having a black borough president, so for him to essentially walk into the position is amazing."
And endorsers like Liu are not backing away from Adams either.
"I still support Eric Adams, and he'll be a great borough president," Liu said, a smile frozen on his face.
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Westchester
New Rochelle police kill mentally ill man
Sister says brother was off medication, vows to seek justice
By Greg Shillinglaw and Jorge Fitz-Gibbon — Monday, May 27th, 2013 'The Journal News' / White Plains, NY
NEW ROCHELLE — Distraught relatives of an emotionally disturbed man shot and killed by city police Sunday afternoon are questioning whether his death was justified.
New Rochelle police Capt. Joseph Schaller said officers went to the apartment of Samuel Cruz, 48, at 18 Hickory St. on reports of a disturbed person. Officers broke into the apartment about 1:30 p.m. and tried to subdue Cruz, twice using a stun gun before shooting him when he rushed at officers with a knife, Schaller said.
One officer fired and struck Cruz, Schaller said.
"He needed help — not someone to kill him," said Maribel Cruz, the sister of the dead man, as she choked back tears in her apartment just blocks from where her brother died. "You don't have to shoot a person who is mentally sick. I cannot explain to you the pain in my chest right now. What they took from me — it's like someone (is) breaking my heart."
Cruz said her brother, a churchgoing artist who moved to the city from Puerto Rico about 9 years ago, had bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. He had stopped taking his medication three months ago, she said, prompting her to call police this week, fearing he was suicidal.
Cruz said he had become violent recently, striking her in the face Thursday when she pleaded with him to take his medication. They stopped speaking after the altercation, Cruz said, but she grew worried about his mental state and called him Sunday to discover his phone was disconnected.
"When I woke up (Sunday) morning, I got the feeling something was wrong," Cruz told The Journal News. "They made a big mistake to kill him and I'm gonna fight this case."
New Rochelle City Manager Charles Strome said Samuel Cruz was taken to Jacobi Hospital Medical Center in the Bronx, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
Strome said officers went to the apartment after a call from his estranged wife. Schaller would not comment, but did say that city police had contact with Cruz in the past. He would not provide details.
"Police tried to talk him out of the apartment," Strome said. "They tried to taser him, that didn't work. Then he attacked one of the officers with a knife and the officer was forced to shoot him."
In New Rochelle, a longtime neighbor and friend of Samuel Cruz's said she had expressed concern last week that he had ceased taking anti-psychotic medication. She said friends notified police for help.
"He is normally a very gentle person," neighbor Annette Deutsch said. "I told them on Thursday. Two policemen were here and we talked a long time. I said he has to be hospitalized. He's off his medication.
"(Sunday) he was in his apartment and the next thing I heard there was a ton of police here. I couldn't count them," Deutsch said. "He had been shot dead."
The death of Samuel Cruz is the latest controversial police shooting in the Lower Hudson Valley.
The family of Herve Gilles filed a lawsuit last year accusing a Spring Valley police officer of negligence in fatally shooting the mentally ill man whom a grand jury determined attacked the officer while drunk in December 2011.
In November 2011, Kenneth Chamberlain Sr., 68, was killed by White Plain police, who broke down his apartment door after an hour-long standoff and shot him when he came at officers with a knife and a hatchet.
Grand juries in both cases did not indict the police officers who killed the men.
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New York State
SAFE Act compliance elusive, upstate sheriffs critical of law
By Joseph Spector — Monday, May 27th, 2013 'The Elmira Star-Gazette' / Elmira, NY
ALBANY — Some upstate officials are balking at provisions of New York's gun-control law, saying the regulations are unclear and burdensome.
Erie County Sheriff Timothy Howard, for example, said this month that he won't enforce the controversial SAFE Act because he disagrees with it. He is one of five sheriffs to sign onto a lawsuit seeking to have the law overturned.
"If you know this is wrong, you can't enforce it," Howard told WGRZ in Buffalo, a Gannett television station.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo championed the gun-control law passed in January as the toughest in the nation after the school shootings in Sandy Hook, Conn., last December.
But the Democratic governor has faced increased criticism over the law from gun-rights groups and county leaders upstate, particularly elected sheriffs and county clerks who are mainly Republicans.
Some officials said they are not sure that parts of the law are enforceable, and others said the record-keeping requirements are too onerous to comply.
Putnam County Sheriff Donald Smith was one of the sheriffs to sign onto to the legal brief in support of the lawsuit. He said he will enforce the law, but he also has the right to speak out against it. He said the law, which expands an assault-weapons ban and limits the number of bullets in a magazine to seven, will make citizens less safe.
"When we perceive a law is not well designed and will not promote the public good, then I strongly believe we have a duty to do what we can within the legal processes to oppose and change the law and to help craft a better one," Smith said.
Counties have been inundated with forms to allow gun owners to opt out from having their information made public, and some said it could be months or more before all the forms are processed. Some clerks said they have no plans to ever release any of the gun owners' information.
As part of the law, the state imposed a May 15 deadline in which those who didn't fill out an opt-out form could have their information released.
"I'm not enforcing parts of it at this time," said Broome County Sheriff David Harder about portions of the law. "As far as releasing information to the news media, we are not doing that."
The opt-out provision was enacted after the Journal News, a Gannett-owned publication, last December published a detailed map of pistol-permit holders in Westchester and Rockland counties.
Monroe County Clerk Cheryl DiNolfo said the county has received 17,000 opt-out forms. Each one has to be approved by a judge and then matched against the pistol-permit records.
She said with a limited staff, she doesn't foresee a time when the list of those who didn't opt out could be made public. She said a specific database would need to be created.
"We just do not have the capability to do that," DiNolfo said.
Rensselaer County Frank Merola said, "As far as I'm concerned, my records are sealed." He said he has more than 2,000 opt-out forms that would need to be matched with the paper records of those who have pistol permits. In Broome County, pistol-permit information is on index cards.
When asked about Merola's position, Cuomo said on Monday that, "I don't believe that's the law. That's not for a county clerk to do on a blanket basis. That's not my reading of the law."
Robert Freeman, executive director of the state Committee on Open Government, disputed that the recording of the opt-out forms is an extraordinary task.
"I'm not suggesting that full implementation will be easy, but I do not believe it is insurmountable," Freeman said.
At a rally at the Capitol on Tuesday, gun-rights groups urged supporters to not comply with the gun law.
Assemblyman Bill Nojay, R-Pittsford, Monroe County, said he expects there will be widespread non-compliance with the SAFE Act. By next April, gun owners will have to register their weapons with the state to be included in a new state police database. That database won't be made public.
Nojay will be a featured speaker at a gun rally at the Capitol on June 11, along with Jeanine Pirro, a television host and former Westchester County district attorney.
"I don't know of a single county clerk or sheriff or mental health office north of Westchester County that is going to comply with the SAFE Act," Nojay said.
Cortland County Clerk Elizabeth Larkin, who heads the state's clerks association, said she is part of a group with law-enforcement officials who have been meeting with Cuomo's staff to address concerns about the law.
"We've had several (meetings) and a lot of phone conferences trying to figure out how best to abide by the law and implement it," Larkin said.
The meetings come after Chemung County Sheriff Christopher Moss said that Cuomo told him earlier this spring at the Capitol that sheriffs shouldn't criticize the law that they are required to enforce. Moss said he has a right as an elected official to offer his opinion.
Livingston County Sheriff John York said: "We don't have to agree with it; We do have an obligation to enforce it."
Talks about changes to the law, which was hastily passed just hours after the bill was printed, continue. On Thursday, the Democratic-led Assembly passed a bill to allow retired police officers to be exempt from an assault weapons ban. The change hasn't been passed in the Senate.
On Thursday, Columbia County District Attorney Paul Czajka said he would not prosecute a Dutchess County man who was arrested earlier this month for having a licensed pistol in his vehicle that had nine bullets. The new law allows for a maximum of seven bullets in a magazine.
Monroe County Sheriff Patrick O'Flynn said he's hopeful the state and police can find common ground.
"We will enforce the laws on the books," he said. "It's just the confusion in this law. We're trying to work with the state to make sure everybody is on the same page."
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New Jersey
NJ cop sentenced for stealing police union funds
By Unnamed Author(s) (The Associated Press) — Sunday, May 26th, 2013; 4:47 p.m. EDT
VINELAND, N.J. (AP) - 1 of 2 southern New Jersey police officers who stole funds from the local police union they helped oversee has been sentenced to two years of probation.
Former Vineland Patrolmen Steven Buglio also will pay $40,000 in restitution to Police Benevolent Association Local 266, which represents officers in Vineland and the Atlantic County community of Buena. He had pleaded guilty to theft in January as part of a plea deal with Cumberland County prosecutors.
Buglio was union president, while co-defendant William Newman was its treasurer. Newman was allowed to enter a pretrial program that will allow him to have his record expunged.
Authorities have not said how the thefts occurred or how the funds were used, but said the officers used the local's money "as if it was (their) own."
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Connecticut
Monday, May 27th, 2013 'The New York Times' Editorial:
Public Records on the Newtown Shootings
It would be hard to compound the tragedy of the Newtown school massacre, in which 20 children and six school employees died, but a misbegotten proposal aimed for the Connecticut Legislature would do just that.
The bill, created without serious legislative consideration or public hearings, would severely restrict public access to information on those murders. It was negotiated in private by the offices of Gov. Dannel Malloy; the chief state's attorney, Kevin Kane; and lawmakers — all in the name of minimizing the anguish of Newtown's grieving families.
Sensitivity to the families' concerns does not justify a gross overreach that would curb access to the kinds of police records to which the public has a right. According to The Hartford Courant, which discovered the secret proposal last week, the police and any government agency would be empowered to prevent the public release of photos, digital and audio recordings, death certificates — even 911 emergency calls, which are now routinely available — without the consent of victims' families.
The measure, written without the knowledge of the state Freedom of Information Commission, would stop the release of essential information that the public and government leaders need to know in considering how to prevent crimes and to understand how law enforcement responded.
The plan is perplexing, since Mr. Malloy and other state officials had earlier complained about the authorities' slow release of information on Newtown. Mr. Kane, the chief prosecutor, originally wanted the bill to restrict information on far more crimes. Under current practice in the state, according to The Courant, police do not release graphic photos of crime victims, and those that arise in criminal trials are not usually published by the media.
The proposal raises grave concerns about whether parents' sensitivities could block the release of such things as private journals kept by the Newtown shooter, Adam Lanza. After the Columbine, Colo., school shootings in 1999, local officials fought against the release of the killers' journals; those journals eventually provided valuable insight into the shooters' thoughts.
Connecticut lawmakers should not be rushing to enact restrictions on public information that were produced in secrecy. Surely, Mr. Malloy and other officials will show more sense than to accept this misguided idea.
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U.S.A.
U.S. Park Police sheds furloughs after some 'forensic accounting'
By Lisa Rein — Monday, May 27th, 2013 'The Washington Post' / Washington, DC
If anyone was likely to end up on the losing end of Washington's budget-cutting sequester, it was the U.S. Park Police.
The tiny force of 641 sworn officers, who patrol national parkland and monuments in the Washington area, New York City and San Francisco, has a part-time lobbyist. The only member of Congress inclined to fight for their interests doesn't have a vote. The police are resigned to being mistaken for park rangers and District cops.
So when everyone from the mounted unit to the chief was told to stay home for at least 12 days this spring and summer, the furloughs got little attention — even though the police were the only uniformed federal law enforcement officers to face the indignity of being told they are not essential.
That changed Friday, when the National Park Service, the police's parent agency, announced furloughs will end June 1. The comptroller found savings to offset 12 unpaid days. The decision didn't prevent staffing shortages over the busy Memorial Day weekend, though the Park Service says security hasn't been compromised.
Pressure had been building on Park Service Director Jon Jarvis to cut the unpaid days. It came largely from the police officers themselves, who waged a scrappy public relations war against their boss to force his hand.
Their victory is further proof that the ironclad budget cut that Congress claimed would spread pain evenly to every corner of the government is, to say the least, pliable. Not just by politically connected meat inspectors or air traffic controllers, who were among those able to escape furloughs, but by a small band of overlooked police officers.
"The devotion and hard work everybody put into this, it's great," Officer Anthony McSherry said after hearing the news.
McSherry, like everyone, had taken three furlough days, a $1,380 hit to his paycheck that he won't get back. He took a part-time job at the Cineplex in Anne Arundel County, hunting down digital pirates at movie premieres.
McSherry was an accountant before he was a cop and is now the union treasurer. He's skeptical by nature, but in the case of the furloughs, he is leaving well enough alone.
"How they did this will be a mystery forever, trust me," he said.
The national parks have slashed seasonal and full-time hiring and pared many visitor services to absorb a $153 million cut. But no one was furloughed, which was galling to the police.
Jarvis said his staff began scouring the Park Police budget before the sequester kicked in March 1 to find $5 million the police had to lose this fiscal year, a 5 percent cut. Furloughs were the only choice, he said, because the bulk of the police budget is salaries.
But two weeks ago, he sent the comptroller in to dig deeper. He called the process "forensic accounting."
It was right about then that Ian Glick was starting to get traction. Glick, 40, is the extroverted chairman of the Park Police unit of the Fraternal Order of Police. Four days a week he's on union business, and the fifth he patrols the Baltimore-Washington Parkway.
When furloughs seemed inevitable in February, he started calling congressional offices, scheduling meetings with anyone he could. He said furloughs would deplete staffing on every shift, compromising safety for officers and the public. Response times would be delayed, especially during the summer tourist season.
Glick got a lot of sympathy from Hill staffers. But lawmakers had other constituents — defense contractors, the meat industry, cancer researchers — with high-priced lobbyists knocking on their doors looking for a way to break through the sequester.
"Everyone has been very sympathetic to our situation," Glick said a few weeks ago. But all he got was a lot of Republicans and Democrats blaming each other for the budget mess.
"I told them, I don't care about the partisan side of this," Glick recalled. "I'm here to solve a problem."
To make matters worse, Jarvis, the park director, had assured a congressional committee in April that "the sequestration impacts are not compromising our responsibility for icon security" — as in the monuments would be safe even though officers protecting them would take a pay hit.
The union started circulating a YouTube video clip of Jarvis's testimony to the rank and file. Many were incredulous at their boss's claim.
"It's instilled in us in the academy, 'We're essential personnel, you have to come to work,' " said Officer Matthew Manning, a rookie from Silver Spring who works nights on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway.
"People are going to bat for the meat inspectors and air traffic controllers," he said from behind the wheel of his cruiser earlier this month. "But it feels like they've turned their backs on us."
Glick told his members that Jarvis could ask Congress for permission to shift money from the Park Service budget to the police. That's how things had worked for air traffic controllers. Four days after furloughs started and flight delays created a political disaster, the unpaid days were history. Congress also gave the meat inspectors a reprieve after the industry and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack complained that slaughterhouses would shut down.
Jarvis said he did ask — and was turned down.
Glick, meanwhile, was saying on television and radio that the furloughs were jeopardizing public safety. The union found an ally in Police Chief Teresa Chambers, who kept a low profile. But 10 days ago, she issued a directive prohibiting officers from responding to nonessential calls during the last hour of their shift because the call might necessitate overtime.
The only member of Congress to meet directly with Glick was Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D), the House's nonvoting representative from the District of Columbia. She questioned why, fresh from the Boston bombings, the government was furloughing a police force with a "mammoth" jurisdiction around Washington.
On Wednesday, she wrote to House and Senate appropriators, citing "clear public safety concerns" and asking them to allow the Park Service to shift money to the police.
"You would think the Park Police would be of greater interest," Norton said.
By Thursday, with the media still nipping at his heels, Jarvis broke from a family vacation in New York to convene an emergency conference call with his executive staff. His comptroller had found money to stop the furloughs.
The three days that officers already took saved $1 million. The rest came from cuts to overtime pay, travel, planned equipment purchases and training budgets, all of which produced more savings than anticipated in March. And an annual payment from a revenue-producing trust that manages the Presidio in San Francisco had somehow not made it into the police budget, Jarvis said. Their efforts were not driven by pressures inside or outside the agency, Jarvis said.
"No one knows how they did it," Norton said. "If you're lucky, you can find ways to make your numbers work. They obviously found a way."
Glick thinks that growing media interest and Norton helped motivate the agency to find that way, but on Friday, he wasn't dwelling on any of it.
"I'm just relieved, that's all," he said.
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Homeland Security
Wind Down the War on Terrorism? Republicans Say No
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG — Monday, May 27th, 2013 'The New York Times'
Republican lawmakers on Sunday criticized President Obama's vision for winding down the war on terrorism, using talk show appearances to accuse him of misunderstanding the threat in a way that will embolden unfriendly nations.
"We show this lack of resolve, talking about the war being over," Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said on "Fox News Sunday." "What do you think the Iranians are thinking? At the end of the day, this is the most tone-deaf president I ever could imagine."
In his first major foreign policy address of his second term, Mr. Obama said last week that it was time for the United States to narrow the scope of its long battle against terrorists and begin a transition away from a war footing.
In addition to renewing his call to close the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, he said he would seek to limit his own war powers. He also issued new policy guidelines that would shift the responsibility for drone strikes to the military from the Central Intelligence Agency, and said there would be stricter standards for such attacks.
Mr. Graham, a strong supporter of the drone program, said he objected to changing the standards. Separately, he called for a special counsel to investigate both the Justice Department, which has come under scrutiny for seizing journalists' phone records, and the Internal Revenue Service, which has acknowledged that it unfairly targeted conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.
Democrats, including Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida and Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, praised Mr. Obama for what they said was a necessary rebalancing of civil liberties and national security interests. "We have to balance our values," Ms. Wasserman Schultz said Sunday on the ABC News program "This Week."
But at least two lawmakers — the current and former chairmen of the House Homeland Security Committee, Representative Michael McCaul of Texas and Peter T. King of New York — complained specifically about the president's remarks about Guantánamo Bay.
Mr. McCaul warned against closing the detention center, especially if it meant moving prisoners to the United States. "Name me one American city that would like to host these guys," he said on the CNN program "State of the Union."
More than half the remaining 166 detainees at Guantánamo Bay are Yemeni; of these, 56 have been cleared to go home. Mr. Obama has proposed repatriating detainees when he can, but will still face the thorny question of what to do several dozen men who cannot be prosecuted and who have been deemed to be too dangerous to release.
Mr. King, appearing with Ms. Wasserman Schultz on "This Week," said the detention facility had been a success. "Many experts believe it did work," he said, adding that he was "very concerned about sending detainees back to Yemen." Noting that Mr. Obama had campaigned on a promise to close the prison, he said the president "could have done a lot more than he has done if he was serious about it rather than just moralizing."
In calling for a special counsel, Mr. Graham said the Justice Department had begun to "criminalize journalism" and had engaged in "an overreach" in investigating leaks of classified national security information. He also complained of an "organized effort" within the I.R.S. to target political opponents of the president. "I think it comes from the top," he said, although current and former I.R.S. officials have said Mr. Obama did not know of the targeting.
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Mike Bosak
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