Thursday, April 11th, 2013 — Good Afternoon, Stay Safe
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Poll: New Yorkers want more oversight for NYPD — split over stop-and-frisk
Sixty-six percent of respondents are in favor of an inspector general to oversee NYPD; just 43 percent support controversial stop-and-frisk according to new Quinnipiac University survey.
By Jennifer Fermino — Thursday, April 11th, 2013 ‘The New York Daily News’
New Yorkers overwhelmingly support an inspector general to oversee the NYPD but are divided over the department's controversial stop-and-frisk policy, a poll released Thursday shows.
Registered voters in all age groups, political parties and races endorsed creating an independent monitor for the city cops, with 66% of respondents in favor, the Quinnipiac University survey found.
Respondents were more split over stop and frisk. Just over half — 51% — said they were against the policy, while 43% said they supported it.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly fared better.
He had the highest approval ratings of any citywide elected or appointed official, with a whopping 65% giving his job performance a thumbs-up. Some 25% thought he was not doing a good job.
Mayor Bloomberg has been vocal in his opposition to the creation of an NYPD inspector general and in his support for stop and frisk.
His positions might be hurting him.
The poll found that Bloomberg's job approval ratings have dipped to their lowest in 10 months.
Fifty per cent of those polled think Hizzoner is doing a good job, but 43% disapprove of the way he's running the city.
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Voters want inspector general to oversee NYPD: poll
By DAVID SEIFMAN — Thursday, April 11th, 2013 ‘The New York Post’
Cops are tops, but voters here still want an inspector general to oversee the NYPD.
A Quinnipiac University poll being released today found that 66 percent of voters questioned support the creation of an IG to independently monitor the police. Only 25 percent oppose the proposal.
At the same time, support for the Police Department and its leader, Commissioner Ray Kelly, remained as strong as ever.
Sixty-percent of voters said they approve the job cops are doing, while 32 percent disapproved.
That wasn't far off from the 61-31 percent split in a previous poll in February.
Kelly's approval rating was the highest of any citywide elected or appointed official, at 65 percent positive and 25 percent negative.
The numbers indicate that while New Yorkers may have issues with some police policies, they're generally satisfied with the NYPD's overall performance.
Mayor Bloomberg's approval rating dipped to 50-43 percent from 53-40 percent in the last poll.
But the public took to his idea for keeping cigarettes out of sight at retailers. Sixty-eight percent endorsed the proposal, 30 percent did not.
The poll of 1,417 registered voters was conducted April 3-8. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.
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Poll Finds Mixture of Support and Opposition for Bloomberg’s Plans
By THOMAS KAPLAN — Thursday, April 11th, 2013 ‘The New York Times’
(Edited for brevity and NYPD pertinence)
Despite forceful opposition from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, two-thirds of New York City voters support a plan to establish an inspector general’s office that would independently monitor the Police Department, according to a poll released Thursday.
The survey was conducted by Quinnipiac University.
The poll suggested that voters view the idea of an inspector general for the Police Department very differently than Mr. Bloomberg does. Civil rights leaders, concerned about what they believe is unfair treatment of blacks and Hispanics by the police, have pushed for the establishment of an outside police monitor, and the City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, who is running for mayor, endorsed the plan last month.
But Mr. Bloomberg has promised to veto the legislation, calling it “disastrous for public safety.” He has argued that the creation of an inspector general would undermine the authority of the police commissioner and, as he put it last month, “make our city less safe.”
Voters overwhelmingly disagreed with the mayor’s view: 66 percent of voters said they supported the creation of the office, and only 8 percent agreed with his assertion that it would make the city less safe, according to the poll, which was conducted from April 3 to 8.
Maurice Carroll, the director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said the support for the creation of an inspector general was probably a product of the concerns among voters about the Police Department’s stop-and-frisk policy, which 51 percent of voters disapproved of.
“Clearly there are a lot of people who are wounded by this,” Mr. Carroll said. “The Quinnipiac numbers say, ‘Hey, Police Department, you better pay attention.’ ”
Still, a majority of voters said they approved of the job the police are doing over all, and, specifically, of the job performance of the police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, whose approval rating, at 65 percent, was higher than that of any other citywide official.
The poll, conducted by telephone with 1,147 registered voters in New York City, has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
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Racial-Profiling Civil Lawsuits to Hold Individual Police Officers Responsible
Second target: Racial profiling
By SALLY GOLDENBERG — Wednesday, April 10th, 2013 ‘The New York Post’
Advocates for controversial NYPD inspector-general legislation won’t stop there.
More than 100 activists and lawmakers in favor of legislation establishing an IG to oversee the Police Department rallied yesterday for an even more far-reaching bill to allow racial-profiling lawsuits.
If victorious, plaintiffs could demand policy changes but not get monetary compensation.
“[The] profiling [bill] is very important to us. It may be the most important piece of the entire package,” said City Councilman Jumaane Williams (D-Brooklyn)., who co-sponsored the bills aimed at curbing the PD’s use of stop-and-frisk.
The rally was meant to pressure mayoral front-runner and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who has agreed to pass the IG bill.
Sources say she is not inclined to push the racial-profiling measure, which Mayor Bloomberg is sure to veto.
Quinn said she is still negotiating the racial-profiling bill.
She came under fire from Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly for supporting the measure to establish an inspector general to oversee the NYPD.
Bloomberg and Kelly say stop-and-frisk is an effective policing tool while critics claim it unfairly targets minorities.
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Retired NYPD Chief of Department Joseph Esposito
Retired NYPD Chief Of Dept. Testifies For Second Day In Stop-And-Frisk Trial
By: Dean Meminger — Wednesday, April 10th, 2013; 10:50 p.m. ‘NY 1 News’ / New York
The recently retired number three man in the police department wrapped up his testimony at the federal stop and frisk trial but not before raising some eyebrows with his testimony. NY1's Dean Meminger filed the following report.
Retired NYPD Chief of Department Joseph Esposito testified that he didn't get complaints about racial profiling when it came to the department's stop-and-frisk policy, a statement that seemed to puzzle federal Judge Shira Scheindlin, who said, "You never heard a complaint from any community about that?"
Esposito said he heard maybe from elected officials and the Rev. Al Sharpton, but not from everyday New Yorkers.
"The complaint we get on the street is that, 'I don't know why I was stopped. The officer was rude when he stopped me,'" Esposito said.
Figures show that 88 percent of people who have been stopped and frisked are black or Latino. Attorneys arguing their case charge racial profiling because most are found not to have committed any violation or crime.
"For him to say he never heard any complaints about racial profiling means he's had his hands over his ears for the last 12 years," said Jonathan Moore, an attorney for the plaintiffs.
Esposito said he himself was stopped by cops decades ago when he was a plainclothes officer in Brooklyn.
"I don't think they stopped me because I was white," Esposito said. "I think they stopped me because I had long hair and I was maybe acting suspiciously, I'm sure."
When asked how he felt about it, Esposito said, "I was kind of taken aback by it, but I understood."
But many who complain about stop-and-frisk say they weren't acting suspiciously. They say it's used often to meet arrest quotas.
Esposito denied that. He said the NYPD has performance goals to make sure officers are doing their jobs.
"Any company, NY1, Channel 9, Channel 11, there is a certain percentage of people, employees that are going just going to do the least amount of work that they can get away with doing," Esposito said.
He said that if that's allowed with officers, crime could skyrocket.
While questioning Esposito, city lawyers tried to get him to talk about a conversation he had with Commissioner Ray Kelly, but the judge didn't allow it, saying if Kelly wanted to testify, he was more than welcome to come to the courthouse.
So far, the police commissioner is not on any witness list.
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Former NYPD Chief: I Was Stopped & Frisked, No Big Deal
By Christopher Robbins — Thursday, April 11th, 2013 ‘The Gothamist’ / New York, NY
On Monday the recently retired highest-ranking uniformed officer of the NYPD testified at the federal trial weighing the constitutionality of stop-and-frisk, claiming that racial profiling wasn't so much as discussed at the upper echelons of the department. Yesterday, former Chief of Department Joseph Esposito explained to reporters outside the courthouse that stop-and-frisk isn't a big deal, because it happened to him.
After being asked how he would feel if his son was unjustly stopped (88% of all those stopped by the NYPD are released and presumed to be innocent), Esposito said, "My son was stopped, I was stopped. It's not like it just happens to people of color. I was stopped in the '70s, while I was a police officer I was stopped." In fact, 83% of those who are stopped are black or Latino.
"I don't think they stopped me because I am white, I think they stopped me because I had long hair, and I was acting suspiciously, I'm sure," Esposito said, before invoking the mantra of "proactive policing."
Again, I go back to the point of, how many crimes did we prevent? How many times did we make that criminal, perhaps, if it is a criminal, think twice and say you know what, I can't steal this car tonight, I'm gonna go home and go to sleep because the cops are on to me. That's the part that we can't measure, that's the untold story that doesn't get out very much.
And until Steven Speilberg's nightmare becomes reality, we may never really know.
Esposito's comments outside Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse may have been what he yearned to say during Monday's testimony, before Judge Shira Scheindlin interrupted his testimony several times during the proceedings, at one point telling him she didn't need to hear a "speech."
"The key to this whole thing is," Esposito began at one point, before Judge Scheindlin boomed "No no no, that's way beyond the scope of [the attorney's] question."
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Retired NYPD chief says frisks not racial profiling because there are no complaints
'I have not had anyone come to me and complain, "I was stopped because of my skin color," ' said the ex-chief Joseph Esposito, who retired March 27 after four decades on the force, at stop-and-frisk trial.
By Robert Gearty — Thursday, April 11th, 2013 ‘The New York Daily News’
A retired NYPD chief of department testified Wednesday he knows why the NYPD’s controversial stop-and-frisk tactic is not racial profiling.
“We don’t get complaints about it,” Joseph Esposito said.
Certain groups like the New York Civil Liberties Union and the Rev. Al Sharpton’s organization have complained about it, but not any citizens, he said.
“I have not had anyone come to me and complain, ‘I was stopped because of my skin color,’ ” said the ex-chief.
He said when he has gotten complaints about stop-and-frisk encounters, it was: the “officer didn’t explain why I was stopped; the officer didn’t identify himself; the officer was rude.”
Esposito, who retired March 27, was testifying in Manhattan federal court for a second day as part of a class-action lawsuit accusing the NYPD of conducting illegal stop and frisks that target blacks and Latinos.
Esposito insisted the stops are a crimefighting tool, not racial profiling.
“Who’s getting shot? Young men of color — late teens to early 20s,” he testified.
“Who’s doing the shooting? Young men of color in their late teens and early 20s.”
He added: “When we’re out there, we’re going to try and prevent them from getting shot.”
Although he testified the NYPD did not condone quotas, Esposito said that in some instances, officers have imposed their own quotas.
He said these self-imposed quotas were due to department “malcontents” and put their number at 10% of the force.
But when plaintiff attorney Jonathan Moore seized on the number, Esposito backtracked saying it could be 2%.
“The vast majority of our officers are hardworking cops,” he said.
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Joseph Esposito, Retired NYPD Chief, Claims Stop And Frisk Is Not A Form Of Racial Profiling
By Matt Sledge— Wednesday, April 10th, 2013; 4:14 p.m. ‘The Huffington Post’ / New York, NY
NEW YORK -- The man who was until last month the highest-ranking uniformed officer in the NYPD claimed in court on Wednesday, during the federal trial of the city's stop-and-frisk policing tactic, that city residents had never complained to him that they were stopped because of their race.
"I don't get a complaint from a civilian," former Chief of Department Joseph Esposito said. "I've heard it from Al Sharpton's group."
It was the second day of testimony for Esposito, who retired last month. After he became chief of department in 2000, the NYPD's stops rose 600 percent, leading community groups to claim that young black and Latino men were being targeted because of their race. Those stops are supposed to happen only when cops have reasonable suspicion, but a massive increase in the use of the tactic fueled the civil lawsuit, called Floyd v. New York.
According to the New York Civil Liberties Union, black and Latino men between the ages of 14 and 24 make up 4.7 percent of the city's population but accounted for 41 percent of its stops in 2011.
Asked bluntly by a city lawyer whether stop and frisk was a form of racial profiling, however, Esposito replied "of course not."
Esposito's testimony offered a rare glimpse into the department's internal operations: why police make stops, how they report them, and how they are supervised. He was at the front lines in making many of those decisions.
Under questioning from a city lawyer on Wednesday, Esposito said much of the documented increase in police stops might be attributable to a simple shift in paperwork. The form officers use to track stops was simplified to include checkboxes for officers to indicate why they made a stop, rather than just space to explain their reasonable suspicion in writing, so the department began receiving more complete paperwork from officers.
While community groups and police officers themselves have complained that stop and frisks are being driven by a system of police quotas, Esposito said weekly meetings where mid-level managers go over statistics collected through the department's Compstat program do not put pressure on officers to conduct unnecessary stops.
"We look at quality, we don't just look at numbers," he said. He suggested that the numbers are even lower than they could be because of quotas officers impose on themselves -- to do less work.
"You have 10 percent … who are complete malcontents. They will do as little as possible, no matter how well you treat them," he said. These officers, he said, have been known to pressure others who do work harder.
Despite the disproportionate number of stops on black and Latino men, the testimony from plaintiffs in the stop and frisk lawsuit, and evidence like an audio recording of a man who was stopped "for being a fucking mutt," Esposito also said he had "never heard a complaint" from an ordinary civilian about racial bias in a stop.
"I have not heard anyone come and tell me I was stopped because I'm a person of color," he said.
The reason young black men are stopped disproportionately in high crime areas, he said, is because "who's doing those shootings? It's young men of color in their late teens, early 20s."
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NYPD chief: I never got profiling complaints
By JOHN RILEY — Thursday, April 11th, 2013 ‘New York Newsday’ / Melville, L.I.
Outgoing NYPD Chief of Department Joseph Esposito testified in a federal-court challenge to stop-and-frisk practices Wednesday that he had never received a complaint of racial profiling from an individual who had been stopped.
After a decade of controversy over disproportionate targeting of minorities, the assertion prompted an incredulous reaction from U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin, who is hearing the case. "You never had a complaint?" she interjected.
Esposito, who was the top-ranking uniformed officer from 2000 until his retirement last month, said, "I don't get it from individuals," although he had heard the complaint from the Civil Liberties Union and from elected officials.
"You never heard it from a community organization?" the judge asked.
"From community people, no," testified Esposito, a plain-spoken 44-year veteran. " . . . I have not had anyone come and tell me 'I was stopped because of my skin color.' I have heard it from Al Sharpton's group."
Street stops grew sevenfold to more than 600,000 annually under Esposito. Scheindlin is considering claims that police illegally stop people with less than the "reasonable suspicion" required by law, producing an arrest or summons in only one of 10 stops, and targeting minorities 80 percent of the time.
During two days of testimony, in addition to denying racial profiling complaints, Esposito attributed a significant part of the growth in stops to cops being more diligent in filling out their paperwork, and said he relied on a talented cadre of precinct-level supervisors to weed out officers making unjustified stops.
The plaintiffs argue that a numbers-driven approach to policing at headquarters led to a quota system that produced abuses. Lawyer Jonathan Moore told reporters that Esposito's testimony suggested he was an uninquisitive manager who "had his hands over his ears for the last twelve years."
"He demonstrated why there has to be a wholesale change," Moore said. "For him to say that because we have good supervisors there's no problem with stop-and-frisk is just putting his head in the sand."
Esposito, like previous police witnesses, said that the skewing of stops toward blacks and Hispanics reflected crime patterns and demographics, not profiling. He said that, while every stop was based on reasonable suspicion, "young men of color in their late teens and 20s" were the people who were most often shot and most often identified as shooting suspects. "When we're out there we're going to try and prevent them from getting shot," he said.
Esposito said some efforts by police brass to monitor precinct data -- like the numbers of stops, and number of stops per officer -- in so-called Compstat sessions were to make sure cops were working hard, not to motivate cops to make unnecessary stops.
"You have 10 percent that will work as hard as they can," the ex-chief said. "You have 10 percent on the other side that are complete malcontents who will do as little as possible."
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NYPD’s ‘zeroes’
By BRUCE GOLDING — Thursday, April 11th, 2013 ‘The New York Post’
As many as 10 percent of city cops are malcontents — or “zeroes” — who want to work as little as possible and still get paid, the NYPD’s recently retired chief of department said yesterday.
What’s worse, those “bad” cops often try to intimidate their “good” colleagues into slacking off, too, to lower standards and protect themselves from punishment, Joseph Esposito testified at the stop-and-frisk trial in Manhattan federal court.
Esposito, who retired as the NYPD’s highest-ranking uniformed officer last month, said the department consists of three groups: “superstars,” “good cops” and “zeroes.”
“You have 10 percent that will work as hard as they can . . . They love being cops and they’re going to do it no matter what.
“You have 10 percent on the other side that are complete malcontents that will do as little as possible.”
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NYPD Forgotten History
The Birth of NYPD's Sister Police Department: The Yonkers Police Department.
By Michael Bosak
Yesterday I got an e-mail from retired Yonkers PD Deputy Chief George Rutledge about that day (April 10th) being the Yonkers Police Department's 142nd birthday. Chief Rutledge is a good guy and the consummate gentleman. He is also the historian for the Yonkers P.D. - and while still retired - is the founding father and curator of their police museum.
So now you are going to say, "What has that to do with the NYPD?"
Plenty!
The NYPD and the Yonkers Police Department were born at the hip from the NYS Metropolitan Police and are sister departments.
For you see...
The NYPD was established from the Metropolitan PD, along with many other police departments, including Brooklyn and Long Island City's, among others, at 12 noon on April 16, 1870 by the Tweed Charter. (Tammy Boss William Tweed paid over $600,000 in bribes to NYS senators to gain control of the city's police, so he could control the elections. [Tweed: “I count the votes, so what are you going to do about it!”] )
But the Tweed Charter did not disband the Metropolitan Police that was established on April 15, 1857. (Note: The battle for City Hall Part between the NYC Municipal PD and the state's Metropolitans - June 16, 1857) The Metropolitans continued to exist and policed New York City's parks and Westchester County, specifically Yonkers.
On April 10, 1871, both the New York City's Parks Department Police Dept. and the Yonkers Police Dept. were born and the Metropolitan P.D. finally ceased to exist.
The NYPD over the years - as New York City expanded - continued to absorb all the other former Metropolitan PD police departments with one exception: Yonkers.
Not only was the Metropolitan Police Department the forerunner of both the NYPD and the Yonkers Police Departments, but Yonkers is the only outside police department to have policed part of NYC under contract to the NYPD.
On January 1st, 1874, when NYC annexed that part of Westchester County west of the Bronx River that is now the Bronx, the NYPD didn't have enough manpower to police the old Town of Kingsbridge and the Riverdale section of the Bronx, so it contracted out those police duties to the Town of Yonkers.
The Yonkers Police Department policed that part of the Bronx that is now more or less covered by the 50 Precinct until May 29, 1874.
So now you know.
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Manhattan judge to rule NYPD overstepped boundaries by assessing $1M fee for Five Boro Bike Tour
By JULIA MARSH — Thursday, April 11th, 2013 ‘The New York Post’
A Manhattan civil judge is set to rule that the NYPD was out of line in assessing a new, $1 million fee for traffic control to an advocacy group for its annual Five Boro Bike Tour.
The 32,000-person ride is scheduled for May 5 this year.
Judge Margaret Chan dubbed Bike New York a nonprofit with educational programs that benefit New Yorkers.
“Isn’t that something the city wants to promote, isn’t that the Department of Transportation’s main plan for the city this year?” Chan questioned city attorney Sheryl Neufeld at a Manhattan Supreme Court hearing today.
Chan also rejected the city’s argument that the tour’s $86 fee invalidates the ride as a charity event.
She noted the police department was not imposing the fee in similar events such as walkathon fundraisers for cancer.
“I will give you a formal decision, but you know where I’m going with this,” Chan said.
The group’s director, Kenneth Podziba, was “elated” by the expected ruling in his favor, he said after the hearing.
He bemoaned that a “lack of communication” with his usual ally, Mayor Bloomberg, resulted the group to drag the city to court.
Podziba had said that the traffic control costs would cripple the nonprofit and threaten free classes planned for the upcoming Bike Share program.
The city imposed the fee for the first time in the 40-mile tour’s 35-year history in March. The cycling event was subject to the fine because it is a “non-chartiable athletic parade.”
City attorney Sheryl Neufeld backed the NYPD fee, arguing that the organization was using city streets and over $950,000 in taxpayer monies to support their annual fundraising event.
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Five Boro Bike Tour may not have to pay $1M police fee: Judge
The city had argued that Bike New York, the operator of the popular 40-mile car-free ride, did not meet its definition of a charitable organization, noting that the $86 entry fee goes toward its own cycling programs.
By Barbara Ross — Thursday, April 11th, 2013 ‘The New York Daily News’
Ride on!
The Five Boro Bike Tour will take place on May 5 without the operators having to pay nearly $1 million to cover traffic control costs to the NYPD, a Manhattan judge signaled Wednesday.
The city had argued Bike New York, the operator of the popular 40-mile car-free ride, did not meet its definition of a charitable organization, noting that the $86 entry fee goes toward its own cycling programs.
"They're saying let us use 40 miles of traffic-free streets to sustain our organization," said city lawyer Sheryl Neufeld.
But Manhattan judge Margaret Chan wasn’t buying that argument.
“Some issues in promoting this tour may be questions for the IRS, but I don't think it's a question for the police department,” she said.
“Bike New York does charitable work ... The way they’re raising money isn’t to your liking.”
Chin also tweaked city lawyers, pointing out Mayor Bloomberg’s longstanding affinity for cycling, which resulted in expanded bike lanes and the upcoming Citi Bike share program.
“Isn't (cycling) something the city wants to promote?” Chin said.
Bike New York had sued last week to have the $967,534 fee waived, arguing the city wrongly claimed the ride is "non-charitable" because the net proceeds fund the non-profit that organizes the event.
Charities don’t have to pay the fee to have the NYPD clear the streets. Bike New York CEO Kenneth Podziba had said the charge could have bankrupted his company and stalled the ride featuring over 32,000 cyclists.
On Wednesday he was as happy as a kid with a new bicycle.
“I think the judge is absolutely leaning in the right direction,” he said. “It shouldn't have had to come to this.”
The judge’s apparent lean relieved Masha Girshin, the executive director of the Blue Card, a non-profit dedicated to helping impoverished Holocaust survivors.
The non-profit has already secured pledges of $40,000 for its team of 15 cyclists at the tour.
“We really count on the funds raised by our team to fulfill our mission,” said Girshin, 28.
But a statement from Neufeld signaled the city was not about to back down.
"It costs the Police Department over $960,000 to control traffic for Bike New York's 40-mile ride. While we understand the court's concerns, we believe that the decision to charge a fee is reasonable -- and that it will ultimately be sustained," she said.
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Judge Questions Legality of Fee for Bike Tour
By J. DAVID GOODMAN — Thursday, April 11th, 2013 ‘The New York Times’
An effort by New York City to charge a nonprofit bicycling group nearly $1 million for the cost of policing its annual citywide bike tour appeared to be in jeopardy on Wednesday, when a judge seemed unpersuaded by the city’s arguments.
The city contended that the Five Boro Bike Tour, scheduled for May 5, should be considered a noncharitable athletic parade, which is subject to traffic-control fees from the Police Department under new city rules.
But Justice Margaret A. Chan of State Supreme Court in Manhattan appeared doubtful about the city’s arguments, which centered on whether the bicycle tour is a charitable event and the fee paid by its 32,000 participants.
The tour’s organizer, Bike New York, was the first to bring a court challenge to the application of a 2011 rule change that was aimed at defraying the high costs of traffic control during popular events, including the New York City Marathon, according to the city’s Law Department.
“Why do you not consider this a charitable event?” Justice Chan asked the city’s lawyer, Sheryl R. Neufeld. The lawyer pointed to the fees charged to participants in the event, saying that only part of the money went to putting on the event. “This is not an administrative fee,” Ms. Neufeld said. “The remainder goes back into their bank accounts.”
But is Bike New York a charitable organization, the judge pressed her.
“They say that they are a 501(c)3,” Ms. Neufeld responded, referring to the section of the tax code that defines nonprofit groups.
“Don’t they have documents?” the judge said.
A lawyer for Bike New York, Richard G. Leland, said the group had Internal Revenue Service documents showing that it was a designated charity.
Mr. Leland said the bike tour was akin to noncompetitive runs that raise money for public-health causes, distinguishing it from the marathon, the New York City Triathlon and many smaller athletic events that now face steep bills for policing.
Justice Chan referred to instances in which Bike New York had joined with the city on biking-education programs, which the group says is the core element in its mission as a nonprofit organization. Ms. Neufeld responded that not all of the group’s bike classes were free.
“I don’t know why you’re distinguishing them from other nonprofits,” the judge said. Ms. Neufeld reiterated the city’s claim that the fee for the bike tour — $86 for ordinary entry; and $325 for V.I.P. tickets, whose holders start first — did not meet the definition of an administrative fee.
Before the legal arguments began, lawyers for both sides discussed a possible settlement, including some payment for policing costs by Bike New York, but less than the $967,534 sought by the city. But after an hour of negotiating, the two sides did not reach an agreement.
Kenneth J. Podziba, the president of Bike New York, said the group had never paid for policing costs for the Five Boro Bike Tour, which is in its 36th year.
As the hearing ended, Justice Chan indicated the direction of her thinking. Charitable status poses “questions for the I.R.S., but I don’t think they are questions for the Police Department,” she said. Depending on the scope of the judge’s ruling, other nonprofit organizations could possibly seek to challenge the city over policing fees, said Kate O’Brien Ahlers, a spokeswoman for the Law Department. If the city loses, it is likely to appeal, she added.
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113 Precinct
Tension between community and police in 113th Precinct
Two allegedly engage cops in scuffle; officers pelted with rocks, bottles
By Michael Gannon — Thursday, April 11th, 2013 ‘The Queens Chronicle’ / Queens
The rally held in Flushing on Monday evening was billed by local chapters of the NAACP as a generic call for an end to the police practice of stop and frisk, and to the alleged use of racial profiling and excessive force.
But Ken Cohen, president of the NAACP Northeast Branch in Queens, acknowledged that the location and the timing — a street corner about 20 feet from where Robert Jackson has accused multiple NYPD officers of beating him on Jan. 8, and three days after a tense standoff between Southeast Queens residents and officers from the 113th Precinct — were not accidental.
“We cannot allow these practices to continue,” Cohen said. “They are escalating in Queens and New York City.”
Jackson, 19, of Jamaica, was due in court on Wednesday on charges connected with his arrest. Authorities are said to be examining a cell-phone video of the incident, which allegedly depicts six or more officers from the 109th Precinct beating him while effecting a marijuana arrest.
The matter is being investigated by the NYPD’s Civilian Complaint Review Board.
But Leroy Gadsden, president of the NAACP’s Jamaica Branch, said incidents last Friday night and Saturday at the Baisley Park housing project at Guy R. Brewer and Foch boulevards in the 113th Precinct have him very concerned.
“Baisley Park is a powder keg,” he said Monday night.
Police said tensions began at about 7:50 p.m. on April 5 when officers allegedly seeing a drug transaction approached Corey Crichlow, 33, of Jamaica, in his car.
Police said Crichlow then allegedly swallowed what was believed to be crack cocaine, and knocked down an officer and a sergeant as they attempted to remove him from the vehicle.
It was then that “an uninvolved person,” Raynard Fields, 27, of Jamaica, said to be Crichlow’s brother in published reports, joined in the altercation.
Police said at that point officers began to get pelted with rocks, bottles and other debris from the street and the nearby rooftops at the Baisley Park project.
Crichlow was taken to Elmhurst Hospital Center. An officer who sustained back and hand injuries also was treated at a nearby hospital.
Police said Crichlow was charged with second-degree assault on a police officer, obstructing governmental administration, criminal possession of a controlled substance, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct.
Fields was charged with obstructing governmental administration, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct.
It was after their arrests that both police and residents say about 40 people marched to the 113th Precinct stationhouse on Baisley Boulevard.
An NYPD spokesman said the crowd set up about 100 feet from the precinct and was orderly.
Police in riot gear stood by until the group dispersed after a few hours.
But Gadsden said what truly concerned him is what happened on Saturday, when he and other branch officials went to the housing complex with what he said was the blessing and knowledge of the police.
“We were going there with a program we have to teach people how to respond,” he said. “We want them to know their rights, and how to file a complaint the right way if they have a problem. We want the police to do their job. If someone is going to be stupid and break the law, take them away.”
But he said he was shocked to see officers coming seemingly out of nowhere from every direction as he and others walked the complex and sat in their vehicles.
Like Cohen and other speakers on Monday evening, Gadsden said officers too must show and be trained in using the proper restraint to avoid having interactions escalate unnecessarily.
“We don’t say all cops are bad,” Cohen said. “The very few make the rest look bad.”
He said the NYPD must get better at weeding out problem officers and terminating them rather than just transferring them within the department.
He and Gadsden said incidents of excessive force, profiling and stop and frisk drive a wedge between the police and the community, something they say hampers police investigations when members of the public do not feel they can trust law enforcement.
And they said stop and frisk must end without qualification.
Gadsden said stop-and-frisk incidents in 2011 were up about 600 percent since Mayor Bloomberg took office in 2002, but that gun seizures from the practice remained at about 800 per year.
And he dismissed one of the city’s contentions that the policy has led to fewer criminals choosing to carry guns.
“That’s fantasy,” he said, calling the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk policy “a sugar-coated term of racial profiling in its most pure form.”
In a sit-down interview with the Queens Chronicle in 2012, NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly said young men of color were the primary beneficiaries of the practice based on the reduction in murder statistics.
Jackson and his attorney, Jacques Leandre, were among the roughly two dozen people who attended the rally, which was held on the sidewalk near where Jackson was arrested in front of the Flushing YMCA building where he was taking classes.
Jackson’s left cheek still bore the scar from a large contusion he sustained during the incident, and he said he still suffers pain from other injuries.
Leandre said a civil suit against the city “is definitely a possibility.”
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Long Island
Oakdale man faces upgraded charges in officer's death
By ANN GIVENS — Thursday, April 11th, 2013 ‘New York Newsday’ / Melville, L.I.
James Ryan was standing near his crashed car at the side of the Long Island Expressway last October near Manhasset when a Nassau police officer approached him to ask if he was OK, he said in a statement.
A moment later, the Oakdale man saw a sport utility vehicle hit his parked Toyota Camry, and heard the sound of shouting, "Officer down! Officer down!" Ryan, 26, said in a statement to police. The SUV had hit Officer Joseph Olivieri, 43, of Middle Island, who died from his injuries later that morning.
Prosecutors have since charged Ryan -- who they said was drunk at the time of the series of Oct. 18 crashes -- with causing the events that led to Olivieri's death.
Judge Jerald Carter's Nassau County Courtroom was packed with uniformed police officers Wednesday as Ryan's grand jury indictment was unsealed. Ryan, in court with his mother and father, a Port Authority police officer, remains free on $120,000 bond. He left court without commenting. Ryan pleaded not guilty Wednesday to upgraded charges, including aggravated vehicular homicide, a Class B felony that carries up to 81/3 to 15 years in prison.
Prosecutor Brendan Ahern said the upgraded charges reflect the fact that, in addition to killing Olivieri, the crashes seriously hurt an off-duty NYPD officer driving home from work.
According to Ryan's statement to police, he had been at a bar in Manhattan the night before, and had had three vodkas with Sprite: One with a double shot of vodka, two with single shots. He stopped drinking about midnight, he said.
According to prosecutors, Ryan, who had 0.09 percent alcohol in his blood, above the state's limit of 0.08 percent, initially struck another car while driving east on the Long Island Expressway, but kept driving for about a half-mile. He then stopped abruptly in the HOV lane near Exit 35, and was rear-ended by another car. When Olivieri responded to help, the officer crossed the highway on foot and was hit by a Cadillac Escalade, prosecutors said. The driver of that vehicle has not been charged with a crime.
James Carver, who heads the Nassau Police Benevolent Association, said Ryan is to blame for the officer's death.
"He caused this series of events to happen, so he should be held responsible," Carver said.
But Ryan's attorney, Marc Gann of Mineola, said it will be difficult for prosecutors to pin the blame for Olivieri's death on his client. "It strikes me as weird that the individual who struck and killed officer Olivieri is not charged with anything," he said.
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New York State
New York anti-drone bill gains bipartisan support
The bill was introduced in the Assembly by Nick Perry (D-Brooklyn) in March. Critics fear drones will lead to widespread law enforcement electronic surveillance.
By Kenneth Lovett — Thursday, April 11th, 2013 ‘The New York Daily News’
A push to limit the use of surveillance aircraft drones by law enforcement and government in New York has growing bipartisan support.
The anti-drone bill was introduced in the Assembly by Nick Perry (D-Brooklyn) late last month and found a Republican Senate sponsor this week in Carl Marcellino of Nassau County.
Critics fear it will lead to widespread law enforcement electronic surveillance. Paul Browne, the NYPD’s top spokesman, said police brass hope the bill “doesn’t interfere with the customary application of police aviation resources.” Kenneth Lovett
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U.S.A.
Loopholes in Gun Laws Allow Buyers to Skirt Checks
By MICHAEL COOPER, MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT and MICHAEL LUO — Thursday, April 11th, 2013 ‘The New York Times’
When Zina Haughton, 42, got a restraining order against her husband, Radcliffe, last October — she told a court that his threats “terrorize my every waking moment” — he became ineligible to buy a gun under federal law. But he found a way around that: he bought a gun from a private seller he found on the Internet who, unlike federally licensed dealers, was not legally required to check his background.
That is how Mr. Haughton was able to buy a handgun for $500 in the parking lot of a McDonalds that he took with him on Oct. 21 to the spa in a suburb of Milwaukee where his wife worked. There, Mr. Haughton opened fire at the spa’s pedicure station, law enforcement officials said, and kept shooting until he had killed his wife and two women she worked with and injured four other women. He then killed himself.
Cases like the Wisconsin spa shooting are at the heart of the debate raging in Washington over whether to expand background checks for all gun purchases — a proposal the Senate plans to take up on Thursday. Ms. Haughton’s brother, Elvin Daniel, a hunter who belongs to the National Rifle Association, has traveled to Washington to call for expanded background checks. “I feel that had there been a background check, had that been in place, my sister would still be with us today,” he said Wednesday.
Opponents of expanded background checks, including the National Rifle Association, argue that they would not prevent criminals from acquiring guns, since many get them through back-market sales or theft, or by getting “straw purchasers” — people who can pass background checks — to buy guns on their behalf.
But the checks have blocked purchases. Since 1998 the F.B.I. has rejected more than a million would-be sales, and when state-level rejections are factored in the number of denials is closer to two million — usually because the would-be buyers are convicted felons, or fugitives from justice, or mentally ill, among other reasons. How many of those rejected buyers were able buy guns without background checks, from private sellers or over the Internet, is difficult to say, in part because restrictions imposed by Congress make it difficult for law enforcement officials to track firearms sales.
While private sales at gun shows account for a small proportion of private gun sales, researchers say, they have been found vulnerable to abuses. When New York City sent undercover private investigators to try to buy guns from private sellers at gun shows in 2009, it reported that 19 of the 30 sellers they approached agreed to sell them guns even after they were told that the buyers “probably couldn’t pass” a background check.
There are problems with the background check system. Gaps in the F.B.I.‘s database of criminal and mental health records, which are consulted during background checks, have allowed thousands of people to buy firearms who should have been barred.
Many states fail to send the federal government comprehensive data on people with mental illness. Before the mass shooting at Virginia Tech in 2007, for example, a Virginia state judge had declared the gunman mentally ill. But the record was not sent to the F.B.I., so the gunman was able to pass a background check and buy the weapons he used to kill 32 people. (Virginia now submits more data to the F.B.I.)
Another loophole has allowed thousands of prohibited buyers to legally purchase firearms over the past decade — and some of those weapons were ultimately used in crimes, according to court records and government documents. The problem stems from the three-day period the government has to determine whether someone is eligible to buy a gun.
More than 95 percent of the time the F.B.I., which oversees the background checks, can tell licensed gun dealers within seconds if a buyer can own a gun.
But when the F.B.I. cannot immediately determine whether would-be buyers have criminal or psychological records that would bar them from owning guns, it is given 72 hours to clear it up. If it fails to complete the background check by then, the buyer is allowed to return and purchase the gun. According to data provided by the F.B.I., roughly 3,000 firearms were sold to prohibited buyers through this loophole last year.
If the F.B.I. eventually determines that the buyer should be prohibited from owning a weapon, it refers the case to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The A.T.F. has said that it does not know how many weapons it has retrieved from prohibited buyers, because it is legally prohibited from tracking such data. But some current and former A.T.F. officials have said that such firearms are rarely retrieved.
Matt Lehrich, a White House spokesman, said: “Ninety-five percent of all background checks are completed within three days. We’re focused on improving the system to get that number even closer to 100 percent, including by providing incentives to states to provide better data and by ensuring federal agencies are strengthening their efforts to include relevant information.”
Evaluating background checks is not easy, given that many gun purchases from private sellers are not subject to them.
Dr. Garen J. Wintemute, the director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis, said his research indicated that denying firearms to prohibited people reduced their likelihood of being subsequently arrested for gun crimes between 25 and 30 percent. “I think we have good evidence that background checks work,” he said.
But he noted that another study had found that after the Brady Act passed, states that had background checks and waiting periods for the first time did not see their homicide rates drop faster than states that had previously required such measures — although the study raised the possibility that the federal law could have driven down homicide rates even in states that already had background checks, by reducing the flow of guns from states that previously did not.
Private sellers continue to sell guns to people who cannot legally own them.
On Dec. 30, some Oklahoma City police officers saw three men trying to buy a gun at a gun show. When they ran a distinctive tattoo of one of them through a database, they learned he had “several felony convictions,” according to a crime report. They stopped the men, and recovered the gun, after the men made an illegal right turn while leaving the gun show, the report said.
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Gun experts on the Manchin-Toomey proposal: ‘A step forward, but a small step.’
By Brad Plumer — Thursday, April 11th, 2013 ‘The Washington Post’ / Washington, DC
In a survey from 2004, prisoners who had been locked up for gun crimes explained how they had acquired their firearms in the first place. Some 39.5 percent said “family or friends.” Another 37.5 percent answered, “the street or black market suppliers.”
Since these were all private transfers, none of the buyers had to go through a federal background check. In theory, experts say, closing this loophole could go a long way toward curbing gun violence in the United States.
And yet a new bipartisan proposal in the Senate for expanding background checks would leave the majority of those above sales and transfers untouched.
The new compromise proposal, put forward by Sens. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.) would require background checks for anyone who buys a firearm at a gun show or on the Internet. That would make it marginally harder for people who are prohibited from owning guns to acquire them. But it would still leave the vast majority of private transfers untouched — including the most common ways for criminals to get guns.
“So it is a step forward, but a small step,” says Philip Cook, a criminologist at Duke University.
Some academics who have studied gun violence have argued that universal background checks can be an effective means of reducing crime. The checks make it much harder for high-risk groups — from felons to domestic-violence perpetrators to the severely mentally ill — from buying or acquiring firearms in the first place.
Two recent studies by Daniel Webster and Jon Vernick of Johns Hopkins have found that states with some form of universal background check, such as California and Maryland, had fewer guns diverted into the black market. Those local laws could only do so much, however, because they were undermined by neighboring states — the researchers found that guns from states with loose gun-control laws would trickle into states with stricter laws.
I asked Webster for his opinion on the Manchin-Toomey proposal. He pointed out that it bore a close resemblance to an earlier law in Colorado that had only required background checks at gun shows. In preliminary research, Webster said he hasn’t found any clear effect from Colorado’s policy. (Colorado has subsequently strengthened its law and, starting in July, will require background checks for all person-to-person sales.)
Now, there are other aspects of the broader gun-control legislation being considered in Congress that could also help tamp down on illegal gun transfers, say experts. Another bill, for instance, would set clearer guidelines for prosecuting gun trafficking and “straw purchases.”
How would that work? Say a person with a clean record goes into a federally licensed firearms dealer, passes a background check, and buys a gun. He then gives or sells the gun to a friend with a criminal record. That’s a straw purchase. At the moment, it’s a difficult crime to go after. Prosecutors essentially have to prove that the original buyer was willfully lying about his intentions when filling out the paperwork — a case, they say, that’s often difficult to make without a confession.
That could soon change. A new bipartisan proposal in the House and Senate would make it illegal to buy a gun and then give it to someone whom the buyer has “reasonable cause” to believe is prohibited from owning one. The new proposal would make such transfers a federal crime, punishable by up to 20 years in prison. That, say former law enforcement officials, could increase the number of prosecutions.
The Manchin-Toomey proposal would also, crucially, encourage states to put their lists of prohibited purchasers into a national database more quickly. If done properly, that could fill in many of the holes in the existing background-check system.
In their proposal, Manchin and Toomey go out of their way to reassure gun owners that the federal government will not create a national gun registry with its background-check records. “Our bill explicitly bans the federal government from creating a registry and creates a new penalty for misusing records to create a registry—a felony punishable by 15 years in prison.”
They also point out that they will not require background checks for transfers between family and friends. “You can give or sell a gun to your brother, your neighbor, your coworker without a background check,” they write. “You can post a gun for sale on the cork bulletin board at your church or your job without a background check.”
But these restraints, say Webster, could also limit the effectiveness of the bill in reducing gun violence. “Limiting background checks will impede our ability to keep guns from criminals,” he says.
The Senate is expected to begin debate on broader gun-control legislation Thursday.
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‘Swatting’ Hoax Tests the Police and Stars Alike
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and IAN LOVETT — Thursday, April 11th, 2013 ‘The New York Times’
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — The 911 call came in late Monday afternoon. Two men with guns, one wearing a bulletproof vest, were storming the home of the actor Russell Brand, tucked away on a crest in the Hollywood Hills.
The Los Angeles Police Department sent officers racing up the narrow twists and turns of North Doheny Drive leading to the Brand home. There, guns drawn in a cul-de-sac, they found only a shocked and frightened housekeeper taking out the garbage. Mr. Brand had left 30 minutes earlier.
“She said nothing had happened there, but we still have to search the house to make sure she wasn’t sent out to say that,” said Lt. Marc Reina of the Hollywood division of the Los Angeles police.
What once was merely a police annoyance in Southern California — thrill-seeking pranksters filing a false report of a breaking horrific crime at celebrity’s home, designed to provoke the dispatch of SWAT teams — has turned in recent weeks into a full-blown “swatting” epidemic, drawing expressions of concerns from police officials and victims alike, and the promise of a crackdown by lawmakers in Sacramento and at Los Angeles City Hall.
On Wednesday afternoon, Ryan Seacrest — who earlier that day on his radio show had aggressively challenged Mr. Brand after Mr. Brand tried to make light of his own experience — became the latest victim of a swatting prank. The Beverly Hills Police Department received a late-afternoon false report that a group of armed men was trying to break into Mr. Seacrest’s gated estate on Cabrillo Lane.
The Seacrest call marked the sixth time in a week that the police had scrambled to respond to a report of violence at the home of a Page Six-worthy parade of celebrities: Sean Combs last Wednesday, Rihanna on Thursday, Justin Timberlake and Selena Gomez on Friday and Mr. Brand on Monday. Previous victims have included Justin Bieber, Tom Cruise and Miley Cyrus.
Police officials said the calls typically were punctuated with alarming real-time portrayals of what was supposedly taking place inside the victim’s home. “They give a very descriptive account, all the way down to the number of victims and the people screaming,” said Sgt. Renato Moreno of the Beverly Hills police. “They paint a very horrific scene inside the house, describing a very uncontrolled scene.”
The rash of hoaxes has put a strain on police departments already struggling with budget cuts. It also puts officers in danger as they race up the narrow streets in the neighborhoods where celebrities tend to live, or when they confront the armed private security forces that celebrities often hire.
“This is a silly new fad a couple of people are doing,” said Cmdr. Andrew Smith of the Los Angeles police. “We intend to prosecute them. It’s extraordinarily dangerous for the officers and the people at the targeted location.”
Mr. Brand, in the radio interview with Mr. Seacrest on Wednesday morning, said he was not home when the call was made, and thus was spared the experience of encountering a swarm of police officers, guns out, surging onto his property.
“I suppose what would be bad is if police were attending a swatting and an actual crime happened, and it took police too long to get there because they are doing a swatting,” Mr. Brand said, before turning to humor. “Other than that, it does sound like a laugh. I say that as a swatting victim.”
The authorities do not see the joke.
“It’s very bad,” Leroy D. Baca, the Los Angeles County sheriff, said in an interview Wednesday. “People who are celebrities don’t deserve to be targets of emergency police response on hoaxes. It’s unnerving to them. They don’t know why the police are there, and yet once the police are there they are required to check out whether or not something is going wrong.”
In Sacramento this week, a State Senate committee, acting on a request of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, reported out legislation that makes it easier to convict people of filing a false report and imposes a hefty financial penalty: reimbursing municipalities for the cost of the response.
Ted Lieu, the Democratic senator sponsoring the bill, whose district includes such, in the view of hoaxers, swat-worthy neighborhoods as Beverly Hills, Pacific Palisades and Bel Air, said that police responses can cost thousands of dollars and that a full-blown SWAT team can cost $10,000. He said that hoaxers were often thrill-seeking teenagers and that his legislation made parents liable for the costs in the case of minors.
“It is a drain on law enforcement,” Mr. Lieu said. He said police officials were correct in responding with an outsize show of force because they believe there is a violent encounter taking place.
Police officials said that typically, pranksters placed a 911 call through a computer, often by hacking into someone else’s account or using a system for people with hearing disabilities, to disguise their locations. They report a crime in progress at a celebrity’s address, usually involving people armed with guns or bombs, which prompts the police to respond Code 3, with lights and sirens.
The authorities said they had become more sophisticated in tracking down prank calls. “A lot of people think that if they’re on a confidential server, it won’t give away their address,” Mr. Smith said. “But if you put a search warrant in front of an Internet company, they can give you pretty much whatever information the judge tells them to.”
Last month, a 12-year-old boy confessed to making calls that drew the authorities to the home of the actor Ashton Kutcher and to Mr. Bieber. He is now serving two years in juvenile detention, the authorities said.
There was a time when the Los Angeles police would have responded to any report of a threat on a celebrity with an all-out bells-and-whistles show of force. Last October, 42 police officers responded to a report of a man with a gun inside Mr. Kutcher’s home, backed up by a hovering helicopter and a brigade of fire trucks.
Yet a familiar wariness has begun to settle in as these calls have become more common. On Monday, the Los Angeles police dispatched a solitary patrol car to Mr. Brand’s home. Steve Whitmore, a spokesman for the sheriff’s department, said his agency had become more adept at spotting hoax calls, and had scaled back responses accordingly.
But that is not always the case. “When we do get these calls, we always take them very seriously,” said Sergeant Moreno of the Beverly Hills police. “We never assume that it’s another one of these swatting calls. We respond with every available resource that we have, including the fire department and paramedics on standby.”
The reduced response by the police is itself a matter of concern. The authorities said they were concerned that should there be a real incident, valuable time could be lost to deploy the kind of response needed.
“It puts us in a precarious position,” Mr. Reina said. “If officers are thinking it could be swatting, maybe they let their guard down approaching the home. What happens if one of these days, it’s a real incident? The safety of everyone involved could be jeopardized because of this boy crying wolf.”
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Seattle, Washington
Interim chief questions DOJ report but says ‘we’re all moving forward’
The man who will soon lead the Seattle Police Department says he has seen positive changes in the department as a result of the settlement agreement between the city and Department of Justice, but he still questions the federal findings that police engaged in a pattern of excessive force.
By Sara Jean Green — Thursday, April 11th, 2013 ‘The Seattle Times’ / Seattle, WA
Assistant Seattle Police Chief Jim Pugel says he has seen positive changes in the department as a result of the settlement agreement between the city and Department of Justice, but he still questions the federal findings that Seattle police engaged in a pattern of excessive force.
“Some feel the settlement contract went too far; some said it didn’t go far enough,” Pugel said Wednesday, two days after he was named interim chief upon Chief John Diaz’s retirement in 30 to 45 days. “ ... We all agree, though, that we are where we are. A federal judge has spoken.”
Last month, a federal judge approved a first-year plan to overhaul the Seattle department, after the Department of Justice (DOJ) found in December 2011 that 20 percent of police use-of-force incidents were excessive and that officers had displayed evidence of biased policing.
Pugel said he met Tuesday with Merrick Bobb, the court-appointed independent monitor who is overseeing the agreement, and members of Bobb’s team. Pugel characterized the meeting as “very refreshing.”
“Yes, there was a lot of turmoil ... John was at the tip of the sword without a road map, with a lot of competing interests,” Pugel said of Diaz, who sometimes angrily disputed the DOJ’s findings and was involved in the often tense negotiations that led to last summer’s settlement agreement.
“It’s past ... ”
“That’s all done. It’s past ... We’re all moving forward,” he said.
At the same time, Pugel said, a team of experts is analyzing past use-of-force incidents to determine if, as the DOJ asserted, 20 percent of those incidents were unconstitutional or illegal.
“We have some university professors looking at that, using a scientific and academic approach, to see if we really were at 20 percent,” he said. Pugel noted that no Seattle officer was ever federally charged with violating someone’s constitutional rights.
“That’s what John had to deal with. We got hit with the (DOJ) report and it frankly surprised us,” said Pugel.
Nonetheless, Pugel — who for the past four months has helped create a force investigative team and also led the newly formed Force Review Board — said “huge” changes are already taking place, especially in the investigative stage, as part of police reforms that came about as a result of the DOJ’s scrutiny.
He said the fact that use-of-force incidents weren’t previously being well-documented “really hurt us.”
“We’re still going through the motions, but the motions are more thorough and analytical,” he said. More photos are being taken, statements recorded and officers are making a “diligent search” for video footage, whether it comes from a business’ surveillance camera or a citizen’s cellphone, Pugel said. He also said the department has increased staffing in its professional standards and training sections.
Pugel’s background
One of nine children, Pugel grew up in Seattle and graduating from O’Dea High School and the University of Washington.
Pugel, 53, started with the Seattle Police Department as a volunteer reserve police officer in 1981 and was hired as a full-time officer in January 1983. He rose steadily through the ranks, being promoted to sergeant in 1990 and captain of the West Precinct nine years later.
Pugel oversaw the investigation into the Oct. 31, 2009, slaying of Officer Timothy Brenton and the subsequent arrest of a suspect, Christopher Monfort.
The father of two adult children, a daughter and a son, Pugel said his grandfather was a former editor and publisher of The Tri-City Herald newspaper.
His younger brother, Michael Pugel, is a sergeant and diver with the Seattle Police Department’s Harbor Patrol unit.
Pugel was one of 11 semifinalists for the job of police chief after Gil Kerlikowske stepped down in 2009 to become the nation’s drug czar. Diaz, who first served as interim chief, was ultimately chosen for the post and led the department for less than four years.
During Wednesday’s interview, Pugel said Diaz could have opted to leave when he announced his retirement on Monday but instead is helping Pugel transition into his new assignment. Though Pugel is a longtime member of the department’s command staff, he said, he plans to spend as much time as possible learning the nuances of the job from Diaz.
He credited Diaz’s leadership for a 10 percent drop in the city’s crime rate, while the force also increased the clearance rate for crimes like residential burglary.
Though Pugel was picked as interim chief over deputy chiefs Nick Metz and Clark Kimerer, Pugel said he hadn’t felt any tension with them, noting that he and Kimerer were patrol partners for three years in Rainier Valley early in their careers.
“One person cannot take care of this department,” said Pugel, adding that the entire command staff is “extremely loyal to the mission, extremely loyal to the city.”
Pugel said he doesn’t know if he will seek the police chief’s job permanently. He expects the search process to take at least a year. It is unclear who will take over Pugel’s role as commander of criminal investigations.
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Immigration Enforcement / Illegal Aliens
Broad Outlines of Senate Immigration Agreement Emerge
By JULIA PRESTON and ASHLEY PARKER — Thursday, April 11th, 2013 ‘The New York Times’
NOTE: The bill does not require any specific level of border enforcement. - Mike
WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of senators has largely agreed on a broad immigration bill that would require tough border measures to be in place before illegal immigrants could take the first steps to become American citizens, according to several people familiar with drafts of the legislation.
But in a delicate compromise worked out over weeks of negotiations, the bill does not impose any specific measurements of border enforcement results that, if they were not met, would stop the immigrants from proceeding toward citizenship.
Instead, the bill allows a period of 10 years for the Department of Homeland Security to make plans and use resources to fortify enforcement at the borders and elsewhere within the country before it sets several broader hurdles that could derail the immigrants’ progress toward citizenship if they are not achieved.
During the first decade after passage, the bill sets ambitious goals for border authorities — including continuous surveillance of 100 percent of the United States border and 90 percent effectiveness of enforcement in several high-risk sectors — and for other workplace and visa enforcement measures. It provides at least $3 billion for Homeland Security officials to meet those goals during the first five years, with a possibility of additional financing.
The bill includes provisions, or “triggers,” during that decade that allow Congress at different points to ensure the enforcement goals are being met.
As the group of eight senators continued on Wednesday to iron out final details of the legislation, several tens of thousands of immigrants, Latinos, labor union members, gay rights and other advocates held a rally on the lawn below the steps of the Capitol. With many waving American flags, they called for Congress to move quickly and demanded a direct path to citizenship for all 11 million illegal immigrants.
“Families cannot continue to be torn apart,” Gustavo Torres, executive director of CASA de Maryland, an immigrant advocacy group, told the crowd.
“Anything less than citizenship undermines American democracy,” he insisted.
Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, a Democrat who is one of the eight senators working to draft the legislation, told the crowd that the group was close to presenting a bill.
“We have to get those who are in the shadows into the light to have an opportunity to earn their citizenship and be part of the dream,” said Mr. Menendez, who like many of the other speakers delivered his words in both English and Spanish.
The senators’ compromise allows Republican lawmakers, including Senators John McCain of Arizona and Marco Rubio of Florida, to say that they achieved border enforcement advances in the bill as a condition before any illegal immigrants can apply for permanent-resident green cards, the first step toward citizenship.
But it also allows Democrats to describe the border measures as goals that can be achieved with the resources provided, so they will not become roadblocks that could stop the immigrants from reaching the final stage of citizenship.
President Obama, who has been largely silent during the negotiations, is strongly opposed to any hindrances on the immigrants’ path that could be the focus of political battles later on.
As drafted, the legislation would provide as much as $3.5 billion for the Department of Homeland Security to set up a five-year border security plan. Officials must present the plan within six months, and no immigrants can gain any provisional legal status until the plan is in place. It would include a program to finish any border fencing that border agents deem necessary.
The plan must also show how the authorities will move quickly to spread technology across the border to ensure that agents can have surveillance capability along its entire length. They will also have five years to reach 90 percent effectiveness in their operations, a measure based on calculations of what percentage of illegal crossers were caught or turned back without crossing.
If, after five years, border officials have not reached the surveillance and enforcement goals, the bill establishes a border commission to advise the Department of Homeland Security on how to reach its goals, with additional financing of up to $2 billion.
Homeland Security officials will also be required to expand a worker verification system, making it mandatory nationwide for all employers within five years. Within 10 years, they must also create an electronic exit system at all airports and seaports to help ensure that foreigners leave when their visas expire.
Also, illegal immigrants who pass background checks and meet other requirements will have to wait in a provisional status for at least 10 years, before they could apply for green cards. Before those applications can begin, officials must show that the border security plan is operational, the fence is completed, and the worker verification and visa exits systems are operating.
At the rally, the demonstrators filled the large lawns that sweep down from the Capitol, and overflowed into lawns on either side. Groups of demonstrators came mainly from Washington, Maryland and Virginia, while several hundred buses brought delegates from around the country. Rather than concentrate all their forces in one place, organizers also held more than 30 smaller events around the country on Wednesday, including marches, early morning candlelight vigils, and door knocking.
In Orlando, Fla., farmworkers and immigrants held a picnic in front of the offices of Mr. Rubio. In Los Angeles and Fresno, Calif., advocates rallied outside the offices of Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat who is leading negotiations over the agricultural provisions in the bill. Many events were organized by the Service Employees International Union and other unions, which have strongly supported the immigration effort.
Many activists spent the morning on Capitol Hill lobbying lawmakers, including a contingent from Alabama who delivered 250 small red footballs to the office of Senator Jeff Sessions, a Republican from that state who is a staunch opponent of the proposed legislation. “Don’t drop the ball,” was the message they conveyed.
At the rally, Representative Luis V. Gutierrez of Illinois, a Democrat who has been a tenacious proponent of the immigration overhaul, said, “You need to guarantee that you give me and my colleagues and the Congress of the United States no place to hide.
“There are no acceptable excuses for failing to pass immigration reform this year,” Mr. Gutierrez said, “and no excuses will be accepted.”
Many in the crowd said they were hoping that the coming debate in Congress would not divert or close their path to becoming Americans.
“I believe this is a country of opportunity,” said Alonso Martinez, 30, an immigrant from Mexico who lives in Maryland, “and without citizenship we are not going to have the same opportunity as the other immigrants who came before us.”
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