Prometheus 6

Federal Intervention Sought to Curb Newark Police Abuses
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA

Excessive force, false arrests and other abuses by the Newark police are so rampant that the federal government should investigate and appoint a monitor to oversee the department, a civil liberties group charges in a petition it plans to file on Thursday.

Citing hundreds of claims of police misconduct, and the millions of dollars paid to settle some of them, the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey called on the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department to step in, as it has in overseeing the conduct of several other police agencies across the country. The complaint documents abuses by officers against not only civilians but also their fellow officers, and a culture of impunity, with few of the officers ever being punished.

The misconduct “has left citizens dead, permanently injured and otherwise damaged,” the petition contends, and has harmed the careers and mental health of good officers. “And,” the petition adds, “it has left innocent Newark residents distrustful of the police, unsure whether an encounter with them will lead to them being protected and served or beaten and arrested.”

A pattern of complaints about the Newark police stretches back decades, and when Cory A. Booker took office as mayor in 2006, ending the scandal-scarred, 20-year tenure of Sharpe James, he pledged to reform the Police Department. But the civil liberties group’s complaint to the Justice Department deals with the Booker era, a challenge to the image of a mayor who is often mentioned as a potential candidate for higher office.

The 96-page petition covers records from the courts, the police, the City Council and news reports, and offers a level of analysis that the civil liberties union had not done before, said Deborah Jacobs, executive director of the group. For that reason, it is impossible to say whether abuses have become more or less frequent under Mr. Booker, Ms. Jacobs said. But, she added, “it’s clear that the same kinds of things that were going on before are still going on.”

The civil liberties union said it provided copies of the petition to the offices of Mr. Booker and Police Director Garry F. McCarthy last week. Neither office returned calls seeking comment on Wednesday, nor did the Fraternal Order of Police, the union representing most officers.

The five teenagers, Mark Vendetti and Tim Weader, both 17, and Dylan Phillips, Jeff Donahue and Anthony Ogden, all 18, who are all from Holley, N.Y., are scheduled to appear in court in Carlton, which is about 40 miles northeast of Buffalo, on Friday, the police said.

Mr. Vendetti, who is accused of firing the shotgun, was also charged with criminal possession of a weapon and faces up to four years in prison if convicted, Mr. Cardone said.

Teenagers Charged in Harassment at Mosque
By AL BAKER

A group of teenagers in western New York have been accused of harassing members of a mosque by yelling obscenities and insults during evening prayers for Ramadan, sideswiping a worshiper with a vehicle and firing a shotgun outside, the authorities said on Tuesday.

The teenagers were chased and cornered by members of the mosque, who held them for the police. They were charged with disrupting a religious service, a misdemeanor.

The obscenities episode occurred Monday and the shooting last Friday, both outside the World Sufi Foundation mosque in Carlton, N.Y., the authorities said. No one was hit when a 17-year-old fired the shotgun, they said.

“We have had occasions in the past,” said Joseph V. Cardone, the district attorney in Orleans County, “and it seems every three or four years we have some kids drive by the mosque and make comments and that sort of thing. We’ve had minor incidents, but nothing of this magnitude in the past.”

NYPD Tapes: The Series
The NYPD Tapes Part 1
Inside Bed-Stuy's 81st Precinct
The NYPD Tapes, Part 2
Bed-Stuy street cops ordered: Turn this place into a ghost town
The NYPD Tapes, Part 3
A Detective Comes Forward About Downgraded Sexual Assaults
The NYPD Tapes, Part 4
The WhistleBlower, Adrian Schoolcraft

NYPD Tapes 5: The Corroboration
Another police officer secretly tapes his precinct—this time in the Bronx
By Graham Rayman
published: August 25, 2010

At the same time NYPD whistleblower Adrian Schoolcraft was secretly recording his supervisors in a Brooklyn precinct, an officer named Adil Polanco was doing the same thing a borough away in the Bronx.

Polanco, short in stature and a native of the Dominican Republic, and Schoolcraft, a native of Texas, come from dierent backgrounds, but they have a lot in common, particularly the belief that the NYPD's obsession with numbers distorts a police officer's job. Polanco, who was also making recordings to document what he saw as wrongdoing in his precinct, tells the Voice that many of the same things that Schoolcraft observed in Brooklyn's 81st Precinct were also taking place in the 41st Precinct in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx. He claims that supervisors constantly harangued cops to hit quotas for arrests, summonses, and stop-and-frisks, even when it meant harassing innocent civilians who were doing nothing wrong.

He claims that supervisors ordered officers to downgrade crime complaints and refuse to take complaints from civilians in order to manipulate crime statistics.

"It happened all the time," he says. "The reason was CompStat. They know what they are going to be asked for in CompStat, and they have to have a lower number—but not too low."

Polanco even has a recording of quota pressure coming from an unlikely source: a police union delegate.

Drug war sends stray bullets across the border
Officials worry it's only a matter of time before someone gets hurt or killed

Shootouts in the drug war along the U.S.-Mexico border are sending bullets whizzing across the Rio Grande into one of the nation's safest cities, where authorities worry it's only a matter of time before someone gets hurt or killed.

At least eight bullets have been fired into El Paso in the last few weeks from the rising violence in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, one of the world's most dangerous places. And all American police can do is shrug because they cannot legally intervene in a war in another country. The best they can do is warn people to stay inside.

"There's really not a lot you can do right now,"

Mexico's drug war is the USofA's drug war. If it were not for our "War on Drugs" Mexico would not have drug lords powerful enough to challenge their government. It's as if Al Capone was Canadian.

Our drug war seeded and supports Mexico's as a side effect. And it's going to grow because neither of these great economic powers will surrender its power. And they both have power...in Mexico.

The drug lords will have power outside Mexico (I mean of the type ans scale they have in Mexico) if they defeat the government.

And as long as they make enough money from us to be able to afford all the guns they want (the only thing Americans like more than drugs is money and guns) the drug lords will have the ability to fight. And as the fight continues, it's gonna get touchy living around the border...for reasons having nothing to do with immigration (unless the militias get crazy again). And we as a nation will have to respond.

Now, the (other) fact is, we are going to continue buying those drugs until we stop being human. Since we already have prohibition in place, our choices as a nation would be

1. Seal the border. Sounds good to a lot of people, and it's totally possible to do. Look at the Korean Demilitarized Zone...160 miles of border so sealed oxygen has trouble crossing it. The U.S./Mexican border is about twelve and a quarter times that, that would be a fair multiple to apply to whatever sealing the Korean border costs. Annually. You lose a lot of money on legitimate business, too. All the trade that settles by truck delivery gets disrupted. And no more illegal gun sales south of the border...a major economic hit.
2. Support the Mexican government in their civil war. The powers-that-be would see the drug lords at concentrated Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, and you really don't want to support the overthrow of governments on your border unless it was your idea.
3. The Taoist response

You can change things effectively but not doing something just as surely as by doing something. And the surest way to help support peace and stability in Mexico is to end prohibition. Remove the drug lords' funding.

In addition to the nine Ebonics experts, the DEA’s Atlanta office also requires linguists for eight other languages, including Spanish (144 linguists needed); Vietnamese (12); Korean (9); Farsi (9); and Jamaican patois (4). The Atlanta field division, one of the DEA’s busiest, is the only office seeking linguists well-versed in Ebonics. Overall, the “majority of DEA’s language requirements will be for Spanish originating in Central and South America and the Caribbean,” according to one contract document.

Justice Department Seeks Ebonics Experts
DEA wants “Black English” linguists to decipher bugged calls

AUGUST 23--The Department of Justice is seeking to hire linguists fluent in Ebonics to help monitor, translate, and transcribe the secretly recorded conversations of subjects of narcotics investigations, according to federal records.

A maximum of nine Ebonics experts will work with the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Atlanta field division, where the linguists, after obtaining a “DEA Sensitive” security clearance, will help investigators decipher the results of “telephonic monitoring of court ordered nonconsensual intercepts, consensual listening devices, and other media”

The DEA’s need for full-time linguists specializing in Ebonics is detailed in bid documents related to the agency’s mid-May issuance of a request for proposal (RFP) covering the provision of as many as 2100 linguists for the drug agency’s various field offices. Answers to the proposal were due from contractors on July 29.

In contract documents, which are excerpted here, Ebonics is listed among 114 languages for which prospective contractors must be able to provide linguists. The 114 languages are divided between “common languages” and “exotic languages.” Ebonics is listed as a “common language” spoken solely in the United States.

...darn.

Paterson Declines to Attend Ethics Hearing on Yankees Tickets
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE

That was fast.

It took less than three hours on Tuesday for a state ethics commission to present its case against Gov. David A. Paterson before an administrative law judge in Albany, arguing that Mr. Paterson knowingly violated state law by soliciting and accepting free tickets to the 2009 World Series from the New York Yankees.

One reason for the speed: Mr. Paterson did not show up at the hearing, nor did his lawyer. In a statement issued late on Monday night, Mr. Paterson’s lawyer, Theodore V. Wells Jr., lambasted the commission for not delaying the hearing until a separate criminal investigation concerning the Yankees tickets, focusing on whether Mr. Paterson committed perjury while testifying to the commission, was concluded.

“We are disappointed that the Commission on Public Integrity, after referring this matter to the office of the attorney general, is now unwilling to wait for Judge Kaye to complete her review before beginning its own proceeding,” Mr. Wells said, referring to Judith Kaye, the former chief judge of the state Court of Appeals, who was appointed independent counsel in the case by Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo.

“We believe that the commission’s request that the governor simultaneously appear in different proceedings involving the same underlying facts is unfair and unreasonable, particularly where Judge Kaye’s investigation was undertaken at the commission’s own request,” Mr. Wells said. “For all of these reasons, the governor is following our legal advice, and respectfully declines to participate in the commission’s proceedings.”

Justice Dept. threatens to sue Ariz. sheriff Arpaio in civil rights inquiry
By Jerry Markon and Stephanie McCrummen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 17, 2010; 3:55 PM

A federal investigation of a controversial Arizona sheriff known for tough immigration enforcement has intensified in recent days, escalating the conflict between the Obama administration and officials in the border state.

Justice Department officials in Washington have issued a rare threat to sue Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio if he doesn't cooperate by Tuesday with their investigation into whether he discriminates against Hispanics. The civil rights probe is one of two targeting the man who calls himself "America's Toughest Sheriff" -- a federal grand jury in Phoenix is examining whether Arpaio has used his power to investigate and intimidate political opponents and whether his office misappropriated government funds, sources said.

The standoff comes just weeks after the Justice Department sued Arizona and Gov. Jan Brewer (R) over the state's new immigration law, heightening tensions over the issue ahead of November's midterm elections. It focuses renewed attention on Arpaio, a former D.C. police officer who runs a 3,800-employee department, and a state at the epicenter of the debate over the nation's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.

Testifying in his own defense, Turner said he was a paid FBI informant who was trying to "flush out" dangerous neo-Nazi and white supremacist members of his audience on behalf of the government. He claimed his handler encouraged commentary on the 2005 slaying of the mother and husband of another federal judge in Chicago.

The FBI wanted him "to make fun of the killing, to publicly say things that might induce folks to confide in me because they thought I was an ally," he said.

NJ blogger convicted of threatening Ill. judges
By TOM HAYS

NEW YORK — A right-wing New Jersey blogger was convicted at his third trial Friday of making threats against three federal judges in Illinois in retaliation for a ruling supporting gun control.

A Brooklyn jury deliberated less than two hours Friday before finding Hal Turner guilty of making death threats.

A judge jailed Turner, of North Bergen, N.J., following the verdict. His attorney declined comment.

Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, thanked the jurors for their service.

"There is no place in society for threatening federal judges with violence. Period," he said in a statement. "We are grateful that the jury saw these threats for what they were and rejected any notion that they were acceptable speech."

Then in 2008, Patricia Lykos, a former judge and police officer, was elected district attorney, and one of her first acts was to reverse the office’s longstanding reluctance to admit mistakes. She assigned two assistant district attorneys and an investigator to do nothing but comb through about 185 cases involving requests for DNA tests as well as about 75 other innocence claims. So far, the unit’s work has led to the release of three men, including Mr. Green.

Ms. Lykos has been pushing for a new regional crime lab to help expedite the cases. Not only were innocent men imprisoned, she said, but the victims were denied justice and the actual culprits remained free to commit other crimes. “Whenever you have an innocent person convicted, you have a triple tragedy,” she said.

Cleared, and Pondering the Value of 27 Years
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.

HOUSTON — Since a judge let him out of prison for a rape that prosecutors now say he did not commit, Michael A. Green has had trouble sleeping.

Late at night, he walks the neat, quiet sidewalks in the neighborhood where he is staying with an aunt, chain-smoking cigarettes, his mind spinning furiously with questions about why he was convicted 27 years ago and how to spend what is left of his life.

He also ponders, he says, whether to take a $2.2 million compensation payment from the State of Texas or file a civil lawsuit in the hope of exposing the truth about the investigation that led to his incarceration. To receive the compensation, he must waive the right to sue.

“What I really need to do is to make them pay for what they done to me,” he says. “Two-point-two million dollars is nothing when it comes to 27 years of my life, which I spent with mental torture and physical abuse.”

Police: Serial stabber in custody

A man with ties to Loudoun County and Michigan was arrested in a series of killings in Michigan and attacks on black men in Leesburg and Ohio as he tried to board a plane from Atlanta to Israel late Wednesday, authorities said Thursday.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers, acting on information from the FBI, stopped Abuelazam at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport at about 10 p.m. Wednesday, according to a statement from the agency.

A big break in the case came on Aug, 5, when the suspect, Elias Abuelazam, 33, was pulled over on a traffic violation on Walter Reed Drive in Arlington. Authorities found a knife and a hammer in his car, police said.

Abuelazam lives in Michigan, but has long ties to Leesburg and Northern Virginia. He was preparing to board Delta Flight 152 bound for Tel Aviv.when he was arrested. He was detained on a warrant from Michigan charging him with assault with intent to murder, the FBI said. Abuelazam is now in the custody of the FBI in Atlanta awaiting extradition to Michigan.

New York Ends Prison-Based Redistricting
After the 2010 census, prisoners will be counted by where they are from, not by where they are locked up, when New York redraws state legislative districts.

Earlier this year, Maryland, which faced similar issues, became the first state to address the problem by changing the law so that prisoners will be counted at their last address for the purposes of redistricting. Naturally, upstate Republicans from prison-heavy districts in the almost evenly split New York State Senate were opposed to the idea, making passage seem unlikely.

But, in a legislative tactic so well worn it has become almost clichéd, state Senate Democrats tucked the provision into the budget bill. Republicans are complaining that it wasn't debated as a stand-alone measure, but Gov. David Paterson is sure to sign it.

A month before the CD of images was sent to police, Weiner had spoken at a barbecue of his dislike for him and how he wanted to put child porn on his computer so he would be sacked.

School handyman faces jail over child porn plot
(UKPA)

A handyman from east London who ruined a school caretaker's life by planting child pornography on his computer is facing jail for perverting the course of justice.

Neil Weiner launched the "wickedly evil and vile plot" hoping to get Eddie Thompson sacked so that he could be promoted.

He sent police a CD containing 177 indecent images of children saying they had come from Mr Thompson's laptop, the Old Bailey heard.

A further 235 pictures were later found on the computer and the caretaker was arrested in 2006. He told police he had been set up by colleagues who did not like him but it was eight months before he was told no further action would be taken.

When the allegations were made public, he and his wife became afraid to leave the house, after he received threats and when he returned from suspension to Swanlea secondary school, in Whitechapel, east London, where he had worked since 1993, he said he was shunned by "almost all" of the staff.

"My life and good name was nearly destroyed by a villain who tried to destroy my reputation in a monstrous manner. This must be the work of a depraved mind," said the caretaker, now 62, in a victim impact statement read to the court.

Obama Signs Law Narrowing Cocaine Sentencing Disparities
By PETER BAKER

Doug Mills/The New York Times
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., left, joined Republican and Democratic lawmakers to watch President Obama sign the legislation.

President Obama signed legislation on Tuesday reducing longstanding federal sentencing disparities between those caught with crack and those arrested with powder cocaine, finalizing a bipartisan consensus addressing a racially polarizing law enforcement debate.

SEC charges billionaire Texas brothers who donate to GOP with fraud
By Zachary A. Goldfarb and Philip Rucker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 30, 2010; A01

Sam and Charles Wyly, billionaire Texas brothers who gained prominence spending millions of dollars on conservative political causes, committed fraud by using secret overseas accounts to generate more than $550 million in profit through illegal stock trades, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Thursday.

The Wylys, who have been generous contributors to the Republican Party and GOP candidates, have spent the past several years facing questions, including from a Senate investigative committee, about whether they hid millions of dollars in tax shelters abroad.

Through their lawyer, the Wylys denied all charges.

According to the SEC, the brothers, who live in Dallas, created an elaborate and clandestine network of accounts and companies on the Isle of Man and in the Cayman Islands. The brothers then used these accounts and companies to trade more than $750 million of stock in four public companies on whose boards they served, not filing the disclosures required for corporate insiders, the SEC said.

In one case, the SEC alleges that the Wylys traded based on insider information they learned as board members, netting a profit of $32 million.

"The cloak of secrecy has been lifted from the complex web of foreign structures used by the Wylys to evade the securities laws," Lorin L. Reisner, deputy director of SEC enforcement, said Thursday in a statement announcing the civil charges.

Ousted USDA employee Sherrod plans to sue blogger
by JESSE WASHINGTON

SAN DIEGO — Ousted Agriculture Department employee Shirley Sherrod said Thursday she will sue a conservative blogger who posted a video edited in a way that made her appear racist.

Sherrod was forced to resign last week as director of rural development in Georgia after Andrew Breitbart posted the edited video online. In the full video, Sherrod, who is black, spoke to a local NAACP group about racial reconciliation and overcoming her initial reluctance to help a white farmer.

Speaking Thursday at the National Association of Black Journalists convention, Sherrod said she would definitely sue over the video that took her remarks out of context. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has since offered Sherrod a new job in the department. She has not decided whether to accept.

Sherrod said she had not received an apology from Breitbart and no longer wanted one. "He had to know that he was targeting me," she said.

Police would not say why Holmes was stopped or why he was issued a desk appearance ticket for misdemeanor reckless endangerment....It is unclear why Holmes was given the ticket, which was handed to his mom at the hospital.

College-bound teen suffers fractured skull, brain damage after being slammed to ground by cops: mom
BY Rocco Parascandola
DAILY NEWS POLICE BUREAU CHIEF
Wednesday, July 28th 2010, 4:00 AM

A Brooklyn teen who was about to start college spent four days in a coma after he was slammed to the ground by cops in a post-barbecue beatdown, his mother and lawyer say.

Rahiym Holmes, 18, suffered a fractured skull and brain damage in the July 11 incident.

He cannot walk without help and may never fully recover, said his lawyer, Leslie Kelmachter, who will file a notice of claim against the NYPD today. "We want there to be a full and thorough investigation," Kelmachter said. "We believe there should be criminal charges.

"There was no evidence that Rahiym was doing anything wrong when he was tackled."

The NYPD said Internal Affairs is investigating the incident.

It seems odd that a country that rejoices in limiting the power of the state should give so many draconian powers to its government

Rough justice
America locks up too many people, some for acts that should not even be criminal
Jul 22nd 2010

IN 2000 four Americans were charged with importing lobster tails in plastic bags rather than cardboard boxes, in violation of a Honduran regulation that Honduras no longer enforces. They had fallen foul of the Lacey Act, which bars Americans from breaking foreign rules when hunting or fishing. The original intent was to prevent Americans from, say, poaching elephants in Kenya. But it has been interpreted to mean that they must abide by every footling wildlife regulation on Earth. The lobstermen had no idea they were breaking the law. Yet three of them got eight years apiece. Two are still in jail.

America is different from the rest of the world in lots of ways, many of them good. One of the bad ones is its willingness to lock up its citizens (see our briefing). One American adult in 100 festers behind bars (with the rate rising to one in nine for young black men). Its imprisoned population, at 2.3m, exceeds that of 15 of its states. No other rich country is nearly as punitive as the Land of the Free. The rate of incarceration is a fifth of America’s level in Britain, a ninth in Germany and a twelfth in Japan.

New York to Pay $7 Million in Police Shooting Case
By DAVID W. CHEN and A. G. SULZBERGER

Closing a key chapter in one of the most controversial police shootings in recent memory, New York City agreed on Tuesday to pay more than $7 million to settle a federal lawsuit filed by the family of Sean Bell, a 23-year-old black man who was fatally shot by the police outside a strip club in Queens on his wedding day in 2006.

The decision by the city came after two days of intense negotiations in Federal District Court in Brooklyn. Mr. Bell’s estate would receive $3.25 million, and two friends of Mr. Bell’s who were injured in the episode would also receive payments: Joseph Guzman would get $3 million, and Trent Benefield $900,000.

The case set off an emotional debate over the use of deadly force by the police and prompted the city to change some of its policing procedures.

The officer and his partner were patrolling the park in plain clothes, part of an operation that has been going on for years, said Mr. Laurino, the prosecutor.

Around 6 p.m., after chasing down a man and arresting him, the officer realized he had lost his handcuffs in the pursuit and went back into the woods, alone, to retrieve them, the prosecutor said.

“The plainclothes officer was bending down to retrieve his handcuffs,” Mr. Laurino said, “when he was approached by Mr. Gaymon, who was engaged in a sexual act at the time.” Words were exchanged that the prosecutor said “would lead one to believe that” Mr. Gaymon was propositioning the officer.

I could believe "approached the officer." I could believe "performing a sexual act."

But both at the same time? I don't think so.

Questions in Officer’s Killing of C.E.O. in Newark
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA

NEWARK — Returning to New Jersey for his 30th high school reunion, DeFarra Gaymon had the kind of life one would not mind describing to old friends: he was a C.E.O., married, father of four. But Mr. Gaymon, who was in the Chess Club, the French Club, the Italian Club and the student coalition at Montclair High School, never made it to the party on Friday night at the Crowne Plaza Meadowlands.

Instead, as other members of the class of 1980 were collecting their name tags, Mr. Gaymon, known as Dean, lay dying at the University Hospital in Newark, having been shot in the chest by a police officer in Branch Brook Park, a few miles away.

His criminal history includes multiple convictions for theft and issuing worthless checks, as well as driving under the influence of alcohol and driving with a canceled driver's license, according to court records

The girl is 12 years old. And her mother has REALLY FUCKED UP TASTE IN BOYFRIENDS.

Girl seeks help through Facebook while being attacked
By Frederick Melo
Updated: 07/15/2010 03:11:14 PM CDT

The incident unfolded early Saturday morning while the girl's mother was out of the house, according to the criminal complaint. The mom was no longer dating Cesmat but he continued to live with them. [P6: WHY?]

The girl told police that Cesmat had taken away her cell phone away when she went to bed, telling her he did not want her texting all night. He also told her to leave her door open, the complaint said.

She told police she had woken up to find him standing in her room before, and felt that it was about to happen again. "The juvenile stated that she just knew that he would come back to her room later," the complaint state.

He later walked in naked and tried to pull off her pants, she said, but she kicked him away and screamed, according to the complaint. When he left, she got out her iPod and found an acquaintance on the social networking website Facebook.com. She begged her friend to contact her mother and tell her to come pick her up.

As she was sending the message, Cesmat went back to her room and sexually assaulted the girl, the complaint said. She fought back, scratching him hard enough to draw blood. Before he left her room, he allegedly looked at her and said: "I will use you whenever I want."

Paterson to Sign Bill Limiting Retention of Street-Stop Data
By AL BAKER and RAY RIVERA

Gov. David A. Paterson will sign legislation prohibiting the New York Police Department from electronically storing the names and addresses of people stopped on the streets but found to have done nothing wrong, several people with knowledge of the governor’s intentions said Thursday.

Various supporters of the bill have been asked to appear at a news conference on Friday in which the governor will sign the bill, according to an administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the governor had not made his decision public.

Mr. Paterson’s support of the bill, which would fundamentally alter how the New York City police can use information gleaned from street stops, comes despite heated opposition from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly.

2 New York Institutions Want to Keep Ponzi Gifts
By JENNY ANDERSON

Before Hassan Nemazee, the once-powerful business executive and Democratic donor, pleaded guilty to engineering a nearly $300 million Ponzi scheme, he gave $1.1 million to a wide range of charities and educational institutions and an additional $845,000 to political candidates and parties.

But since that money was obtained through fraudulent means, the government wants the donations back. Although many recipients have complied, two high-profile New York City institutions — the Asia Society and the Spence School — have not.

The Spence School, an all-girls independent school on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, has refused to return $15,415 it received from Mr. Nemazee between 1999 and 2002, according to a memo filed by the United States attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York in preparation for Mr. Nemazee’s sentencing on Thursday.

The Asia Society has held onto more than $270,000 it received since November 2001, the memo said.

Both the society and the school argued in letters to the government that they did not know at the time they received the donations that they were the product of Mr. Nemazee’s criminal activities.

“Moreover, the funds were spent long ago, and therefore, are no longer available for forfeiture in any event,” Gary Stein, a lawyer for Spence, wrote in a letter to the government.

The government contends, however, that both institutions have ample resources to pay the money back. The Asia Society had over $8 million in cash, according to its 2009 annual report. And the Spence School had an endowment of $85 million as of January 2009, according to the Manhattan Guide to Private Schools and Selective Public Schools.

“In light of the substantial financial resources of both entities, it is unlikely that the balances of the relevant accounts into which the donated funds were deposited or transferred have since fallen below the amount of the donations,” the government said in its memo.

Maybe eighteen...I forgot Justin Volpe yesterday.

Five other police officers have already been charged in connection with the killings on the Danziger Bridge on Sept. 4, 2005, when much of the city was still underwater. The first charge came in February, when Lt. Michael J. Lohman pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to obstruct justice.

Four more officers and a civilian have pleaded guilty since then to charges of obstructing justice and covering up a felony.

Last month, five police officers were indicted in connection with the murder of Henry Glover, 31, who was shot to death in the Algiers neighborhood in the days just after Katrina and whose body was later found in a burned car behind a police station.

Police Charged in Post-Katrina Shootings and Cover-Up
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON

NEW ORLEANS — Six current or former police officers were charged in connection with shootings on the Danziger Bridge in the days after Hurricane Katrina that left two dead and four wounded, federal law enforcement officials announced here on Tuesday.

The charges allege that after the shootings, police supervisors engaged in a blatant cover-up of crimes that included the strafing of unarmed civilians and the slaying of a mentally disabled man. The case is one of several that have led Mayor Mitch Landrieu to seek a Justice Department review of the city’s police department.

Four of the officers charged Tuesday — Sgt. Kenneth Bowen, Sgt. Robert Gisevius Officer Anthony Villavaso and former officer Robert Faulcon — were accused in the killing of a 17-year-old James Brissette. Mr. Faulcon was also charged with shooting Ronald Madison, a 40-year-old mentally disabled man, in the back, and Sergeant Bowen with kicking and stomping Mr. Madison while he was dying on the ground.

All of the officers could possibly face the death penalty.

The four police officers along with two supervisors, Sgt. Arthur Kaufman and former Sgt. Gerard Dugue, two longtime homicide detectives investigating the shootings for the Police Department, were also charged with obstruction of justice in what officials described as an elaborate and in places blatantly false cover-up story.

I believe this is the first time I have supported the death penalty for a cop.

Smith, who quit eight days after the incident, remains unrepentant.

2 officers out of jobs in wake of repeated Tasering of woman
By Rhonda Cook

3:27 p.m. Monday, July 12, 2010

Janice Wells called the Richland Police Department when she feared a prowler was outside her clapboard house in the rural west Georgia town.

The third-grade teacher had phoned for help. But within minutes of an officer coming to her backdoor, she was screaming in pain and begging not to be shocked again with a Taser. With each scream and cry, the officer threatened her with more shocks.

New York is among several major cities across the country that rely heavily on the stop-and-frisk tactic, but few cities, according to law enforcement experts, employ it with such intensity. In 2002, the police citywide documented 97,000 of these stops; last year, the department registered a record: 580,000....

“This is an important issue, right now, that the N.Y.P.D. must get out in front of as soon as they can,” said Richard Rosenfeld, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Missouri, St. Louis. “And the best way they can do that is to provide credible evidence that the stop-and-frisk campaign actually is responsible for the crime reductions the city has enjoyed.”

Without that evidence, he said, the stop-and-frisks that do not result in arrests could “reduce the perceived legitimacy of the police in the eyes of the public.”

A Few Blocks, 4 Years, 52,000 Police Stops
By RAY RIVERA, AL BAKER and JANET ROBERTS.

When night falls, police officers blanket some eight odd blocks of Brownsville, Brooklyn. Squad cars with flashing lights cruise along the main avenues: Livonia to Powell to Sutter to Rockaway. And again.

On the inner streets, dozens of officers, many fresh out of the police academy, walk in pairs or linger on corners. Others, deeper within the urban grid, navigate a maze of public housing complexes, patrolling the stairwells and hallways.

This small army of officers, night after night, spends much of its energy pursuing the controversial Police Department tactic known as “Stop, Question, Frisk,” and it does so at a rate unmatched anywhere else in the city.

The officers stop people they think might be carrying guns; they stop and question people who merely enter the public housing project buildings without a key; they ask for identification from, and run warrant checks on, young people halted for riding bicycles on the sidewalk.

One night, 20 officers surrounded a man outside the Brownsville Houses after he would not let an officer smell the contents of his orange juice container.

Between January 2006 and March 2010, the police made nearly 52,000 stops on these blocks and in these buildings, according to a New York Times analysis of data provided by the Police Department and two organizations, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the New York Civil Liberties Union. In each of those encounters, officers logged the names of those stopped — whether they were arrested or not — into a police database that the police say is valuable in helping solve future crimes.

These encounters amounted to nearly one stop a year for every one of the 14,000 residents of these blocks. In some instances, people were stopped because the police said they fit the description of a suspect. But the data show that fewer than 9 percent of stops were made based on “fit description.” Far more — nearly 26,000 times — the police listed either “furtive movement,” a catch-all category that critics say can mean anything, or “other” as the only reason for the stop. Many of the stops, the data show, were driven by the police’s ability to enforce seemingly minor violations of rules governing who can come and go in the city’s public housing.

The encounters — most urgently meant to get guns off the streets — yield few arrests. Across the city, 6 percent of stops result in arrests. In these roughly eight square blocks of Brownsville, the arrest rate is less than 1 percent. The 13,200 stops the police made in this neighborhood last year resulted in arrests of 109 people. In the more than 50,000 stops since 2006, the police recovered 25 guns.