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Category: Police

  • Mayor Mike’s Mosque Matters

    New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg usually makes sense. I particularly like it when he berates citizenry over common sense issues. “People,” he whines, “You gotta stop [fill in the blank].” Makes me all sheepish and look at my toes and mumble, “Sorry, Mister Mayor.” And I didn’t even do what he’s complaining about!

    Of course it’s not cool to like politicians. Especially rich white whiny ones. And he’s certainly not perfect (see: over-development and Atlantic Yards Project). But he’s a good mayor and we’ll miss him when he’s gone. Mark my words.

    I watched the whole thing so you don’t have to. The highlights:

    1:10 — Tells the “real America” camp to back off.

    2:54 — Uses the word “repudiate” correctly.

    4:10 — “Islam did not attack the World Trade Center. Al Qaeda did. To implicate all of Islam for the actions of a few… is unfair and un-American.”

    7:15 — “And there are people… who are hoping that a compromise will end the debate. But it won’t. The question will then become, ‘How big should the no mosque zone be around the world trade center site?’ There’s already a mosque four blocks away. Should it be moved? This is a test of our commitment to American values. And we have to have the courage of our convictions. … We must put our faith in the freedoms than have sustained our great country for 200 years.

    9:15 — He reads a quote from the Imam in question. It’s too long to transcribe, but worth a listen.

    10:25 — Mike closes with, “We will keep New York the most open, diverse, tolerant and free city in the World.”

    Take that, all you haters. Bloomberg makes me proud to be a New Yorker.

  • 14-year-old girl killer

    She must have “hated Mexicans,” too.

    Two men were sitting on their stoop when, Peter Hermann writes:

    When a young girl armed with a silver handgun approached and announced a robbery. “Because of the age of the suspect the victims began to laugh at which time the suspect fired one shot grazing the victim Wilmer Bonilla’s head and striking Jose Coreas in the center of his forehead.”

  • Inner-Harbor Cop Fired

    This is the officer (not “man” or “dude”) who got pissed at a young white skateboarder.

    Peter Hermann reports:

    Last month, a three-member police panel called a trial board held a hearing and found Rivieri, a 19-year veteran, guilty of failing to issue the youth a citizen contact receipt and failing to file a report, but not guilty of using excessive and unnecessary force and uttering a discourtesy.

    The panel recommended that Bealefeld suspend Rivieri for several days. But Bealefeld has the discretion to up the penalty, and he opted to fire the officer whose actions were displayed on video and seen around the world.

    Three years after it happens the guy gets fired? Is there more I don’t know? Seems way too harsh to me.

    I wrote about the incident here.

    We don’t know what happened before the video starts. … Did the cop already tell the kids three times to stop skateboarding in the Inner Harbor? Did the kid flip off the cop right before the video starts? I think there are lots of possible situations that could justify the cop’s behavior.
    …
    Now let’s say, for the sake of argument, that the video shows the whole story. If that’s the case, then the officer handled the situation horribly. If your goal is to get three kids to stop skateboarding, there are much better ways to do it.
    …
    Still, sometimes a person does need a lesson. Sometimes an arrest isn’t appropriate. Or legal. So as good police, you’ve got to put on an act: yell, threaten, cajole, lecture. All these are part of the job. But it’s important to have an objective when you deal with a situation. Then you have to figure out the best method to achieve your goals. Yelling for the sake of yelling isn’t good policing.

    I heard a lot of cops talk like this when I was on the street. Sometimes it wasn’t needed, but sometimes it was. If you fired every cop who ever talked like this, you’d have about six cops left in the Eastern, and I wouldn’t be one of them. Sometimes this language and attitude is needed. Probably not in this case… but who am I to say?

    Rivieri gets to keep his pension, right?

  • Terrorist Slashes New York City Cab Driver

    Terrorist Slashes New York City Cab Driver

    The terrorists, Christian Michael Enright, said, “Assalamu alaikum — consider this a checkpoint!” and slashed Muslim American Ahmed Sharif across the neck, and then on the face from his nose to his upper lip. Sharif said:

    “I feel very sad. … I have been here more than 25 years. I have been driving a taxi more than 15 years. All my four kids were born here. I never feel this hopeless and insecure before.”

    Now I don’t want anything thinking that all Christians are terrorists and banning churches. I mean, there are Christians who believe in peace, too. There must be. But where are the priests? Why aren’t they denouncing this barbaric and cowardly attack?

    The Timesalso has an interesting little piece on the Arab neighborhood, Little Syria, that used to be withing “hallowed ground distance” of the World Trade Center site before there was a World Trade Center. Next to was Little Athens.

    In the 1940s, the “Arab-American community was almost entirely displaced by construction of entrance ramps to the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel.”

  • The Bandit

    The Bandit

    Incredible car crash caught on police dash-cam.

    But I’m really posting this because it’s the same car I had in Baltimore.

    Like the Bandit. But my car was white. And I was more Smokey than the Bandit. It was the last of Detroit’s metal cars. And I never crashed it.

  • 10 Mistakes in Manila

    The BBC has an interesting piece about the bus siege by a rogue cop in which eight tourists were killed. The good news I think we would do better here.

    In related news, have you heard that the Chicago Cubs are going to move to the Philippines? They’re changing their name are will now be called the Manila Folders (sorry, I heard that one when I was about 7).

  • Islamophobia?

    I’m pro-Muslim. I sound funny just saying that. I’m not too keen on religion or zealots in general. But why would I be anti-Muslim any more than anti-Jew or anti-Christian? I have good friends who are Muslims. I have students who are Muslims. I have neighbors who are Muslim. I’ve traveled to Muslim countries. Muslims all nice people. Well, not all of them, but you know what I mean. People are not bad because of their religion. It simply doesn’t make sense to hate people because of their religion. I’m not going to debate that issue.

    But…

    Am I an Islamophobe? [cue scary music]

    Timemagazine has an article about Islamophobia [reprise scary music]. One of the questions Timeasks is “Islam is more likely than other faiths to encourage violence against nonbelievers.”That’s supposed to show Islamophobia. Forty-six percent of people responded in the affirmative.

    But…

    I would respond in the affirmative. I mean, I haven’t done a study and certainly not historically (the Christians have a pretty bad track record from, say 1000 AD to well into the 20th century!). But today, if you were to look at people killed in acts of religious-inspired violence, most of those doing the killing believe they’re acting in the name of Islam (Most of the victims are Muslim too, I would add).

    What if parts of Islam aremore likely to encourage violence against others? And I’m not saying that most Muslims agree with these zealots.

    It’s like asking if you believe that African-Americans are more likely than whites to commit acts of violence in America. Well… if you say yes are you a racist? It’s un-P.C. to talk about it, but blacks aremore likely than whites to commit violent crime in America. And yes, the academic in me wants to mention class, poverty, education, and other factors that explain much more than race, but yes, there is a crude-correlation between race and violent crime. We can be liberal and tolerant and not deny reality, right? To know that doesn’t make me racist, I hope.

    So why would thinking that Islam is more likely than other faiths to encourage violence be a sign of Islamophobia? What if it’s true?

    Shouldn’t we be working harder to end violence rather than pretend it doesn’t exist?

  • Killing Mexicans

    Seems to be the latest sport in East Baltimore. Martin Reyes, who wasn’t Mexican, is the fifth Hispanic shooting or homicide victim in the area in less than two month. All the victims are Honduran. And moved into a neighborhood that desperatelyneeds an influx of hard-working non-criminals.

    The killer (is there where I’m supposed to add, “alleged”?), African-American paroled drug dealer and schizophrenic Jermaine Holley, told police he “hated Mexicans.” No doubt this guy also addresses the Korean corner-store owner–just about only person willing to run a business in the area–as “Chinaman.”

    Reminds of the joke where the Goy is put on the freight train to the concentration camp in Nazi Germany (stop me if I’ve told this before…). The guy next to him says, “What a tragedy.” And the Goy turns to him and says, “No. For youit’s a tragedy. For me it’s a mistake!”

    The Latino victims here, known at least in the New York area as “walking ATMs” because they get paid in cash and don’t call the police, are often illegal immigrants. And them moving to Baltimore is the best thing to happen to that city since the crab cake.

    The 200 Block of North Kenwood? It seems like a well-kept up block. And one of the rare brick streets left. Homes sell for roughly $125,000, according to Zillow. But I wouldn’t live there or on any block on the East Side that start with N for north. On Kenwood, the boarded up buildings start on the 300 Block and on the 500 Block homes sell (and plenty are for sale) for $60-70,000.

    Why do immigrants move near the ghetto? It’s not because they like getting robbed and killed. It’s because it’s cheap. And desperate landlords (who keep leaving because of crime but can’t sell their homes) don’t ask too many questions. And seeing how the Eastern District has lost probably close to 75 percent of it’s population, there’s lots of room. Who else in moving tohere?

  • Cairo Art Heist

    Yes, I too was more surprised that a bunch of priceless paintings are housed in a Cairo museum that the fact that a Van Gogh was stolen.

    But get this: they didn’t steal the real one!

    According to an Egyptian source of mine, the real one was stolen a decade ago when corrupt American-supported dictator/pharaoh Hosni Mubarak’s mysterious “business tycoon” son, Alaa Mubarak, sold the painting in Kuwait (not related to its first theft, but to an exhibition in Kuwait in the 1990s) and replaced it with a good fake.

    And this “theft” is simply a way to cover for the real theft years ago. Clever.

    Did I mention my friend was no idea? But if it’s true, it means that the fake that was taken from the museum will not be recovered, since the the people who ordered the theft, who have the original (or work for those who do), would simply destroy it.

  • “Legal to smoke it…”

    Boom Chicago over in Amsterdam (my brother’s theater) made a funny video about changes in Amsterdam and the drug scene.

    The guy in the video, Greg Shapiro, and I arrived in Amsterdam same year same time. He’s very funny. I poured his beers.

    The other videos are pretty good, too. Check out Tiger Woods’ Apology Outtakes.