Go to qualitypolicing.com

Tag: NYPD

  • Good news for NYPD

    Rookie Salaries Would Rise in Deal With Police Union

  • Cop’s gun “accidentally” fires

    Cop’s gun “accidentally” fires

    The Daily Newsreports that a cop’s gun “accidentally” fired. No it di’int!If there’s one thing I learned as a cop, it’s that guns don’t fire by themselves. You gotta pull the trigger.

    Now there is a chance, if your finger is on the trigger, that you could get hit by something and accidentally squeeze the trigger. But if you did, the bullet wouldn’t hit the driver. No way. With the luck of police, if would probably hit your best friend.

    It was a good shooting. Here’s the abridged version of what’s in the Daily News:

    Stolen car. Backup called. Four uniformed cops approached, guns drawn. 25-year-old driver repeatedly slams into a parked SUV, tearing off the vehicle’s rear wheel and forcing its rear half onto the sidewalk.

    One of the two passengers runs, is caught. The car jumps the curb and drives into a store gate. The driver spins the car about 270 degrees, striking the lieutenant. “As the car hit the cop, he accidentally fired his gun, sending a bullet through a rear window and striking the driver.”

    So why would the cop say the gun accidentally fired when he took a good shot that needed to be taken in a tough situation? Because it’s against the rules to fire at or from a moving vehicle (I’ve always liked that “from” part).

    Now it makes sense that you generally don’t want to kill the man in control of a car. But sometimes you need to. And this one one of the cases. But the rules don’t allow for that.

    What’s an officer to do? There are three choices (and you have 1/2 second to decide):

    1) Do nothing, get hit by a car, and have the car zoom off before it crashes into someone or something?

    2) Do the right thing, shoot, be honest, and potentially get in trouble for shooting at the driver of a moving car?

    Or 3) do the right thing, shoot, tell a little white lie, and be called a hero?

    It’d do the latter. So did the lieutenant.

    So this accidental bullet just accidentally happened to fly through the car rear window and accidentally go right into the area of the driver’s seat where the driver just happened to be sitting. He was accidentally killed. If this was an accident, what a lucky accident it was!

    I wish departmental rules would allow cops to do their job, stay safe, tell the truth, and not get in trouble. But they don’t. And since they don’t, I say well done, L.T.!

  • More on NYPD vs. bicyclists

    More on NYPD vs. bicyclists

    If you need more proof that something ain’t right in how the NYPD handles Manhattan’s Critical Mass bike ride, you should watch this video on the blog, The Agitator. There’s an anti-police tone I don’t like. And overproduction. And half-assed legal knowledge (there is no Constitutional right you “wave” when you identify yourself to police. Ask Dudley Hiibel. And if you really are concerned about bargaining away Constitutional rights, why not focus on our horrible system of legal plea bargains?)

    Anyway… the juxtaposition of quotes from charging documents and video proof to the contrary is pretty bad.

    In George Kelling and James Q. Wilson’s classic “Broken Windows” piece, they talk about police being told to clean up a park because bums are harassing secretaries. So cops go in and bust heads and then, when the somebody like the ACLU inevitably complains, the brass throw those cops under the bus because they’re shocked. Shocked(!) that police officers would behave that way. Besides, they say, they never gave orders to bust heads.

    One of the great successes in applying Broken Windows in NYC was that the chiefs did everything legally and openly. Not always popularly. But they didget the bums out of the subway. And they did so legally.

    Why is that important? Because if you put police in an impossible situation and don’t tell them what to do, you shouldn’t be surprised when cops start being stupid.

    I didn’t relish being filmed as police officer because things can be taken out of context and used against you. But filming police actions is legal and, especially if you’re in the middle of Times Square, get used to it!

    Police departments willing to open themselves to public scrutiny are a good litmus test for a free society (that’s not my idea… but I can’t remember whose line it is). Generally, police in the U.S. do OK on that front. You want to go on a ride-along at your local police station? Odds are you can do it. That’s a good sign. Saying “no cameras” is a characteristic of repressive regimes. It’s not a good sign.

    I feel sorry for police officers placed in situations where they are duty bound to fail. But if you area police officer placed in such a situation, remember that you don’t have to join the mob. Nobody can force you to do anything illegal and nobody can force you to lie on a Statement of Probable Cause and sign your name to it. And if you do lie and get caught, you can be damn sure that whoever “made you” do it won’t be protecting yourass!

    So what if Iwere ordered to police Critical Mass and told to arrest anybody I legally could? Well, for starters I wouldn’t walk too fast. And come to think of it, I think an important part of policing such a “dangerous” event is making sure tourists, especially the good looking female kind, are safe from danger. I would protect as many as possible.

    If I felt I actually had to work because my sergeant was breathing down my neck? I would only arrest somebody doing something worse than just biking down the street. Open container? Scaring pedestrians? Yelling “fuck you” to police without ID? I might even grab somebody off their bike if they wouldn’t stop (I’d look for a pale and thin looking hipster). I wouldn’t knock anybody off.

    Finally, no matter what happened, I wouldn’t lie in my charging documents. As I write in my book, I may have violated the spirit of some laws (like loitering), but I never violated the letter of the law. Why risk your career to stop a person riding a bike through Times Square? It’s not worth it!

    Oh, and one last thing, I don’t know what you should do if you’re being arrested for no good reason. But screaming and screaming and screaming does not endear you to me, Ms. Lin. By the end of that video, even I was glad to see you go.

  • Officer assaults bicyclist (3): stupidy breaks out in groups

    Leave it to Bike Snob NYC to give a beyond-the-obvious take on the take-down. Here is an edited version:

    By this point most people have seen the footage of critical mass cyclist Christopher Long getting tackled by NYPD officer Patrick Pogan. This is a classic example of the eternal conflict between the younger, more progressive generation and the older, more conservative one—except of course that the rider was 29 and the officer was 22.
    …
    Similarly, the standard of what constitutes heroic behavior is also lower in 2008. The bike-tackler, Patrick Pogan, is a third-generation police officer. I wanted to know more about the Pogan family, so I strapped on my “investigative journalist” helmet and Googled vigorously for almost two full minutes. I finally uncovered this New York Times article from 1991…. I will go ahead and assume that the Pogan mentioned herein is the bike-tackler’s father:
    So it would seem that tackling someone riding his bike is in 2008 what rescuing someone from a wrecked subway train with the jaws of life was in 1991, because Pogan Sr. not only stands by his son (as you’d expect him to) but is also proud of him for what he did:

    “He’s my son. I’m proud of him. He’s third-generation that’s been serving the city,” said Pogan Sr., who was at home in Massapequa Park, LI, today and said he had not seen the video. “These people are taking over the streets and impeding the flow of traffic. Then you gotta do what you gotta do,” said Pogan, 51.
    …
    Yet try as I might, it’s hard for me to feel outrage…. One of the most important truths I’ve learned is that where there are crowds there is stupidity. When large numbers of people get together, stupid things happen, and you’re almost always better off simply getting as far away from the crowd as possible.
    …
    One of the things that make cycling so great is that it enables you to avoid crowds and pointless delays. Few things are more satisfying than effortlessly weaving your way through a traffic jam. So while I’ll begrudge nobody his or her Critical Mass, personally I don’t understand the appeal of forming a crowd and creating a pointless delay. And it is a delay, whether you’re in a car or on a bike.

    I once accidentally got caught in a Critical Mass ride while out riding. I felt like a dolphin ensnared in a tuna net. One second I was sailing along, and the next I was trapped among a bunch of people with rickety bikes rolling on wobbly, rusty brown steel rims on the verge of collapse. It was like watching a Beatles “Yellow Submarine”-esque cartoon LSD sequence where all the bicycles were rolling on pretzels.
    …
    People do need to see other people out there on bikes. They need to become accustomed to them so they learn to respect them, and they need to see how practical and effective they can be so they consider riding them themselves. Many cyclists illustrate this day after day…. Effectively, you’re a Critical Mass of one. Meanwhile, a mob of people on crappy bikes blocking traffic one day a month isn’t a “mass” at all. At best it’s a party. At worst it’s effectively just one big stupid person.

    Stupidity breaks out in groups, and when people gather expect stupid things to happen. You may or may not encounter a stupid person or stupid thing individually as you go about your day, but you’ll definitely encounter one in a crowd, and Christopher Long encountered one in the form of Patrick Pogan. On the other hand, intelligence travels alone, but it travels swiftly, and consequently it’s not only more effective, but it also generates much better word-of-mouth.

  • So wrong?

    There’s another video of excessive NYPD use of force.

    This has nothing to do about bicyclists. But it is the NYPD. And brutality. And it probably won’t turn out well for the officer.

    At least neither of the cases directly involve race. The bike case was white on white. This is black on black (and yes, there would be a different reaction from the press and public if a white officer had been beating the black guy).

    The academy does not teach the baton to be used as a compliance tool like this. That’s how they’re going to get the officer. In cases like this, I was taught to mace the guy, but never did (and is mace really better than hitting him?). It’s another point in favor of my lost cause: the straight baton. You can use it for leverage to force an arm.

    So here, even though I think the cop did the wrong thing, I can’t help but stick up for him a little bit. Not in beating the guy. But youtry and force a man’s hands behind his back. It’s not as easy as you think it is! Why doesn’t he just do what the officers say?

    The right thing to do is wait for backup. Two officers may not be able to get the arms behind the back. But four officers can!

    Assuming there was a good reason to arrest this guy (and naturally I do… but that the cop in me. I wasn’t there. And the Postraises the question), well, you gotta put your hands behind your back. You’re under arrest. You don’t have a choice.

    And you know what really doesn’t help matters? The girl in background yelling and egging everybody on. As an officer trying to control a situation, the last thing you want is to worry about is that the woman yelling “fight” is going to join the fray. It makes want to end things faster.

  • Officer assaults bicyclist (2): Let Them Ride

    Ray Kelley, the commissioner, just came on the radio and said he “couldn’t fathom” why the officer, Pogan, did that.

    That means the officer is officially being fed to the dogs… hung out to dry… you might even say thrown under a bus.

    And since the officer is still on probation… well, it’s time to dust off the resume.

    You can read the lying officer’s report at the smoking gun.

    And my previous post here.

    One comment asked a good question: what should police do?

    Three simple words: Let them ride!

    As much as it pains a few particular people in the NYPD, you can’t control hundreds of people on bikes. Especially if they’re willing to get arrested. Police have to work with Critical Mass, just like police do in many other cities. Provide an escort. Join the fun.

    That means that once a month, yes, bikes go unrestricted through the streets. Yes, it might slow cars down. But so do double parkers and the 4th of July Parade.

  • NYPD pay raise

    It’s still all too low, but finally, just a few years too late, starting NYPD officers are getting a raise from a criminally low $25,100 to the embarrassingly low salary of $35,881. The top base pay is $65,382.

    The Daily Newshas this story.

  • Meanwhile, in the NYPD

    The brass is throwing the book at the officers involved in the Sean Bell shooting.

    What’s so unsatisfying about this, is that such discipline makes cops paranoid, and for good reason. What’s the moral? For police, it’s that if the department wants to get you (if Al Sharpton shouts loud enough), they will. Obviously the order had been given that heads must roll. But at the same time the anti-police public won’t be satisfied. Anything less than jail, being fired, and perhaps a public flogging in considered a slap on the wrist.

    The New York Times reports:
    If the charges, known as administrative charges, are upheld, the officers could face discipline ranging from loss of pay to retraining to firing. But the internal investigation has been suspended as federal prosecutors weigh civil rights charges in the case.
    If you think 31 bullets was obsessive, go for that guy. Clearly, as I have said, mistakes were made. Do I think police were criminally guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. No. Do I think punishable things may have been done. Yes.

    But to charge someone with “failing to thoroughly process the crime scene”? That’s bullshit. Don’t go after the guys who showed up after the bullets stopped flying. The idea of crime-scene integrity is a myth. You try and preserve a crime scene with multiple shooting victims. I have. It’s not easy. The O.J. trial set the bar too high.

    CSI it’s not. Police and paramedics have jobs to do and lives to save. Do you order your commanding officer to stay out of the scene? People and cars and belonging are searched. Somebody steps on some blood or kicks a shell casing. I know I have. And you know what, it doesn’t really matter. It’s policing. Policing in the real world with real people. Get real.

  • Marijuana Arrest Crusade

    I haven’t digested all this yet, but there’s an interesting little brouhaha about a recent study released by the NYCLU by Queens College Professor Harry Levine and Deborah Small. The paper is called, “Marijuana Arrest Crusade: Racial Bias and Police Policy in New York City, 1997-2007.” The report claims that 35,000 people a year are arrested in New York City for marijuana possession. This figure is somehow disputed by the NYPD. I’m not sure who’s right.

    [Update: For the record, Prof Levine is absolutely right. See here for more stats and information.]

  • Pay NYPD More (II)

    A police officer was arrested in Pennsylvania for bank robbery. I don’t like to compare common criminals with mistakes people make because they’re poor–like the NYPD officer who discharged his gun (shooting an 18-month-old boy in the apartment below) while cleaning it… in the dark… because he couldn’t pay his electric bill.

    But what all this has in common is that it wouldn’t happen if police officers could live off their starting salary ($25,100) and recruiting standards were higher.

    From Veronika Belenkaya and Ethan Rouen’s story in the New York Daily News:

    An NYPD rookie sworn to enforce the law broke it big-time Thursday, stealing $113,000 from a Pennsylvania bank at gunpoint, authorities said.

    Cop-turned-robber Christian Torres, 21, of Queens, was collared less than a block away and the loot was recovered, police said.
    …
    Officers Hector Alvarez and Miguel Castillo told New Jersey police they were investigating terrorism when they were caught trying to rob a Bergen County drug den in May 2007, cops said.

    Four months later, NYPD recruit Claribel Polanco, a mother of two, allegedly committed welfare fraud.

    Too poor to pay his electric bill, Officer Patrick Venetek of Brooklyn was cleaning his gun in the dark when it accidentally went off in February. The bullet struck an 18-month-old boy in the apartment below.