Police

Attacking Broken Windows Again

There’s a report out by the newfangled NYC Department of Investigation Office of the Inspector General for the NYPD (you know, OIG-NYPD, for short): “An Analysis of Quality of Life Summonses, Quality of Life Misdemeanor Arrests, and Felony Crime in New York City, 2010-2015.” The report is surprisingly good, in terms of data analysis and presentation. (I love, for instance,…

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Scandal in the NYPD

It’s still hard to figure out what exactly is going on. But Banks seems to be toast. Banks never had money problems. Maybe the IRS is interested. Overall, the best summary to date is by Lenny Levitt in NYPD Confidential. Along with connections to Da Mayor, the white elephant in the room is the “special consideration” given to the Hasidic…

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Police

Bad Cop Good Movie: The Seven-Five

I’m finally getting around to watching The Seven Five, a documentary about the 75 Precinct in the 1980s and criminal cop Michael Dowd. Good stuff… the documentary, that is, not the cop. I like how the movie is told through three perspectives: the dirty cops, the cops who caught them, and the criminal the cops worked for. And of course…

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Special delivery

The hammer begins to fall on the officers who idiotically took offense and arrested a guy who had the nerve to criticize their reckless driving. Murray Weiss in DNAinfo: The NYPD lieutenant involved in the questionable arrest of a Brooklyn mailman was stripped of his gun and badge Thursday and placed on desk duty. … The four are set to…

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“What messy justice looks like: After Peter Liang’s killing of Akai Gurley, DA Ken Thompson does the right thing twice”

Harry Siegel’s excellent column in the Daily News: The progressive prosecutor — elected on a promise to salvage Brooklyn justice from the oxymoronic state his predecessor had reduced it to — did the right thing first in holding the cop to account and convicting him before a jury of his New York City peers, and again in recommending that he…

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Bratton on Cruz

Bill Bratton in the Daily News: There seems to be a widespread belief among certain members of the political class that protecting the country against terrorism is a matter of ideology. According to them, the strong leaders in this area are the ones who are willing to insult Muslims, advocate torture, and engage in various other provocations. They claim that…

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“Queens Man Accused of Making Over 30 False Calls to 911”

This doesn’t happen enough(the prosecution, not the BS calls to 911): In all, the authorities said, more than 30 calls were made over a month, none for actual emergencies. On Friday, prosecutors in Queens said that they had all been traced to one man. He told the fire marshal investigating the case that he made the calls. “My uncle is…

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Arrest of Postal Worker in Crown Heights

Unless there’s more to this story that hasn’t come out — and there may be (though I wouldn’t bet on it) — this is inexcusably shitty. The video: So is this unrelated incident in 2013 when a cop made a left turn into and killed a teacher crossing the street. It’s all too common for drivers in error to get…

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Compstat 1.0 and a half

Kudos to the NYPD for moving up Compstat publicationby about 10 days. Now, on March 18 (who knows, maybe it was even there yesterday), I can learn crime data up to March 13! That’s like, just last week! In the past, because Kelly didn’t release data on principle, you could see on Monday what was going on two weeks ago.…

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