Archive

July – December 2005

December 30, 2005
Not a Terrorist Was Stirring ...
On the night before Christmas Police Commissioner Ray Kelly decided to stroll down Fifth Avenue.

December 23, 2005
Why Not Admit to Being a Police Officer?
According to a police source, NYPD Inspector Robert Wheeler left the scene of a shooting in Washington D.C, in which he shot one of four teenage robbers.

December 16, 2005
The NYPD Flip-Flop
After flouting the law for the past 16 months, the police department has done an about-face and begun cooperating with the Civilian Complaint Review Board about complaints of police misconduct at the Republican National Convention.

December 9, 2005
Racism in the NYPD? It's a fact.
Here are new details of the Latino Officers Association’s $17.3 million discriminatory settlement with the city that this column has learned. They portray systemic racism in a police department that supposedly reflects the city’s cultural diversity.

December 2, 2005
Kelly's Katrina-Like Reassessment
The fatal shooting of New York City police officer Dillon Stewart has started a media reassessment of the claims and priorities of the police department under commissioner Raymond W. Kelly.

November 25, 2005
Downgrading the detail
Commissioner Ray Kelly seems better at protecting New York from terrorism than managing the officers who protect him.

November 18, 2005
Revising the numbers
Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proudest boast during his successful mayoral campaign turns out to be wrong. His claim – that New York is the nation’s safest large city – is based on outdated FBI statistics. Even in its own crime report, the Bureau acknowledges the data is misleading.

November 11, 2005
Kelly seeking control of it all
Few in the NYPD know Lawrence H. Sanchez. He is listed on page 6 of the 2005 police roster as an assistant commissioner under David Cohen, the deputy commissioner of intelligence.

November 4, 2005
A peek inside security plan
Testimony in federal court this week provides a glimpse of one of the NYPD's "cutting edge" strategies in its much-praised fight against terrorism. The testimony stems from a New York Civil Liberties Union suit against the Police Department's searches of subway riders' bags and packages, which were begun after the London subway bombings in July.

October 28, 2005
Threats on terror — or on reporters?
Veteran reporters based at One Police Plaza have for years been issued identification passes, allowing them to freely enter the building to get to their offices on the second floor. That changed this week when the department made some of them go through metal detectors like any visitor. Editor's note: This clumn did not appear in Newsday.

October 21, 2005
NYPD official to go on trial
Mark this time and date in your notebook, readers: 3 p.m., Dec. 15. That's when Deputy Commissioner Garry McCarthy goes on trial in New Jersey, following his confrontation eight months ago with the Palisades Interstate Parkway Police over a parking ticket issued to his daughter.

October 14, 2005
NYPD's voice loud and clear
So what are we to make of the head of the FBI's New York office holding a news conference with Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly to warn of a terror threat against the subways while the Department of Homeland Security downplays the threat's credibility?

October 7, 2005
Still drivin’ ’em crazy
In a tale that will not die, a North Carolina woman has filed a civilian complaint with the city against cops in the NYPD's 80-truck convoy that was stopped by Virginia State Police as it returned from New Orleans, Newsday has learned.

September 30, 2005
NYPD stopped in Virginia
Was the NYPD's 80-truck motorcade with 300 officers, dispatched to New Orleans to give humanitarian assistance, pulled over on two Virginia highways and then disrespected by Virginia State Police?

September 23, 2005
Prescription for disaster?
Let's hope Police Commissioner Ray Kelly is more scrupulous in pursuing terrorists than he is errant doctors who examine police officers.

September 16, 2005
Is Kelly not cooperating?
Is Police Commissioner Ray Kelly refusing to allow top department officials to cooperate with the Civilian Complaint Review Board's investigations of alleged police misconduct during the Republican National Convention?

September 9, 2005
Accomplished cop awaits call
Apparently with a straight face, Deputy Commissioner of Training James Fyfe assured the head of a Hispanic officers' group that the selection of a chief's son to attend the FBI National Academy involved no internal politics, no third-party phone calls, no letters or connections - only merit.

September 2, 2005
Quantico quagmire
For a cop to be selected for the FBI Academy's 10-week course at Quantico, Va., is an honor and a privilege.

August 26, 2005
Long shot ponders top cops
No man is indispensable - even after 9/11, as New Yorkers discovered when Rudolph Giuliani sought to postpone the 2001 mayoral election so he could remain mayor three extra months. Somehow, the city survived without him.

August 19, 2005
Career move's a win for Kelly
In the hush-hush worlds of law enforcement and intelligence, no public announcement has been made about the impending career change of Chief Mike Tiffany.

August 12, 2005
NYPD vet will speak for FBI
The FBI is about to get a new spokesman. His name is John Miller. Yes, the same John Miller who a decade ago served as the NYPD's deputy commissioner of public information under Bill Bratton.

August 5, 2005
Call ’em Ray’s Untouchables
The best job in law enforcement is being one of the Police Department's top brass. First, you don't have to do anything, as Commissioner Ray Kelly does your job for you. Second, no matter how outrageous your conduct, nothing will happen to you.

July 29, 2995
Fields says if she gets in, Kelly is out
Democratic mayoral candidate C. Virginia Fields says that if elected mayor, she won't keep Ray Kelly as police commissioner, but the qualifications she says she's seeking in a successor sound a lot like his.

July 22, 2005
Heavily armed in war of words
Here is the police report of Det. Thomas Rossi of the Palisades Interstate Parkway Police after he and his partner, Officer Roman Galloza, arrested NYPD Deputy Commissioner Garry McCarthy.

July 15, 2005
Polishing reputations
If patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels, as Dr. Samuel Johnson wrote in 1775, what are we to make of some former NYPD officials of dubious reputation who resurfaced after last week's London train bombing?

July 8, 2005
Skewed standards for chiefs
Here are two tales that reveal the NYPD's double standard between cops and the brass.

July 1, 2005
Ex-watchdogs disabled, too?
Neither Mayor Michael Bloomberg nor City Comptroller William Thompson was talking this week about their votes giving a tax-free, line-of-duty pension to ex-Chief of Detectives William Allee.