NYPD Confidential - An Inside Look at the New York Police Department
Home Page
All Columns
Books
Biography
Contact Leonard Levitt
Search this site

Archive » January - June 2011

Archive

January – June 2011

June 27, 2011
The Press Club Steps Up
After a decade playing footsie with Police Commissioner Ray Kelly — under whose leadership the NYPD has become the most repressive and least transparent in modern history — the New York Press Club awarded its top prize for a hard-hitting series that exposed how the NYPD’s lack of transparency harms the public.

June 20, 2011
Another Take on Terror
Another full-court press conference on terror. Another terrorism air ball.

June 13, 2011
The Police Foundation: Making Enemies and Alienating Reporters
Proving its friendliness to the media yet again, the New York City Police Foundation couldn’t get through its annual fundraiser earlier this month without attempting to hold a reporter hostage.

June 6, 2011
Bronx Juries: More Woe for the NYPD
Long the bane of the NYPD, a Bronx jury spoke last week, raising the burgeoning Ticket-gate police scandal to a new level.

May 30, 2011
Ray Kelly's French Connection
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly’s tepid response to allegations that the NYPD has leaked damaging information about the sexual assault case of International Monetary Fund ex-leader Dominique Strauss-Kahn is so out of character it makes one wonder.

May 23, 2011
New York City’s Topsy-Turvy Terrorism War [Cont.]
The NYPD refused to allow the FBI to interview the undercover officer who developed the evidence against the two alleged terrorists indicted in state court for a synagogue bomb plot, sources told NYPD Confidential.

May 16, 2011
New York City’s Topsy-Turvy Terrorism War
What in heaven’s name is happening in the fight against terrorism in New York City?

May 9, 2011
The Importance of Being Reggie
Reggie Ward, the NYPD’s buff supremo, also has his claws inside the Mount Vernon police department, where he likes to feel very important.

May 2, 2011
Meet 'Commissioner' Ward
With all the talk of insiders and ticket-fixing, it might be nice to reacquaint ourselves with an old friend, “Commissioner” Reggie Ward, as he calls himself.

April 25, 2011
Ticket-Gate: The Scandal That Touches Everybody Who is Anybody
Ticket-fixing is so pervasive and accepted inside the NYPD that its top uniformed officer, Chief of Department Joe Esposito, designates a member of his staff to handle requests, sources said.

April 18, 2011
Mayor Grasso? Or Waiting for Ray Kelly
So now we have the ex-stock-exchange's $140 million man, Richard Grasso, vowing to run for mayor if his old nemesis, Eliot Spitzer, decides to run -- and promising not to run if Ray Kelly does.

April 11, 2011
The Rev and the Prez
The same guy who half-heartedly supported the 2009 mayoral bid of the city’s black Democratic Comptroller William Thompson against incumbent mayor Michael Bloomberg turned up in New York last week to honor an altogether different black Democrat — Al Sharpton.

April 4, 2011
Nassau County Police’s Sad Accounting
Nassau County police are quietly assessing whether their own procedures led to last month’s friendly-fire shooting of one of their own.

March 28, 2011
Harlem Mosque Shooting: New Facts From the Old Chief
Finally, after 39 years, a racial smear that has dogged the city’s first black police commissioner to his grave has been unequivocally debunked by the chief who was central to arguably the most disgraceful decision in the NYPD’s history.

March 21, 2011
Kelly’s FBI Bubble
So was Senator Chuck Schumer sincere or mischievous in announcing that he would push Ray Kelly for the job of FBI Director?

March 14, 2011
Congressman King: The Yahoo Has a Point
Long Island Congressman Peter King can be a wild and crazy guy.

March 7, 2011
Kelly vs. the FBI: Round 17,000
Is Police Commissioner Ray Kelly really going to close the Joint Bank Robbery Task Force, as he has threatened?

February 28, 2011
Hats Off to Judith
No man [or woman for that matter] should tangle with Judith Regan.

February 21, 2011
Jabbar Collins: The Sins of Joe Hynes?
There is nothing more harmful to society than an unprincipled district attorney.

February 14, 2011
Troubling Questions for Foundation Freebies
So Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has amended his financial disclosure forms after this column revealed last October that the Police Foundation had paid his dues and meals at the Harvard Club for the past eight years.

February 7, 2011
“Counterterror NYC” Ignores Inconvenient Truths
“Counterterror NYC,” a National Geographic special that aired a week ago, blindly and uncritically endorsed Police Commissioner Ray Kelly’s 24/7, high-tech approach to fighting terrorism. It failed to address Kelly’s fatal flaw, which hampers the NYPD’s fight against terrorism: his out-of-control ego.

January 31, 2011
Adrian Schoolcraft: Now It’s Getting Serious
Many people think that the worst scandal in today’s NYPD concerns its alleged manipulation of crime numbers. They are wrong.

January 24, 2011
Secret Spook About to Vanish
The Police Department’s Assistant Spook in Residence is departing.

January 17, 2011
The FBI's Newfound Voice
For the past 15 years or so, the FBI has allowed itself to be ignored and even maligned in New York City.

January 10, 2011
Ray Kelly: Runnin’ Scared?
Is Ray Kelly’s appointment of three outsiders to investigate alleged police downgrading of crime statistics “the real deal,” as he himself might say?

January 3, 2011
Predictions For 2011
JANUARY. With the December blizzard still crippling what was once called The Greatest City in The World, Mayor Michael Bloomberg summons Police Commissioner Ray Kelly to City Hall to ask why he looked so glum at all those news conferences where the mayor was skewered for failing to clean up the streets.


Email Leonard Levitt at llevitt@nypdconfidential.com