Archive » July – December 2015

Archive

July – December 2015

December 28, 2015
Bill Bratton's Christmas Stroll: Ray Kelly on His Mind
On the night before Christmas, Bill Bratton took what may have been his last Christmas Eve stroll down Fifth Avenue.

December 21, 2015
Boss Promotion: Bratton's Dilemma
Since Commissioner Bill Bratton has said the primary goal of the NYPD has been to heal its relationship with black New Yorkers, how does he explain the promotion of Officer Kenneth Boss?

December 14, 2015
Some Bratton History, Then and Now
As NYPD commissioner under Mayor Rudy Giuliani two decades ago, Bill Bratton came in like gangbusters. Trying to stem an astronomically high homicide rate — nearly 2,000 killings a year under Mayor David Dinkins — Giuliani and Bratton fought crime 24/7. Echoing Winston Churchill’s wartime cadences, Bratton declared: “We will fight for every house in this city. We will fight for every street. We will fight for every borough.”

December 7, 2015
How Rahm Did In Garry
At a major conference of city police chiefs in San Francisco two years ago, ex-Chicago police Superintendent Garry McCarthy’s phone was constantly ringing. Each time it was his boss, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

November 23, 2015
A Policeman's Lot
“A policeman’s lot is not a happy one,” Gilbert and Sullivan wrote 150 years ago. NYPD’s James Secreto and Diana Pizzuti would probably agree.

November 16, 2015
Paris Terror: Call On Ray Kelly
It wasn’t Bill Bratton who Mayor de Blasio lauded to ease the fears of New Yorkers in the wake of the ISIS attacks in Paris.

November 9, 2015 
Where Is Zach?
Readers, do you know the Gothic novel “Jane Eyre”? Jane, a poor girl, falls in love with her rich master, Edward Rochester, who wants to marry her. But, unbeknownst to Jane, he has hidden his deranged wife in his mansion’s attic so that no one will know she exists.

November 2, 2015
Is the NYPD Pulling Back? Bratton Says No. Others Say Yes.
Is the NYPD pulling back in fighting crime?

October 26, 2015
Blacks and Police: No Winners Here
It seems you can’t win with the police if you are black.

October 19, 2015
The NYPD's Muslim Spying: More Hype Than Substance?
A federal appeals court has reinstated a lawsuit that claims the NYPD’s spying on New Jersey Muslims violated their civil rights. The decision might seem like another nail in the coffin of Ray Kelly’s terrorism-fighting legacy.

October 12, 2015
Richie Hartman's Redemption
Just a sprinkling of police people attended the funeral of Richie Hartman, who single-handedly was responsible for raising the salaries of cops throughout the metropolitan area to among the highest in the nation.

October 5, 2015
Adrian Schoolcraft: He's No Serpico
Police officer Adrian Schoolcraft’s relatively meager $600,000 settlement last week [at least when compared to the $41 million paid to the Central Park Five] leads me to ask: who is this guy?

September 21, 2015
Kelly and Bratton: At It Again
For the past 20 years, Ray Kelly and Bill Bratton have been the brightest stars of American policing. They’ve also been rivals, and despise one another.

September 14, 2015
Ray Kelly's Vigilance: Half-Truths, Misstatements — and Key Omissions
So Ray Kelly has written his memoir.

September 7, 2015
Telling Cops’ Stories
Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s name was not on the printed program for the annual PBA convention, although he and Police Commissioner Bill Bratton were the featured speakers.

August 31, 2015
Promoting Your Problem
Here’s how racial and ethnic sensitivities affect NYPD policies.

August 24, 2015
Mr. Transparency
So City Hall will now review all requests of public records of any city agency that could “reflect directly on the mayor.” That is, Mayor Bill de Blasio will control all Freedom of Information Law queries not just from journalists but also from watchdog groups and the public.

August 17, 2015
The Media and Black Lives
We don’t know the full story in the latest police killing of an unarmed African-American — this one in Arlington, Texas — and the summary firing of the white police trainee who fatally shot him.

August 10, 2015
Hearts Still Aflame at Bernie
It’s not enough that Bernard Bailey Kerik, the city’s 40th police commissioner — who later served as interim minister of interior in Iraq and was nominated to head the Department of Homeland Security — spent four years in federal prison for criminal conspiracy and tax fraud, among other charges.

August 3, 2015
Bill Bratton: It's All in the Spin
They say you can’t turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse. That would seem especially true in the high-voltage world of NYPD ethnic sensitivities.

July 27, 2015
Lame Duck Bill
Saying he won’t be sticking around much past the 2017 election, Police Commissioner Bill Bratton has issued his declaration of independence from Mayor Bill de Blasio.

July 20, 2015
The NYPD's Tricky Ethnic Politics
The transfer of Dep. Insp. Fausto Pichardo to head a Bronx precinct just 10 months after he was assigned to the NYPD’s Public Information office as a liaison to the city’s Hispanic media underscores that ethnic politics can be tricky — no less so than in the nation’s largest police department.

July 13, 2015
The Trouble with Schneiderman
Gov. Cuomo’s appointment of Attorney General Eric Schneiderman as a special prosecutor to examine police-related killings of unarmed civilians is but a short-term political fix. That means trouble ahead.

July 6, 2015
June is Bustin' Out
NYPD commissioners use news conferences at Police Plaza to manipulate the media. Bill Bratton does it better than anyone.