Archive » January – June 2016

Archive

January 2016 – Present

June 27, 2016
The Feds' Cooperating Witness
The feds say NYPD Deputy Chief Mike Harrington was a cop “on call” to Jona Rechnitz and Jeremy Reichberg, the two Orthodox Jewish hustlers at the heart of the NYPD corruption scandal.

June 21, 2016
The NYPD: How Bad is Bad?
Stop and Frisk. Over-the-top spying on Muslims. The still unresolved deaths of Eric Garner and Akai Gurley. Add to that the arrest of two high-ranking NYPD officers on bribery charges and we have the lurid details of a widening corruption scandal.

June 20, 2016
The NYPD: You've Come a Long Way, Baby
The NYPD is hardly an avatar of social change.

June 13, 2016
Unidentified “NYPD Officer” in Seabrook Complaint is Chief Phil Banks
Former NYPD Chief of Department Phil Banks is a behind-the-scenes presence in the corruption scandal involving former correction union boss Norman Seabrook; allegedly crooked Harlem restauranteur Hamlet Peralta; and Orthodox Jewish businessmen Jona Rechnitz and Jeremy Reichberg.

June 6, 2016
The NYPD's Titanic Problem
Like the famed ocean liner, the greatest police department in the history of the world — as it likes to portray itself — seems headed toward an iceberg while the skipper, Mayor Bill de Blasio, seems oblivious to the dangers ahead. Perhaps the mayor is unaware that two-thirds of an iceberg resides beneath the surface.

May 30, 2016
Bill Bratton's Mystery Woman
Who is Beth Correia?

May 23, 2016
Has Bill Bratton Lost His Mojo?
It has become increasingly apparent at Police Plaza that Bill Bratton is not the man who served as police commissioner under Rudy Giuliani two decades ago.

May 16, 2016
The Hasidic Scandal's First Suicide
Last week’s suicide of an NYPD inspector has added a new and heartbreaking dimension to the burgeoning police scandal that appears to focus on two Orthodox Jewish businessmen linked to Mayor Bill de Blasio.

May 9, 2016
Police Foundation: Is It Time to Shut It Down?
Has the Police Foundation outlived its usefulness?

May 2, 2016
The NYPD's Schnorring Commissioners
Guess which top NYPD official has joined the Harvard Club?  None other than Commissioner Bill Bratton.

April 25, 2016
The NYPD Scandal: What Did Bratton Know? And When Did He Know It?
Is Police Commissioner Bill Bratton leveling with the public over the corruption scandal engulfing the NYPD?

April 18, 2016
Lone-Wolf Terrorist or Very Sad Case?
Ahmed Ferhani, a so-called “lone-wolf” terrorist serving a 10-year sentence at the maximum security Attica Correction Facility upstate, tried to hang himself two weeks ago and is now in a coma in a Buffalo hospital.

April 11, 2016
Banking on Banks
Not since the darkest days of the Knapp corruption scandal in the early 1970s, when reform Police Commissioner Patrick V. Murphy fired his entire executive staff, has the department experienced such a week as last week.

April 4, 2016
Ted Cruz's Lying Eyes
It’s hard to find a more dishonest piece of rhetoric than Ted Cruz’s praise of the NYPD’s discredited, if not miscredited, Demographics Unit.

March 28, 2016
Behind Ken Thompson's No-Jail-Time Recommendation
Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson will never admit it, but his recommendation that Peter Liang serve no jail time for killing an unarmed black man seems a tacit acknowledgement that his office may have misled the jury into convicting the ex-cop.

March 21, 2016
A Policeman’s Lot
A policeman’s lot is not a happy one, Gilbert and Sullivan wrote more than a century ago.

March 14, 2016
No Haste for Haste
The NYPD made a tentative offer to police officer Richard Haste — who fatally shot unarmed, 18-year-old Ramarley Graham in the Bronx in 2012 — that would have allowed him to keep his job. But the department pulled back the offer the same day after checking “upstairs,” police sources told NYPD Confidential.

March 7, 2016
The Emery Brouhaha
Something bizarre happened a few weeks ago, when a veteran police and court reporter examined a court filing involving Stefon Luckey.

February 29, 2016
Promoting African-American Officers: It's Not Always So Easy
Everyone acknowledges the NYPD needs more African-American officers — especially at the top, Their numbers have not significantly increased in the past 30 years.

February 22, 2016
Peter Liang: Asian-American Scapegoat?
The manslaughter conviction of Peter Liang is awakening the nation’s normally quiescent Asian-American communities, where many are viewing the guilty verdict against the former NYPD officer through the prism of race.

Sunday, February 14, 2016
Peter Liang: Guilty Verdict — But Maybe Not Guilty
Ex-cop Peter Liang was guilty of criminal negligent homicide in the fatal shooting of Akai Gurley in the stairwell of a high-crime Brooklyn housing project. But to this reporter, he did not seem guilty of the more serious crime of manslaughter, of which he was convicted by a Brooklyn jury.

February 8, 2016
The New De Blasio?
It was the monthly news conference at Police Plaza, with the mayor, police commissioner and his top staff, announcing yet another low in crime statistics.

February 1, 2016
Howard Safir: Still No Respect
Somewhere around 1999, Bill Bratton described his NYPD successor, Howard Safir, as “The Rodney Dangerfield of law enforcement.”

January 25, 2016
Bloomberg for President: 2008 Redux?
So Michael Bloomberg wants to run for president. Again.

January 18, 2016
Peter Liang Trial: Color-Blind Justice?
When rookie NYPD Officer Peter Liang goes on trial on manslaughter charges Tuesday, many will ask whether he is a killer or a victim of a racially cockeyed New York City.

January 11, 2016
The Devil in the Detail — Part I and Part II
Top police officials have pointed to a chief who headed Ray Kelly’s security detail as the source of Kelly’s comments that NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton deliberately distorted shooting statistics to make the city appear safer that it actually is.

January 4, 2016
Clash of the Titans
Former police commissioner Ray Kelly has, without any substantiation, accused his successor Bill Bratton of massaging crime statistics to make the city appear safer than it is. And at 1 Police Plaza, officials don’t lack reasons for Kelly’s claim: