Archive » July – December 2016

Archive

July – December 2016

December 26, 2016
State Police: The Power of Giving
Although no one asked for them, Gov. Andrew Cuomo is sending 150 state troopers to patrol MTA bridges and tunnels, supposedly to help the NYPD fight terrorism.

December 19, 2016
The NYPD: Changes and Challenges
This year has been an eventful one for the NYPD, with changes both in personnel and policy.

December 12, 2016
Staten Island Takeover?
Why is the State Police, whose relatively small 5,041-person force covers the state, patrolling in Staten Island when the city has the NYPD and its 36,000 cops?

December 5, 2016
Pantaleo Politics
If, as seems likely, the pro-law enforcement Trump administration does not pursue federal charges against police officer Michael Pantaleo for the "chokehold" death of Eric Garner in Staten Island, all eyes will turn to the NYPD.

November 28, 2016
Politics and the NYPD: A Bad Mix
The NYPD is being sucked into a war between Mayor de Blasio and Gov. Cuomo — a war in which the department does not belong.

November 21, 2016
An Ill Wind Blowing
An ill-wind is blowing through New York in the wake of Donald Trump’s election as president. Rather than begin a healing process, the city seems more divided than ever.

November 14, 2016
A Tally of Trump Winners and Losers
1. Winner: Rudy Giuliani. As mayor and de facto NYPD commissioner for eight years and more recently a fevered Trump supporter, it was unclear whether his final destination would be Washington or an insane asylum. With talk of him potentially becoming attorney general, the former seems more likely — at least in the short term.

November 7, 2016
The Education of Judge Haight
Whether federal judge Charles Haight recommended significant changes or merely tweaked a recent settlement limiting NYPD spying of Muslims, one thing is clear: Haight doesn’t trust the department.

October 31, 2016
Who's At Fault?
An email from reader Pete Fiorillo, a retired, 30-year NYPD cop [1962-1993], offers some perspective on Sgt. Hugh Barry’s fatal shooting of Deborah Danner, an emotionally disturbed, 66-year-old black woman. Police Commissioner James O’Neill, placed Barry on modified assignment before the department completed its internal investigation, saying Barry had not followed protocol.

October 24, 2016
O’Neill's Peril: Trusting De Blasio
Maybe the New York Post got it wrong a couple of years ago when it famously quoted the mayor’s wife, Chirlane McCray, warning her husband he couldn’t trust then-police Commissioner Bill Bratton. Maybe a more accurate rendition was that Bratton warned his successor Jim O’Neill he couldn’t trust Mayor Bill de Blasio.

October 17, 2016
The Real De Blasio?
Who is the real Mayor Bill de Blasio? Is he the shambling, ever-smiling, well-meaning mayor who hasn’t yet learned to tie his shoelaces so that he stumbles from crisis to crisis? Or is he a shrewd and cynical politician who believes he can bedazzle ignorant New Yorkers with rhetoric?

October 10, 2016
The Good Cop
“Just got off of a very delayed LIRR train,” NYPD Det. Martin Green, a 16-year veteran, assigned to the citywide Traffic Task Force auxiliary unit, posted on his Facebook page when his LIRR train arrived at Penn Station on Sept. 28. “There was a medical emergency in the car ahead of mine. Not a regular medical emergency.”

October 3, 2016
The Harvard Club Defense
Captains Endowment Association president Roy Richter used Manhattan's posh Harvard Club to try to reduce fines by the Conflicts of Interest Board against three NYPD chiefs. The chiefs had accepted free meals, totaling about $600 for each, at high-end steak joints from Thomas Galante, the former head of the Queens Public Library, in violation of the city charter.

September 26, 2016
Chirlane McCray: Too Close for Comfort?
In what appears to be a first for the NYPD, a police commissioner was introduced at his swearing-in ceremony at Police Plaza by the mayor’s wife.

September 19, 2016
The King is Dead. Long Live the King
James O’Neill was sworn in Friday by Mayor Bill de Blasio in the silence of the police commissioner’s office, far from the media and the public. He becomes the city’s 43rd commissioner, and the first in a generation who is not a celebrity.

September 12, 2016
How RFK Jr. Framed Al Hasbrouck
The black man who Robert Kennedy, Jr. falsely accused of killing Martha Moxley in Greenwich, Connecticut, because he “was obsessed” with the teenager’s “beautiful blonde hair” says he never met her and was not in Greenwich the night of her 1975 slaying.

September 5, 2016
Larry Byrne's Eureka Moment
Call it Larry Byrne’s epiphany. Byrne is the NYPD’s deputy commissioner of legal matters. A former federal prosecutor, he’s a smart and slick guy.

August 29, 2016
They Don't Come Any Finer
Like the British monarchy or the New York Yankees, the NYPD can put on a show. So the department did last week at St. Patrick’s Cathedral for the funeral of one of its all-time greats, former First Deputy John Timoney.

August 22, 2016
Framed by Robert Kennedy, Jr.
In his recently published book, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. maintains that his cousin, Michael Skakel, was “framed” for the murder of his 15-year-old neighbor, Martha Moxley, by an incompetent lawyer, a “corrupt” detective and prosecutor, and the media — including this reporter. 

August 15, 2016
Beware a Media Mea Culpa
Readers, take any apology from the media with a grain of salt.

August 8, 2016
Bill Bratton: Gone, Baby, Gone
In the end, Bill Bratton did what he has done in the past. After angling for the job of NYPD commissioner for more than five years (some say longer), he is staying just two and a half years and is gone.

August 1, 2016
Bill Bratton: The Successor Conundrum
What’s Mayor Bill de Blasio going to do about a successor to Bill Bratton, now that the NYPD commissioner has reiterated that he plans not to remain beyond 2017? Police sources say he may leave before then.

July 25, 2016
Sorry About the Meeting
The group of young black activists who chained themselves to lobby turnstiles at the headquarters of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association got a lot of mileage when ten of them were arrested.

July 18, 2016
Police and Black Americans: Can They Ever Get Along?
The seemingly unbridgeable chasm between the police and black Americans widened yesterday with what officials described as an “ambush” shooting that killed three cops and wounded three more in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

July 11, 2016
Black/Police Violence: On and On
Two fatal police shootings last week of black men in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and suburban Minneapolis-St. Paul. A sniper attack that killed five Dallas police officers and wounded another seven by a black Army reservist who said he wanted to kill white people, especially police officers. Other attacks on police in Texas, Georgia, Missouri and Tennessee, reportedly by blacks.

July 4, 2016
The NYPD Corruption Scandal: Leading by Example
How did this happen? How did the NYPD lose its way? How did businessmen Jeremy Reichberg and Jona Rechnitz allegedly entice senior NYPD officials with fancy dinners and expensive trips to perform personal favors? The scandal has led to the indictments, transfers, modifications and and/or retirements of  a dozen police brass — numbers that exceeded even those of the Knapp Commission corruption scandal of the early 1970s.