Archive » January–June 2018

Archive

January–June 2018

June 25, 2018
The NYPD: Get Real on Transparency
You don't need a panel of retired feds, no matter how distinguished, to tell people what's wrong with the NYPD's disciplinary system. Even a layman like me who never went to law school can explain it in one word.

June 18, 2018
Attacking the Agents, Protecting the Bureau
Even if you hate Donald Trump; even if you believe former FBI Director James Comey acted honorably, albeit mistakenly, in investigating Hillary Clinton’s emails; even if you believe that politics was not part of the FBI’S investigations of Trump and Clinton, the report by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz will cause enormous and lasting harm to the bureau.

June 11, 2018
Diversity and Divisiveness
Add to the rancor, confusion and misunderstanding about increasing the number of underrepresented blacks and Hispanics in the city’s elite high schools, the remark of schools chancellor Richard A. Carranza: “I just don’t buy into the narrative that any one ethnic group owns admissions to these schools.”

June 4, 2018 
No Sense of Urgency
Ever since NYC’s annual murder rate fell below 1,000 in the days of Rudy Giuliani and Bill Bratton 1, the NYPD has talked about “locking in” the numbers. Yet, with slight anomalous variations, the number of murders has dropped over the past 25 years, ending 2017 under 300. That’s the lowest number since 1959.

May 28, 2018
The Summit Spoof
Desperate to resurrect his summit with Kim Jung Un [and his dreams of a Nobel Peace Prize], President Donald Trump has made Kim a secret offer: an all-expense paid visit to Mar-a-Lago, which includes three golf lessons from Tiger Woods.

May 21, 2018   
The Politics of Parole
We all know why Gov. Andrew Cuomo changed the rules for parole, making the inmate’s institutional record, such as education and remorse, more important than the crime itself, no matter how horrible. He has been tacking left to burnish his “progressive” credentials as he seeks a third term in November, to say nothing about a possible run for president in 2020.

May 14, 2018 
Wherefore Rudy?
What to make of Rudy Giuliani’s fumbling, stumbling and bumbling as he contradicted President Donald Trump about payments to porn star Stormy Daniels; his “storm troopers” comment about FBI agents who raided the offices of Trump’s fixer/lawyer Michael Cohen; and his seeming justification of hush-money payments that led the law firm he worked for to drop him as partner?

May 7, 2018
She Snared Shawn
Gabi Grecko, the prostitute at the heart of the ongoing NYPD corruption scandal, has ensnared another victim. This time it’s not a cop.

April 30, 2018
Bratton's Recommendation Is Out
Looks like Judy Pal is out. She was the assistant commissioner hired just a few months ago, on the recommendation of former commissioner Bill Bratton. Her job was to plug the mayor’s signature policy of neighborhood policing.

April 23, 2018
Pantaleo and the Feds: Enough Already!
“Justice Dept. Is Seen as Divided on Rights Case in Garner Killing,” headlined The New York Times in a Page 1 story over the weekend. This is news?

April 16, 2018
Why So Quiet About Andy, Pat?
Poor Pat Lynch. Ever since the New York State Parole Board granted the release of Herman Bell, the Black Liberation Army member who killed NYPD cops Waverly Jones and Joseph Piagentini in 1971, the PBA president has performed handsprings and cartwheels to stop Bell’s release.

April 9, 2018
What To Believe?
If you believed the rants on the internet and in the media, many by black writers, about the fatal police shooting of Saheed Vassell in Brooklyn last week, you might well hate the NYPD.

April 2, 2018
Beyond Redemption
In a last-gasp attempt, the PBA is calling on the State Parole Board chairwoman to delay the scheduled April 17th release of cop-killer Herman Bell, citing the board’s failure “to obtain and consider” the sentencing minutes in his trial.

March 26, 2018
The Mayor's Cop?
When Jim O’Neill became police commissioner in 2016, he was known as a “cop’s cop.” With his recent appointment of Phillip Walzak as the NYPD’s Deputy Commissioner of Public Information, he seems more like the mayor’s cop.

March 19, 2018
The Amazing Ms. McCray
With the emergence of first lady Chirlane McCray as a potential political candidate, people are beginning to speculate about the influence she may exert — and has already exerted — at City Hall.

March 12, 2018
Harrington: Collateral Damage [Con't]
The federal corruption case against former deputy chief Michael Harrington smelled from the start. And the failure of his union, the Captains Endowment Association, to support him has left him broke and bitter.

March 5, 2018
Community Policing's Backstage Battle
A behind-the-scenes battle is roiling the upper ranks of the NYPD over neighborhood policing, a signature policy of Mayor Bill de Blasio and Commissioner James O’Neill.

February 26, 2018
She's Got Guts
Say this about Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark: She’s got guts.

February 19, 2018
Crazy Eddie: Not So Crazy
Some in the police department refer to him as “Crazy Eddie” but what Sergeants Benevolent Association President Ed Mullins said after a state judge acquitted Sgt. Hugh Barry of murder charges last week is 100 percent accurate: “What I saw was the police commissioner play politics. I saw a mayor play politics and a district attorney play politics.”

February 12, 2018
Let's Go to the Videotape
Is it a war of words, or is a real war simmering between the NYPD and the City Council?

February 5, 2018
Fatal Police Shootings — Justice or Politics?
Even if Sgt. Hugh Barry is acquitted of murder charges for fatally shooting Deborah Danner, an emotionally disturbed black woman, a tough road lies ahead for him. He’ll likely face a departmental trial that could force him out of the department.

January 29, 2018
Politics or Justice?
NYPD Sgt. Hugh Barry’s murder trial begins Tuesday, guaranteed to reopen the city’s long-festering racial wounds.

January 22, 2018
The Mayor's NYPD Hype
If there’s a lesson from Mayor Bill de Blasio’s remarks at last week’s police promotions, it is that only a fool would accept at face value what a politician says about the NYPD.

January 15, 2018
No Outrage Over Sanabria  
Next time you hear Mayor Bill de Blasio or NYPD Commissioner Jim O’Neill babbling about neighborhood policing, or that there were fewer than 300 homicides in NYC last year, someone might remind them of poor Mario Sanabria.

January 8, 2017
Too Much Irish?
Who or what is holding up Chief Terry Monahan’s promotion to Chief of Department?

January 1, 2018
The Mysteries of Crime
You’re going to hear a lot about crime this week as the mayor preens and revels in the city’s year-end statistics: how crimes in each of the major felony categories — murder, manslaughter, rape assault, robbery burglary, larceny — have fallen to record lows, lower even than last year’s record low.