Chicago Police Brass Reclassify Murder Victims To Bring City Murder Rate Down

From The Guardian:

Stung by a 16% spike in killings in 2012 that led Moody’s, the ratings agency, to downgrade the city’s debt due to its "unrelenting public safety demands", Emanuel promised a tough response. Amid spending cuts, the former White House chief of staff to Barack Obama has ploughed tens of millions more taxpayer dollars into policing. Sure enough, in January he proudly announced that 2013 had seen the city’s fewest homicides since 1965 and lowest crime rate since 1972.

Yet a startling 7,000-word investigation earlier this month by Chicago Magazine cast serious doubt over the crime-busting miracle of Emanuel and his superintendent, Garry McCarthy. It identified at least 18 apparent murders in 2013 that had either been quietly redefined as “non-criminal deaths” or shunted off the city’s books by other statistical sleights of hand.

Professor Eli Silverman of the City University of New York, an authority on the CompStat-style data systems used by police in Chicago, New York and other major cities, told the Guardian he had been contacted by several Chicago officers concerned about the determination among chiefs to drive down crime numbers at whatever cost.

“The pressure from the top is unrelenting,” he said one had told him. “The defenders of the system always say ‘You can’t hide a dead body’,” said Silverman. “But you can reclassify one.” City authorities deny any impropriety.

Classic criminal move by Emanuel - put the pressure on from top down, then have the people below put in the statistical fixes to make everything look better.

More later from Chicago Magazine.

NY Times Fails To Hold Klein Accountable Today

The NY Times conducted an "interview" with outgoing NYC schools chancellor Joel Klein.

They threw him softball after softball, never pressed him on the jive he said, and missed an opportunity to REALLY look at the Klein tenure.

To wit, he should have been asked:

1. How can you call your tenure as chancellor a success when you privilege ONLY test scores as a measure of success and student test scores are LOWER as you leave than before you came in and the achievement gap between white and Asian students and black and Hispanic students is LARGER than ever?

2. How can you call your Children First reforms a success when many of the small schools you opened at the beginning of your tenure are being closed at the end of your tenure (and many more will be closed after you are gone)?

3. No independent auditor has looked at the graduation rates you are hawking as proof positive of your success as chancellor. Why won't you open the books and let an independent auditor take a look at just how you increased the graduation rates (credit recovery program, independent study classes, etc.)?

4. You were one of the most divisive people to work in NYC government since the generally reviled Saint Rudy of 9/11. How is it that somebody who can't get along with people and has the socio-emotional skills of a misanthrope got to run a school system that has as its intent not only to educate children but to socialize them to be decent human beings? (It's interesting that some of the most misanthropic and/or maladjusted people in public life - Klein, Rhee, Christie, Gates, Bloomberg - are the vanguard of the "education reform movement.")

Those are the four questions I can think of off the top of my head. I'm sure you out there in the blogosphere can think of some more.

But instead of asking these questions, the Times asked Klien where to get the best pizza in NYC.

A missed opportunity at holding Klein accountable for the mess he leaves in place.

Klein lamented that he wasn't MORE disruptive as chancellor.

That tells you everything you need to know about Klein.

A destructive, evil man with only the aggrandizement of his own ego and the enrichment of himself and his ed deform cronies as his sole concern.

5 Cops Charged With Manipulating Crime Stats

Here we go:

Five cops from a Brooklyn precinct have been hit with departmental charges accusing them of manipulating crime statistics, police sources said Friday.

Deputy Inspector Steven Mauriello, the former commanding officer of the 81st Precinct in Bedford-Stuyvesant, is among those charged.

The Daily News first revealed allegations of number fudging in the precinct in an explosive report in February. Officer Adrian Schoolcraft told NYPD investigators that supervisors in the precinct were badgering or ignoring crime victims. He said they also designated some felonies as misdemeanors.

The systematic cooking of the books was done to make the crime rate appear lower. Mauriello is charged with tampering with grand larceny and stolen vehicle reports. He's also charged with misleading investigators. He couldn't be reached for comment.

...

The four other cops charged include two police officers and two sergeants. One sergeant is accused of failing to verify that two patrol officers filed a robbery complaint. The two patrol officers are charged with not filing the complaint in the first place.

Details on the charges against another sergeant weren't immediately available. That sergeant will be served next week, and all five cops will remain on full duty for the time being.

Schoolcraft has filed a $50 million federal lawsuit against the NYPD, accusing his bosses of suspending him and forcing him into a mental institution against his will because he reported wrongdoing.

"The problem is citywide," his lawyer Jon Norinsberg said. "It's not just the 81st Precinct."

Indeed the problem is citywide and you can be sure just as Bloomberg and his minion Chancellor Klein knew the test scores in NYC public schools were fraudulent, Bloomberg and his minion Commissioner Kelly know the crime stats are fraudulent.

Again I say, what is the mechanism to remove a mayor who has spent nine years manipulating statistics, lying about the manipulation, and running for re-election promoting the fraudulent stats as proof positive of his governing genius?

Frankly, Bloomberg belongs in jail right next to Bernie Madoff.

NY Times Nails Bloomberg/Klein On Their Test Scam

The Times reports that Bloomberg knew the NYC test scores were fraudulent in 2009, even as he was running his re-election campaign on how great the test scores were.

Anybody know what the mechanism is for putting a mayor in jail for fraud?

Because that's where Michael Bloomberg belongs, along with his chancellor, Joel Klein.

Instead the two of these crooks are being hailed as "education miracle workers" and given air time on NBC and print space in the Washington Post to spew more of their education reform jive.

Justice in this world can often be hard to come by, but if there is any at all, these two men will be exposed as the frauds they are, just as George W. Bush - once hailed as a "great leader" after 9/11 - was exposed as an incompetent moron after Katrina.

Bloomberg/NYPD Have Whistleblower Cop Committed

This is one way to keep the story of the phony NYPD crime stats from getting out:

Cop who made tapes accuses NYPD of false arrest
By: COLLEEN LONG AND TOM HAYS The Associated Press

Shouts followed the pounding on the apartment door: "Adrian! Adrian!"

It was Halloween night last year, but the scene outside patrolman Adrian Schoolcraft's home had nothing to do with trick-or-treating. The unannounced visitors were fellow New York Police Department officers from the Emergency Service Unit _ men trained to capture dangerous suspects once they're cornered.

But wasn't this the home of a cop who said he just went home sick?

Hearing the commotion outside, Schoolcraft did what had become second-nature to him: He clicked on a tape recorder, then whispered into it.

"All right. ... ESU is here."

As several armed officers entered the apartment, a ranking NYPD officer found Schoolcraft resting on his bed _ and gave him a scolding.

"Adrian ... you didn't hear us knocking on that door?" Deputy Chief Michael Marino can be heard saying on tape.

"No," Schoolcraft replies, saying he had taken Nyquil.

"For the last couple hours?" Marino asks.

"No ... Why would I expect anyone to knock on my door, chief?" Schoolcraft asks, sounding groggy.

"I don't know, Adrian, but if you hear somebody knocking normally you get up and answer it; they were kicking on that door loud and yelling."

"I wasn't feeling well ...."

As the conversation goes on, Marino tells Schoolcraft he's showing worrisome signs of agitation.

"Chief...," he replies, "if you were woken up in your house how would you behave? What is this, Russia?"

Schoolcraft's account of the messy episode that unfolded next bumps against the NYPD's carefully crafted image as a fine-tuned crime fighting machine.

His description of being taken in handcuffs to a psychiatric ward that night suggests the nation's largest police force could have a vindictive underbelly. He claims that cops risk retribution when they try, as he did, to blow the whistle on supervisors' faking of crime statistics to make the stats look better.

To back up his allegations, Schoolcraft made hundreds of hours of secret tapes while on duty _ everything from roll calls to locker room chatter to bosses yelling at him. The tapes, along with medical records and other documents, were supplied to The Associated Press.

Police officials say Schoolcraft's allegations about ticket quotas and fudged stats were taken seriously, but he was uncooperative in an investigation of them. They also view his case as an isolated incident, not a brewing corruption scandal.

Legitimate whistleblower or not, Schoolcraft would pay dearly following the Halloween encounter. After what he describes as a frightening, involuntary hospital stay, he was suspended from the force. He's gone into self-exile in upstate New York while his lawyer pursues a $50 million civil rights lawsuit against the city.

Schoolcraft has of late been on a crusade, doing multiple interviews and starting a website, www.schoolcraftjustice.com, to promote his cause and encourage other officers to report misconduct. His story was first reported in the New York Daily News, after which the Village Voice published a series of articles.

Parts of his story _ like the deputy chief's foul-mouthed order to have him hauled out of his home _ might sound sketchy. But there's one thing: It's all on tape.

"Just take him," Marino can be heard demanding. "I can't f------ stand him anymore."

___

Eight years ago, when Schoolcraft joined the NYPD, it was enjoying a decade-long decline in serious crime that made it the envy of departments across the country. Murders, rapes, robberies, assaults, burglaries, larcenies and auto thefts together had fallen more than 60 percent since 1993, a trend that continues today.

Part of the formula for success has been CompStat _ a program to squash spikes in crimes, petty and otherwise, before they get out of control. Patterns are tracked by computer. Patrols are deployed based on where and when criminals are most active. Precinct commanders are judged mercilessly on the results at CompStat meetings at police headquarters.

Critics say the strict accountability has created the temptation to record felonies as misdemeanors _ or sometimes not to record them at all. In recent years, a handful of commanders have been demoted or transferred amid allegations of cooking the books.

"The years of crime going down has put incredible pressure on everyone in the NYPD," said criminologist Eli Silverman. "The police department is fighting its own success."

The NYPD stands by its numbers, saying the instances of manipulating stats are minute in a city where more than 2,000 serious crimes are reported each week. A special unit regularly audits the figures to protect accuracy.

But officers insist the fudging exists. Silverman and a fellow researcher at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, John Eterno, recently published a study based on 491 surveys of former NYPD captains that said they felt pressure to downgrade crimes, put off reports, anything to keep the stats down.

Silverman believes CompStat is a good idea turned on its head.

"You need accountability, and you need timely intelligence," he said. "But now it's become all about the numbers. You just have to produce. Numbers are the bottom line _ where it should be good policing."

Another way numbers come into play: The NYPD allows commanders to set "production goals" for ticket writing and arrests for underperforming officers.

Union officials say the goals really are arbitrary quotas, and have accused the department of violating rules barring punishment of cops who don't meet them. Police officials deny that, saying tickets are written only when there's a need for it.

Schoolcraft supporters say that's where more recent recordings _ made by another commander in his Brooklyn precinct since his story broke _ come in.

One captures a captain setting specific totals for tickets citing double-parking, driving without a seat belt and parking in bus stops. "You, as bosses, have to demand this and have to count it. ... I really don't have a problem firing people."

Another ranking officer shares his concern about the consequences of not making the numbers.

"Everybody took a shot at me at CompStat, like a pinata last time, so I'm expecting that again."

The same commander warns about wire-wearing officers like Schoolcraft. He also gives them a specific label.

"Rats."

___

Schoolcraft isn't from New York. He doesn't talk like a cop, in a thick city accent. He's bulky and imposing, but has a soft handshake. His hair, once closely cropped, is now growing out. Since his suspension nearly a year ago, he hasn't had a job. He receives no pay from the NYPD because he does not report for work. He works on his case every day.

The 35-year-old was born in Killeen, Texas, and joined the Navy at 17. After four years on the USS Blue Ridge, he was honorably discharged and moved to Austin. He was working there at Motorola when his mom got sick _ and to be closer to her he moved to upstate New York, where she and his father had settled.

After Sept. 11, like so many others, he thought about joining the department. He had a history: his dad was a cop, and his ill mother had encouraged it. The NYPD was holding the entrance exam at a nearby college. Schoolcraft passed easily, and they asked him to be in the city two weeks later. It was 2002.

Fourteen months after joining, he started working in the 81st Precinct, where he stayed until he was suspended. The Eight-One, as it's known, is a small Brooklyn precinct but it encompasses the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, which has among the highest crime rates in the city.

Schoolcraft fared well as a patrol officer. From the tapes it's clear he was polite and he worked the beat. He received the meritorious police duty medal for his outstanding performance in 2006. In 2008, he was given an award for his dedication to the department and the city.

He started carrying the tape recorder in 2008, he says, initially to protect himself against false complaints by the public.

"I worked in a black community, you can think of the word I was accused of using," said Schoolcraft, who is white, in a recent interview.

Soon, he said, he started recording roll calls at the beginning of every shift at the precinct _ in case he ever needed to protect himself from his own department.

He claims a pattern of misconduct was emerging: Officers were being asked to sign a training log even though they had received no training. They were being told, he said, to hand out more summonses and to make more arrests. He says he saw others downgrading crimes on purpose to make the precinct's numbers appear better. Those who didn't, he says, were threatened by superiors with transfers and undesirable schedules.

Schoolcraft felt the unwritten practice was wrong, and he didn't fall in line. That was a problem.

He received a substandard review _ he says for not meeting quotas. On paper, his commanding officers said he was "unwilling to change his approach to meeting the performance standards of a New York City Police Officer."

Schoolcraft rated poorly, despite being "retrained, counseled and given direction on numerous occasions by various supervisors," the review said.

Schoolcraft appealed the review. And started taping more.

"Through that appeal I always felt that I would bring out the quota and that would help relieve some of the pressure on other officers," said Schoolcraft, who also wrote a letter to the NYPD's top brass, hoping to alert them to misguided management.

His efforts came to little.

The pressure went on, he said, and he started feeling pains in his chest. He took his claims to internal affairs, then to the quality assurance division. But he says he felt nervous, anxious.

Finally, he spoke to a departmental therapist, confessing all his concerns about the alleged stat fixing and about his declining health. The therapist's report had a result he didn't expect: He was stripped of his gun and badge and put on desk duty.

About that time, he says, other officers turned on him, mocking him and putting nasty signs on his locker. His superiors heard about his trip to internal affairs and started to bully him more, he says.

On Oct. 31, 2009, he says he got into an argument with his lieutenant, and he left that day in part to defuse the situation. He said he got permission to do so.

If the commanders had a beef, he says, they could have followed procedure by sending him notification by mail that he was suspended.

"But they overreacted," he said. "What's the term? They killed a butterfly with a bazooka."

___

The NYPD and Schoolcraft agree that he walked off the job on that Halloween afternoon.

How and why are open to interpretation, just like the scene it caused.

The department says he wasn't authorized to leave, and that an AWOL cop always must be accounted for. His supervisors also were aware that he'd seen a therapist, and that his guns had been taken away. Making sure he was safe was urgent, the department says.

Hours went by. Tensions mounted. Schoolcraft didn't answer his door.

When ESU finally used the landlord's key to enter his home, several officers stormed in, accompanied by Marino, the deputy chief.

On a tape he labeled "Home Invasion," Schoolcraft sounds measured as he complains about stomach pains and declines demands to go back to the precinct and then to a hospital.

At one point, Schoolcraft agrees to go to the hospital when paramedics called to the scene find his blood pressure is high. He steps outside, but then comes back. The chief and his crew follow.

On the recording he says, "I can lie down in my own bed ... I have done nothing wrong."

The more Schoolcraft resists, the more Marino grows irritated. The chief warns the officer that he could be labeled an "EDP" _ an emotionally disturbed person _ and hospitalized by force.

"Son, they're going to treat you as an EDP, that means handcuffs. And I don't want to see that happen to a cop. ... I can't play this game, Adrian."

"I'm laying here, chief."

"Adrian, get up."

"I don't feel good."

Finally, Marino gives the order for the officers to put Schoolcraft in an ambulance.

"He's EDP. In cuffs."

Schoolcraft claims he was assaulted as officers followed Marino's orders. During the scuffle a recorder he's wearing falls out and is confiscated.

The deputy chief expresses disgust.

"So he's playing a game here. ... When I came on the job, a cop would never dream of doing that to another cop."

What he doesn't realize is that the fallen recorder is turned off. A separate machine on a shelf, the one Schoolcraft activated when the police arrived, is picking up everything.

___

The sign over the nurse's station at the Jamaica Hospital Center psych emergency room read "We're here to help."

Schoolcraft was handcuffed to a gurney in the hall of the hospital, which is nowhere near his apartment. He'd futilely asked be taken to a closer hospital.

In a recent interview, Schoolcraft related the details calmly, almost detached: It was sweltering in the ER, patients yelled, officers from his own 81st Precinct monitored him, even though common practice is to assign officers to hospital duty from the local precinct, in this case the 103rd.

"I was well aware that I needed to keep my cool, and I think I did pretty good," he said. Noting the officers' weapons, he says, "I knew it was important to stay calm."

A doctor observed in a medical report: "His memory and concentration is intact. He is alert and oriented." But the report added: "His insight and judgment is impaired."

According to the same report, the patient "says this is happening because he has been reporting to his superiors and commissioners about internal affairs of police department. Says he knows his supervisors are hiding robbery and assault cases."

His superiors told doctors he barricaded himself inside his apartment and they had to force their way in. And once they pulled him out, Schoolcraft ran from them once he was outside and had to be chased down before he was brought to the ER. That version of events is fabricated, says Schoolcraft's attorney, Jon Norinsberg.

Doctors advised continued observation for "unpredictable behavior and escape risk."

Schoolcraft spent the next several days confined to Pysch Unit 3.

He said he kept to himself, ate bad hospital food. He spoke briefly to a social worker, but little else happened. His father, who had to call several hospitals before locating his son, eventually collected him.

Schoolcraft says his dad had to fight with the hospital administration to release him. He finally was evaluated and diagnosed in discharge papers with job-related "adjustment disorder with anxious mood."

The hospital was also named as a defendant in Schoolcraft's lawsuit; it declined comment.

Glad to be free, Schoolcraft never went back to the NYPD.

"I've never been restrained like that. I'd never been arrested," he says. "It was awful."

___

Life goes on at the Eight-One.

Cops are grappling with a 10 percent spike in serious crime there this year. The precinct has a new second-in-command. The previous one, accused by Schoolcraft of cheating on stats, was transferred to a lower-profile job. Police officials say the move was made "for the good of the department."

Deputy Chief Marino has his own problems, unrelated to Schoolcraft: Last month, an administrative judge recommended that he receive a 30-day suspension and one-year probation after he was caught up in a 2007 steroid investigation of a Brooklyn pharmacy.

Marino has denied any wrongdoing, saying he received legitimate medical treatment.

"We're awaiting a decision," said his attorney, Michael Shapiro, who declined further comment on the steroid case and on Schoolcraft.

What ultimate impact the Schoolcraft case will have on the NYPD is unclear.

The Halloween episode "is still being looked at, but there's been no disciplinary action so far involving any of the parties involved," said Paul Browne, the NYPD's top spokesman.

Schoolcraft himself remains in limbo.

"This has been incredibly difficult for Adrian," Norinsberg said. "He's trying to go on, he's doing his best, but the fact of the matter is Adrian is an absolute whistleblower and they were going to shut him up but good."

Perhaps the attitudes on both sides were best captured on the "Home Invasion" tape, in a final exchange between a fed-up deputy chief and a defiant officer.

"I don't know what your agenda is or why you're doing this. There's no need for this," Marino says.

"You're too good for me, boss," Schoolcraft replies.

"As good as you deserve, son."

Welcome to the New Neo-Liberal World of Bloomberg, Bush and Obama.

Produce the stats the bosses want or you're done for.

Even if you have to fake the stats.

Just produce.

Years after Bloomberg is out of here, independent analysis will show what a lying thug he was as mayor.

Analysis will also show what horseshit the "Bloomberg Miracles" in education, crime, and fire fatalities have been.

Hell, the "Bloomberg/Klein Education Miracle" has already been exposed as a sham.

Pity that the shills at the Times, the Post, the News and the other major media outlets don't seem to care about any of this.

But Bloomberg better watch out - third mayoral terms are funky and if there are actually any independent journalists not on the Bloomberg payroll, they just might expose the sleaze and corruption at the core of both Bloomberg the Man and Bloomberg the City.

Crime Stats: An Anecdotal View Of How The NYPD Manipulates And Distorts Them

UPDATE: Now that someone has used a credit card from my girlfriend's "lost" wallet, the incident has been re-termed "grand larceny."

Nonetheless, my point about the re-categorization of crimes from the post below still stands.

Last night, the two cops who reported to the 911 call were less than eager to take down a report.

Eventually they did, calling the item "lost" and grumpily filling out a report.

Today when my girlfriend found that there had been some fraudulent activity on a credit card that had been in the wallet, she went to the precinct and found that the report filed by the two cops last night was full of errors and hadn't been signed.

The police didn't seem all that serious about filing that report.

Today after a credit card company was involved, the police at the precinct were more serious about filing a report.

Funny how that works - missing your wallet and cash, the cops shrug; have somebody use your credit card without authorization, suddenly they're interested.

ORIGINAL POST:


Earlier this year, two college professors released a study that accused Mayor Bloomberg and the NYPD of understating crime statistics in New York City:

New York, NY - Two academics at an FBI-sponsored conference Friday will accuse the NYPD of cooking the books to make the city appear safer.

The claims are contained in a survey of more than 309 police officers - most of whom have served as precinct commanders since the department started using the CompStat program in the mid-‘90s.

More than half of the respondents admitted to fudging numbers, according to the study by John Eterno of Molloy College and Eli Silverman of John Jay College.

The pair of criminologists will also release recordings they obtained from several roll calls that they say capture supervisors telling officers not to take reports of robberies unless the victim is willing to go to the stationhouse.

The recordings also capture officers being told not to take reports if they think the district attorney will not prosecute.

“It’s putting people in an unreasonable position,” said Silverman, adding that there is growing pressure from top brass to keep the numbers down. “The public needs to understand that crime can fluctuate.”

Silverman said the city needs to change how it views CompStat, a program that maps crime so that police can zero in on problem areas.

“It needs to be less number-driven,” Silverman said. “You can’t just measure [cities] by their crime rate.”

Police did not immediately comment.

Silverman and Eterno, a retired NYPD captain, will present their findings at the Crime Data Conference at John Jay’s West Side campus on 10th Ave.

Mayor Bloomberg himself scoffed at the notion that he has the NYPD fudge stats, saying

Bloomberg told Gambling (thanks to Adam Lisberg for listening and transcribing) that there's certainly pressure to fight crime, but "No. You know, it's, in this day and age, I love this, gonna cook the books. With the press talking all the time, with everybody having Twitter and Facebook and everything, do you really think you could keep anything private anymore? C'mon."

Gambling: "Doesn't seem to be."

Bloomberg: "You got it. So, you know, I, everybody, will they look on the favorable side? You know, you ask me, did we do a good job? Yeah, we did a good job on X. I could say we did a so-so job, but everybody's going to be favorable in their jobs. But no. There isn't any room. Even if you wanted to cook the books, it would be really hard. If you cook the books it isn't going to stay private for very long. Somebody's going to find out about it. And then you're gonna, the management, Kelly on down, is going to come down on you like a brick. And so -- and are there some bad people? There's always somebody who pushes and pushes too much deliberately or accidentally, or gets caught into a scandal and it gets worse and worse and worse. But no. But is there pressure on the individual police officer or sergeant, lieutenant, captain, inspector, chief, to bring crime down? Enormous, and it's going to be more.

"We are not going to tolerate crime. Period. Now, you know, the real world is you're never going to get it down to zero, and this year it's a touch worse than it was last year, but keep in mind you're at a nine-year low, or a record low even, last year. And we're going to keep the pressure on. Anything, anybody that thinks that the police have an easy job is not realistic. Anybody that thinks that they aren't trying isn't realistic either. And, and if anybody that thinks they're not succeeding, only in a relative sense compared to last year. It's a touch worse. But they're not cooking the books."

Last night, my girlfriend and I were walking from 45th and 6th Avenue to the PATH station at 32nd and 6th.

There were a LOT of people on 34th and we were jostled a bit as we crossed 34th Street.

When my girlfriend got to the train station, she discovered her wallet gone.

When the police came to take a report of the incident, they termed it a "lost item."

Even after explaining that there was little way that the wallet could have been lost, that it had to have been taken by somebody slipping his/her hand into my girlfriend's bag while she was walking (it has a clip on the top, but it doesn't close all the way), the police said "No, we cannot determine that it was stolen, only that it is lost. Unless you saw or felt a person take it, the wallet is considered 'lost.'"

This morning at 3:42 AM, somebody tried to buy a meal at McDonald's using a credit card from that "lost" wallet.

Yet the wallet stolen during last night's incident is still termed a "lost item" - just one more crime in this city that was classified as something other than a crime.

Those of us in the NYCDOE know all about the fudging of test scores, graduation rates and other numbers that Bloomberg and Klein use to "prove" their education reforms are working.

I have long said that I bet the same fudging of stats done in the DOE (I dubbed it "Klein-metic") is being done with all kinds of other important stats - like crime statistics, fire fatality statistics, etc.)

I know that this story I have just told here is "anecdotal" and therefore not "proof" of the jive-ass manipulation Bloomberg is pulling off in this city to make himself look like the most brilliant leader since General Eisenhower, but I do believe it is a fairly good indication of just that.

POSTSCRIPT: I know long-time NYers will say "Well, that's what happens when you go around with a bag that doesn't zip. You are just asking to get pickpocketed."

She HAD a bag with a zipper that closed all the way, and also a backpack with a little safety place inside for valuables that she often used for her wallet.

But after a bed bug infestation at her workplace, she tossed those and was using the one she had last night temporarily until she could buy another one with a zipper.

So I guess you could say this summer's bed bug infestation of New York City led indirectly (or not so indirectly) to her being pickpocketed.

Two New York stories in one - crime and bed bugs.

Yikes - why the hell do we still live in this "massive, trash-ridden hellhole that slowly sucks the life out of every one of its inhabitants"?

Klein-metic

Mayor Bloomberg says New York City has the lowest murder rate since the Dutch owned the place and it was called New Amsterdam.

Dunno if I believe him.

True, crime rates are down all over the country, but here in New York City we have that special accounting method known as Klein-metic in which only good stats are counted and bad ones are either ignored or suppressed.

Thus New York City has the most edumacated kids in the country even though many can only pass the dumbed-down, in-house graded state tests but not the more rigorous federal tests and graduation rates have been massaged by a credit recovery program that offers failing students a semester credit for reading a Spiderman comic book.

Just as schools are forced to show improved test scores and graduation rates every year or be closed down and replaced by charters, police precincts have to show improved crime stats every year or the city fires the existing brass at the precinct and brings in new brass.

Given the ease with which schools use Klein-metic to massage stats, I just have to wonder if police precinct captains aren't doing the same thing.

You know, like declaring a guy with four bullet holes in his back an "accident victim" ("We think he accidentally shot himself in the back four times...") or just miscounting the number of dead bodies at the end of every week to keep the math nice and neat (i.e., at zero.)

Call me cynical or paranoid, but anything that emanates out of Moneybags' mouth or the commissioners who work for him generally turns out to be self-serving, misleading or an outright lie, and I have trouble with this lowest crime rate since Peter Stuyvesant thing too.