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.

De Blasio's NYCDOE - Probably Not Going To Be Too Much Different Than Bloomberg's

In picking William Bratton to replace Ray Kelly as NYPD commissioner, Mayor-Elect De Blasio has shown that while he is looking to make a break from some of the Bloomberg NYPD policies of the past, he is not looking to make a "clean" break:

Michael Bloomberg's police commissioner, Ray Kelly, waited 63 days before sending police officers in riot gear to clear Occupy Wall Street protesters from Zuccotti Park back in 2011.

Bill Bratton, according to a former New York City official who talked to him afterward, said that if he were commissioner he would have "cleared them out right away."

(A spokesperson for Bill de Blasio, who yesterday announced that Bratton would be the new commissioner, did not confirm or deny the quote.)

Bratton, who was NYPD commissioner under Rudy Giuliani, has now been given a mandate to implement the more community-friendly police strategies that de Blasio promised during his spectacularly successful mayoral campaign. And he was presented by de Blasio on Thursday as a kindred spirit on policing theory.

But de Blasio supporters looking for the clean break from the Bloomberg administration the mayor-elect promised in the campaign, during which he also pledged to “end the stop-and-frisk era” in New York, may find Bratton's substantive views about police work to be remarkably similar to the current administration's.

...

Bratton's record in achieving low crime rates, like Kelly's, is well known. And in a series of speeches earlier this year which largely went unnoticed, he staked out unflinching support for the kind of aggressive, proactive policing he first used when he served as Rudy Giuliani’s first police commissioner from 1994-1996, and when he was the Los Angeles Police Commissioner from 2002 to 2009.

In June, at an event hosted by the Manhattan Institute, Bratton called stop-question-and-frisk “the most basic, fundamental and necessary tool of American policing. We cannot function effectively without it.”

Bratton has suggested that the department has gotten into trouble with its stop-and-frisk program because it's gotten "too small." The smaller NYPD can't assign cops to permanent beats where they could develop relationships with local residents and collaboratively work to reduce crime, Bratton said.

Instead, the NYPD flooded high-crime areas with rookie cops, who probably didn’t have proper supervision, leading to “huge numbers of stop-and-frisk” incidents. In Bratton’s view, the stop-and-frisk controversy “was created by a political decision to cut the size of the police force to try and meet budgetary needs with the justification that crime was down so dramatically.”

Make no mistake, Bratton will run the NYPD differently than Kelly did (as this Times article pointed out here), and putting an end to arrest, ticket and stop-and-frisk quotas would be an important step toward making this city less of a police state.

But de Blasio's pick of Bratton is a conservative one and shows for all his campaign rhetoric of breaking with Bloomberg's policies, he is looking to do more tweaking than breaking.

Given the Bratton pick for the NYPD, I wouldn't be surprised to see de Blasio pick former Baltimore schools chief Andres Alonso for the DOE.

Just as Bratton is more of a change in tone and style than a change in policy from Kelly, Alonso is a testing-friendly, corporate-style education reformer with solid deformer credentials who nonetheless has a reputation for reaching out to all stakeholders and working respectfully with the teachers union.

Picking Alonso for chancellor would allow de Blasio to reassure the moneyed classes that the Bloomberg-style reforms they support aren't going away, they'll just be toned down, implemented with a little more subtlety.

One of the other rumored picks, Joshua Starr, might also fit that "tweak it without breaking it" bill.

Starr did call for a three year moratorium on high stakes testing accountability for schools and teachers, but not because he believes a test-based accountability system is bad for children.

Rather, he wants to give schools, administrators, teachers and children time to adjust to the CCSS and other changes wrought over the past few years before attaching high stakes to the "assessments."

He wrote:

A moratorium from state standardized tests tied to NCLB is necessary to allow school districts the opportunity to organize their systems to what we’re being asked to do now and in the future: prepare adults to engage students in much deeper learning so they will be equipped not just with the academic skills but with the problem-solving skills necessary to be globally competitive. We have to organize our systems to achieve this goal, which is incredibly difficult when we’re still being measured by an outdated model. In the interim, we can continue to measure ourselves by standard indicators of college and career readiness, such as SAT, Advanced Placement, and ACT tests and graduation rates. We could also use a nationally accepted criterion-based reading test to determine our current status, but not for high-stakes accountability purposes.

Once the CCSS is fully implemented and the new assessments aligned to these standards have been completed, we can begin to construct a meaningful accountability system that truly supports teaching and learning.

De Blasio, for all the shrill rhetoric from the NY Post, is no bomb-throwing Sandanista looking to turn New York City into Havana on the Hudson.

He's a corporatist politician in a corporatist political system who made his bones under the Great Triangulator, Bill Clinton, and maintains good relations with neo-liberal Andrew Cuomo.

Whichever candidate de Blasio picks for chancellor, whether it's Andres Alonso or one of the other rumored names like Kathleen Cashin or Joshua Starr, there is likely to be a change in the tone and style of how the school system is run, but not necessarily the policies.

The moneyed class that owns this city does not want the policies governing the police, the schools or anything else changing too much.

That doesn't mean a change in tone and style from the current administration won't be welcome.

I look forward to opening up the paper and not seeing the chancellor or the mayor calling teachers incompetent criminal pieces of shit every day.

But it is a far cry from the kind of change de Blasio called for during the campaign.

Of course, after seeing how "Change We Can Believe In" in 2008 morphed quickly to "same old same old," I never really believed de Blasio's campaign promises anyway.

What The Bratton Pick Could Mean For Schools

I know there have been some people who were disappointed by de Blasio's pick of William Bratton to be NYPD Commissioner, but I see the Bratton pick as a  positive for both the city and the NYPD.

The NY Times provided some analysis on where Bratton may take the NYPD that leaves me feeling hopeful on a number of fronts:

Speaking at the news conference where Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio announced his appointment, Mr. Bratton said he would conduct an examination of the department’s resources, a process that one person familiar with his thinking said would be part of the kind of broad review that he undertook at the outset of his earlier tenure in 1994. 

This review is intended in part to look at the department’s priorities and resources and how they are allocated. 

Mr. Bratton’s management style could not be more different from his two-time predecessor, Raymond W. Kelly, who has overseen sharp declines in crime over his 12-year tenure and has won both praise and criticism for the counterterrorism units he built from the ground up after the Sept. 11 attacks. 

Mr. Kelly has concentrated almost all decision-making power in the 35,000-member department in his own hands. Mr. Bratton, on the other hand has been the quintessential delegator, pushing down authority to precinct commanders and giving more discretion to officers, both in his earlier time in New York and during his leadership of the Los Angeles Police Department. 

...

At the news conference, Mr. Bratton also provided some broad outlines of his plans and priorities, echoing his new boss’s pledge to “bring police and community back together.” 

One of the people familiar with his thinking, who all spoke on the condition of anonymity because Mr. Bratton’s plans have not been made final, said one goal of the planned assessment was to determine how to reconfigure the department to rebuild relationships, with the community, with other agencies and with the media.

Reaching out to the community, building relationships to stakeholders outside the NYPD, delegating authority to precinct commanders and giving more discretion to individual officers sounds like some pretty good reorganization ideas to me.

If we got a chancellor in the DOE to do those kinds of things - reach out to the community, build relationships with stakeholders outside of Tweed, delegate authority from Tweed to others, give more discretion to individual teachers - that would be a good thing.

While I understand why some people are upset with the Bratton pick, connecting it to the Bad Old Giuliani days, I think that there are leadership qualities that Bratton brings that will be a refreshing change from Kelly's "My way or the highway" style.

We'll have to see what de Blasio decides to do at Tweed.

If we got someone who was ready to change as much about how Tweed operates as Bratton says he wants to do at the NYPD, we'll be doing okay.

If Bratton Replaced Kelly As NYPD Commissioner

Interesting piece from City-Journal about William Bratton's time at the LAPD.

Dunno what de Blasio's thinking on NYPD commissioner is, but whomever he picks must be less contemptuous of people of color than Ray Kelly is.

De Basio also must choose someone who will be someone strong enough and savvy enough to handle the pro-Kelly propaganda that will come his way as criticism from the likes of Mike Lupica and others.

I think Bratton could be the kind of commissioner who could transform the NYPD in a positive way while keeping crime levels down.

I bet stop-and-frisk wouldn't have become the issue it became if the mayor and the NYPD commissioner had the trust of people in neighborhoods like East New York and East Flatbush.

Community relations, having police work as part-cop/part-social worker instead of some member of a paramilitarized occupation force, ending the insane monthly quotas that put such pressure on the cops to constantly make stop-and-frisks, hand out tickets or make arrests - these kinds of policy changes could go a long way to making this city safer than ever while transforming the way the police are seen by people in this city.

Bratton is not the only person who could do this kind of transformative work at the NYPD.

But he does have a reputation for doing just that at the LAPD.

Mayor Bloomberg And Commissioner Kelly May Go On Trial Just Yet

From the Daily News:

AN NYPD supervisor has lost his bid to countersue whistleblower cop Adrian Schoolcraft.

Deputy Inspector Steven Mauriello alleged that Schoolcraft — who has a pending $50 million lawsuit against the city — concocted bogus complaints about wrongdoing in a Brooklyn precinct in order to ruin his boss.

But Manhattan Federal Court Judge Robert Sweet has denied the deputy inspector, finding in part that the counterclaims would be unfair to Schoolcraft, who would have to “expend additional resources . . . preparing for trial.”

Schoolcraft claims the NYPD had him committed to a psych ward against his will because he said cops were using quotas and fudging crime stats.

He is suing the city, Mauriello, Jamaica Hospital and two doctors.

 

A commenter writes:

This guy Schoolcraft has them but good. Tapes that prove the quota system that was setup by Billionaireberg and Kelly. Kelly calls them productivity goals but are plain old quotas just with different wording. Also when Schoolcraft went to the IAB to report what he had on tape and what he was going to do with them the IAB told Mauriello who stormed Schoolcrafts home. In an attempt to find these tapes Schoolcraft was put in a psych ward so his home could be searched and wouldn't be released until Mauriello said it was ok. With Kelly and his boss Billionareberg gone soon I can't wait to see who Mauriello turns in to save his own skin.

Another commenter writes:

My good friend is an NYPD cop and I can tell you EVERYTHING this Schoolcraft guy said is true! He tells me that not only is the workload insane (Kelly has stood by his mantra of "Do More with less" which means that each cop is doing the work of the seven thousand less cops the NYPD now has, compared to years ago), but that the boss' torture them for their arrest and summons quotas. He said that there are severe punishments for cops who don't meet their numbers. I'm really surprised more cops don't snap under the stress. The reporter who broke this story wrote a great book about it. With the stuff that's in there you would think this cop worked in communist Russia or something! The NYPD is out to get it's own. Good cops who stand up to the system are tortured. For the good of the public, something has to change.

So far, Bloomberg and Kelly, along with a compliant corporate press, have kept the wraps on the criminality forced upon the cops from the NYPD brass and City Hall in order to meet their insane quotas.

But the Schoolcraft case may expose all of that and put the Bloomberg and Kelly crime stat miracle to the graveyard where myths go.

I have a friend who works in the system who tells me the crime stats are all phonied up - they arrest people just to make their monthly quotas, they refuse to take some criminal complaints, they downgrade felonies to misdemeanors.

Bloomberg gets feted in the press for making the city the safest it's been since the 1940's.

The truth is, none of the stats can be believed - nothing from the Bloomberg Era can be believed.

Mayor Bloomberg Gets Frothy Over Stop-And-Frisk Ruling

A judge said NYC shouldn't be like Pretoria in the 80's and placed limits on how the NYPD can carry out its stop-and-frisk policy.

Bloomberg had a temper tantrum at his press conference over that ruling, as well as at the City Council for passing a law providing oversight for the NYPD:

At a press conference littered with grisly imagery, Mayor Michael Bloomberg ripped apart a federal court ruling today that found current stop-and-frisk practices unconstitutional.

“This is a very dangerous decision made by a judge that does not understand how policing works and what is compliant with the Constitution as determined by the Supreme Court,” Mr. Bloomberg said at a jam-packed City Hall event with Police Commissioner Ray Kelly at his side.

“I worry for my kids and I worry for your kids and I worry for you and I worry for me. Crime can come back at any time,” he warned.

Mr. Bloomberg vowed to appeal the ruling, handed down by Judge Shira Scheindlin, which found that the NYPD adopted a policy of “indirect racial profiling” by targeting blacks and Latinos in far higher numbers than other groups. Ms. Scheindlin’s ruling, if upheld, would place the NYPD under federal oversight, a development that Mr. Bloomberg called “disturbing.”

When asked if stop-and-frisk would continue to be implemented during the appeal process and potentially into the next mayoralty, the term-limited Bloomberg bluntly implied it would.

“Boy, I hope so,” he answered. “I wouldn’t want to be responsible for a lot of people dying.”

Maybe if you had a police commissioner who didn't brag about how he wants every black man in the city to be in fear that he will be stopped by the NYPD at any time for any reason, the NYPD wouldn't now be subject to federal oversight.

In this case, NYPD overreach + Bloomberg/Kelly arrogance = federal oversight.

Bloomberg and Kelly have dismissed concerns over stop-and-frisk for years.

Bloomberg figured he had more money than God and no one would dare challenge his policy.

Now Mikey discovers that some judges actually don't care about his money.

They care about the Constitution.

Imagine that.

Bloomberg Wrong On Stop-And-Frisk Race Comments

Last week the Mayor of Money said the NYPD stops too many white people and not enough people of color.

Those comments were controversial, to say the least, but the mayor doubled down on them, saying any City Council member who doesn't vote with him on the stop-and-frisk issue may have to deal with the Bloomberg PAC using its money against them.

Today the NY Daily News looks at the Bloomberg comments on stop-and-frisk and finds them wanting:

The mayor made headlines last week with his assertion that white New Yorkers were stopped too often by officers patrolling the five boroughs, and minority-group members weren’t stopped often enough.

But it’s right there in black and white: The mayoral math on stop-and-frisk doesn’t add up.

A Daily News analysis of NYPD data contradicts Bloomberg’s claim, by looking at all crime suspects versus just violent crime suspects — particularly in neighborhoods where blacks and Hispanics are in the population minority, but make up the majority of stops.

 ...
 
City Hall released statistics to support Bloomberg’s controversial claim about stop-and-frisk and race.
The NYPD numbers showed 6.9% of the violent crime suspects were white — although whites made up 9.7% of the total number of people stopped.

But The News’ review of NYPD data found police listed a “violent” offense as the suspected crime on little more than one-quarter of the 532,911 stops made last year — mostly for “robbery.” The rest listed “nonviolent” offenses like weapons possession, larceny, pot possession and criminal trespass.

When the lesser offenses are included, whites comprise 13.8% all crime suspects in the city — meaning they were stopped too infrequently.

The 109th Precinct in Queens — where whites and Asians constitute more than 80% of the population — produced the biggest discrepancy: 48% of local crime suspects were black, while 65% of those stopped were black or Hispanic.

The 17-percentage point difference was the largest of any precinct, followed by the 6th Precinct (Greenwich and West Village, 15.6); Midtown North (Hell’s Kitchen, 15), Central Park (14) and the 104th Precinct (Ridgewood, Queens, 13).

Only four of the 22 precincts with a difference of more than 5 percentage points were home to a majority of black or Hispanic residents.

Bloomberg spokesman Marc La Vorgna defended the mayor’s numbers, sticking to the “violent” suspect standard.

Selective use of data to push their ill-begotten policies is a hallmark of this administration.

They're doing it with the stop-and-frisk and crime data.

Later today I'll take a look at how they're doing it with the 911 system too.

In the case of the stop-and-frisk policy, funking with the data to sell it is going to come back to haunt them in court:

The future of stop-and-frisk could hinge on Manhattan Federal Judge Shira Scheindlin’s ruling on a class-action lawsuit — a decision that could come as early as this week.

Legal experts predict Scheindlin will likely appoint an independent monitor to oversee the nation’s largest police force if she finds the police procedure is unconstitutional.

Scheindlin is widely expected to rule against the NYPD after taking the cops to task for the “high error rate.”

“You reasonably suspect something and you’re wrong 90% of the time,” the judge said. “That’s a lot of misjudgment of suspicion.”

Legal experts predicted she’s likely to order reforms, including a federal monitor who would report to her on problems solely related to stop-and-frisk. She could then compel the NYPD to make changes.

I highlighted part of the judge's statement because it is so emblematic of what is wrong with Bloomberg and Kelly.

 

They pursue an unjust, racist and unconstitutional policy that, at its core, is not about stopping crime but about intimidation and control.

 

Kelly is on record as saying they want every brown and black man in this city worried that they could be stopped at any moment by police and searched, that the city wanted to "instill" fear into them.

 

Kelly and Bloomberg don't care that 90% of the time, stop-and-frisk searches find nothing.

 

The point is to simply stop men of color and intimidate them.

 

At that, the policy is quite successful.

 

I still do not understand, given the racist polices this mayor has pursued, why he does not enjoy the same reputation of being a racist that his predecessor Rudy Giuliani enjoys.

Daily News: Business Community In Panic Over Mayor's Race

Buried at the end of this article about a poll commissioned by somebody to try and get NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly into the mayor's race is this:

The poll — conducted by Opinion Access, a company in Long Island City, Queens — also asked if the voter was happy with the current field of candidates for mayor.

Despite Kelly’s insistence that he isn’t running, some people continued to try and talk him into it, said one political insider.

“There is a great deal of apprehension in the business community,” said the source.

For many, that apprehension turned to panic when former Rep. Anthony Weiner, a Democrat, announced he was running, he said.

“They were going to him before Weiner entered, but now people really feel it’s become a circus atmosphere,” he said.

For those of you who think the business community thinks they can Joe Lhota elected, please note the number of stories about Ray Kelly.

The reason these people are desperately trying to convince Kelly to enter the race is because they fear Lhota cannot win and they will not be able to control whichever Dem does.

Now I'm a cynic, so I think whichever Dem wins, they will have no problem controlling him or her - especially if the eventual winner is either Thompson or Quinn.

But I guess 12 years of Bloombergian autocracy has spoiled them - they're used to getting exactly what they want without having to buy anybody off.

Stop-And-Frisk Deemed Failed Policing Policy, Though It Is A Fantastic Control Policy

From the Daily News:

Stop-and-frisk has removed thousands of guns from the city’s streets — but the NYPD detained millions of innocent New Yorkers to find them
.
A Columbia law professor testified Wednesday that just one gun was recovered for every thousand people stopped from 2004 through June 30, 2012.

“The NYPD hit rate is far less than what you would achieve by chance,” Jeffrey Fagan said in Manhattan Federal Court.

Testifying in the federal class-action lawsuit against the city and the NYPD’s controversial tactic, Fagan said his analysis of paperwork from 4.4 million stops found guns were confiscated at a rate of roughly one-tenth of 1 percent, or 5,940 firearms.

Knives and other contraband were nabbed in about 1.5% of stops, taking 66,000 weapons off the street, the professor said.

And 12% of the 4.4 million stops during that time period — roughly 528,000 — led to an actual arrest or a summons, Fagan said.

And the rest were “just let go?” asked Federal Judge Shira Scheindlin.

“Yes, your honor,” Fagan replied.

You'd find as many guns on the street by chance as they do by Sop-And-Frisk.

And yet the mayor and the commissioner continue to defend the policy as necessary to get illegal guns off the street.

 

It is quite clear from the numbers that there is another agenda at work here.

As State Senator Eric Adams testified to on Monday, Kelly and the Bloomberg want every young black and Latino man in the city in fear.

That's the agenda, that's the rationale behind Stop-And-Frisk.

They use the guns thing as an excuse.

This is about power and control, pure and simple.

Eric Adams: Ray Kelly Wanted To Instill Fear In Every Young Black And Latino Man In NYC

Eric Adams has made this allegation before, but now he has testified to it in court:

The commissioner of the New York City police department views the controversial practice of stop, question and frisk as a means to instil fear in young African American and Latino men, a New York state senator testified in a federal court on Monday.

State senator Eric Adams, who retired from the NYPD after rising to the rank of captain during a 22-year career, said commissioner Ray Kelly described his views on stop and frisk during a July 2010 meeting in the office of then-governor David Patterson.

Adams had traveled to Albany for a meeting on 10 July 2010 with the governor to give his support for a bill that would prohibit the NYPD from maintaining a database that would include the personal information of individuals stopped by the police but released without a charge or summons. In discussing the bill, which ultimately passed, Adams said he raised the issue of police stops disproportionately targeting young African American and Latino men.

"[Kelly] stated that he targeted and focused on that group because he wanted to instil fear in them that every time that they left their homes they could be targeted by police," Adams testified.

"How else would we get rid of guns," Adams said Kelly asked him.

Adams told the court he was stunned by the commissioner's claim and immediately expressed his concerns. "I was amazed," Adams testified. "I told him that was illegal."

The state senator's testimony marked the latest in a series of explosive allegations leveled against the NYPD in an ongoing trial targeting the department's stop-and-frisk practices.

In earlier hearings, two serving NYPD officers testified that the department maintains a rigid quota system to ensure officers make a certain number of stops, arrests and summons. Both men secretly recorded roll-call meetings and conversations with supervisors which purport to show the existence of such a system.

Under the joint tenure of Kelly and mayor Michael Bloomberg, the NYPD has stopped and, in some cases searched, approximately 4.4 million people, most of them Latino or African American.

By law, police officers are empowered to stop individuals on the street if they have reasonable suspicion that an individual is preparing to, is in the process of, or has just committed a crime.

According to Adams, under these conditions, stop and frisk is a "great tool" for suppressing and responding to crime. He added, however, that "nowhere" in the law is an officer empowered to "use the tool to instil fear. Nowhere".

New York City has quite literally become Pretoria on the Hudson under Bloomberg's Reign of Error.

And Bloomberg and Kelly are two of the most despicable people on the planet.

Why doesn't Bloomberg get the racist rap Giuliani has?

Using the Stop-and-Frisk program to simply instill fear in every young black and Latino male in NYC is clearly unconstitutional, or at least it would be if we had, you know, a Constitution.

But it's been shredded by the powers that be so that Michael Bloomberg can now run NYC like a dictator.

Michael Bloomberg Belongs In Jail Next To Beverly Hall

Via Diane Ravitch, here is Sol Stern at The Daily Beast comparing Georgia governor Sonny Perdue's response to the Atlanta cheating allegations compared to Michael Bloomberg's here in NYC:

As I read about the indictments, I could not help but compare what Governor Perdue did in Atlanta with the way Mayor Michael Bloomberg handled allegations of test fraud during his 12 years at the helm of New York City’s schools. Like Beverly Hall and other Atlanta officials, Bloomberg proclaimed miraculous gains in student achievement as a result of the reforms he instituted after the state legislature gave him control of the city’s school system in 2002. In the midst of his 2005 reelection campaign Bloomberg invited the city press corps to PS 33, an elementary school in one of the Bronx’s poorest neighborhoods to hear about one of those academic miracles. The school and its principal, Elba Lopez, had just hit the jackpot on the state’s fourth-grade reading test. Over 83 percent of the 140 fourth-graders scored at or above proficiency (or grade level), Mayor Bloomberg announced, compared with only 35.8 percent proficiency in 2004. Like Atherton Elementary in Atlanta, this was a “statistically improbable” one-year gain of close to 50 percentage points. The scores for these predominantly minority and poor students were just four percentage points below the average for the richest suburban districts in the state. According to the mayor, the test results proved that his education reforms “really are paying off for those who were previously left behind.” Not a single reporter at the press conference questioned the mayor’s claim of historic, unprecedented educational gains.

Shortly after the test scores were announced, Elba Lopez retired, collecting a $15,000 bonus for her school’s spectacular performance, thus boosting her pension by as much as $10,000 per year. In 2006 the same cohort of students, now fifth-graders, fell back to a pass rate of only 47 percent, and the pass rate for the new crop of fourth-graders was just 41 percent. After I reported this startling turnabout in City Journal and reporter Andrew Wolf did the same in the New York Sun, it became fairly obvious that someone had tampered with the students’ 2005 exams. With Mayor Bloomberg successfully reelected, even his own Department of Education (DOE) felt some pressure and said it would take a second look. Schools Chancellor Joel Klein asked his Counsel, Michael Best, to refer the matter to the city’s Department of Investigations (DOI). But Best left the referral on his desk for six months. (“I goofed,” he said, when I asked why he delayed the referral.) But the DOI, whose head Richard Condon is appointed by the Mayor, declined to take the case. It was then left to the DOE’s small and understaffed investigative unit to follow up. The department had waited almost two years to start an investigation, and by this time the suspicious test papers had been destroyed.

In a report issued almost four years after the tests were administered the department’s lone investigator found no wrongdoing, yet neglected to interview PS 33’s principal Elba Lopez. As the New York Post explained in its singularly pithy way, City clears self. When I asked DOE counsel Best how the most likely suspect could be cleared without even an interview, he responded that the department’s investigator “couldn’t find her.” A few months later, New York Post reporter Yoav Gonen located Lopez at her apartment in the Bronx, exactly where she had always lived. Lopez assured the Post that there was no cheating; the reason that the students didn’t maintain their spectacularly high scores for more than one test cycle, she explained, was that the school had a new, inexperienced principal.

I have written over and over that if Mayor Bloomberg's tenure here as mayor was given a going over with a fine-toothed comb by an independent auditor not beholden to the mayor and not needing future employment and/or largesse from either the mayor or his corporate buddies, the crime statistics, the fire fatality statistics and the emergency response time statistics, the test scores and the graduation rates would all be found to be fraudulent.

Here's an example outside of education and crime of how Bloomberg funks with the numbers here in the city.

Currently Bloomberg claims New York City has the lowest fire fatality rate in history - and the mayor says this is because they have the fastest response time they have ever had:

"With record low number of murders and shootings and the fewest fire deaths in our city's history, 2012 was a historic year for public safety," Bloomberg said. "The FDNY has consistently improved fire safety over the past decade and has continued to drive response times to historic lows. These achievements and the efforts by our firefighters, EMT's and paramedics to save lives - while putting theirs on the line - is the reason fewer New Yorkers died as a result of fire in 2012 than ever before."

But a notorious report done at the behest of the city by Winbourne Consulting on the city's troubled 911 system found the following:

The group also accused the city of using inaccurate response times, since the city fails to include the amount of time it takes for a 911 operator to answer a call and loop in the relevant dispatcher — as other cities do.

“This practice inhibits the ability of the NYPD and FDNY Fire and EMS to generate accurate Response Time Information,” the report writes.

In other words, the historically low response time that the mayor is claiming to have is based on a phonied up practice that allows the FDNY to ignore the time 911 operators take with callers.

 

If the mayor's claims about the lowest fire fatality rates in NYC history are based on phonied up response time rates by the FDNY, it raises questions about the mayor's historical claims on fire fatalities.  

 

Are they based on phonied up data too?

Given the data manipulation and stat juking the Bloomberg administration has done with the education and NYPD statistics, I think the fire fatality statistics merit a second look, although I doubt anybody is going to question the mayor's claims of fire fatalities registering at historic lows.

As Sol Stern noted in his Daily Beast piece, reporters rarely challenge Bloomberg's claims of historic gains, whether they be in education statistics, crime statistics or anything else

In addition to the data manipulation and stat juking, if Bloomberg's consultant contracts and technology contracts and dealings were ever given the same once over by an independent auditor, New Yorkers would discover that the Bloomberg administration has allowed more money to be stolen during the mayor's tenure than at any time in this city since Boss Tweed ran New York from his clubhouse.

But Mayor Bloomberg, the second richest American, is not going to receive that once over - not by a press that he owns, not by politicians who fear his PAC and his wrath.

Quite frankly, if Beverly Hall is put in prison for tampering with student test papers, along with other charges such as “racketeering, theft, making false statements and false swearing," if she is facing jail time for creating "an environment where achieving the desired end result was more important than the students’ education," than Michael Bloomberg and his chancellor Joel Klein belong in cells next to her.

And as long as we're talking criminal liability for stat juking and data manipulation, NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly certainly should be investigated as well.

I am under no illusion that that will happen, of course.

The black woman formerly running the Atlanta school district, along with the largely black educators who were indicted with her, will face justice in their scandal.

But the rich white man who owns NYC, along with his white male toadies like Klein and Kelly, will almost certainly not.

Ray Kelly: Accountability Is For Others

This kind of lack of accountability is a theme with politicians and their functionaries, so there's no surprise here:

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn's plan to create an independent watchdog for the NYPD drew a scathing rebuke from Mayor Bloomberg last week, and on Tuesday Police Commissioner Ray Kelly added to the criticism saying it could jeopardize the city's safety.

"I think there’s real cause for concern," Kelly told reporters.

The cause for concern is a so-called NYPD Inspector General, who would not only investigate wrongdoing, but also monitor policy at the police department.

Under pressure from Council colleagues and some of her Democratic rivals in the mayor’s race, Council Speaker Christine Quinn last week agreed to legislation creating an inspector general. But the man she says she’d like to keep on as police commissioner clearly isn't on board.

"I think putting in another layer of so-called supervision, or monitoring, can ultimately make this city less safe," Kelly said.

Currently the commissioner is answerable to no one other than the mayor - he can and does treat the City Council, the press and the public with disdain.

Which is why Kelly doesn't want an independent monitor for the NYPD.

Because that might mean the next commissioner will have to do things differently than the current autocrat.

Bloomberg: There Can Be No Independent Monitor Of The NYPD

Because the king and his army must not be accountable to anybody:

Mayor Bloomberg blasted a plan to create an inspector general to monitor the NYPD as an election year ploy that will be disastrous for public safety.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn backed the proposal Tuesday, calling for an office within the city Department of Investigation that could subpoena police officials and documents.

Quinn is hoping to secure the mayor’s endorsement in her run for City Hall this year — but Bloomberg called the bill the latest in a pattern of politically-motivated attacks on the NYPD that could plunge New York back into the bad old days.

“We cannot afford to play election year politics with the safety of our city, and we cannot afford to roll back the progress of the past 20 years,” he said. “This bill jeopardizes that progress and will put the lives of New Yorkers and our police officers at risk.”

He said an inspector general with the power to oversee policy would undermine the police commissioner’s authority.

“I don’t think any rational person would say we need two competing police commissioners,” he said. “That kind of breakdown in the chain of command would be disastrous for public safety.”

Actually the point isn't to have two competing commissioners.

 

It's to have the currently unaccountable police commissioner who runs the police department like a paramilitary force and brags about having missiles to shoot down planes in the sky be called to account.

 

As Wayne Barrett pointed out here in 2011, the NYPD has been beset by scandal during Kelly's Reign of Terror:

 

There is now such an avalanche of scandal descending on the NYPD that even Kelly is threatened by it, depicted in a front-page New York Times story last week, and editorial this week, as an institutional captive of the department unable to independently investigate all the terrible things its members do. That recent list includes allegations, some already proven, of drug-planting, ticket-fixing, Muslim-spying, gunrunning, pepper-spraying, and “frying another nigger,” with the Times insisting that many of these revelations were uncovered by everyone but Kelly’s Internal Affairs Bureau, mostly because it’s too internal. In fact, the one scam IAB did help probe, the indictment of 16 cops for killing parking tickets and other favors, was compromised by an IAB lieutenant heard on one tape tipping off the perpetrators.

Barrett doesn't blame Kelly for these messes, he says the NYPD may be "a force unto itself, untamable, as dark sometimes as the streets it patrols...Could anyone do a better job of containing these excesses and outrages than Kelly has?"

 

I don't buy Barrett's argument.

 

If the NYPD is a "force unto itself", barely controllable, untamable, as dark as the streets it patrols - then maybe it's time for somebody outside the department who is independent of the department to police it.

 

Clearly Ray Kelly is not up to the task.  

 

Just ask the families of all the people of color shot by NYPD cops, ask the Occupy protesters bludgeoned by the NYPD whiteshirts, ask the victims of NYPD drug-planting in Queens, ask the people spied upon by Ray Kelly's CIA within the NYPD.

 

If any department in King Bloomberg's government needs an outside independent watchdog, it is certainly the NYPD.

 

No wonder Bloomberg doesn't want one.

 

For Bloomberg, accountability is for the little people, not for the mayor or his police commissioner.

Third Night Of Demonstrations Against NYPD shooting In Brooklyn

From NY1:

Dozens of protesters gathered near 54th Street and Church Avenue in East Flatbush Wednesday night following the death of a teenager shot by police Saturday night.

Sources said some bottles were thrown and there was a lot of pushing, shoving and screaming at the scene.

Police officers in riot gear responded to the scene, but it's unclear how many arrests were made.

It all stems from the Saturday night shooting of Kimani "Kiki" Gray.

Police say officers opened fire on Gray, 16, after they say he pointed a handgun at them.

This is the third night of demonstrations.

On the first night, protestors smashed windows and ransacked a Rite Aid pharmacy.

Autopsy results showed Gray was hit seven times and suffered wounds on the front and back of his body, including his shoulder, rib cage, forearm and legs.

 Most of the time, these demonstrations fade after a couple of days.

But there's a lot of anger out there at the police.

I can't imagine why:

“I was standing at the corner, on the sidewalk, and the cop said, ‘You can’t stand there.’ said Tyreck Strachan, 13, after being released from the 67th Precinct station house.

“I said, ‘I’m on the sidewalk.’ He started hitting me with a stick.”

Okay, maybe I can imagine why.

Cops Arrest NYC Social Worker For Criticizing Stop-And-Frisk

This is Ray Kelly's legacy:

The NYPD’s stop and frisk policy is under attack — and so is talking about it, a new lawsuit claims.

A NYC social worker was cuffed and tossed in jail for criticizing the under-siege crime-fighting program within earshot of a hypersensitive cop, the woman claims in the lawsuit.

Kaylan Pedine, 29, was chatting about the policy with friends in front of the Mercury Bar in Midtown when two officers pulled up. “I wish they would stop stop-and-frisk,” she said as they passed, the suit states.

Police Officer Craig Campion ordered the bewildered Pedine to turn around, and handcuffed her before gawking onlookers, according to the suit filed in Manhattan Federal court today.

After less than an hour in a cell, she was released and issued a summons for blocking vehicular traffic — but the Greenpoint resident claims she never stepped off the sidewalk.

So much for First Amendment rights in Bloomberg's New York City.

Criticize official policy, get cuffed and jailed.

That the NYPD feel safe enough to pull this stuff shows you just how unaccountable they have become in this city under Kelly and Bloomberg.

Jumaane Williams And Ray Kelly

From Capital NY:

The New York Police Department commissioner and one of his leading elected critics are in a fight over what really prompted the violence last night at a vigil for a 16-year-old Brooklyn teenager shot and killed by police.

According to Ray Kelly's comments after a City Council budget hearing, there was a large crowd memorializing Kimani Gray, who was shot and killed on Saturday. A gun was recovered at the scene that may have belonged to Gray and "there is nothing to indicate that this shooting at this time was outside the guidelines."

From that larger crowd, according to Kelly, a smaller group, perhaps 30 or so people, split off. They attempted to steal a cash register from a Rite Aide. They assaulted a customer who tried to stop them. The group also hurled fruit at a local precinct and "trashed" a bodega.

Kelly said,  "I don't see it related to the demonstration. ... " But apparently people took it upon themselves to go in and trash the store, try to take the cash register, in some way shape or form. I don't think that has or should have any relationship to a peaceful demonstration."

 ...

After Kelly spoke to reporters, Councilman Jumaane Williams said Kelly was "belittling" the real problem, which is growing tension between poor and minority communities, and the police.  Refusing to acknowledge last night's violence as a symptom of that problem will only lead to more violence, Williams warned.

"There was a great display of frustration," Williams told reporters.

Standing outside 250 Broadway, where today's budget hearing was held, Williams said, "We have been saying that something like this can happen. I'm surprised it hasn't happened sooner. And we know next time it's going to get worse if they don't come to grips with that."

Williams said this area lacks a community center and, more generally, economic opportunities for young people. He called for dramatic increases in funding, and for Kelly to visit the district with him.

As for the violence last night: "We have been saying that something like this can happen. I'm surprised it hasn't happened sooner. And we know next time it's going to get worse if they don't come to grips with that."

In a statement last night, Williams said the mayor and police commissioner were ignoring the "root cause" of the violence, and "I fear this will be a long and bloody summer ahead."

Kelly definitely not hearing there's a problem and Bloomberg is too busy trying to ban large containers of Dr. Pepper and Mountain Dew to reach out to the people living in the poor and minority communities a la John Lindsay.

Frankly, he may not even know where those areas are.

Riot In Brooklyn Over NYPD Shooting Of 16 Year Old

From the Daily News:

Anger over the death of a Brooklyn teenager shot and killed by police fueled a riot on the streets of East Flatbush Monday — projectiles were hurled at cops, car windows were smashed and a pharmacy customer had a bottle bashed over his head.

The scenes of violence on blocks near the NYPD’s 67th Precinct stationhouse followed a protest march that grew out of a candlelight vigil for Kimani (Kiki) Gray, 16, killed by police bullets on Saturday.

In the aftermath of the riot, as police were trying to secure the area and assess damage to stores along streets strewn with broken glass, City Councilman Jumaane Williams called for Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and Mayor Bloomberg to visit the community.

“There’s a lot of anger here,” said Williams, whose district includes the riot zone. “This isn’t just from one particular shooting. A whole community has not been heard for far too long.”

Kelly visited the precinct stationhouse about 12:30 a.m. Tuesday — more than four hours after the chaos began — but did not speak to reporters.

The details of the shooting are murky.  The NYPD says the teen pulled a gun on two plainclothes cops as they approached him for suspiciously fixing his wasteband.

The police fired 11 rounds at Gray, striking him several times and killing him.

The NY Times reports the following:

A woman who lives across the street from the shooting scene said that after the shots were fired, she saw two men, whom she believed to be plainclothes officers, standing over Mr. Gray, who was prone on the sidewalk, clutching his stomach. 

“He said, ‘Please don’t let me die,’ ” said the woman, 46, who gave her name only as Vanessa. One of the officers, she said, replied: “Stay down, or we’ll shoot you again.”

No wonder Commissioner Kelly didn't want to answer any questions from the press.

As Gray is dying on the street, the cops tell him to stay down or they'll shoot him again.

Maybe this kid did have a gun.

Maybe he did point it at the plainclothesmen.

There's no excuse for either of those things.

But remember, these cops didn't look like cops.

They looked like two guys approaching a group of men at night.

And there's always the possibility in Mayor Bloomberg's New York that this kid didn't have a gun at all until the cops planted it on him after they shot at him 11 times.

Add this fatal shooting to all the other fatal shootings of men of color (including one other shooting over the weekend) in this city by the NYPD and you can see where the anger is coming from.

I must say, I have been surprised that community anger at the NYPD hasn't erupted into violence before this.

There have been so many senseless shootings, so many deaths.

The mourners for Kimani Gray say they will return tonight for another vigil.

Hopefully that doesn't end in violence.

But I get the anger at Bloomberg, Kelly and the NYPD over these shootings.

And I think that ought to be demonstrated by people across this city.

Another Good Reason Not To Support Quinn For Mayor

From the Post:

Democratic mayoral contender Bill de Blasio yesterday tore into rival Christine Quinn’s decision to keep Ray Kelly on as police commissioner if she is elected mayor later this year.

The public advocate, one of Quinn’s likely challengers, painted the closed-door move as a “backroom deal” orchestrated by Mayor Bloomberg.

De Blasio admitted he doesn’t know whether the mayor was personally involved in conversations between Kelly and Quinn, the City Council speaker.

“But I do know this: The people of this city are sick of backroom deals. They’re sick of the mayor, in particular, trying to exert influence on the next administration, trying to continue to have a role that is not one that should continue after his term is up,” de Blasio said in response to a report about the deal in yesterday’s Post.

Quinn will keep Kelly at the NYPD.

Does that mean she'll keep Walcott at the DOE too?

Does that mean she'll keep most or all of Bloomberg's policies in place?

Does that mean she'll be Bloomberg's fourth term?

NYPD Cops Brutally Beat Man They Mistakenly Thought Was Trespassing

All caught on tape:



The Murdoch Post reports:

The Brooklyn DA and NYPD Internal Affairs are investigating cops caught on tape beating a man wrongly suspected of trespassing in a Crown Heights synagogue, authorities said yesterday.

The Oct. 8 beatdown took place at the Alternative Learning Institute for Young Adults, a synagogue and outreach center for troubled youths.

Cops believed that Ehud Halevy, 21, was homeless and trespassing.

A volunteer security guard mistakenly called police, not knowing Halevy had been staying there for about a month, with permission.

When cops first approached, Halevy, not wearing a shirt or pants, refused to leave.
“You’re not kicking me out — I have a right to stay here,” he insisted according to law-enforcement sources.

Halevy put on his pants before the confrontation escalated to the incident caught on tape.
He was booked for assault, obstructing governmental administration, criminal trespassing, resisting arrest, harassment and pot possession.

“He [Halevy] was in a needy position. He needed a place to sleep,” said Rabbi Moshe Feiglin, who runs the center.

Several politicians said cops went overboard in using force.

“When we watched the video and saw some of New York’s Finest behaving in a not very fine way, brutalizing an individual for absolutely no reason, it was just something horrible,” said Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind.

The only reason Dov Hikind cares about this incident is because the cops beat a white guy who was Jewish.

If this had been another one of those "NYPD Beat Black Guy For No Reason" or "NYPD Shoot, Kill Unarmed Brown Person," Hikind wouldn't have blinked twice.

Therein lies the reason why the NYPD are getting away with all of this brutality.

For the most part, it's happening to people of color and most white people don't seem to really give a shit about that.

But when it happens to one of their own, suddenly the Dov Hikinds are giving interviews to the Murdoch Post criticizing the NYPD for excessive force.

How about criticizing the NYPD for the excessive force and brutality they show every day of the year to people of color in this city?

How about starting a Knapp Commission to investigate Ray Kelly and Michael Bloomberg and all of the police violence these men have allowed to be perpetrated across this city?

The Bronx D.A. has put the NYPD and its Stop and Frisk policies on trial in the Bronx.

How about we start putting these crooked, violent cops who are beating and shooting and murdering people all over this city on trial too?

How about we put Kelly and Bloomberg on trial for running this kind of police department?

Kelly's response to two recent fatal shootings of unarmed civilians by the NYPD was to issue a “tactical awareness bulletin."

 NYPD cops have been warned to brush up on their firearms tactics after two unarmed civilians were recently shot dead by police, The Post has learned.

A memo went up in precinct houses last week reminding officers to “slow down . . . request backup . . . exercise firearms control [and] formulate a tactical plan” before shooting.

The “tactical awareness bulletin” — which outlines various scenarios in which cops could “inadvertently” or erratically discharge their weapons — was also read during roll call, sources said.

The reminder comes in the wake of the recent fatal police shootings of Queens National Guardsman Noel Polanco, 22, during a traffic stop on the Grand Central Parkway and Bronx bodega worker Raynaldo Cuevas, 20, who collided with a cop while fleeing a robbery.

 That's not good enough.

Make no mistake, the police are under a lot of pressure from the top to constantly increase arrests, push the crime stats in the precincts down, and make Kelly and Bloomberg look like crime fighting geniuses.

One of the consequences of all of this pressure is that a lot of cops are taking their frustrations out on the public.

And some, like our old friend Tony Bologna of OWS fame, are just sociopaths who like to goon it up.

But the people in charge of the system - Bloomberg and Kelly - are the ones responsible for these problems and they are the ones who could put a stop to it if they wanted to.

Instead we see week after week more incidents of police brutality, of innocent people being shot and killed by the NYPD, of unarmed alleged "perps" getting shot and killed while "resisting arrest."

The NYPD is out of control and yet, nothing is done to stop this and nothing seems to happen to the people most responsible for this.

NYPD Ends Spying On Muslims After Six Years - Not One Lead Came From The Effort

But since this was a Bloomberg/Kelly effort, of course it must be successful - after all, everything they do is successful:

New Jersey's attorney general has assured a group of Muslim leaders that a New York police department unit that conducted surveillance of Muslims is no longer operating in the state.

A spokesman for attorney general Jeffrey Chiesa confirmed that Chiesa told a private meeting of New Jersey law enforcement officials and Muslim leaders Wednesday that the NYPD's demographics unit had ceased operating in New Jersey.

The NYPD's covert surveillance program faced scrutiny after an investigation by the Associated Press beginning in August of last year detailed the extent of the operations.

Following September 11, with the help of the CIA, the NYPD's counterterrorism surveillance efforts included spying on Muslim neighborhoods, infiltrating Muslim-owned businesses and cataloging mosques in the north-east.

The demographics unit gathered information on people based on their language and ethnicity, though there was no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the individuals.

Muslim college students at more than a dozen colleges in the north-east US were a particular focus of the program which would monitor Muslim students' websites on a daily basis and monitored Muslim student associations.

New Jersey governor Chris Christie criticized the police department's operations in the state as did Newark mayor Cory Booker who said in February that he didn't know about the program that mapped and photographed 16 mosques in Newark and profiled several restaurants.

The NYPD has defended its surveillance of Muslims in New Jersey as legal, and Chiesa has said New York police did not violate New Jersey laws.

NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly, who has defended the program, said Wednesday he wasn't aware of the New Jersey meeting.

In late August, the police department acknowledged that the secret demographics unit did not generate a lead or case in the six years the program has been in place.

Not one lead or case generated after six years.

And you can bet had there not been push back from Jersey on this, they would still be doing it.

Actually given that both Bloomberg and Kelly are liars, I wouldn't be so sure they still aren't doing it anyway.

Just because they say they stopped something doesn't mean they really stopped something.