Anybody Know Why SUNY Is Acquiring Military Equipment From The Pentagon?

Are some SUNY schools planning on going to war against other SUNY campuses?

Three SUNY campus police departments acquired military equipment, including high-powered rifles, through the Pentagon's 1033 program, according documents obtained by Muckrock.

The free federal program distributes excess materiel to state and local police departments, at the request of the law enforcement agency.

SUNY Old Westbury's campus police received three M16A1 rifles and an an armored truck.

SUNY Morrisville and SUNY Oneonta's campus police received three M14 rifles and an armored truck.

Do the campus police really need M14 rifles and armored trucks?

Seriously, some of these dudes shouldn't even have mace.

Are tanks and planes next on the acquisition list?

Does Commissioner John King Have SED Officials Monitoring The Internet For Education Reform Heresy?

Apparently the informational text reading police are unfamiliar with literary techniques like figurative language:

The Niagara County Sheriff's Office was asked by Albany police on Friday to investigate a perceived threatening comment made on social media by a teacher at George Southard Elementary School.

An Albany detective who contacted the sheriff's office said the teacher had posted "can't wait for Sept. 24th, dead man walking."

Deputies were sent to the school Friday to interview the teacher who stated he made the comment in regard to the commissioner of education's reception at an educational meeting in Poughkeepsie.

The teacher said the comment was make in poor judgment and he had no intention, nor the means, to harm the commissioner. 

Albany police were contacted and video of the interview with the teacher was provided.

In Baltimore, they arrested a man for making derogatory statements about the Common Core at a town hall meeting.

Here in NY State, they try and intimidate a teacher for making what is clearly a hyperbolic comment about Commissioner King's tenure at SED on Facebook.

It is interesting to note that the complaint over the Facebook comment came from Albany but the teacher works in Niagara County.

Just who put the complaint into Albany police about the comment made by the Niagara County teacher?

The New York State Education Department is located in Albany.

Was the complaint made by someone at SED?

And if so, just why is this bureaucrat being paid to monitor social media for education reform heretics.

We know the USDOE had paid trolls monitoring critics like Diane Ravitch.

We know this because one of the trolls who was tasked with that job, Peter Cunningham, told us so in a Huffington Post piece attacking Ravitch.

My "Hmmm..." meter goes off at this story of Albany police contacting Niagara County police over a comment posted by a Niagara County teacher on Facebook about NYSED Commissioner King.

Is somebody at SED monitoring and trolling social media and the blogosphere looking to retaliate against reform heretics?

Does the NYSED have an Internet troll division just the way the USDOE does?

The trajectory of this complaint, coming from somebody in Albany about a teacher in Niagara County, certainly suggests this is so.

In any case, you know the Common Core/corporate education deform movement has jumped the shark when they have to use the state security forces to clamp down on dissent, criticism and opposition to their agenda.

This will work in some instances, but overall, it will just fan the flames of the fury many parents and teachers are feeling over the SED reform agenda, the Common Core, and the state's battery of tests and bring the deform movement closer to its very deserved demise.

Bloomberg's Stop-And-Frisk Policy Declared Unconstitutional

Excellent news:

A Manhattan federal court judge today ruled against the NYPD’s controversial stop-and-frisk practices, saying the city acted with “deliberate indifference” to these “unconstitutional” stops.

“I find that the City is liable for violating plaintiffs’ Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights,” US District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin wrote.

“The City acted with deliberate indifference toward the NYPD’s practice of making unconstitutional stops and conducting unconstitutional frisks.”

The judge found that "in each of these stops, a person's life was interrupted."

There were 4.4 million people between 2004 and 2008, and 80 percent of them black or Hispanic, according to the judge.

More on this when we get more details.

Researching How To Cook Lentils Gets A Woman A Visit From The Police For Terrorism

Because we now live in a complete and total police/surveillance state:

Michele Catalano, who lives in Long Island, New York, said her web searches for pressure cookers, her husband's hunt for backpacks, and her "news junkie" son's craving for information on the Boston bombings had combined somewhere in the internet ether to create a "perfect storm of terrorism profiling".

Members of what she described as a "joint terrorism task force" descended on Catalano's home on Wednesday. A spokesman for the FBI told to the Guardian on Thursday that its investigators were not involved in the visit, but that "she was visited by Nassau County police department … They were working in conjunction with Suffolk County police department."

Catalano, a writer for indie music and politics magazine Death and Taxes wrote:

What happened was this: At about 9:00 am, my husband, who happened to be home yesterday, was sitting in the living room with our two dogs when he heard a couple of cars pull up outside. He looked out the window and saw three black SUVs in front of our house; two at the curb in front and one pulled up behind my husband's Jeep in the driveway, as if to block him from leaving.

Six gentleman in casual clothes emerged from the vehicles and spread out as they walked toward the house, two tow ard the backyard on one side, two on the other side, two toward the front door.

A million things went through my husband's head. None of which were right. He walked outside and the men greeted him by flashing badges. He could see they all had guns holstered in their waistbands.

"Are you [name redacted]?" one asked while glancing at a clipboard. He affirmed that was indeed him, and was asked if they could come in. Sure, he said.

They asked if they could search the house, though it turned out to be just a cursory search. They walked around the living room, studied the books on the shelf (nope, no bomb making books, no Anarchist Cookbook), looked at all our pictures, glanced into our bedroom, pet our dogs. They asked if they could go in my son's bedroom but when my husband said my son was sleeping in there, they let it be.

At this point, Catalano said, the police were "peppering my husband with questions".

"Where is he from? Where are his parents from? They asked about me, where was I, where do I work, where do my parents live. Do you have any bombs, they asked."

It was at this point that the conversation took a delightfully culinary turn, with quinoa making an unlikely appearance in the FBI's inquiries:

Do you own a pressure cooker? My husband said no, but we have a rice cooker. Can you make a bomb with that? My husband said no, my wife uses it to make quinoa. What the hell is quinoa, they asked.

The joint terrorism task force did not press Catalano's husband on the dilemma facing liberals over whether quinoa consumption is ethically sound – many Bolivians can no longer afford their staple food now everyone in Brooklyn is eating it.

"By this point they had realized they were not dealing with terrorists," Catalano said.
Still, she was left worried by the visit, which she attributes to her family's internet history.

I felt a sense of creeping dread take over. What else had I looked up? What kind of searches did I do that alone seemed innocent enough but put together could make someone suspicious? Were they judging me because my house was a mess (Oh my god, the joint terrorism task force was in my house and there were dirty dishes in my sink!). Mostly I felt a great sense of anxiety.

This is where we are at. Where you have no expectation of privacy. Where trying to learn how to cook some lentils could possibly land you on a watch list. Where you have to watch every little thing you do because someone else is watching every little thing you do.

All I know is if I'm going to buy a pressure cooker in the near future, I'm not doing it online.

I'm scared. And not of the right things.

If you're not scared of all the surveillance and police paramilitary action these days, you're not paying enough attention.

You can bet the government is watching everything you do these days.

Everything.

Even looking up lentil recipes.

1984 is here.

Mayor Bloomberg's "Legacy"

Along with the CityTime fraud (which Bloomberg said yesterday was the swellest thing that ever happened to NYC) and the 911 system mess and the Bloomberg Boxer Day Blizzard Disaster (9 dead - Go see a play!) and phonied up test scores, graduation rates, crime stats and emergency response stats is a New York City police department completely out of control:

A college-bound  Brooklyn teen says a vengeful cop handcuffed him and dragged him off to jail for leaving his bicycle on the sidewalk — eight days after he slapped the officer with a lawsuit alleging false arrest.

Officer Daniel Berardi and Rayquan Callahan, 19, first crossed paths on Feb. 24 in Brownsville. Callahan, then a senior at Brooklyn Collegiate High School and working seven days a week at McDonald’s, was walking out of the Rockaway Ave. subway station with two friends.

The trio stopped to talk to a 16-year-old acquaintance, according to court papers, when Berardi and several plainclothes cops started frisking the young men. The 16-year-old bolted.

The cops chased him down and recovered a gun he had tossed under a car — then inexplicably put a call over the police radio for officers to be on the lookout for Callahan and his two friends, who had already been searched and were found not to be carrying anything illegal.

They were arrested and spent 15 hours in custody before the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office declined to press charges. Callahan filed suit and a related complaint was served on June 26 at the 73rd Precinct stationhouse where Berardi was assigned.

Just over a week later — on July 4 — Callahan and Berardi, 25, crossed paths again. The cop, sued twice in three years, immediately recognized the teen on Pitkin Ave.

“This is the guy who’s suing us,” Berardi told his fellow cops, according to the complaint. “I don’t care, the money isn’t coming out of my pocket.”

Callahan, who has been accepted to Ohio State University, had left his bicycle on the sidewalk while he was inside a check-cashing business. Berardi handcuffed the teen on a fabricated charge of riding on the sidewalk, according to court papers filed in Brooklyn Federal Court.

Callahan denies he ever rode his bike on the sidewalk.

The teen should have been issued a summons for the alleged bike violation, but was instead taken to central booking. He spent 30 hours in custody before a judge dismissed the charges. Before the encounters with Berardi, Callahan had a clean record. “I have nothing to say to you,” Berardi told the Daily News in a brief telephone interview.

Callahan’s lawyer, Joel Berger, was livid. “Never in 45 years of practicing civil rights law have I encountered such a brazen retaliation against a plaintiff by the very officer he has just sued,” Berger said.

Berardi is also being sued by eight plaintiffs who were allegedly rounded up by Berardi on March 9 because they were in the vicinity of a shooting near Dumont Ave., their lawyer David Zelman said. Six were released after 12 hours without seeing a judge; two spent the night at Rikers Island and were also cut loose without being charged, court papers state.

A spokeswoman for the city Law Department said Callahan’s allegations were being reviewed.

An NYPD spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

Now Bill Keller and the rest of the suck of journalists busy lapping at Bloomberg's ass with their "legacy" pieces don't care about this sort of thing because they're white and they're kids are white and they're not subject to the abuse.

But you can bet if Keller's kid or grand kid was the kid in this story, Keller would see Bloomberg's "legacy" differently.

John Liu: Stop-And-Frisk As Bad As Stand Your Ground

Comptroller John Liu attacked Mayor Bloomberg for his hypocrisy over his stop-and-frisk policy yesterday:

In a statement released earlier this afternoon, Mr. Liu equated the attitude officers use when stopping New Yorkers with George Zimmerman, the Florida neighborhood watchman who was found not guilty Saturday in the high-profile fatal shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.

In particular, Mr. Liu blasted Mayor Michael Bloomberg‘s response to the controversial verdict, which had largely focused on criticizing Florida’s “shoot first” laws.

“Mayor Bloomberg’s statement on Saturday’s verdict rings hollow. If he were truly concerned, he would realize that the same mindset that allowed Zimmerman to believe he was justified in following an innocent young black man permits the NYPD to justify the targeting of black and Hispanic youth in its stop-and-frisk operation,” Mr. Liu said.

“We must work to undo the misguided perception that black and Hispanic youth are guilty until proven innocent,” he added. “Just as states like Florida must repeal their dangerous Stand Your Ground legislation, the City must abandon its stop-and-frisk campaign.”

NYPD Commissioner Kelly has been quoted as saying the goal behind stop-and-frisk is to "instill fear" in every young black and Latino male in the city "that every time that they left their homes they could be targeted by police."

Liu is correct to say that stop-and-frisk is every bit as racist as Stand Your Ground laws and to call Bloomberg out for his hypocrisy.

The mayor's office did not respond to Liu's statement.

In all honesty, that's because there is no way to respond to it.

What Liu said is absolutely true.

Stop-and-frisk and Stand Your Ground come from the same infected place.

A Racist Police State

A wall of blue shirts, with the white shirts behind them to enforce discipline, greeted people protesting the Trayvon Martin verdict trying to march from Union Square to Times Square yesterday.

Just in case anybody out there is still under the impression they have constitutional rights or enjoy living in the "land of the free," these pictures ought to disabuse them of those erroneous beliefs.

We live in a police state, we have no rights and we are not free.

Meanwhile, in other news today, the U.S. killed nineteen brown people, er "militants," with a drone strike and military operation in Pakistan.

There are prisoners in California and prisoners in Guantanamo on hunger strike.

A whistleblower who has exposed the nexus between private enterprise and the Obama administration in the surveillance state cannot go to Venezuela for asylum because he fears the U.S. will force down his plane in international airspace, arrest him and take him into military detention where he will be tortured.

And the government is quite literally spying on everything we do - not to keep us safe but to keep us down.

If you want to express you're outrage at any of these crimes, from the Zimmerman verdict to the drone bomb crimes to the police state to the surveillance state, you'll be met by a wall of blue shirts with white shirts behind them to enforce discipline.

That's the United States these days.

If you're not pissed at the people in both parties running this show, you're not paying attention.

Bloomberg: NYPD Doesn't Stop Enough Black, Brown And Yellow People

Yeah, he really did say it:

NEW YORK (AP) — Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Friday that police “disproportionately stop whites too much and minorities too little” as compared to murder suspects’ descriptions, sparking criticism from activists and some politicians in a city that has been immersed in a debate about law enforcement and discrimination.

Speaking on his weekly WOR-AM radio appearance, Bloomberg echoed an argument he has made before: that the stops’ demographics should be assessed against suspect descriptions, not the population as a whole. But coming a day after city lawmakers voted to create a police inspector general and new legal avenues for racial profiling claims, the mayor’s remarks drew immediate pushback.

The measures’ advocates accused the mayor of using “irresponsible rhetoric,” some mayoral hopefuls chastised him and some City Council members said his remarks only emphasized the need for change.

“Our mayor’s comments prove he just doesn’t get it,” said Councilman Robert Jackson, who co-chairs the council’s Black, Latino and Asian Caucus.

Bloomberg spokesman Marc LaVorgna said the critics were “fabricating outrage over an absolutely accurate comment.”

“What they should be outraged by is the number of minorities who are being killed and that successful police efforts to save minority lives are being hampered,” he added.

...

About 5 million stops have been made during the past decade. Eighty-seven percent of those stopped in the last two years were black or Hispanic. Those groups comprise 54 percent of the city population.

There is no need to fabricate outrage over that Bloomberg comment or the way he is trying to mislead people into thinking this is just police work, with cops looking for suspects who match a particular description, including racial description.

Here was how one community activist group pushed back against Bloomberg:

The group Communities United for Police Reform called Bloomberg’s view misinformation, noting that most stops aren’t spurred by suspect descriptions. Police department records of the stops also list such reasons as “furtive movements” or suspicious bulges in clothing.

“Mayor Bloomberg should cease with the irresponsible rhetoric and seek to work with the council on a constructive path forward,” said Communities United for Police Reform spokeswoman Joo-Hyun Kang.

I've never understood why Bloomberg isn't vilified for being a racist dictator the way Rudy was.

Frankly, the racist police state policies are worse under Bloomberg than Rudy.

Stop And Frisk Math Problems For The New Common Core Math Tests

Read the following math conundrum and respond with the correct answer.  Show your work.

First, read the following piece of information text:

The NYPD's former top-ranked uniformed officer admitted Tuesday that the number of stop-and-frisks jumped by an astounding 700% on his watch.

But retired Chief of Department Joseph Esposito also said there was a massive drop in crime during the same time period.

“Yes it is,” said Esposito, when asked if it was true that the number of these controversial stops leaped from 97,000 in 2002 to 685,000 in 2011.

Then Esposito, after a long pause, added: “As is the 40% drop in crime during the same time. And the 80% decline in crime in the last 20 years.”

Here's your problem, both Part A and Part B:

Part A: Stop and frisks are up 700% over the last 11 years. 

Crime is down 40% over the last ten years, down 80% over the last twenty.

Let's assume these stats aren't funky (a precarious assumption, given the Bloomberg administration's history of funkifying the data.)

The first 9 years before the sharp increase in stop and frisks, crime fell, according to the NYPD data by 40%.

Then the NYPD, under P.W. Botha, er, Michael Bloomberg, instituted the city's "Stop and frisk every black and Latino male" policy.

Over the next 11 years, crime, according to the NYPD data, fell another 40%.

That's the same amount it fell before they instituted the policy.

Is it possible that crime could have fallen by the same amount without the stop and frisks going up 700%?

After all, crime "fell" by 40% pre-stop and frisk.

Part B: Only about 2.6% end in arrests, and even then, only about 0.02% of those arrests are because the person searched was found to have a weapon.  The overwhelming majority of those arrests stem from drug possession, usually low level marijuana possession.

Now if that's the kind of "crime" Bloomberg and Kelly are claiming they're stopping with the policy, that might be at least honest.

But it's not.  They claim they're stopping gun violence and gun possession.

Except that they're not. 

0.02% of stop and frisks end with an arrest because of weapons possession.

99.08% do not.

Explain exactly how this policy is effective.

Queens Residents Protest NYPD Brutality

I'm telling you, if the mayor and the police commissioner are not careful, they are going to see some serious problems this summer:

A drug bust outside a Queens housing project erupted into a tense three-hour standoff Friday night as dozens of angry residents marched on the 113th Precinct and cops in riot gear stood guard over their stationhouse.

Shocked witnesses said police officers pounded on brothers Raynard Fields, 27, and Corey Crichlow, 33, outside the Baisley Park Houses during the 7:45 p.m. arrest on Foch Blvd.

“The cops came up to the car and dragged (Crichlow) out and started beating on him,” said witness Gary Frazier, 22. “When (Fields) tried to calm the situation down, they beat him down. Cops came from everywhere.”

About 50 incensed residents protested the arrest and what they call a pattern of brutality by the NYPD by marching down Guy R. Brewer Blvd. to the Baisley Blvd. stationhouse. They ran through the streets, knocking garbage cans over during their 6-block trek, witnesses said.

“I am sick of the 113th Precinct harassing the young black men in the Baisley projects,” said marcher Kathy Moore, 40.

Cops responded to the impromptu protest in riot helmets and batons, forcing protesters onto the sidewalk.

“They were wilding out here,” livery cab driver Danny McLennon, 42, said of the residents. “The cops shut down Guy Brewer Blvd. Not even the buses could get through.”

More cops in riot gear met protesters at the 113th Precinct, where Fields was being treated inside an ambulance parked next to the stationhouse. Sources said he suffered a deep gash to his face during the brawl. He was expected to be taken to a hospital, a relative said.

...
“(Residents) were throwing things from windows,” a police source said.

...

  Crichlow’s cousin said she tried to record the arrest, but a cop snatched her phone.

“(Cops) were kicking (Crichlow) in the face, stomping him, leaning on him with their knees,” said cousin Tyniera Hogan, 32. “He was trying to get up, but they kept pushing him back down . . . it didn’t look like he was resisting.”

Hogan said Crichlow was taken to a hospital with bumps and bruises.

“Some officers don’t have the respect to serve,” Hogan said of the cops who arrested his nephews and sparked the outrage. “Kids got mad and the community got mad.”

Classic - cops take the phone away so that the handling of the arrest cannot be recorded.

They're using tons of technology to record citizens wherever they go.

But the state sure does not like its officers to be recorded, does it?

Because they're teaching the boys and girls in blue to first take out the recorders.

Well, these incidents of unrest are starting to mount.

This one comes on the heels of a few nights of unrest in East Flatbush after a 16 year old was shot and killed by the police.

And as I said earlier, if the Mayor and the commissioner and the NYPD are not careful, one of these incidents is going to erupt into something city wide.

There is a lot of anger out there at the police.

And frankly, the mayor and the commissioner could do a lot to defuse that - if they cared to.

Bloomberg Full Of It On Guns

Even as his own NYPD army continues to gun down people with near impunity in NYC, Michael Bloomberg is going on an anti-gun offensive all across the nation:

The mayor’s advertising blitz, which will saturate television screens in states including Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Arizona, represents by far the biggest escalation of Mr. Bloomberg’s attempts to become a one-man counterweight to the National Rifle Association in the political clash over guns.
      

“The N.R.A. has just had this field to itself,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “It’s the only one that’s been speaking out. It’s time for another voice.”

Bloomberg's PAC will target politicians all across the country:

Given the mayor’s role in contributing to the ouster of an N.R.A.-backed candidate in an Illinois Congressional race a few weeks ago, his push carries an unmistakable threat to those who vote against the bills.
       

The ads are directed at Democratic and Republican senators in both swing states and partisan precincts. Among Mr. Bloomberg’s targets are some of the Senate’s most vulnerable Democrats, including Kay R. Hagan of North Carolina, Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana and Mark L. Pryor of Arkansas, for whom the gun issue is particularly problematic because they will need Republican votes to win re-election.

      

Some of the senators, such as Dean Heller of Nevada, Rob Portman of Ohio and Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania, all Republicans, represent swing states where voters are divided over guns. Other Republicans would seem to be out of reach for Mr. Bloomberg: Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson of Georgia, Daniel Coats of Indiana and Jeff Flake of Arizona.

      

In each case, the commercials urge support for the measure requiring background checks for nearly all firearms purchases, not just those in gun stores, the most debated element of the legislation and a coveted goal of gun control advocates.

      

Mr. Bloomberg has singled out Mr. Flake, who already voted against the expansion of background checks in the Senate Judiciary Committee, by producing a special, scolding commercial aimed at Arizona. “Flake’s vote,” the ad declares, equals “no background checks for dangerous criminals.”

      

The mayor, who has spent tens of millions of dollars to support his favored candidates, intends to wield his “super PAC” to influence the midterm Congressional elections next year and beyond. He said he would prefer “candidates who will stop people from getting killed.”

 

The mayor's desire to stop people from getting killed does not extend to putting an independent monitor in place to be a watchdog over the NYPD, of course, even though the NYPD have been  trigger happy over the course of Bloomberg's three terms in office, shooting both unarmed suspects and innocent bystanders.

The mayor was on Meet The Toadies this morning to be fellated by David Gregory over the gun control issue, but not once did Gregory ask him if he's troubled by the shootings in NYC by the NYPD.

Like this one.

Or this one.

Or this one.

Or this.

Or these shootings.

It's hard to take Bloomberg's anti-gun offensive seriously when he clearly has no problem with his police department shooting people all the time - either suspects or innocent bystanders.

If Bloomberg wanting to put in place laws that will "stop people from getting killed," he would agree to putting an independent monitor in place.

But he refuses to do this and has spoken out quite forcefully against any NYC politician who is promoting such a monitor.

It would be nice if he the press would put these two issues together when they put him on their shows to sell his anti-gun offensive.

Because they are linked.

NYPD Bills Family Of Man Killed During Chase For Dent To Cop Car

Brillaint - don't only just kill people, but charge the family fees for the privilege:

The mother of a man who was struck by a New York City police department car during a chase says cops want her to pay $710 to have the car repaired, New York Daily News reports.

Tamon Robinson, 27, was killed in April around dawn after he tried to outrun officers who were chasing him through his Brooklyn housing project. He was fleeing after being caught stealing decorative stones from the grounds, police said.

Now his mom, Laverne Dobbinson, 45, says she's been ordered to pay the cost of repairing the police car that killed her son, the paper reports.

"We're still grieving, and this is like a slap in the face," Dobbinson said."They want my son to pay for damage to the vehicle that killed him. It's crazy."

A letter dated Sept. 27 and mailed to her son seeks $710 for "property damage to a vehicle owned by the New York Police Department," according to New York Daily News. It also threatens to slap the family with a lawsuit if the claim isn't paid.

After being hit by the squad car, Robinson slipped into a coma and never regained consciousness, dying six days later of blunt impact head injuries.The city medical examiner ruled his death an accident.

At the time, Robinson worked at a muffin shop but also tried to make extra money hawking items, including paving stones to scrap dealers, his mother told the paper.
The police department's Internal Affairs Bureau is probing allegations from witnesses that Robinson was deliberately mowed down.

An NYPD spokesman did not return a call or e-mail from the paper seeking comment.

The NYPD is out of control - much more so now than during even the worst days of the Giuliani administration.

Here they deliberately run over a guy stealing freaking paving stones, then bill his family for the damage to the squad car.

Now that the story has made the news, you can be sure the city will drop the collection against the family.

Nonetheless, the story is emblematic of Mayor Bloomberg's New York.

Cops murder victim, get away with the murder with impunity, then bill the surviving family members for damages.

You can't make this up.

Moscow On The Seine: French Police Arrest Pussy Riot Protesters For Wearing Masks

You can now be arrested in public in France simply for wearing a mask:

Several people protesting peacefully in Marseille against the trial of the Russian punk band Pussy Riot were detained by police for wearing balaclavas, under France's controversial law that bans Muslim niqabs and all face-coverings from public places.

About 30 demonstrators gathered outside the Russian consulate in the southern French city on Friday to protest against the trial of members of the feminist group famous for wearing bright dresses and colourful balaclavas.

But police swooped on about seven wearing multicoloured face-masks in solidarity with the band, reported La Provence. Asked why the police had stopped the demonstrators who had been standing peacefully behind a banner about the power of poetry, a senior officer told the newspaper: "They are wearing balaclavas in a public space. It's illegal." He said the demonstrators would be questioned and a report written.

In April 2011, Nicolas Sarkozy's government introduced a law banning women from wearing the niqab, or full face-veil, in public places. To circumvent accusations that the law singled out Muslims, the bill was officially called the law against covering one's face in public places.

Special exemptions were created for motorcycle helmets or sports equipment such as fencing masks. There are also exemptions for people appearing in parades, celebrations or places of worship.

The Marseille protesters – including poets, a book editor, and a former culture official – who had removed their masks at police request, were put in a riot van and driven to the nearest police station amid cries of "Absurd!" and "Ridiculous!". They were released that afternoon. Under the law, the case can be referred to a local judge who can hand down a €150 fine, a citizenship course or both.

"We came here to defend freedom of expression in Russia and we find ourselves stopped by French police," one pensioner at the rally told the paper.

The irony in all of this is that the law against public mask wearing is really aimed at Muslim head garb, but of course they extended the law to all masks so as to not make it look discriminatory.

Why did Islamic terrorists attack us on 9/11 again?

Oh, yeah, I remember now - they hate us "for our freedoms."

The Old Mask Law Of 1845

Gothamist reports that at least three masked Pussy Riot supporters, and perhaps as many as six, were arrested at a rally outside the Russian Consulate attended by about 40 people.

The justification for the arrests?

As we learned after some OWS arrests last year, "wearing masks is in violation of a law that bars two or more participants from doing so." The law dates back to 1845.

Ah, yes - the old two or more participants are forbidden from wearing masks at the same time and congregating law.

That makes sense.

But how about these guys? Why aren't they arrested for violating the old two or more participants are forbidden from wearing masks at the same time and congregating law?



Frankly I think the NYPD ought to be arresting Dirty, Creepy Elmo in Times Square before they arrest the masked Pussy Riot supporters outside the Russian Consulate.

Who is the bigger nuisance - the masked Pussy Riot supporters or Dirty, Creepy Elmo?

Cops Execute Knife-Wielding Man On Seventh Avenue

Another day in New York, another dramatic NYPD shooting.

Cops shot a knife-wielding man in Times Square yesterday in the middle of the afternoon. Police claim he had been stopped for smoking marijuana on the street when he pulled out a knife and began running away from them while swinging the knife.

They followed him through Times Square, eventually shooting and killing him on 38th Street and 7th Avenue. The Daily News reports at least fifteen bullet casings on the street, though there may have been more shots fired by the NYPD than that.



Was this guy a danger and a menace?

Absolutely.

According to the media accounts, they'd sprayed him with six blasts of mace and he still hadn't dropped the knife.

The cops claim he lunged at them with the knife right before he was shot.

The NY Post reports he was shouting "Shoot me! Shoot me!" before he "lunged" at them with the knife.

Some people say the knife-wielding man was trying to commit "suicide by cop".

Dunno how much of that to believe and the videos that have surfaced are quite jumpy - it's hard to see what's going on.

That said, the first photo with the man backing away from cops, hands behind his head, as they advance in preparation to shoot him, sure makes you wonder if there was another way to get him down without killing him in a flood of bullets.

But in Bloomberg's New York, this is actually the perfect emblem.

Get rid of the Big Apple symbol and put the photo of the guy with the knife backing away from a dozen armed cops getting ready to execute him in its place.

You don't have to be wielding a knife to get shot by gun-toting NYPD goons.

You can just be trying to flush marijuana down the toilet when they kill you - like in February when police followed 18-year-old Ramarley Graham into his home and executed him, NYPD-style, for trying to flush a small amount of marijuana before they arrested him.

Graham was unarmed when he was executed by police.

Graham's grandmother witnessed the shooting and was brought down to the precinct and worked over for hours as cops tried to get her to change her account of what happened.

One officer has since been charged with manslaughter in the case.

But we know how the justice system works in New York, don't we?

Bloomberg Brings Jim Crow To The NYC School System

There is a devastating article showing the effects of segregation on NYC schools in today's Times.

It's entitled "Why Don't We Have Any White Kids?" and takes a close look at Explore Charter School in Flatbush, or "the prison school" as it is known to its students.

First, here are the numbers on segregation, first city-wide, then at Explore Charter:

In the broad resegregation of the nation’s schools that has transpired over recent decades, New York’s public-school system looms as one of the most segregated. While the city’s public-school population looks diverse — 40.3 percent Hispanic, 32 percent black, 14.9 percent white and 13.7 percent Asian — many of its schools are nothing of the sort.

About 650 of the nearly 1,700 schools in the system have populations that are 70 percent a single race, a New York Times analysis of schools data for the 2009-10 school year found; more than half the city’s schools are at least 90 percent black and Hispanic. Explore Charter is one of them: of the school’s 502 students from kindergarten through eighth grade this school year, 92.7 percent are black, 5.7 percent are Hispanic, and a scattering are of mixed race. None are white or Asian. There is a good deal of cultural diversity, with students, for instance, of Haitian, Guyanese and Nigerian heritage. But not of class. Nearly 80 percent of the students qualify for subsidized lunch, a mark of poverty. The school’s makeup is in line with charter schools nationally, which are over all less integrated than traditional public schools.

At Explore, as at many schools in New York City, children trundle from segregated neighborhoods to segregated schools, living a hermetic reality.

The school’s enrollment is even more racially lopsided than its catchment area. Students are chosen by lottery, with preference given to District 17, its community school district, which encompasses neighborhoods like Flatbush, East Flatbush, Crown Heights and Farragut. Census data for District 17 put the kindergarten-through-eighth-grade population at 75 percent black, 13 percent Hispanic, 12 percent white and 1 percent Asian. But the white students go elsewhere — many to yeshivas or other private schools.

And of course the predominantly white teaching staff imposes strict discipline on their black charges:

Explore students wear uniforms and have a longer school day and year than the students in the other schools in the building, schools with which they have a difficult relationship. A great deal of teaching is done to the state tests, the all-important metric by which schools are largely judged. In the hallway this spring, before the tests, a calendar counted down the days remaining until the next round.

Explore’s academic performance has been inconsistent. Last year, the school got its charter renewed for another five years, and this year, for the first time, three students, including Jahmir, got into specialized high schools. Yet, on Explore’s progress report for the 2010-11 school year, the Education Department gave it a C (after a B the previous year). In student progress, it rated a D.

“We weren’t doing right by our students,” Mr. Ballen said.

In response, a new literacy curriculum was introduced and greater emphasis was put on applauding academic achievement. School walls are emblazoned with motivational signs: “Getting the knowledge to go to college”; “When we graduate ...we are going to be doctors.” Teachers are encouraged to refer to students as “scholars.”

Convinced that student unruliness was impeding learning, the school installed a rigid discipline system. Infractions — for transgressions like calling out without permission, frowning after being given a demerit, being off task — lead to detention for upper-school students. On some days, 50 students land in detention, a quarter of the upper school.

Positive behavior does bring rewards, like making the Respect Corps, which allows a student to wear an honorary T-shirt. Winning an attendance contest can lead to treats for the class or the freedom to wear jeans.

Still, some students have taken to referring to Explore as “the prison school.”

25%-35% of the teaching staff turns over every year.

But one thing remains constant.

65% are white.

Now an integrated school environment doesn't ensure an excellent education for children.

It doesn't ensure that kids will learn racial and ethnic tolerance.

But it does ensure one thing:

When you have an integrated school, you do NOT have a predominantly white teaching staff imposing strict (and sometimes harsh) discipline onto a student body that is overwhelmingly black.

Explain to me how there is a difference between Bloomberg setting up a school system run by white people to "discipline" students of color and a police policy which, in the words of Commissioner Kelly, seeks to "instil the fear in black and Hispanic youth that every time they leave their homes they will feel that they could be stopped"?

On Thursday I posted that P.W. Bloomberg had built South Africa on the Hudson.

Today's Times story does nothing to undercut that statement.

Welcome to Bloomberg's South Africa on the Hudson - a racist, fascist police state.

Watch out for the truncheons, orange netting, pepper spray and stop-and-frisks.