By Graham Kates
Former and serving NYC cops speak out on racial profiling and arrest quotas.
Read full entry »Under pressure over its policy of paying officers involved in shootings, the Albuquerque Police Officers’ Association said Thursday that it was ending the practice, reports the New York Times. Those opposed to the payments had characterized them as bounties since the practice was revealed last week by the Albuquerque Journal. The announcement was made at a news conference with Mayor Richard J. Berry and the police chief, Raymond D. Schultz,who said they ppposed the payments. “I feel very strongly that the practice of cash payments needed to stop, and I am very pleased that the union has made this decision,” Berry said.
The Journal reported that 20 Albuquerque police officers involved in shootings in 2010 and 2011 received payments from the police union of either $300 or $500. A written statement from police union president Joey Sigala said the payments were to cover some expenses for officers who have been involved in “critical incidents” and their families “to find a place to have some privacy and time to decompress outside the Albuquerque area.”
Read full entry »The number of Pennsylvania state police troopers continues to decline and will soon reach a dangerously low level, spurred by increased retirements and the state's failure to pay for training more new police cadets, reports the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. That was the conclusion of both state police management and its troopers union, expressed to joint Senate and House judiciary committee members Wednesday. "If we do not proactively address our reduced ranks now," said Pennsylvania State Troopers Association President Joseph Kovel, "it will reach a point of financial impossibility to do so, and we will all pay a terrible price for that lack of foresight. Pennsylvania, without question, is on the verge of a public safety crisis."
He said 350 new troopers should be added over the next year, but that is something everyone agreed won't happen because it would cost too much. But state police Commissioner Frank Noonan did agree that action is needed quickly to boost the ranks, which "continue to shrink." He said retirements from the state police ranks are increasing -- 180 announced so far this year, with more than 220 likely by June 30, compared to an average year of 150. That leaves the ranks at 4,282 officers now, compared to the 4,677 that are authorized.
Read full entry »New York's Civilian Complaint Review Board has been given new powers to prosecute police officers for misconduct, giving "teeth and transparency" to the process, reports the New York Times. The wide new powers for CCRB lawyers were part of an agreement city officials reached on Tuesday. The changes follow a period in which the Police Department has withstood an onslaught of corruption cases and increased scrutiny on several fronts, including its surveillance and stop-and-frisk practices, the integrity of its crime data and its use of force in policing Occupy Wall Street protests.
The changes are intended to shine light on a police disciplinary process that critics have long said is murky and secretive. The agreement means that board lawyers, instead of police agency employees, will act as prosecutors in cases in which board members have substantiated wrongdoing by officers and have recommended that the most serious kinds of internal, or administrative, discipline be handed out. From 2007 through 2011, the board substantiated an average of 200 cases annually that it referred to the police so officers could be put on trial by departmental lawyers before an administrative judge who also was a Police Department employee.
Read full entry »A 2012 ballot initiative in Missouri presents an opportunity to return control of the St. Louis police department to the city, the Post-Dispatch says in an editorial. The paper describes the situation as a "150-year-old farce" dating to the Civil War. "Thatt's how long the battle over the control of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department has been stewing," the Post-Dispatch says. "In 1861, Confederate sympathizers in the state capital placed control of the department under the governor, fearful that Unionists in St. Louis would turn the police against the rebel cause."
It continues, "Shamefully, some of the same fears have been driving the discussion in Jefferson City in recent years as city leaders have fought unsuccessfully to convince lawmakers that local control simply makes political sense and is the law of the land in every city in the state except for the two largest ones. Arguments against local control have featured suggestions from rural lawmakers that the aldermen in St. Louis, many of whom are black, would exercise undue political influence over the police department. And exactly how would this make them different from the mostly white mayors and town councils of those lawmakers' cities?.().If it passes — and why should anyone outside of the city care who runs the city's police department — the city would regain control of something it never should have lost."
Read full entry »New York City police officers under the gun in what the New York Daily News calls a massive ticket-fixing scandal are sweating bullets as a grand jury started weighing whether to indict them on a slew of corruption charges. "Guys are nervous," said one officer who is wrapped up in the wide-ranging probe. "It's a bad time to be a cop." The grand jury in the Bronx began deliberating the fates of 17 cops - including at least eight union officials - on charges of perjury, bribery, grand larceny, records tampering, and official misconduct.
A handful of cops and civilians linked to a suspected Bronx drug dealer also face indictment, as do four cops who swept an assault charge against them under the rug. The probe has dragged on for two years, with Internal Affairs Bureau investigators and prosecutors gathering evidence on the actions of more than 500 cops. Wiretaps on more than two dozen cops, most of them union delegates, uncovered a range of crimes unrelated to fixing tickets. Most cops are being dealt with in NYPD disciplinary hearings, but the "worst of the worst" had their cases turned over to the Bronx district attorney. "All we can do is hope they see it the way we saw it - as a professional courtesy," one officer said.
Read full entry »One in eight Rochester, N.Y., police officers drives to and from work in a vehicle bought, maintained, insured and fueled at taxpayer expense. And nearly all of those city-owned cars travel to homes outside the city, reports the city's Democrat & Chronicle. Police account for 94 of the 130 take-home vehicles assigned across all city departments. Amid a budget crisis, the City Council has asked police to review and justify each vehicle assignment.
The cars are intended for employees who can be called out at any time, whether to a crime scene or a water-main break. Investigators and narcotics officers are most likely to have a 24/7 vehicle assigned. But privileges also extend to those overseeing special events, such as festival and parade coverage, officers working in professional development and internal affairs, and an officer who once oversaw the police fleet but now has administrative duties at headquarters.
Read full entry »Overwhelmed by rising crime and mass police layoffs, the struggling city of Camden, N.J., pledged Tuesday to be the first municipality to join a new county police force intended to be a model for other cash-strapped New Jersey cities and towns, reports the Newark Star-Ledger. The city, which has one of the highest crime rates in the nation, signed an agreement with county and state officials to draft plans for the new Camden County Police Department by Sept. 30. County officials are to coordinate formation of the department, which will then require state approval.
The regional force is likely be the first of its kind in the state. Somerset and Morris Counties are considering similar arrangements. Still, it is unclear if other Camden County communities will volunteer to sign on to the force — and how much police union officials will protest the inevitable layoffs to result — making its future uncertain. Supporters of the regional approach to policing say consolidation will take pressure off local budgets by combining administrative and back-office tasks, and at the same time bolster purchasing power to get better prices on equipment. Edward Brannigan, president of the state Fraternal Order of Police, denounced the plan, saying said he feared officers hired by the county would be paid less and receive fewer benefits.
Read full entry »The interim police chief of Costa Mesa, Calif., fired verbal parting shots Monday as he resigned to protest a proposal to reduce the size of the city's Police Department, reports the city's Daily Pilot. In an interview and in a memo widely circulated at City Hall, Chief Steve Staveley questioned the ethics, integrity and legality of some of the decisions made by the City Council majority. The city's chief executive defended the proposals and called the resigning chief's statements "simply libelous."
In a display of brinkmanship that could throw ongoing contract talks into turmoil, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck issued a public warning that the LAPD would have to send home thousands of police officers unless an agreement can be reached with union leaders to extend a deal on overtime benefits, reports the city's Times. The staffing reductions, Beck and other police officials said, would force the department to shutter or dramatically reduce the size of some specialized units, forgo investigating lower-priority crimes and perhaps drop the number of officers working regular patrol shifts.
The Police Protective League, which represents rank-and-file officers, dismissed Beck's warning as a ploy to pressure them into making concessions. The LAPD has not been paying officers most overtime wages for the last year. In previous years, their contract entitled officers to receive payments once they accrued 96 hours of overtime. To bypass that requirement, police and union officials negotiated a deal in which the threshold for making payments was lifted and, in lieu of cash, officers were required to take time off when they banked about 250 hours of overtime. That agreement expires June 30, and unless negotiators agree on a new contract or an extension, the department will revert back to the old overtime rules. If that occurs, Beck said, he would have to force officers to take time off well before they reached the 96-hour limit, and the drain on manpower would seriously strain the department's ability to adequately staff police stations throughout the city.
Read full entry »With its dramatic vote to make unparalleled cuts to police and fire services, the Sacramento City Council stepped up pressure on public safety unions to agree to pension givebacks and other long-term salary concessions, reports the city's Bee. The message: Sacramento can no longer afford a benefits package that's richer than what most private sector and even many public sector employees receive. The city's police officers and firefighters contribute nothing to their CalPERS retirement accounts.
Most other city workers chip in 4 percent of their salaries to their PERS accounts. If public safety workers did the same, it would save the city more than $4.1 million a year, according to budget documents. Police officers who retire at age 50 receive 3 percent of their salaries in retirement benefits for every year of service. In other words, a cop who retires at 50 after working 25 years gets 75 percent of his salary in retirement. Firefighters can retire at 55 with 3 percent of salary for each year worked. Public employee pensions have come under scrutiny nationwide during the recession.
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By K. Daniel Glover
Dozens of police agencies around the country are moving into the social media space. But social media can be a two-edged digital sword for law enforcement.
Read full entry »San Francisco police opened an investigation into surveillance camera video that shows an undercover officer taking a duffel bag from a drug suspect's room that was never booked into evidence, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. The suspect, Fernando Santana, said the bag contained an iPod, a bottle of Tequila, 2 pounds of coffee, and caps and T-shirts he had received for Christmas.
Santana's cocaine-dealing case was dismissed by a judge last week, but he hasn't gotten the items back and police say they don't know what became of the bag. It's the fourth instance since March in which surveillance video released by the public defender's office has raised embarrassing questions for the Police Department and its plainclothes operations. Earlier revelations led to the dismissal of almost 100 criminal cases and prompted the FBI to open an investigation that is still under way.
Depending on interpretation, Houston Police Officer Jose Coronado either upheld his duty or violated department policy when he intervened in an altercation last month - killing one man and injuring another - after leaving a bar where he'd been drinking, reports the city's Chronicle. Local police policy requires officers to respond to emergencies that come to their attention, but also restricts exercising police authority while "under the influence," whether on or off duty. So, what was Coronado supposed to do?
"No one would expect an officer to stand idly by while an attempted child kidnapping is in progress because the officer had a glass of wine an hour before," said Larry Hoover, director of the Police Research Center at Sam Houston State University. "At the same time, HPD does not want officers to react off duty to a trivial situation if the officer has been drinking, even if not intoxicated." The incident happened early Feb. 19 as Coronado was leaving a bar with his wife. He rushed to the scene of altercation, identified himself as a police officer and tried to break up the fight. At some point, he discharged his weapon multiple times. Omar Ventura was shot and killed. His brother, Rolando Ventura, was shot in the arm. Coronado told investigators that Omar Ventura said he had a gun and reached for his waistband, but it was unclear whether the man was carrying a weapon.
Read full entry »Days before he was sworn in three months ago as mayor of Lexington, Ky., Jim Gray was handed a 67-page report by his transition team that highlighted myriad problems throughout the city's public safety agencies. The report detailed management, budget and other issues at the jail and with police, fire, code enforcement and emergency services. It foreshadowed the actions Gray has taken since he entered office, including an attempt to dissect issues at the jail, the city's 911 call center and at the fire department.
Public safety unions that backed Gray said their agencies were plagued with low morale and lack of faith in leadership. The police union wants a new chief. At the jail, union officials said the top brass has a "closed-door policy" and "no plans to address the public's perception of the corrections facility." And the fire union president said there is a lack of diversity and "no trust, respect or leadership" in the division of fire's administration. Last week, Gray asked for the resignation of Fire Chief Robert Hendricks.
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