Police Captain Escapes Extreme Fine For Talking

Police captain Eric Adams, who had been reprimanded by the police department for speaking out against last fall's terror alert and implying that Mayor Bloomberg used the alert to draw attention from a mayoral debate he was not participating in, was found not guilty of two charges the NYPD brought against him in a trial. Adams, who is retiring to enter politics, had said the NYPD waited three days before telling the public about a terror threat; he would have been stripped of his pension otherwise. However, he was found guilty of appearing on TV, representing the NYPD without permission. Overall, Adams will be able to retire with his full pension, giving up 15 vacation days for speaking without permission. But his lawyer, Norman Siegel, says Adams will appeal the decision, saying, "If government employees - including police officers - are afraid to speak out and they don't speak out, then we, the citizens, we, the public, lose in the long run. Because the government employees know better than anyone else what's actually happening inside their government agencies."

Gothamist found this NYPD Confidential column from March 6 interesting: Leonard Levitt listed other disciplinary issues within the NYPD, ranging from a cop not admitting that he shot a robbery suspect in DC until the next day; in all the cases, the NYPD didn't really didn't take hard action against the police officers.