Results tagged “newyorkcitypolicedepartment”

Tim Russert has invited all the presidential candidates to appear on Meet the Press, and yesterday former Mayor Rudy Giuliani appeared. We imagine many New Yorkers watching the program gnashed their teeth and/or swore at the TV (we happened to do both), as Giuliani tried to answer questions ranging from the straightforward (Giuliani's Iowa poll numbers, Russert asked, "Fifth place, is that a problem?") to the interesting (Russert on Giuliani's consulting business: "A Las...

investigation by the Hate Crimes Task Force.

The NYPD decided not to appeal a judge's decision that the NYPD should declassify its surveillance documents from the 2004 RNC, so it has set up a special NYPD RNC Documents website with the documents. Of course, you have to scroll down to the very bottom for a zip file of the 600 pages of documents. And what's above the documents is the NYPD's rather thorough explanation/ defense justifying why it did such extensive surveillance of disparate groups and people, listing various terror incidents between 2001 and the convention as well as other incidents of protest. Here is Police Commissioner Ray Kelly's statement:

“I think a close examination of the documents is going to show that the New York City Police Department did an outstanding job in protecting the City during the Republican National Convention. People wanted to come here and shut down the City, to replicate what happened in Seattle, Montreal and Genoa. We simply didn't let that happen, and I think it'll just underscore the outstanding work of the men and women of the Department. In terms of gathering information, the vast majority of information that was gathered was open-source information. It was gathered from the Internet; these groups that were coming here were advertising what they were going to do — bragging about what they were going to do. It wasn't particularly difficult to get the vast majority of this information.”

ACT UP, Sierra Club, City Council members (Charles Barron, David Weprin, Bill Perkins), Sept. 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, Johnny Cash Bloc, MSNBC, A31 Coalition, NYCLU, NOW, Planned Parenthood, New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, Stuyvesant High School Students, Westboro Baptist Church, Indymedia, Democratic National Committee, Coalition of Fire and Police Unions, Grandmothers Against War, Falun Gong, Arab Muslim American Foundation, Time's Up, Billionaires For Bush, United for Peace and Justice, The Surveillance Camera Players, ACLU, Hip Hop Summit Action Network, The Federation of East Village Artists, Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, Restaurant Opportunity Center of New York

Could New York City be forced to pay for issuing summonses for an unconstitutional law? That's the decision that U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin faces as she determines whether she will hold the city in contempt of court for failing to comply to her 2005 to stop enforcing an old panhandling law. The original law was struck down for violating the First Amendment in October 1992 by a different United States judge. That law allowed for the arrest of, "loiters, remains or wanders about in a public place for the purpose of begging." Despite the city revising the law to outlaw "aggressive panhandling," the NYPD was still enforcing the old law.

As we all expected, the Hells Angels member who was arrested during a police raid of the motorcycle gang's headquarters plans to sue the city. The police were investigating the beating of a 52 year old woman found on the sidewalk outside the Hells Angels' location on East 3rd Street in the East Village. The police prepared to raid the establishment and brought out snipers, a hostage negotiation truck, and more, and arrested Richard West in the process.

The Reverend Al Sharpton announced the "shopping for justice" protest march he's been talking about since the shooting of Sean Bell, Joseph Guzman, and Trent Benefield by the police.

"Many will be shopping for trinkets and toys. We will be shopping for justice and making a moral appeal to this city and this nation. The fact that we are going on probably the most visible street in the world tomorrow, you don't have to talk to be heard. You just got to show up."

It's Law & Order: Concerned-Child- Who-is-a- Police-Officer Squad! An identity theft ring that targeted the elderly or people with "foreign-sounding" names was busted when a scammer called an old man, only to speak to an NYPD deputy chief - the man's daughter. Eleven people were indicted in Queens for duping people into giving up their credit card number, Social Security number, and other personal details. They would randomly call people, and one of the people they called was Deputy Chief Joellen Kunkel's father. According to the Sun, they called twice, leaving messages, "before Chief Kunkel finally called a phone number left by one of the supposed federal agents to demand that he identify himself." And the Daily News had their exchange:

"He kept saying, 'I'm a fed. I'm Homeland Security. I'm a fed,'" Deputy NYPD Chief Joellen (Cookie) Kunkel said yesterday of the phone call she received from the scammers last May. "And I said, 'I happen to be a chief in the New York City Police Department and I don't know who you are.'

Continue reading "Identity Theft Ring's Number Was Up"

Yesterday, the police announced that the death of actress-director Adrienne Shelly was murder, not suicide. Shelly's husband had found her body hanging from a shower rod in the Greenwich Village apartment she used as an office last week, leading the police to initially suspect she committed suicide. But they did find an unknown shoeprint in the bathroom, and the shoeprint turned out to belong to a construction worker doing renovations on a downstairs apartment

In a lightweight story about the NYPD, the Post reports that a uniform trade organization says the NYPD has "superior uniform standards and programs," with clothing that is "highly functional, comfortable and manufactured to the highest standards." Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, who is a natty dresser himself, French cuffs and all, had his press department whip up a statement, saying, "From the earliest days of the New York City Police Department, the uniform has functioned as one of the most vital tools an officer possesses. As a symbol of law enforcement and a clear form of identification, the uniform is unambiguous and indisputable." The Post describes the NYPD's recent cargo pants as being "Rambo-esque" and "perfect for carrying diaries, latex frisking gloves, and other essentials � or just looking cool on the streets of Brooklyn." The NYPD lost the powder blue uniform in 1995, when Police Commissioner Bill Bratton thought they looked like janitors; now the police wearing navy blue uniforms made from DuPont Coomax fiber.