Results tagged “surveillance”

With the federal authorities continuing their investigation of an alleged terror plot with roots in Denver and Queens, some New York City Muslims have accused the feds and NYPD of racial profiling. Queens Islamic activist Monami Maulik said over the weekend, "An entire community and people and religion should not be profiled and characterized as terrorists because of certain investigations."

Days after the NYPD announced plans to expand their anti-terror surveillance network to a huge swath of midtown, it's been revealed that the department is also quickly amassing a vast database of cell phone users. Officers have been instructed to remove suspects' cell phone batteries when making an arrest, for the twofold purpose of "avoiding leakage" and also documenting the phone's International Mobile Equipment Identity number [IMEI]. The IMEI number is registered with the service provider whenever a call is made, and can be used to connect the dots between suspects. Naturally, the NYCLU is pissed.

The city will expand the downtown surveillance network commonly referred to as the "Ring of Steel" to midtown, using $24 million in Homeland Security grants. Mayor Bloomberg and NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly announced yesterday that the new "monitoring network" would cover the areas between 30th and 60th Streets, from the Hudson to the East River. Like the system downtown (formally called the "Lower Manhattan Security Initiative"), the expanded surveillance network would feed streams of data for analysis to a coordination center at 55 Broadway.

It's been more than seven years since the attacks of September 11th inspired the MTA to beef up security in the transit system, but a massive effort to improve surveillance underground is still incomplete. Back in 2005, the authority sealed a $212 million deal with Lockheed Martin to install 1,000 video cameras and 3,000 motion sensors, as well as enable cellphone service in 277 underground stations. Today the Times reports that large parts of the project are not "scheduled" to be completed until September, and that estimate doesn't even include parts of the under-river tunnels used by the subway and the Long Island Rail Road. The project was supposed to be done last August.

Boston police say the woman found shot to death in a hotel room was NYC resident Julissa Brisman. Brisman apparently advertised massage services in Craigslist's erotic services section and police suspect her killer was the man who answered her ad.

Today's Times trend piece on NYPD officers getting caught misbehaving on video is enough to make one nostalgic. Of course, no one could forget the famous cop-bike-bodyslam blockbuster from last July, truly the gold standard in NYPD abuse porn. But let's not let that high water mark diminish the oeuvre's other classics, like the "cop pauses beating to take phone call" surveillance video, or the lively Delancey Street baton beatdown, or the tragically fatal Tasering of the naked disturbed man. This stroll down bad-memory lane is occasioned by a new addition to the series: Detective Debra Eager was indicted Monday on three felony perjury charges after her testimony before a grand jury about a 2007 drug arrest was found to have "starkly contradicted" video surveillance. It's unclear exactly how the video differs from Eager's testimony, but the charges have something to do with "misremembering" just how the bust went down. However, we do know the end result for the drug suspects: felony and misdemeanor charges were quietly dropped last October!

A YouTube video titled "NYPD corruption at its best," depicts undercover NYPD officers stuffing cash in their pockets during a raid at embattled Staten Island bar "Beer Goggles" (MySpace). The surveillance tape was recorded back in November 2007 when cops busted the bar for promoting gambling; three employees were arrested but the charges were eventually dropped.

An ongoing dispute over surveillance warrants between the F.B.I.’s New York office and the NYPD "has brought the relationship to a new low," according to the Times, which is reporting on "a highly unusual exchange of letters" between commissioner Ray Kelly and attorney general Michael Mukasey. The acrimony stems from the feds' reluctance to press the FISA court to issue broad warrants for the NYPD, which wants to eavesdrop on "numerous communications facilities," including subway pay phones. Each side is now blaming the other for mishandling terrorism investigations. Responding to a letter from Kelly in which he accused the FBI of making "the city less safe," Mukasey wrote: "Not only would your approach violate the law, it would also in short order make New York City and the rest of the country less safe." Mukasey added that he was "unable to have a meaningful conversation" on the phone because "you were not versed on the facts." Next: Mukasey will get upset with Kelly for staggering home drunk with lipstick on his collar.

Police arrested an 18-year-old suspect in the punch-grab-and-run mugging of a 62-year-old woman in front of the Catholic school where she is a teacher. Patricia McGowan was approached by a young man in front of the Good Shepherd School before 7 a.m. this past Monday, who then shoved her against the school's front gate and then punched her hard in the face, knocking McGowan to the ground. Surveillance tapes captured the whole attack on tape, which led to Eric Ferguson's arrest Friday morning.

Someone went on a rampage just before noon yesterday, shooting five people standing at a bus stop in a fusillade of gunfire in Jackson Heights, Queens. It wasn't as much a rampage, exactly, as a reckless attempt to kill a single person by firing into a crowd. The alleged target was a 21-year-old man, who was shot in the side before staggering into a restaurant and collapsing. Police are searching not just for a single shooter, but a group of men he was with that ran off in different directions.

In addition to taking your money, an increasing number restaurants are also taking video of your dining experience, at least according to the Post’s trend-spotting Carla Spartos. She notes five Manhattan restaurants that use closed-circuit video cameras to record customers in their dining rooms: Boqueria, the four star Daniel, Dos Caminos, Philippe, and Momofuku Noodle Bar.

Surveillance video shows that two rookie police officers were not patrolling a Brooklyn housing complex where a 30-year-old woman was raped in a stairwell last week. The two officers were disciplined for lying about doing their jobs, when in fact they were not. The victim of the assault was trailed from the subway by a man she recognized from the neighborhood and he followed her into her building's elevator. After producing a knife as she stepped off the elevator, he dragged the woman into a stairwell and threatened to kill her if she resisted or didn't stop screaming. He then raped her on a stairwell landing.