Despite Bloomberg Saying Nothing Wrong With Stop and Frisk; NYPD Commissioner Kelly Institutes Reforms

It's curious how Mayor Mike Bloomberg can defend stop and frisk as a policy that works on the same day that NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly announces reforms of the program to address community concerns.

In a letter sent earlier today to Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Kelly said top-ranking officials in each police precinct will now be required to audit reports of street stops by officers. This is in addition to a review undertaken at weekly Compstat meetings by the chief of the department, he wrote.

“I believe these measures will help us more closely monitor the daily street encounter activity of precinct personnel,” he wrote.

He also said that the department has republished an order prohibiting racial profiling and has created a new training course that “provides personnel with an additional level of clarity in determining when and how to conduct a lawful stop.”

Quinn, who released Kelly’s letter, said in a statement that the changes announced were “an important step forward” but said more needs to be done to reduce the number of stops and “bridge the divide between the NYPD and the communities they serve.”

A federal judge yesterday granted class-action status to a lawsuit against the city’s stop-and-frisk practices. The lawsuit alleges that the NYPD has systematically targeted blacks and Latinos and trampled on Constitutional protections against unreasonable searches.

Particularly of interest is the fact that Kelly had to reiterate the prohibition of racial profiling and additional training on how to conduct lawful stops. It would seem to be a nod to the fact that the policies that were previously put in place were insufficient or that the cops carrying out the stop and frisk activities need additional training.

Part of the problem with the program as a whole may be diminishing returns on a program that started out with the best of intentions and did take criminals and their weapons off the streets, but which has become a slave to its own statistics as a metric of how much activity beat cops are doing on a regular basis.

Even NYPD Professionals Are Questioning The Scope of Stop and Frisk

The release of data showing just how frequently the NYPD is using Stop and Frisk as a police tactic to reduce crime is staggering with its implications and whether the program is no longer achieving its objectives. It's got top level police officials questioning whether the program has gone off the rails - for performance objectives sake - and ignoring the implications for civil rights and actual crime fighting.

Last Friday, the NYPD revealed they conducted 204,000 "Stop-and-Frisks" in just the first three months of the year, pushing the boundary even further.

How has a police department that was conducting 500,000 stop and frisks a year — or 1,400-a-day — compelled the same number of troops to conduct 200,000 more — or 500 additional stops every day?

And why?

Is it all about fighting crime? Is it about Kelly and Bloomberg’s legacy?
One official offered insight.

He said the department a year or so ago quietly issued "performance standards" that only "put more pressure downward on cops, asking them, 'What did you do this week?'

"And the feeling was, ‘If they were going to break my balls, then I will just do what I know they want and end my problem. Period.'"

This well intentioned program started off well - and it was getting criminals off the street when it was focused on high crime areas, but as the program expanded, it started having unintended consequences. Instead of putting the community and police on the same page as far as fighting criminal elements in the communities, it creates distrust and apprehension.

If police commanders in precincts are encouraged to show results - one way they can do so is by putting more of their beat cops on stop and frisk details, and they can show that they're in the field by reporting on the number of stop and frisks on a daily basis. It's a numbers driven policy that doesn't actually reduce crime and may be taking resources away from those tactics that have been shown to work best.

It's time to put stop and frisk back into its context - to use it in high crime areas. This is one time where the statistics do not back up stop and frisk.

Has NYPD Gone Too Far In Surveillance Efforts Looking For Islamic Extremists?

Following the intel failures that led to the US government being unprepared for the 9/11 attacks, the NYPD vastly expanded its intel efforts, including establishing outposts in foreign countries to bring in intel directly from those foreign countries instead of relying solely on the FBI or CIA.

Those surveillance efforts include looking for Muslim extremists in the New York City metro area - including in New Jersey. While the NYPD can claim that they've thwarted numerous plots involving Islamic terrorists since 9/11, there have been several notable failures, including the Times Square bomber, Faisal Shazad. In that case, police didn't know of the plot to attack Times Square with a bomb planted in a SUV. Police learned of the incident after a local vendor alerted police to the smoking vehicle and it was only after conducting standard investigation techniques that Shazad was arrested.

As a result of the revelations about the scope of the surveillance, Muslim groups across the region are speaking out against the NYPD spying efforts, noting that it's a potential civil rights violation. They have a point, and while then-New Jersey Governor Richard Codey was informed of the spying efforts in places like Newark and elsewhere in the state, it doesn't mean that there was sufficient oversight.

Following the NYPD's illegal surveillance of radical groups during the 1970s, the NYPD entered into an agreement in 1985 called Handschu that required oversight of surveillance operations.

The Handschu agreement, as it is often referred to, was established in 1985 after decades of covert NYPD infiltration of activist groups including the New York City chapter of the Black Panthers. It also kept tabs on citizens who had done nothing more than sign a petition to end the Vietnam war, reporting their political positions to potential employers.

The element of the NYPD responsible for this surveillance went through a number of names, including the Italian squad, the black hand squad, and the bureau of special services. Today it is known as the intelligence division.

Handschu restricted the department's powers to monitor political groups, stipulating that police needed information indicating that a crime was being committed in order to investigate political activity. The rules remained in place for over 15 years.

In 2002 the NYPD, under the guidance of former CIA officer Cohen, lobbied to have Handschu's restrictions significantly loosened, following the September 11 attacks of the previous year. The department argued that it could not effectively fight terrorism with the rules in place.

The NYPD largely got what it wanted in 2003, when significant modifications were made to the agreement.

Civil rights attorney Jethro Eisentstein, who is involved in a class action lawsuit against the NYPD in relation to Handschu, says what remains of the agreement is vitally important to the latest revelations concerning the NYPD's surveillance of Muslim communities.

Specifically, Handschu required that surveillance operations must secure a warrant from a three-person panel comprised of two police commissioners and a mayor-appointed civilian. That was modified in 2003 when the panel was reduced to a single person.

It's the reduction of the panel to a single person that opens the door to mischief and it's time to restore a 3-person panel. That wont necessarily eliminate all warrants along these lines, but introduces a level of oversight lacking when you have a single person who is intent upon investigations that might lead to violations of civil rights (to say nothing of accusations of malfeasance).

Mayor Bloomberg and Commissioner Ray Kelly are defending the actions, and Bloomberg calls critics naive. Sorry, but that doesn't quite cut it. While there are indeed serious concerns about terror groups operating in the NYC metro area based on past history (both the 9/11 attackers and the 1993 WTC bombers had ties to the metro area), wholesale spying on an entire community is overbroad. It also reduces the level of trust between the Muslim community that would be willing to work with law enforcement to root out extremists in their midst and actually makes it more difficult to track down those who might be plotting attacks down the line.

NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly's Mounting Problems

First, there is the ongoing fallout from revelations that the NYPD repeatedly screened the anti-Muslim film "The Third Jihad" despite claims from the Department that only a limited number of people saw the film. Commissioner Ray Kelly regrets for his role in the film, and how it was shown to new recruits. Mayor Mike Bloomberg indicated that someone at the Department exercised poor judgment in showing the film. There are also mounting calls for Kelly's resignation.

Now, there's word that Commissioner Kelly's son, Greg Kelly, has been accused of rape. Greg Kelly is the current anchor of Fox 5's Good Day New York with Roseanna Scotto. Kelly was missing from this morning's broadcast.

“Good Day New York” co-host Greg Kelly — son of Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly — was a no-show on the program Thursday morning after reports that a Manhattan woman had accused him of rape.

The woman told cops she had drinks with Kelly, 43, at the South Street Seaport Oct. 8 before he sexually assaulted her in the law office where she worked, sources said.

The accuser, who is around 30, did not report the alleged assault until Tuesday night, when she walked into the 13th Precinct stationhouse and gave her account, sources said.

Cops interviewed the woman, but because of the conflict created by probing the commissioner’s son, they quickly turned the case over to the office of Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr.

Greg Kelly’s co-host, Rosanna Scotto, expressed her support for him as she walked into the FOX studios about 5:30 a.m.

Since the Department needs to avoid any kind of conflict of interest in investigating the case, they turned it over to the District Attorney's Office. Kelly's attorney strenuously denies the allegations and maintains Kelly's innocence. The issue came to light following the woman's boyfriend encountering Commissioner Kelly and indicating that Greg has ruined the woman's life:

The woman, who is in her late 20s or early 30s, walked into the 13th Precinct station house with her sister sometime after 8 p.m. on Tuesday and made her complaint, according to one of the law enforcement officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the continuing investigation and the sensitivity of discussing accusations against the police commissioner’s son.

The woman told the police that she met the younger Mr. Kelly on the street and that the two went to South Street Seaport for drinks on Oct. 8. They then proceeded to her office at a Lower Manhattan law firm. The woman told the police that the rape occurred at the office. The two continued to have contact by phone and text message after the encounter.

According to the woman’s account, when her boyfriend later learned about the night, he became angry. He then approached the police commissioner at a public event and told him that the younger Mr. Kelly had sexually assaulted his girlfriend.

The commissioner, according to the woman’s account, told him to write a letter. It was unclear if the man did so.

Commissioner Kelly’s account of his encounter with the boyfriend is similar, though according to Mr. Browne, the man told the commissioner that his son had “ruined my girlfriend’s life” but declined it to discuss it there. So the commissioner suggested that he write the letter.

9/11 Trial Security In NYC Might Top $200 Million A Year

Only days ago, the NYPD and Commissioner Ray Kelly said that the costs for a 9/11 trial at the federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan would run $75 million. Today, the Daily News reports that the costs are nearly triple that estimate - $200 million.

The NYPD's newly revised projection is almost triple the estimate of $75 million in November, after Attorney General Eric Holder announced he would move the prisoners from Guantanamo to Manhattan for trial.

The legal process is expected to play out over more than a year.

At a news conference Monday, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) demanded the federal government pay every penny of the security costs.

"Some New Yorkers think the trials are a good idea. Some New Yorkers think the trials are a bad idea," Schumer said. "One idea all New Yorkers agree on is that New York taxpayers should not have to pay a dime for these trials."

Federal marshals will handle security at the courthouse. The NYPD and other law enforcement agencies will be assigned to protect the surrounding area.

Schumer warned the security cost of the trials would be in the "hundreds of millions," but he declined to give an exact figure.

Those are costs that the City is incapable of paying due to its fiscal situation, and Sen. Schumer has called on the federal government to reimburse the City for the additional security. That's the bare minimum, and it again raises questions over why this was necessary when the Obama Administration notes that they're more than willing to use tribunals for cases where the likelihood of conviction isn't assured given the evidence (the quantity and manner in which it was collected). The Administration has also hinted that should Khalid Sheikh Mohammad or his fellow terrorists be found not guilty, the Administration would still find a way to detain them indefinitely.