The Buck Stops Where?

Yesterday morning, a New York City police officer, Peter Figoski, was killed in the line of duty as he responded to a burglary in Queens. The alleged cop-killer, Lamont Pride, is in custody after Figoski's partner ran down Pride as he tried to escape. Pride's accomplice in the burglary has been captured, and several others are now under arrest in connection with the murder:

The accomplice who fled from cops after his low-life pal shot and killed Officer Peter Figoski has been caught, police said Tuesday.

Three other suspects were also taken into custody overnight — two neighbors who live across the street and the alleged getaway driver.

The accomplice was arrested at 2 a.m. and will be charged with murder in the slaying of Figoski, a decorated 22-year NYPD veteran and father of four daughters, officials said.

Police were responding to a robbery in progress in Cypress Hills, Brooklyn at 2:15 a.m. Monday when one of the bandits shot Figoski.

The accomplice, who had been grappling with Figoski’s partner, Officer Glenn Estrada, ran off when Estrada made the split-second decision to chase the man who had just killed his partner. Estrada pursued and captured the alleged gunman, Lamont Pride, 27, several blocks away.

Police said they were initially looking for just the escaped accomplice but quickly realized more people were involved.

Sources said cops became suspicious of the story told by two “concerned neighbors” living across the street.

The pair were very quick to describe the guns used in the robbery at the Pine St. home.

"We were suspicious of them. We kept them and questioned them," a source told the Daily News.

The two neighbors are expected to be charged with murder. It is unclear what charges the getaway driver will face.

The real question though is why Pride was ever on the street to be in a position to carry out a burglary, let alone be in a position to murder a New York cop.

Pride has been arrested numerous times in connection with various criminal acts, including an attempted murder charge in North Carolina, and several crimes in New York City.

Did his case fall through the cracks? That's what various people connected with the New York and North Carolina justice systems want to believe, but someone has to be held responsible for the failure to incarcerate Pride.

Pride has been arrested twice since September in New York, and that's after being wanted on attempted murder charges in North Carolina. Each time, Pride was able to avoid incarceration and extradition to North Carolina.

“We ran him and found he was wanted in [North Carolina\] on weapon assault charges, but the warrant specified ‘extradite within the State of North Carolina only,’ ” said NYPD spokesman Paul Browne.

The NYPD contacted North Carolina authorities twice to press them to change the warrant, but they refused, sources said.

At Pride’s Nov. 4 arraignment, prosecutor Evan Degrees asked bail be set at $2,500. But Brooklyn Criminal Court Judge Evelyn LaPorte released him on his own recognizance, records show.

The warrant for the North Carolina crimes didn't contain the extradition orders and North Carolina prosecutors didn't want to go ahead and change the warrant to allow for extradition, and a New York judge was far too lenient considering his lengthy rap sheet. Pride was a one-man crime spree, and yet a New York judge allowed him to be released on his own recognizance. Prosecutors had called for a $2,500 bail.

In the end, Pride is fully responsible for the death of Officer Figoski, but the justice system in both North Carolina and New York failed Figoski, the NYPD, and the public by turning a blind eye to a career criminal and his lengthy felonious rap sheet.

Will anyone hold Evelyn LaPorte responsible for such an egregious miscarriage of justice? Will anyone hold the North Carolina prosecutors? Each had the ability to see to it that Pride remained off the streets while awaiting trial on the attempted murder charges in North Carolina, but now he'll be off the streets indefinitely as a result of the murder charges pending in the death of Officer Figoski.

Duke Lacrosse Accuser Likely Facing Murder Charges

If the name Crystal Mangum rings a bell, it should - she was the Duke lacrosse accuser whose bogus claims brought disgrace to the school, ruined three students lives, and brought about the end of a prosecutor's career who ignored all the warning signs about the case and prosecuted despite a lack of corroborating evidence.

Well, she had stabbed her boyfriend after an argument and the guy was in critical condition. Well, she's going to be facing manslaughter or murder charges now that her victim has died of the injuries sustained. That is after being convicted on five misdemeanor counts, including child abuse, this past January when she was accused of setting a fire in her former boyfriend's bathtub, while her children were home.

This woman is nothing but bad jobu for all she comes in contact with - and now she's likely to face murder charges in her latest actions. Clearly, she is a troubled woman who is a menace to those around her.

Nutter Rant of the Day

This conspiracy nonsense ranks up there with the inane rantings that President Bush conspired to kill the black folks on the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina or that he blew up the levees around New Orleans.

A GOP candidate for Congress in North Carolina claims that BP and the Obama Administration conspired to intentionally destroy the oil well and create the massive oil spill that now threatens much of the Gulf Coast. The idiot's name is William "Bill" Randall.

Randall, who has aligned himself with the Tea Party movement, readily admits that he has no evidence that what he says is true. But that is not stopping him from making the claim as he campaigns for in the June 22 GOP runoff to face incumbent Democratic Rep. Brad Miller on the November ballot.

"Now, I'm not necessarily a conspiracy person, but I don't think enough investigation has been done on this," Randall said at a media conference on Tuesday. "Someone needs to be digging into that situation. Personally, and this is purely speculative on my part and not based on any fact, but personally I feel there is a possibility that there was some sort of collusion. I don't know how or why, but in that situation, if you have someone from a company proposing to violate the safety process and the government signing off on it, excuse me, maybe they wanted it to leak.

"But then it got beyond what was anticipated, and we had an explosion and loss of life. And, oh man, now we have panic. Is there a cover up going on? I'm not saying there necessarily is. But I think there's enough facts on the table for people that (they) really need to do some investigative research and find out what went on with that and get a subpoena of records and everything else."

Here's the video:



Maybe they wanted it to leak? Are you frakking kidding me? They as in the Obama Administration and BP? Really? Drink the kool aid.

Indiana and North Carolina Primaries Spark Usual Nonsense From Media

MSNBC asks the hopeful question whether today's primaries will end the race for the Democrat Party nomination and that the real story will be the race for both Obama and Clinton to woo the superdelegates ahead of the convention in Denver. I'm here to say that it will do no such thing.

Is today the last day on the campaign trail? Sure, there are six more contests beyond these two in Indiana and North Carolina. But after today, there will be more undeclared superdelegates (264) and more disputed delegates (366 in Florida and Michigan) for the campaigns to fight over than there will be delegates earned in the remaining primaries (217). Indeed, there's an argument to be made that after today, there are more delegates to be had INSIDE THE BELTWAY than out on the trail. So for all intents and purposes, today is the last shopping day of the primary season for the two Dems to impress the superdelegates on their issues.

Neither candidate will score the knockout blow today, and neither candidate will gain enough votes - either the popular tally or the delegates - to win the nomination or make a clear case that they've won the right to represent the party.

And that situation will repeat itself in the remaining elections before the convention, which means that the situation is going to a brokered convention regardless of the outcome - a situation that has been developing ever since Super Tuesday.

Obama continues to show that he can't win the big states, while Hillary continues to do poorly everywhere else.

It will get very ugly in Denver at the convention; mark my words.

UPDATE:
As I expected, North Carolina went to Obama and Clinton won Indiana. How does this result change anything? It doesn't. Onwards to the convention people and a brokered mess where back door deals will mean that one candidate's supporters will find themselves cast aside as the party is torn asunder by competing partisan hacks.

Of course, none of this will change the need for both parties to spin the results to their advantage. It's what the candidates pay their consultants millions of dollars to do. Hillary tried to play up that she was going to lose big in North Carolina so that when the results showed an improvement over her polling data, it will appear as though she did better than expected when in reality the results were entirely predictable. The same goes with Indiana where Obama was trying to manage expectations of losing yet another big state to Clinton.

The fact is that both candidates knew that they were going to win those states and planned their victory celebrations well in advance - Obama was going to celebrate in North Carolina while Clinton will be spending the night in Indiana.