Thank You, Governor Paterson

The Stop and Frisk Bill, which Governor David Paterson signed into law on July 16, 2010, does not curb the abusive practice in which more than half a million innocent New Yorkers, predominantly African Americans and Latinos, are stopped, questioned and frisked each year -- but not charged with a crime or even a violation.

But the bill is an important first step. This bill, which significantly applies only to stops in New York City, prohibits the NYPD from retaining personal information on people who are stopped-and-frisked but not criminally charged. This is a victory for the privacy rights of innocent people.

The symbolism of the bill signing ceremony cannot go unmentioned: Thanks to the hard work of the bill's sponsors, State Sen. Eric Adams and Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, elected officials from New York City stood with the governor to champion a bill which was bitterly opposed by both the mayor and police commissioner. In so doing, the state legislature performed an important check on Mayor Bloomberg's administration -- something which the New York City Council, under the leadership of Speaker Christine Quinn, has largely refused to do.

In exercising this limited control over the NYPD, the legislature's New York City delegation sends a subtle message to those police officers who live outside NYC but sometimes act as if they own our streets and neighborhoods, reminiscent of Rudy Giuliani's infamous Street Crimes Unit: This is our city. You work for us.

Maybe it is time for the NYPD to revisit the concept of community policing, in which police officers work with community leaders and residents -- a policing technique which Raymond Kelly favored until Rudy Giuliani declined to reappoint him to be his police commissioner after David Dinkins stepped down.

It is ironic indeed that Raymond Kelly has chose to embrace the police practices -- "broken windows" and "quality of life" -- of the very mayor who declined to retain him.

Scott

40 Years Later

Leonard Levitt's take on the ongoing corruption scandal at the NYPD, involving a deliberate downgrading of felonies to misdemeanors, clearing of streets through false arrests and preventative detention, intimidation of crime victims, and the forced hospitalization in a psych ward of police whistle-blower Adrian Schoolcraft, is, in a word, stunning.

The famed police reporter compares the latest scandal to one of forty years ago, when no one initially believed Frank Serpico but eventually a full-blown corruption scandal emerged.

Leavitt notes that police union presidents publicly complained about the practice of downgrading crimes in 2005. But when the chairman of the mayor's corruption commission sought records to investigate the allegations, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly refused to provide them, Mayor Michael Bloomberg remained silent... and the commission chairman resigned.

End of story?

Please read Leonard Levitt's column: http://nypdconfidential.com/columns/2010/100712.html

And please urge our public officials to demand the appointment of an independent commission, with subpoena power and public hearings, to investigate the latest corruption allegations against the NYPD.

The NYPD couldn't be trusted to investigate itself 40 years ago. And it can't be trusted with this responsibility now.

Scott

Now, It's Up to the Governor

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly refuse to relinquish "broken windows"/"quality of life" police enforcement, a legacy of Mayor Rudy Giuliani and the Manhattan Institute (the conservative think tank whose ideas he promoted)

Thanks in large part to the leadership of State Sen. Eric Adams of Brooklyn, the State Legislature has passed a bill to curb one abusive component of broken windows policing -- permanent data retention on people who are stopped and frisked, but not arrested or fined.

In a free society, surely innocent people have the right to keep personal information out of a permanent police data base.

Now, it's up to Gov. David Paterson (who in the past has been sensitive to civil liberties issues), to do the right thing and sign this bill into law, notwithstanding the complaints of Mayor Bloomberg and Commissioner Kelly.

As columnist Bob Herbert argues in Monday's New York Times, signing this bill "should be an easy call for the governor."http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/06/opinion/06herbert.html

Civil liberties must matter in the world's greatest city.