The NYPD murdered an unarmed black man last night

It would be horrid enough just to say they murdered an unarmed man but with things being the way they are these days with police murdering a LOT of unarmed black men, well then this needs to be put on the table.

A rookie officer named Peter Liang got nervous and opened fire into a dark stairwell killing Akai Gurley and according to NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton this was just an accident so don't worry about it:

“What happened last night was a very unfortunate tragedy,” said NYPD Commissioner William Bratton at a Friday news conference. “... It appears this may have been in fact an accidental discharge.”

Yes, so whatever, no problem here right Mr. Bratton. Just let your unqualified officers just fire their big guns into dark stairwells every time they get nervous. What complete and utter shit. If someone had been horsing around with a gun and shot and murdered an NYPD officer they'd be filing terrorism charges about now. No apologies accepted until Peter Liang sits in a jail cell for his stupidity that cost another human being their life.

Hey, Johnny said stupid things when he first got here too

When Johnny was new around these parts he no doubt said some pretty stupid things in this here space. Didn't understand certain players around town, how things actually worked and got done (criminality was the answer) and probably made some pretty stupid comments. NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton made such a comment yesterday. In a City Council hearing about the NYPD's budget Bratton said he thinks that to decriminalize small amount of marijuana would be a mistake of epic proportions. Trouble is (set the Wayback Machine) since the 1970's small amounts of marijuana out of sight in NYC have already been decriminalized.

Don't worry people, we're sure it was a noob mistake and besides, he's only the police commissioner, how much power can he have?

Every so often, one sentence in a news story really stands out

Reading Gothamist this morning Johnny clicked on a story that J-walking tickets under new Mayor DeBlasio have soared. By soaring Johnny means an 800% increase. They're not cracking down much at all on dangerous drivers (At least NYC monitors your EZ-Pass when you drive through the city so there's that. Oh wait, you didn't know NYC spied on your EZ-Pass if you're driving in Manhattan? Click here citizen) just dangerous pedestrians. New Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said last month that pedestrains cause 73% of car/ped accidents. Like Gothamist points out, those numbers clearly come from that cases reviewed by the Collision Investigation Squad, not DOT data.

As for that Collision Investigation Squad and their sheer lack of human resurces, here's the sentence that caught Johnny's eye:

"We also learn that Bratton has "struggled to find enough officers interested in the task" of investigating crashes, making it harder to deliver on his promise to bolster the ranks of CIS and therefore conduct higher-quality investigations."

"struggled to find enough officers interested in the task"

Are you the ball-less Police Commissioner Mr. Bratton? Struggled to find enough officers interested? Good lord is that what the NYPD have become? The top cop cannot give orders and the guys he'd give them to can just wave them off? Is that how it works at YOUR place of business? 

Johnny, I'd like you to go over the Smith Inc. account and make sure we billed the hours correctly. 

No, I really don't feel like doing that. I'm going to go over here and call a couple people but good luck on the Johnson account thing.

Johnny, the registers are very busy, go help the customers and open one up.

Ya know bossman, that sounds like a really important thing, but right now I'd rather go "reorganize" the magazine rack mmmmmkay?

Well, you tell us. Can't find officers interested in doing that?? NYPD Police Commissioner Bill Bratton ladies and jellyspoons, he'll be here nightly at least for the next four years...

NYC Mayor-elect Bill De Blasio chooses his new police commissioner

It what may be considered a surprise move de Blasio will announce later today that former NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton will retake the job. Bratton, who served under "noun-verb-9/11" Mayor Rudy Giuliani, was a surprise choice after de Blasio didn't say very nice things about Giuliani during his debates with Joe Lhota.

The Gothamist has more on the choice (we'd send you to the NYT for this but why waste one of your monthly articles on it?).