NYPD's disconnect from reality

Recently some in the NYPD have done some illegal and immoral things and yet they now want to blame/intimidate/point fingers at everyone BUT themselves. Take the ticket fixing story that broke yesterday. Thousands of police showed up to intimidate prosecutors (and perhaps even NYC's top cop the untrustworthy Ray Kelly) and knock cameras away from those covering the story for news sites. Yes, the supportive ham and eggers showed up and blocked cameras from filming their crooked colleagues, shoved reporters and made it difficult for other professionals to do their job. How classy. One spokesman for the police actually said in addressing the media outside that fixing tickets for friends and family of those who support the NYPD is not a crime. Um, Skippy, YES, it is.

Now we know abut the screeching and hurt feelings from the NYPD when faced with an imaginary threat from people using their guaranteed constitutional freedoms at #OWS. They complain when they are shown to pepper spraying innocent women standing where they were told. They don't like it when people use cameras to hold them to their oaths apparently.

On top of this, a group calling itself "Sergeants Benevolent Association" has prewarned or prethreatened any #OWS protestors THEY will be sued by the NYPD if say a cop slips and falls while spraying pepper spray at innocent citizens. They'll sue protestors if they hit their head on a squad car door making an arrest, they'll sue protestors if they in any way make it difficult on the police. Talk about arrogance.

Then theres the rogue secret Muslim/Leftist police squad (that answers to nobody) the NYPD employs that has most likely illegally unleashed, without worry to people's civil right or constitutional rights, local "spying rings". Wholly immoral.

So, NYPD before you cry butthurt and wail and beat your breasts over this horrid injustice of police being held accountable for their actions in uniform look in the mirror. What your brethren are in trouble for is what you bust skulls (or threaten to) on the rest of us for the other 364 days a year.

Grow up.

According to several sources, the NYPD is running a "rogue domestic surveillance operation", even here in New Jersey

Yeah, hopefully the New Jersey part got your attention. Yes, the NYPD have been running a program very sketchy, probably illegal (which is why the NYPD is so adamant none of these cases be brought out in court) surveillance operations all over the globe. As the AP article states if a suicide bomber blows themselves up in Jerusalem, the NYPD rush to the scene to gather info. The shadowy NYPD group has been accused of running 'mosque crawls' in NY and other states to gather information on what is being said inside Muslim houses of worship (If this is their plan to stop terror maybe they should sit inside Christian churches as well anymore). Yes, they target ethnic communities (like we have here in Jersey City) and elsewhere. While even some in the NYPD think this program stinks to high heaven legally, ethically and constitutionally the program's braintrust of David Cohen and NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly don't seem to care what laws may be broken or how badly they violate constitutional freedoms -- it's all in the name of stopping terror they say. Besides, they tell us, have lawyers on their staffs, as if that somehow makes this all OK.

Really? How long are we as Americans going to allow this outdated meme. We can do anything we want to because there might be terror. Oh we can't tell you about the terror plots because they would tip our hand but TRUST US, we're stopping terrorism.

No, they're not. They stopping our constitution from working is what they're doing. SHAME on Kelly and Cohen. How DARE they spy on people. This was the same group that when NYC hosted the GOP convention infiltrated Democratic and liberal groups and when protestors were arrested they were met with questions like "What are your political affiliations?" "Do you do any kind of political work?" and "Do you hate George W. Bush?" Yeah, that's stopping terror. NOT.

This rogue operation has been found out in other states where local police in Massachusetts busted the rogues while they were conducting surveillance on a house there. It's happening people. If you ever see someone who looks like they are running surveillance on a building, start taking PICTURES of them. If they are bad guys the police will LEGALLY be able to use the pictures. If they are NYPD cops doing it, make sure the public knows they think they can do anything in New Jersey they want to. Send us the pictures and we'll be happy to publish them.

There are right ways and wrong ways to be an American. Sadly, in this case Cohen and Kelly and anyone else involved in this program are showing the WRONG ways to be an American. Suspicion is not a warrant. Wanting to stop terror is not a warrant. Overzealous police work is not a warrant. We are a nation of laws and if police think they can break them to meet their own desires it's time the public sat them down by any means necessary and had them re-read the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights that yes, even they must answer to.

Get ready for the next big hubub across the river, cops as ticket fixers finally facing the music

In what may well explode into a running soap opera, several high ranking as well as beat cops are being investigated in a wide reaching search for ticket malfeasance in the Bronx. Some two dozen officers and superiors are under the gun as it were for either fixing tickets themselves or asking for tickets to go away. The New York Times tells us more:

While the law enforcement official and several lawyers involved in the matter called the wrongdoing relatively minor, the case could have serious implications for the department because of the large number of officers thought to have participated, either by asking for a ticket to be fixed or by doing the actual fixing.

And the accusations will most likely anger countless New Yorkers, some of whom see the specter of quotas behind summonses they receive and whose response to a ticket is generally more straightforward — pay the fine and have points added to their driver’s license.

Damn straight, WE pay while they walk away from financial obligations (and drunk driving arrests and other issues but that's another post for another day). It'll sure set the blood to boiling when you get done reading this fine Monday morning.

Thanks NYPD for unleashing bad cops charged in heists on this side of the Hudson

The NYPD has a growing public relations problem. An ill trained, ill prepared "officer" of the law, who was basically grabbed out of a Foot Locker job and given one with the NYPD has been charged along with other NYPD officers in a perfume truck heist.

Officer Kelvin Jones did not undergo rigorous training to become an undercover police officer nor did he attend the NY Police Academy. He was just signed up and given a badge and told to infiltrate suspect groups. Anybody wanna guess how bad he was at his job? A source told the Huffington Post:

"And although he quickly failed in his mission because, as a source put it, "He could not be trusted," the NYPD kept him on the force."

Good stuff NYPD, really. Jones was then transferred to the 46th precinct. But this is where it really goes off the rails.

In March, Jones along with his posse (including two other officers from the 34th precinct) were arrested in Carlstadt New Jersey for the heist of hundreds of boxes of high end perfume. How did Jones know the inner workings of the warehouse? Easy, sources say he used a data base from the precinct to obtain the names, addresses and license numbers of company employees.

Niiiiice. So either the vaunted NYPD has issues in hiring good help OR they have no internal controls from precinct to precinct. Either way is shows some of the depravity the police unions claim either doesn't happen or ask why you want to run good people down over the actions of, apparently, dozens.