Federal judge Shira Scheindlin has ruled NYPD’s stop-and-frisk practices have been, as many have noted, discriminatory and unconstitutional, saying that they “violated the constitutional rights of tens of thousands of New Yorkers.” Yet, it won’t be banned outright. Monitoring of the procedure is planned for now. Continue reading
nypd
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NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly has taken to the media to defend his, and his police department’s, record. Let’s examine his arguments to see if they stand up to even basic scrutiny. I’ll be working off the op-ed that Kelly wrote, and which was published in the Wall Street Journal on July 23, 2013. Continue reading
Early this morning Occupy Wall Street Protestors swarmed downtown Manhattan to block off access to the stock exchange. After a confusing start, protestors brought the neighborhood to a near standstill. Police are reporting that so far about 200 people have been arrested today. Continue reading
There is certainly no lack of reasons for outrage when discussing the recent behavior of either the NYPD or Wall Street, but a story that has been making the rounds in the blogosphere is enough to cure the most severe case of outrage fatigue: the existence of a quasi-private “Paid Detail Unit” within the force that is directly employed by private corporations, including financial firms. The obvious implication made is that these officers have been acting in the interests of their private employers when dealing with the Occupy Wall Street protests and are responsible for the recent instances of escalation and deceptive tactics that have been observed and alleged. Can such cartoon-villain levels of corruption be real? Continue reading