Election 2007: Mums the word from the ethics committee
No news yet from the Mayor's Nomination and Screening Committee on whether or not it has set a hearing date for the ethics complaint filed against Councilman Dom Betro by activist Kevin Dawson after Betro allegedly walked up to Dawson and his teenaged daughter across from the Fox theater and shouted at him that he better hope he doesn't get elected.
The committee sped the first complaint filed against Betro to its hearing date, but it's likely that this one won't be heard until after the election.
Which given the process for hearing ethics complaints that the committee put on display last time around is probably not a bad thing. To watch the committee of which two-thirds is comprised of BASS members defend one of its own and castigate yet another complainant is not something that you want to begin the summer with even if you're just in the position of hearing or reading about it. It's not like Dawson can expect a fair hearing from a committee filled with individuals who have either formally or informally endorsed Betro's campaign for reelection to the dais. Perhaps the only people who feel that this doesn't provide a conflict of interest are those sitting on the dais and their supporters.
Watching the silence from the same people who advocated for an ethics complaint process is and has been a bit disconcerting.
Many people advocated for this important mechanism including those who served on the committee which researched the process and made recommendations to the city council after the voters gave a resounding yes to the question of whether or not they wanted such a process in their city. One has the feeling that to some degree, this silence is because many of those who were involved in this process are officially or unofficially strong supporters of the campaign of the one city official who has had complaints filed against him so far.
It's not like they have to support or reject specific findings by the committee to show their commitment to the process but it would definitely be a good thing if they kept a watchful eye and asked questions about it especially in the wake of what happened last time. What's wrong with standing up and asking questions about the shoddy process that was unveiled by the Mayor's Nomination and Screening Committee the last time around before it becomes an issue this time?
Well, except for the fact that the complaints have been filed against the wrong council member. Perhaps the much needed scrutiny of the process would come if the complaints had been filed against other council members like Art Gage and Steve Adams who have received their share of negative press coverage for their alleged transgressions
The main problem is that the city council members have shown that they are incapable of making decisions regarding complaints against city council members they share political alliances with. Not in terms of the decisions they reach, but in terms of the process they used. Whatever decision the committee decides is its decision based hopefully on a comprehensive discussion and analysis of the facts presented which the last time consisted mainly of council member recollections and a DVD of the meeting in question which was highly selective in terms of what it showed. But then again, the evidence was presented by City Attorney Gregory Priamos who is directly employed by the city council members including Betro.
However, the process itself must be one that at least makes some attempt to examine the actions of the city council member than simply serve to castigate the person who complained against that council member.
The first complaint filed in the ethics complaint process was supposed to have been and actually was filed against Councilman Steve Adams, for making comments from the dais that several individuals in the audience were lying.
Other city council members including Frank Schiavone said they were appalled by what Adams had done but when a complaint was filed, what did Schiavone and other members of the Mayor's Nomination and Screening Commission do?
They made a rule that there could be no second-party complaints filed against city officials before they had even met to create a process to handle ethics complaints or had even essentially decided what committee would even have that responsibility. They ejected the complaint against Adams, also a BASS member, and then decided, oh we need a process when the more ethical and sensible thing to do would have been to put the complaint against Adams on hold until the process to handle it had actually been developed and implemented.
But that's not what the city council did and their actions in that case became a harbinger for what lay head.
Not that it helped Adams who recently showed up at a candidate forum and called one ward resident in attendance a liar before that man could even take his seat. And why shouldn't he? He saw what happened the earlier times he had done it. Even Betro has a return engagement to the committee because like before, he let his volatile temper get the better of him.
A complaint had been filed against Adams and the city council basically tossed it out on a technicality even though there was no process in place yet. But when there was, it was used to essentially trash the complainant rather than examine the behavior of the individual who received the complaint. In fact, there was relatively very little discussion of Betro's actions.
In other words, the city council looked out for one of its own. Well, actually two.
Which is exactly what will ultimately happen in this case and very few in the community if not inside City Hall will be surprised at that.
There's a local Web site, Inland Empire Craigslist that has been set up as a forum for the ongoing city council elections. There's a lot of good information on how city business is conducted or not on that site that can be accessed through the many useful links provided in the postings.
There's also a bit of what's often called a flame war, between people who support Betro and those who don't. Well, make that a person who supports Betro and people who don't. You've got to admire the commitment and energy of an individual who apparently spends so much time on one site to the point of being able to list what he or she states is every post made by him or her that gets "flagged" meaning that it is removed from the site based on the request of a visitor.
Visitors can flag posts on Craigslist because it's a non-administrated site. Which is what the Betro supporter is referring to when he or she posts those lists of flagged posts. However, what's interesting is that the flagging is going on from his or her corner as well. Posts that have been critical of Betro and the city council including postings made about the expulsion of a city resident from a recent city council meeting by Mayor Pro Tem Ed Adkison have also been flagged for removal yet they are not included on this visitor's exhaustive list.
So there's a lot of interesting, informative posts by people on different sides of the election and then there's this little flame war, which includes the practice of "spamming" which is when the same comments are reposted more than once, often many times. That's been the case here with the visitor who has posted the same comments numerous times even though his or her comments haven't been flagged by anyone.
The latest posting totally written in capital letters(which apparently on the internet is akin to shouting) is from one individua who is so sure that the Betro supporter is female because men wouldn't fight that way. Well, I could guess that this poster is male based on some characteristics in that posting and probably a man who doesn't like women very much based on his derision of a poster that is based on gender but that doesn't make it so. This poster goes further in trying to intimate that they know who this person is by pinning down the neighborhood that the poster believes this person lives in. That's a common tactic used in flame wars as well.
That one was followed by the Betro supporter who insisted that he or she isn't a bitter, hateful person and doesn't hate or feel bitter towards anyone running for office, but that he or she is just very happy about what's going on downtown. That's between two litanies of nasty comments about candidate, Letitia Pepper who's received a lot on a Web site that may be included among the "nameless" and "local bloggers" that the Press Enterprise believes that Pepper has the ability to unleash on the candidates that newspaper has endorsed.
That of course is followed by another example of "spamming" involving a comment that's been posted quite a few times already.
There's quite a bit of outstanding material including great links on that site by people who work hard to bring it to the voting public and there's some good dialogue but on a site that's has no administrator, it's hard to stop the spamming tactics and flame wars. It's hard enough even on sites that are administrated and in my case, it got to the point where comments are closed for the time being.
Presiding San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Michael A. Smith has delayed the trial of Ivory J. Webb for an additional week after receiving a phone call that the wives of one of Webb's defense attorneys had gone into labor, according to the San Bernardino Sun.
(excerpt)
"I apologize for the delay," Judge Michael Smith told jurors. "Obviously this isn't something that we planned."
Opening statements are now scheduled for May 29.
The lawyer for U.S. Airman Elio Carrion, who was injured as a result of being shot by Webb in early 2006, said that the delay if prolonged could produce a hardship for his client because he had taken a leave from the military in order to testify at the trial which is expected to last at least four weeks.
In Illinois, Tom Dart who heads the Cook County Sheriff's Department is convening a panel to investigate allegations ranging from excessive force incidents to corruption. It will be staffed both by law enforcement experts and community leaders.
Usually panels like this one are created in the wake of problems involving the law enforcement which have come to public attention and Cook County's is no exception.
According to the Chicago Tribune in 2004, there were serious problems in the correctional division of the Sheriff's Department including the use of excessive force against inmates. The report submitted by a special grand jury investigating the patterns and practices inside the county jail system found misconduct much greater than that reported by officials from the Sheriff's Department.
The inquiry in part explained one reason why that was and included the reality that apparently the code of silence that pervades law enforcement also is practiced in its correctional systems as well.
The burden of proof is so high to sustain an inmate's complaint, it becomes "a convenient way to ignore the truth" and protect officers who have multiple complaints lodged against them by inmates, the grand jury found.
Guards routinely maintained absolute silence when someone in their ranks was accused of abuse, a grand jury's examiner found, and mountains of reports apparently were never analyzed for patterns by supervisors under Cook County Sheriff Michael Sheahan.
The picture emerges in material compiled by an examiner for the grand jury, whose extensive paperwork was released Thursday along with a stinging report alleging that members of Sheahan's office covered up a mass beating in 1999. The examiner, DePaul University Law School student Michael Bane, sifted through files turned over by the sheriff, documents that filled 74 boxes.
The panel's most serious allegations were leveled against guards in the Special Operations Response Team--the same elite unit found to have beaten and terrorized inmates in 1999 with wooden batons and dogs.
"The SORT complaints all have a familiar ring," the grand jury reported. "They speak of mass beatings where inmates are forced to stand, face a wall for an extended period of time, often naked, where they would be subjected to both verbal and physical abuse; any sign of insubordination was usually met with physical punishment."
Among the 18 of more than 350 complaints sustained by sheriff's officials was an incident in which an inmate who took candy from a desk was beaten with a broomstick and reports were filed stating the inmate fell, Bane reported. In another sustained incident, Bane noted, seven inmates were treated for forehead burns when they were made to lean their heads on a radiator.
In Paramus, New Jersey, the morale of police officers there has sunken to a new low amidst a flurry of law suits being filed
At least 18 law suits filed in the past 12 years, most of them centering around promotions, according to an article posted on North Jersey Media Group.
So the local government is addressing that process in hopes of reducing the amount of litigation filed. Several of the law suits alleged that officers were promoted even after engaging in racist behavior.
(excerpt)
Deputy Police Chief Richard Cary is heading that effort. Although he hopes requiring tests for promotions will lead to fewer lawsuits, he said the entire process must be transparent in order to succeed.
"This has been going on for a long time," Cary said. "The union and officers are going to be looking for a process that's transparent and one they believe is fair."
Cary himself sued when he was denied a promotion. His 2004 lawsuit accused then-Councilwoman Sandra Gunderson of voting against his promotion to deputy chief despite a conflict of interest. He maintained that Gunderson should have abstained because her husband is a member of the police force.
The lawsuit ended with Cary's promotion.
Another promotion that followed a lawsuit raised eyebrows about the advancement process.
In 2004, Officer Elliot Colon sued the borough, alleging that Sgt. Robert Revicki, his supervisor, slurred Puerto Ricans and said that "Puerto Rico should be bombed."
An investigation resulted in a three-day suspension for Revicki, and Colon's lawsuit ended in an out-of-court settlement, with Colon receiving an undisclosed sum of money and a work assignment with another supervisor.
Revicki was promoted to lieutenant after his suspension, a decision approved by former Police Chief Fred Corrubia and the borough government.
The Winston-Salem Journal in North Carolina reported in a recent article that Black and Latino motorists were more likely to be stopped by police officers in that city.
Percentage of drivers pulled over for minor vehicle violations:
Black: 49%
Hispanic: 44%
White: 31%
Arrest rates:
Black: 1%
Hispanic: 2.9%
White: 1.1%
The city quickly responded to the news and called for a complete review of the department's practices in conducting traffic stops.
(excerpt)
City Manager Lee Garrity told the police department to conduct a thorough review of their practices. The order comes three months after police took diversity training.
"I can tell you that I am committed to making sure that our police department treats all citizens fairly and does not profile any group," Garrity said.
Police Chief Pat Norris, who the article states is Black, insisted that his officers did not racially profile people, but mentioned that the reason why Black and Latino individuals were pulled over for minor traffic violations is because they were unable to afford making repairs to their vehicles.
(excerpt)
"When I was out and working the street, it just seemed like the more people that I pulled over were minorities that had trouble keeping up with the finances of the car more so than the white population did," Norris said.
However, what Norris conveniently leaves out is the fact that traffic pretext stops are made by officers for reasons that most often have little or nothing to do with minor traffic violations. Officers particularly those who work in patrol divisions use those minor violations as a probable cause for pulling a vehicle over so that they can inquire into what they believe is potential criminal behavior.
Police officers make choices each day of which vehicles with expired plates, missing plates, broken tail lights and other violations they allow to pass them by and which they decide to pull over. Just like they do with other drivers who don't stop at stop signs, red lights or who make turns from the incorrect lanes.
Consequently, the disparity in statistics among the different racial groups for stops based on minor traffic violations may be explained by the discretion by police officers in terms of whom they decide to actually pull over and who gets to drive on by them. Do they decide to pull over Black and Latino motorists more frequently(proportionately speaking) than White motorists?
And like was evidenced in the recent national study conducted by the Department of Justice, often it's how individuals belong to different racial groups are treated during traffic stops that differs with Black and Latinos being searched at a disproportionate rate in comparison to White motorists.
In New York City, the arrest of two New York City Police Department officers who tried to rob a drug den has shocked many of the people who thought they knew both men.
An article in the New York Daily News featured interviews with family members and friends of Officers Hector Alvarez and Miguel Castillo had difficulty rationalizing the reality that these men had allegedly engaged in corrupt behavior and then tried to cover it up.
(excerpt)
Alvarez, a former Marine, spoke three languages fluently and had expert training in counterterrorism.
"He was an outstanding police officer and a good father," his wife, Fiona MacFadyen, said yesterday. "He had an awesome career and this is tragic."
MacFadyen, eight months pregnant with the couple's third child, said she was "completely shocked."
"This is so out of character for Hector," said MacFadyen, 26.
Relatives of Castillo, a former amateur boxer, told a similar story. "He's the last person you'd expect this from," said his cousin Diana Castillo, 17.
In the Bronx, outraged family members continue to protest the shooting of a Honduran-born man, Fermin Arzu who was shot by NYPD officer, Raphael Lora who was off-duty at the time.
Lora shot Arzu five times after he ran out to Arzu's van which had been involved in a collision and identified himself as a police officer. Details of what happened are sketchy, as several witnesses disagreed with the police department's version of events.
(excerpt)
Police sources who spoke to Lora gave this version of what happened next:
Lora ran up to the van, identified himself as a cop and asked for Arzu's license.
Arzu, whose speech was slurred, pushed at the cop with his right hand as he reached for the glove compartment with his left - making Lora fear the neighborhood handyman and musician was going for a gun.
Suddenly, the van surged forward as Lora was knocked to the ground by an open door. The cop then opened fire.
Witnesses told cops "they saw the car move forward and heard shots," said NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne.
No witness has reported seeing Lora hit by a door.
And investigators now are talking with witnesses who believe the van lurched forward only after the first shot was fired.
No gun was found in the car.
And there's been an article by the New York Times about how this department is having a difficult time recruiting new officers given that the agency has a starting salary of $25,000. Now there's another article about how neighboring law enforcement agencies in Long Island are hiring officers who otherwise might have gone to work at the NYPD.
Police agencies from Suffolk and Nassau Counties are getting the lion share of those applicants, with over 20,000 applying for positions in Suffolk.
(excerpt)
Eugene O’Donnell, a professor of law and police studies at John Jay, said the high pay coupled with low crime rates make a coveted Long Island job “like winning the lottery in law enforcement.”
“It’s a real me-versus-you mind-set,” he added. “When I announce the test in class, I actually get dirty looks from some students who’ve already registered and don’t want to see the test pool broadened so it lessens their chances.”
Starting salary on the 2,692-member Suffolk force is $57,811 — compared with $25,100 when entering the New York Police Department academy and $32,700 after six months at the department — and rises after five years to $97,958 ($59,588 in New York). With overtime, many members of the Suffolk department routinely make more than $100,000.
Nassau’s salaries are lower — $34,000 to start, $91,737 after seven years — but as the county executive, Thomas R. Suozzi, announced with fanfare last month, average pay in the 2,686-member department, with overtime, was $125,000 last year.
The committee sped the first complaint filed against Betro to its hearing date, but it's likely that this one won't be heard until after the election.
Which given the process for hearing ethics complaints that the committee put on display last time around is probably not a bad thing. To watch the committee of which two-thirds is comprised of BASS members defend one of its own and castigate yet another complainant is not something that you want to begin the summer with even if you're just in the position of hearing or reading about it. It's not like Dawson can expect a fair hearing from a committee filled with individuals who have either formally or informally endorsed Betro's campaign for reelection to the dais. Perhaps the only people who feel that this doesn't provide a conflict of interest are those sitting on the dais and their supporters.
Watching the silence from the same people who advocated for an ethics complaint process is and has been a bit disconcerting.
Many people advocated for this important mechanism including those who served on the committee which researched the process and made recommendations to the city council after the voters gave a resounding yes to the question of whether or not they wanted such a process in their city. One has the feeling that to some degree, this silence is because many of those who were involved in this process are officially or unofficially strong supporters of the campaign of the one city official who has had complaints filed against him so far.
It's not like they have to support or reject specific findings by the committee to show their commitment to the process but it would definitely be a good thing if they kept a watchful eye and asked questions about it especially in the wake of what happened last time. What's wrong with standing up and asking questions about the shoddy process that was unveiled by the Mayor's Nomination and Screening Committee the last time around before it becomes an issue this time?
Well, except for the fact that the complaints have been filed against the wrong council member. Perhaps the much needed scrutiny of the process would come if the complaints had been filed against other council members like Art Gage and Steve Adams who have received their share of negative press coverage for their alleged transgressions
The main problem is that the city council members have shown that they are incapable of making decisions regarding complaints against city council members they share political alliances with. Not in terms of the decisions they reach, but in terms of the process they used. Whatever decision the committee decides is its decision based hopefully on a comprehensive discussion and analysis of the facts presented which the last time consisted mainly of council member recollections and a DVD of the meeting in question which was highly selective in terms of what it showed. But then again, the evidence was presented by City Attorney Gregory Priamos who is directly employed by the city council members including Betro.
However, the process itself must be one that at least makes some attempt to examine the actions of the city council member than simply serve to castigate the person who complained against that council member.
The first complaint filed in the ethics complaint process was supposed to have been and actually was filed against Councilman Steve Adams, for making comments from the dais that several individuals in the audience were lying.
Other city council members including Frank Schiavone said they were appalled by what Adams had done but when a complaint was filed, what did Schiavone and other members of the Mayor's Nomination and Screening Commission do?
They made a rule that there could be no second-party complaints filed against city officials before they had even met to create a process to handle ethics complaints or had even essentially decided what committee would even have that responsibility. They ejected the complaint against Adams, also a BASS member, and then decided, oh we need a process when the more ethical and sensible thing to do would have been to put the complaint against Adams on hold until the process to handle it had actually been developed and implemented.
But that's not what the city council did and their actions in that case became a harbinger for what lay head.
Not that it helped Adams who recently showed up at a candidate forum and called one ward resident in attendance a liar before that man could even take his seat. And why shouldn't he? He saw what happened the earlier times he had done it. Even Betro has a return engagement to the committee because like before, he let his volatile temper get the better of him.
A complaint had been filed against Adams and the city council basically tossed it out on a technicality even though there was no process in place yet. But when there was, it was used to essentially trash the complainant rather than examine the behavior of the individual who received the complaint. In fact, there was relatively very little discussion of Betro's actions.
In other words, the city council looked out for one of its own. Well, actually two.
Which is exactly what will ultimately happen in this case and very few in the community if not inside City Hall will be surprised at that.
There's a local Web site, Inland Empire Craigslist that has been set up as a forum for the ongoing city council elections. There's a lot of good information on how city business is conducted or not on that site that can be accessed through the many useful links provided in the postings.
There's also a bit of what's often called a flame war, between people who support Betro and those who don't. Well, make that a person who supports Betro and people who don't. You've got to admire the commitment and energy of an individual who apparently spends so much time on one site to the point of being able to list what he or she states is every post made by him or her that gets "flagged" meaning that it is removed from the site based on the request of a visitor.
Visitors can flag posts on Craigslist because it's a non-administrated site. Which is what the Betro supporter is referring to when he or she posts those lists of flagged posts. However, what's interesting is that the flagging is going on from his or her corner as well. Posts that have been critical of Betro and the city council including postings made about the expulsion of a city resident from a recent city council meeting by Mayor Pro Tem Ed Adkison have also been flagged for removal yet they are not included on this visitor's exhaustive list.
So there's a lot of interesting, informative posts by people on different sides of the election and then there's this little flame war, which includes the practice of "spamming" which is when the same comments are reposted more than once, often many times. That's been the case here with the visitor who has posted the same comments numerous times even though his or her comments haven't been flagged by anyone.
The latest posting totally written in capital letters(which apparently on the internet is akin to shouting) is from one individua who is so sure that the Betro supporter is female because men wouldn't fight that way. Well, I could guess that this poster is male based on some characteristics in that posting and probably a man who doesn't like women very much based on his derision of a poster that is based on gender but that doesn't make it so. This poster goes further in trying to intimate that they know who this person is by pinning down the neighborhood that the poster believes this person lives in. That's a common tactic used in flame wars as well.
That one was followed by the Betro supporter who insisted that he or she isn't a bitter, hateful person and doesn't hate or feel bitter towards anyone running for office, but that he or she is just very happy about what's going on downtown. That's between two litanies of nasty comments about candidate, Letitia Pepper who's received a lot on a Web site that may be included among the "nameless" and "local bloggers" that the Press Enterprise believes that Pepper has the ability to unleash on the candidates that newspaper has endorsed.
That of course is followed by another example of "spamming" involving a comment that's been posted quite a few times already.
There's quite a bit of outstanding material including great links on that site by people who work hard to bring it to the voting public and there's some good dialogue but on a site that's has no administrator, it's hard to stop the spamming tactics and flame wars. It's hard enough even on sites that are administrated and in my case, it got to the point where comments are closed for the time being.
Presiding San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Michael A. Smith has delayed the trial of Ivory J. Webb for an additional week after receiving a phone call that the wives of one of Webb's defense attorneys had gone into labor, according to the San Bernardino Sun.
(excerpt)
"I apologize for the delay," Judge Michael Smith told jurors. "Obviously this isn't something that we planned."
Opening statements are now scheduled for May 29.
The lawyer for U.S. Airman Elio Carrion, who was injured as a result of being shot by Webb in early 2006, said that the delay if prolonged could produce a hardship for his client because he had taken a leave from the military in order to testify at the trial which is expected to last at least four weeks.
In Illinois, Tom Dart who heads the Cook County Sheriff's Department is convening a panel to investigate allegations ranging from excessive force incidents to corruption. It will be staffed both by law enforcement experts and community leaders.
Usually panels like this one are created in the wake of problems involving the law enforcement which have come to public attention and Cook County's is no exception.
According to the Chicago Tribune in 2004, there were serious problems in the correctional division of the Sheriff's Department including the use of excessive force against inmates. The report submitted by a special grand jury investigating the patterns and practices inside the county jail system found misconduct much greater than that reported by officials from the Sheriff's Department.
The inquiry in part explained one reason why that was and included the reality that apparently the code of silence that pervades law enforcement also is practiced in its correctional systems as well.
The burden of proof is so high to sustain an inmate's complaint, it becomes "a convenient way to ignore the truth" and protect officers who have multiple complaints lodged against them by inmates, the grand jury found.
Guards routinely maintained absolute silence when someone in their ranks was accused of abuse, a grand jury's examiner found, and mountains of reports apparently were never analyzed for patterns by supervisors under Cook County Sheriff Michael Sheahan.
The picture emerges in material compiled by an examiner for the grand jury, whose extensive paperwork was released Thursday along with a stinging report alleging that members of Sheahan's office covered up a mass beating in 1999. The examiner, DePaul University Law School student Michael Bane, sifted through files turned over by the sheriff, documents that filled 74 boxes.
The panel's most serious allegations were leveled against guards in the Special Operations Response Team--the same elite unit found to have beaten and terrorized inmates in 1999 with wooden batons and dogs.
"The SORT complaints all have a familiar ring," the grand jury reported. "They speak of mass beatings where inmates are forced to stand, face a wall for an extended period of time, often naked, where they would be subjected to both verbal and physical abuse; any sign of insubordination was usually met with physical punishment."
Among the 18 of more than 350 complaints sustained by sheriff's officials was an incident in which an inmate who took candy from a desk was beaten with a broomstick and reports were filed stating the inmate fell, Bane reported. In another sustained incident, Bane noted, seven inmates were treated for forehead burns when they were made to lean their heads on a radiator.
In Paramus, New Jersey, the morale of police officers there has sunken to a new low amidst a flurry of law suits being filed
At least 18 law suits filed in the past 12 years, most of them centering around promotions, according to an article posted on North Jersey Media Group.
So the local government is addressing that process in hopes of reducing the amount of litigation filed. Several of the law suits alleged that officers were promoted even after engaging in racist behavior.
(excerpt)
Deputy Police Chief Richard Cary is heading that effort. Although he hopes requiring tests for promotions will lead to fewer lawsuits, he said the entire process must be transparent in order to succeed.
"This has been going on for a long time," Cary said. "The union and officers are going to be looking for a process that's transparent and one they believe is fair."
Cary himself sued when he was denied a promotion. His 2004 lawsuit accused then-Councilwoman Sandra Gunderson of voting against his promotion to deputy chief despite a conflict of interest. He maintained that Gunderson should have abstained because her husband is a member of the police force.
The lawsuit ended with Cary's promotion.
Another promotion that followed a lawsuit raised eyebrows about the advancement process.
In 2004, Officer Elliot Colon sued the borough, alleging that Sgt. Robert Revicki, his supervisor, slurred Puerto Ricans and said that "Puerto Rico should be bombed."
An investigation resulted in a three-day suspension for Revicki, and Colon's lawsuit ended in an out-of-court settlement, with Colon receiving an undisclosed sum of money and a work assignment with another supervisor.
Revicki was promoted to lieutenant after his suspension, a decision approved by former Police Chief Fred Corrubia and the borough government.
The Winston-Salem Journal in North Carolina reported in a recent article that Black and Latino motorists were more likely to be stopped by police officers in that city.
Percentage of drivers pulled over for minor vehicle violations:
Black: 49%
Hispanic: 44%
White: 31%
Arrest rates:
Black: 1%
Hispanic: 2.9%
White: 1.1%
The city quickly responded to the news and called for a complete review of the department's practices in conducting traffic stops.
(excerpt)
City Manager Lee Garrity told the police department to conduct a thorough review of their practices. The order comes three months after police took diversity training.
"I can tell you that I am committed to making sure that our police department treats all citizens fairly and does not profile any group," Garrity said.
Police Chief Pat Norris, who the article states is Black, insisted that his officers did not racially profile people, but mentioned that the reason why Black and Latino individuals were pulled over for minor traffic violations is because they were unable to afford making repairs to their vehicles.
(excerpt)
"When I was out and working the street, it just seemed like the more people that I pulled over were minorities that had trouble keeping up with the finances of the car more so than the white population did," Norris said.
However, what Norris conveniently leaves out is the fact that traffic pretext stops are made by officers for reasons that most often have little or nothing to do with minor traffic violations. Officers particularly those who work in patrol divisions use those minor violations as a probable cause for pulling a vehicle over so that they can inquire into what they believe is potential criminal behavior.
Police officers make choices each day of which vehicles with expired plates, missing plates, broken tail lights and other violations they allow to pass them by and which they decide to pull over. Just like they do with other drivers who don't stop at stop signs, red lights or who make turns from the incorrect lanes.
Consequently, the disparity in statistics among the different racial groups for stops based on minor traffic violations may be explained by the discretion by police officers in terms of whom they decide to actually pull over and who gets to drive on by them. Do they decide to pull over Black and Latino motorists more frequently(proportionately speaking) than White motorists?
And like was evidenced in the recent national study conducted by the Department of Justice, often it's how individuals belong to different racial groups are treated during traffic stops that differs with Black and Latinos being searched at a disproportionate rate in comparison to White motorists.
In New York City, the arrest of two New York City Police Department officers who tried to rob a drug den has shocked many of the people who thought they knew both men.
An article in the New York Daily News featured interviews with family members and friends of Officers Hector Alvarez and Miguel Castillo had difficulty rationalizing the reality that these men had allegedly engaged in corrupt behavior and then tried to cover it up.
(excerpt)
Alvarez, a former Marine, spoke three languages fluently and had expert training in counterterrorism.
"He was an outstanding police officer and a good father," his wife, Fiona MacFadyen, said yesterday. "He had an awesome career and this is tragic."
MacFadyen, eight months pregnant with the couple's third child, said she was "completely shocked."
"This is so out of character for Hector," said MacFadyen, 26.
Relatives of Castillo, a former amateur boxer, told a similar story. "He's the last person you'd expect this from," said his cousin Diana Castillo, 17.
In the Bronx, outraged family members continue to protest the shooting of a Honduran-born man, Fermin Arzu who was shot by NYPD officer, Raphael Lora who was off-duty at the time.
Lora shot Arzu five times after he ran out to Arzu's van which had been involved in a collision and identified himself as a police officer. Details of what happened are sketchy, as several witnesses disagreed with the police department's version of events.
(excerpt)
Police sources who spoke to Lora gave this version of what happened next:
Lora ran up to the van, identified himself as a cop and asked for Arzu's license.
Arzu, whose speech was slurred, pushed at the cop with his right hand as he reached for the glove compartment with his left - making Lora fear the neighborhood handyman and musician was going for a gun.
Suddenly, the van surged forward as Lora was knocked to the ground by an open door. The cop then opened fire.
Witnesses told cops "they saw the car move forward and heard shots," said NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne.
No witness has reported seeing Lora hit by a door.
And investigators now are talking with witnesses who believe the van lurched forward only after the first shot was fired.
No gun was found in the car.
And there's been an article by the New York Times about how this department is having a difficult time recruiting new officers given that the agency has a starting salary of $25,000. Now there's another article about how neighboring law enforcement agencies in Long Island are hiring officers who otherwise might have gone to work at the NYPD.
Police agencies from Suffolk and Nassau Counties are getting the lion share of those applicants, with over 20,000 applying for positions in Suffolk.
(excerpt)
Eugene O’Donnell, a professor of law and police studies at John Jay, said the high pay coupled with low crime rates make a coveted Long Island job “like winning the lottery in law enforcement.”
“It’s a real me-versus-you mind-set,” he added. “When I announce the test in class, I actually get dirty looks from some students who’ve already registered and don’t want to see the test pool broadened so it lessens their chances.”
Starting salary on the 2,692-member Suffolk force is $57,811 — compared with $25,100 when entering the New York Police Department academy and $32,700 after six months at the department — and rises after five years to $97,958 ($59,588 in New York). With overtime, many members of the Suffolk department routinely make more than $100,000.
Nassau’s salaries are lower — $34,000 to start, $91,737 after seven years — but as the county executive, Thomas R. Suozzi, announced with fanfare last month, average pay in the 2,686-member department, with overtime, was $125,000 last year.
Labels: City elections, officer-involved shootings, public forums in all places
posted by Five Before Midnight | 1:55 PM
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