Tag: NYPD
Is it possible that the NYPD’s apparent disdain for Hispanic people extends to members of its own force? In May, officer Jessica Guzman was issued a department reprimand after speaking one sentence of conversational spanish to a colleague who had addressed her in the same language. The interaction was so insignificant, Guzman says she doesn’t […]
Not to be outdone by the NSA and the GHCQ, the NYPD is unveiling some scary spying equipment of its own. The Domain Awareness System, a program rolled out last year that compiles information from every NYPD surveillance camera, license plate reader, and radiation detector in the city, will soon be made available for every cop […]
Ray Kelly, the commissioner of a police department that’s currently awaiting the decision in a federal trial over the constitutionality of its stop-and-frisk practice, a department that ran a massive program of spying on New York City’s muslim community, made statements condemning the NSA for the secrecy of its phone and electronic communications surveillance programs, […]
This week, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a statement recommending that a court-appointed monitor be put in place to independently oversee the NYPD, should the courts rule against the city in the federal trial over stop-and-frisk. New York City Mayor and police booster number one Michael Bloomberg, unsurprisingly, called this a “terrible idea.” Addressing reporters in […]
Running parallel to the increased discussion of stop-and-frisk brought on by the federal trial over the practice and the coming mayoral election has been the question of police oversight. If the NYPD is indeed violating the rights of New Yorkers, should an independent monitor be brought in to oversee the department. According to the U.S. […]
Going through @stopandfrisk‘s timeline on Twitter, one phrase jumps out at you: “No weapon is found.” Every five minutes, the account tweets a short description of one of the 685,742 stops that occurred in 2011, and only one percent of those stops actually turned up a weapon. Here’s a sampling: 01/06/11: Police stop a 31-year-old in […]
A bill that recently passed through the New York State Senate would make it a felony punishable by up to four years in prison to “harass, annoy, threaten, or alarm” a police officer, as long as that harassment is accompanied by physical contact. The bill is on its way to the State Assembly. On first […]
Horseshoe crabs–spiky, prehistoric-looking things like the specimens pictured above–it turns out, are more valuable than you might think. This week, four men illegally took at least 200 of the creatures from an island in Jamaica Bay, ostensibly to sell them as fishing bait (the crabs fetch about $5 a piece). Fortunately for the little critters, […]
NYCLU released its analysis of the NYPD’s 2012 stop-and-frisk statistics Wednesday. Briefly, here’s how the numbers look: -The department stopped people 532,911 times in 2012. -Ninety percent of people stopped were innocent, ie. not arrested or ticketed. -Eighty-seven percent of people stopped were black or Latino. -Ten percent of people were white. -In the ten precincts […]
Yesterday we told you the federal civil rights trial of stop-and-frisk was drawing to a close, and that Judge Shira Scheindlin gave an interview saying that she wouldn’t go soft on the city government just because it’s the city government. Today, we’re pleased to say that the judge was true to her word. During yesterday’s closing […]
