Posted on 12/05/2007 5:04:53 AM PST by Wolfie
NY: Police Sting Operation Lucky Bag Has Some Calling Entrapment
Should New Yorkers be arrested for picking up an unattended bag and not turning it in? The New York Police Department has a sting operation to do just that, but one couple caught up in it says they were doing nothing wrong. NY1’s Criminal Justice reporter Solana Pyne filed the following report.
For Aquarius Cheers and Kia Graves, it started as a routine trip to Target Thursday night to buy their daughter diapers. They were waiting for a train at 59th Street.
“I look around and I end up seeing this bag,” recalled Cheers. “It was a Verizon bag. I took it, and look inside of it. I saw there was some electronics. Next thing I know the train is coming.”
They grabbed the bag and rushed for the train.
"I was like ‘just bring the bag,’ not thinking twice about it,” said Graves. “I was thinking ‘oh we could find a receipt in there,’ and possibly go back to the phone company Verizon."
Then a team of undercover officers grabbed Cheers and charged him with petty larceny.
"I was like, ‘what is that?’” said Cheers. “And the officer said, that what I did was basically akin to shoplifting. I was like, ‘but I'm not a shoplifter. I'm not a thief.’"
The NYPD calls the sting Operation Lucky Bag, where officers plant a bag and arrest those who take it and do not turn it into a uniformed officer posted nearby.
Cheers says he saw the officer but in the rush to catch the train did not think to give it to him.
"If I thought I was doing anything wrong, I wouldn't have run past a uniformed police officer to catch my train with the bag," he said.
The NYPD credits Operation Lucky Bag with having helped cut crime dramatically in the subways. They say it has led to the arrest of many career criminals.
"Law-abiding individuals return property all the time,” said the NYPD in a statement. “Those who take it away are arrested."
But more than half of the 220 people arrested in the program last year had no prior records. Civil rights attorneys say the stings may constitute entrapment.
"If the citizen was not going to commit the crime, but was tempted or enticed by police or law enforcement to do the criminal act, the courts will throw that out," explained Norman Siegel, a civil rights attorney.
A Brooklyn judge threw out one Lucky Bag arrest, pointing out that the city's personal property law gives people ten-days to turn in found property worth more than $20.
"The police should concentrate their noble efforts on behalf of a city on countering real crimes committed every day,” said Judge Matthew A. Sciarrino of Brooklyn Federal Court in his ruling. “They do not need to manipulate a situation where temptation may overcome even people who would normally never think of committing a crime."
Cheers agreed to a plea deal where he did not admit any guilt. If he does not get arrested in six months, the arrest will be wiped from his record. But, he says, not from his memory.
Good to know the police have more time on their hands than the Maytag Repairman.
Exactly what anyone of us would have done. This police scheme is demented.
Nice to know the NYPD has beaten all violent crime down to such a low level they can spend resources on this.
This is a bit ridiculous, don’t the police have anything more important to do?
Sounds like entrapment to me. The law says you have 10 days to turn found property in to the police. Not unreasonable—it also gives you 10 days to contact the owner if ownership information can be recovered from the found item and leave the police and the possibility of a corrupt properties room officer out of the matter. But they are collaring people for not immediately turning it in?
Actually, it’s worse than entrapment: they are collaring people who have, in fact, committed no crime.
I say wipe the arrest from the record now, and give the man a bag of electronics for his trouble.
...the NYC courts must need $$$$$$
Next thing you know, the lucky bags will be wired with a hidden taser. Then the police won’t have to run up to apprehend them, just hit the tase and leisurely go apprehend them.
ML/NJ
Gee ya think? Too many police with too much power and too much time on their hands.
I was in agreement with you on this until the people said they ran right by a police officer and noticed him but didn’t hand him the bag.
I suppose if they are really really late, that could make sense.
But it’s hard to imagine someone thinking they’d rather go through the hourse of hassle of tracking down the owner and bringing the bag back, when all they had to do is hand the bag to a police officer and say “I found this sitting over there, gotta go”.
My guess is they were thinking that if they couldn’t identify who owned it, they’d keep it. A lot of people think the law allows finders to be keepers.
Still, since the law allows them 10 days, there’s no way these arrests should stick up in court.
Back in my adolescence, looking for a hobby, I bought a bunch of photography mags. One had a photo series of a sting, but they had a woman pretending to fall asleep, with her wallet sticking partially out of her purse. Bus or train station, iirc.
The mag got a lot of mail on that one, people writing in about setting up the guy that couldn't resist pulling the wallet out of the purse.
If you want the item to get back to the owner, a direct approach may be best. Giving it to the police officer standing nearby does not restore it to the rightful owner.
Why should the police officer have any role in the process of returning a lost item to it’s owner? If the owner attempts to do so and fails, the police are still around a couple of days later.
I have found items from time to time, and it never occured to me to turn them in to a police officer. If I am in a store or theater, I return them to the manager. But on the street, I would attempt to arrange a return myself. What is wrong with that?
This is Mayor Mikey... our esteemed Billionaire In Chief... working his magic to make NYC unlivable once again.
Now, rather than trying to avoid the street criminals, we have to be wary of government agents lying in wait, ready to pounce.
I must admit that I was never much of a Rudy fan, but he transformed my hometown from a dirty, dangerous monument to everything that was wrong with urban life into a city that we can all enjoy and take pride in.
Bloomie is now doing his best to reverse the trend. As a native and lifelong New Yorker I resent this interloper’s efforts to impose his socialist/utopian vision on a great city. Ditto for Hillary. Mikey and Her Heinous are carpetbagging partners in crime.
Agree that is what most people would do....then a couple of other thoughts:
If you let the cop know there will be paperwork and delays...
If you tell the cop he might think it’s a bomb and shut down everything..
If you give it to the cop how do you know it will get back to the rightful owner???
Frankly, I wouild not be ready to assume that handing the items to a police officer would increase the chance of them being returned to their rightful owner by one iota.
Call me cynical, but I’d either find the owner myself, or turn the items over in an institutional setting. I’d never just turn them over to an individual with no witnesses, even if that individual happened to be a police officer.
I’ve spent a lot of time in NY. I wouldn’t have picked it up and taken it anywhere, particularly onto a train.
Although, if it had been a USNA yearbook, well that would be different! :)
To stop this police entrapment would be fairly simple. If you see it, start yelling, “Bomb! Bomb! There’s a bag with a bomb in it!” And run away.
Success would depend on how many people are in the subway station at that moment. And if the media picked up the story.
The program could get shut down in a New York minute.
THE LAW says they have ten days to turn it in. I am unclear how ANYONE could possibly be convicted under this statute. Sounds like a Nanny Bloomberg make work scheme to me.
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