Posted on 03/25/2013 7:02:51 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
A fiendishly deceptive article about the New York Police Department in the New York Times has set back the cause of public safety not just in New York but nationally. A front-page story on Friday twisted a police commander’s exhortation to an underperforming officer to work harder against crime into an injunction to target blacks on the basis of race. The commander’s statements were captured on a tape secretly recorded by the officer and replayed last Thursday during a federal racial-profiling trial directed against the New York Police Department’s stop, question, and frisk policy. The officer had already joined the lawsuit when he made the recording and was patently trying to goad the commander into making a statement that could be used in the litigation. As I explain here, Officer Pedro Serrano failed in his effort to elicit anything remotely approaching a racial-profiling mandate from Deputy Inspector Christopher McCormack, who is shown in the recording to be fiercely committed to protecting the overwhelmingly black and Hispanic residents of his South Bronx precinct and who explicitly repudiates stopping people on the basis of race, rather than criminal behavior. It didn’t matter. The Times finished the job for Serrano, making it seem that McCormack had said the opposite of what he had actually said. (Readers can now compare the Times account of the episode with the actual transcript and decide for themselves.)
Just to make sure that the damage was irrevocable, the Times followed up the next day with an editorial that was even more duplicitous than the article on which it was based. Titled “Walking While Black in New York,” the editorial strips whatever meager context the Friday article had included that might have allowed a highly determined reader to hazily glimpse the truth behind the Times’ distortions: that McCormack was referring to an ongoing, local string of robberies perpetrated by young male blacks when he responded to Serrano’s increasingly aggressive racial provocations with the phrases: “The problem was, what, male blacks. And I told you at roll call, and I have no problem telling you this, [the problem was] male blacks 14 to 20, 21.” It is perfectly appropriate to mention suspects’ race when police are looking for actual perpetrators who have been identified by their victims, but “Walking While Black” displays a breathtakingly juvenile determination to eliminate all facts that stand in the way of the all-consuming agenda to demonize the police.
If the Times honored its by now-dubious status as the newspaper of record, it would run a correction. But even if it did, it would come too late to help the police. Sharpton, the NAACP, and the ACLU are labeling McCormack’s remarks the NYPD’s “smoking gun” and are calling for his suspension, despite his strong backing from the actual residents of the South Bronx. But this is about more than one hard-working commander’s slandered reputation or the ability of the NYPD to preserve its record-breaking crime drop. The conceit that McCormack has revealed the truth about proactive policing will become gospel in anti-cop circles nationwide, making it even harder for police everywhere to do their jobs, due to political pressure from above and street resistance from below.
On March 6 of this year, I attended a community council meeting in the NYPD’s 40th Precinct, where Deputy Inspector McCormack presides. A former Marine named Duwon urgently called for more vigorous policing. He travels to the Bronx from Brooklyn to escort his mother to cash her Social Security payments, he said, because she is terrified of the addicts and youth milling on the corners. “If she ever fell, they’d pick her dry,” he observed.
The Times’ writers and publishers will likely not notice much of a difference (at least initially) if the current campaign against New York’s stop, question, and frisk policy succeeds. Times staffers overwhelmingly live in safe neighborhoods where shootings are merely theoretical. But law-abiding residents of inner-city neighborhoods know that effective policing is a life-and-death matter, and thus passionately support law enforcement. The NYPD works around the clock to provide upstanding members of poor communities the same freedom from fear that affluent areas take for granted. The Times’ preposterous conceit of “walking while black” will only widen the crime gap that, despite the NYPD’s unmatched success in fighting crime, still separates the cozy enclaves of white liberals and the hard streets that continue to blight too many striving inner-city lives.
They shouldn't. Their numbers should be based on FBI Uniform Crime Reports stats that are submitted by the cities themselves. I'd be interested in taking a look at the sources you've mentioned, though. Only 10 cities in this country have more than 1m people. Out of those 10, Las Vegas and San Diego are the only ones that have lower homicide rates than NYC.
To go back to your original analogy.
If a cop witnesses you run a red light, he has witnessed a violation of the law and has a valid reason to stop you. If he sees 200 new cell phones in your back seat and 500 cell phones were just stolen from Radio Shack, he has probable cause to detain you.
If the cop witnesses you driving your sports car down the street, he has no reason to stop you based on his perception that you have a desire or capability to speed.
So if a suspect sees a cop and starts running away, the cop has no right to pursue and search the suspect? If you're not already a criminal defense lawyer, you may have missed your calling.
A few points: 1) A frisk is NOT a search, its a pat down. 2) What major city has a lower murder rate than NYC? 3) The proportion of those frisked and those convicted of crimes are the same when based on race and ethnicity. 4) The REAL Constitutional question arose when it was disclosed that the NYPD had complied computer data based on those frisked. Therefore, the NYPD has a file on you even if you never even been accused of a crime.
You failed to explain your use of the word "suspect". What are they suspected of, being a potential criminal? In stop and frisk, that is the case.
If an actual crime has occurred, then you can talk probable cause for chasing a "runner".
A cop can (and will) say anything they want. They can bust your chops and cost you hours and days and weeks of anguish and anxiety. So long as they can say ‘thats what it looked like to me’ or some variant.
Here in NYC the police don’t just enforce the law. In many respects they are the law. They can arrest a person just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’ve seen it happen to people i know.
NYC ain't Mayberry - it's a city of 8m people. There are outstanding warrants against all kinds of people and cases involving tens of thousands of property crimes that aren't even investigated. There's no question that crimes have occurred, continue to occur and will occur within minutes of anything they do - the only question is who they can make for those crimes.
How convenient. Crimes are always occurring sometime, somewhere, de facto there is always probable cause to stop and search anyone or everyone at any time and place.
Nice little police state you've got there. You've solved the issue of the 4th Amendment by declaring that probable cause always exists and everyone is a suspect.
I think that's a bit strong. A police state is one where people are sent to a gulag or worse for merely complaining about their daily lives. NYC is merely clamping down on criminals in a way that poses an inconvenience to innocent civilians whose time is wasted.
“So if a suspect sees a cop and starts running away, the cop has no right to pursue and search the suspect? “
That’s correct. You know why? Because running isn’t a crime! I’m dismayed at the amount of conservatives that are in favor of this clearly unconstitutional policy. Stop and frisk in NYC is a joke. And their claim that it has lowered crime is also a joke. They claim this by including all of the completely bogus little tickets they hand out to reach their quotas for things like blocking the sidewalk (because they are being stopped by the cops!), or any number of other BS reasons they make up.
As an American I really hope some of you rethink this position. It’s terrible policy and if it keeps up, you’re next.
So if they search my attic and don't find any Jews, its just an inconvenience, not a police state.
You either have a right as an American to be free or you don't. An illegal search is not just a matter of inconveniencing the innocent, it is a matter of making them insecure in their person and possessions.
The effectiveness of anti-crime measures is not a measure of their Constitutionality.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_cities_by_crime_rate
It uses FBI data.
If you throw in cities which are close to 1 million there are several more added. San Antonio is only slightly higher and it has the significant impact of being close to the border.
But seriously, you folks must really approve of the job Bloomberg is doing.
The crime stats - which are composed of robberies, thefts, rapes, homicides and so on - have nothing to do with ticket-writing.
No it isn’t Mayberry, it also isn’t a free city.
Crimes occur in every state all the time. Is that justification to elimination of all rights in America?
Crime-wise, San Antonio has superior demographics - only 6.9% of the population is black compared to NYC's 25%. Adjusted for age, Hispanics commit crimes at about the same rate as whites, compared to the black rate of 6x the white rate.
Dictators always have an excuse.
Stop and frisk is clearly unconstitutional. Go read the 4th. It’s pretty simple.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Law and order “conservatives” have always hated the 4th. Until it is them or their family being harrased by LEO.
So read it. Not difficult to understand. You just don’t like what it says.p
Nine political appointees who take a Gubment check want to expand Gubment power. Read the 4th, nnot hard to understand.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Being stopped and searched on the street doesn't seem to have affected habeas corpus or freedom of speech in New York City. No New Yorker has been sent to a gulag for criticizing Bloomberg. That I know of, anyway...
While it would be ideal if the Second Amendment rights of all New Yorkers were restored, the reality is that New Yorkers have to live in a city where only criminals are armed. Until New Yorkers recover their right to carry personal weapons, their only recourse is to insist on a level playing field, such that criminals are disarmed via stop-and-frisk.
So you’ve willingly surrendered your rights. And we wonder why people like Bloomberg keep getting elected.
New Yorkers are certainly NOT raising a ruckus about the gun laws there. Not the city dwellers anyway, the upstate area where actual conservatives live have tried but are simply outnumbered.
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