Racial profiling: Where it all started.

The Birth Of Racial Profiling

21 years ago a television reporter broadcast a series of reports exposing racial profiling on the New Jersey Turnpike.

Former WWOR reporter, Joseph Collum, has written a book about his discovery. It's called "The Black Dragon, Racial Profiling Exposed."

Collum explained his reports "kind of lit the fuse but there were a lot of people involved over the years. And it's a story that stretches over more than a decade." Collum said he observed the practice during routine trips on the turnpike. "That was a common sight in the mid to late 80's. And we began to look at it and looked at arrest statistics and discovered that about 90% of the arrests on the New Jersey Turnpike were of blacks or hispanics."

Collum said there were a lot of young troopers working on the highway at that time. "And they were mentored by older troopers. And their number one priority was to catch people with drugs." There was not an official policy but behind the scenes, Collum says, troopers were encouraged "to stop black people and search them."

Collum estimates there were hundreds of thousands of racial profiling stops. He said part of the motivation was troopers who made the most arrests were eligible for the "Trooper of the Year" award. "It was like winning the Heisman Trophy."

Community policing or a little too late?

NEWARK — The Newark Police Department rolled out its revised community relations strategy tonight, presenting updated accountability measures and crime reporting methods to a group of advocates, community leaders and clergy members.

Police Director Garry McCarthy led a presentation centered around improved police training and Internal Affairs techniques, which the director hopes will strengthen residents’ trust in his officers.

"Cities like Newark have a history of tension between the community and the police," he said. "But I’m not willing to save the village by burning it down."

At the heart of the strategy is an enhanced performance monitoring system the department began to use in May. The system allows for increased supervision of officers who are the subject of substantiated misconduct allegations, receive negative performance reviews or are found guilty of severe infractions like excessive force.

McCarthy also hopes to bolster Internal Affairs ranks by requiring all new sergeants to serve two years in the division. In a petition filed earlier this month, the New Jersey chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union said internal affairs shortcomings are a primary reason Newark needs federal oversight.

The petition showed only one of 261 "serious" misconduct allegations were substantiated over a two- year span. The state Attorney General’s Office and the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office also launched a joint investigation into Newark’s internal affairs operation after The Star-Ledger reported the department was not properly reporting case statistics.

"It’s incredibly difficult to sustain complaints against police officers, whether they are true or not," said McCarthy. "It often boils down to ‘he said, she said.’

Today’s presentation was not a direct reaction to the ACLU petition or other investigations, according to Sgt. Ronald Glover, a Newark police spokesman. He said the strategy has been in development for a year, and McCarthy has already made several public appearances addressing the issue.

The police department is also hoping to improve response times by allowing residents to file reports of "low-priority" crimes online or by phone. Sgt. Brian O’Hara said the creation of the Telephone Reporting Unit to field minor crime reports will speed up officer responses to life-or-death scenarios.

"This will increase our ability to respond to true emergencies," he said.

Residents can report seven minor crimes — criminal mischief, simple assault, theft, auto theft, low-level fraud, harassment and verbal threats — via the internet or by phone.

A rotating cast of speakers tonight detailed several other strategies, including additional community-based training, courses for improved arrest tactics, an updated department website and annual performance reviews for all uniformed officers.

Bishop Jethro James, pastor of Paradise Baptist Church in Newark, said he and the clergy would stand by the police director and hope for change, but claimed the department has a long history of promising reform but failing to implement it.
"Those of us who have been here for 20 or 30 years are saying, ‘Here we go again,’ " James said. "I hope it’s not the same widget with a new name."

Flavio Komuves, the ACLU lawyer who compiled the organization’s petition, said a federal monitor would aid McCarthy in his mission to improve department policy.

"We’ve heard some good policies that he wants to implement," Komuves said. "But we also heard that he’s going to need a strong hand to implement those policies."

McCarthy said the strategy will not be official department policy until after he hears suggestions from the community, and Glover said some policies could be implemented by the end of the year.

The face of a terrorist is changing.

Homegrown Terrorists
German Jihadist Eric Breininger Killed in Pakistan, Group Claims

By Yassin Musharbash


Eric Breininger, one of Germany's most wanted suspected terrorists, has been killed in a battle with Pakistani troops in the Waziristan tribal region of Pakistan, according to an unconfirmed statement by a jihadist group. Breininger had appeared in several Internet videos trying to recruit terrorists in Germany.

Eric Breininger, a German-born convert to Islam wanted by German police on suspicion of belonging to a terrorist cell, was killed on April 30 in a firefight with Pakistani troops, according to an unconfirmed claim by a Jihadi group on Sunday.

Breininger, 22, was a member of the Islamic Jihad Union and had contacts with the homegrown group of terrorists who plotted to bomb US targets in Germany in 2007. Three of the members of that group, known as the Sauerland cell after the region of western Germany where it was based, were arrested in September 2007 as they were preparing to carry out bombing attacks. They were sentenced to long jail terms in March this year.
A Turkish Islamist known as "Salaheddin," who was in charge of the Islamic Jihad Union's Internet site, is also reported to have been killed in the fight. German authoritities believe Salaheddin is Ahmet M., who was born in Germany and deported to Turkey 10 years ago.

German authorities said they were checking the report. The written statement made by the group called Taifatul Mansura and seen by SPIEGEL ONLINE says the two men were attacked by "Pakistanis who have deserted their faith" near the town of Mir Ali. It is likely to be referring to Pakistani soldiers. Ahmet M. had killed four attackers by exploding a hand grenade even though he had already been severely wounded, the statement said.

Propaganda Videos

Eric Breininger was believed to have been in the Waziristan border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan since September 2007. He had appeared in several propaganda videos posted by the IJU in recent years and had tried to recruit new members in Germany.

If his death is confirmed he will be the fourth German-born jihadist to have died in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region.

Cüneyt Ciftci from Bavaria in southern Germany committed a suicide attack in Afghanistan in March 2008 in the name of the IJU. Javad S. from Bonn, who had joined the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, died last autumn in a clash with Pakistani soldiers. Saadullah Kaplan, who like Breininger and Ciftci had been recruited by the Sauerland cell, died in autumn 2007 in a gun battle.
Taifatul Mansura is a mainly Turkish group which operates under the command of the Afghan Taliban and is closely linked to the IJU. Its statement says: "We, those responsible for the region Germany, regard it as important to mention that the jihad is getting increasing numbers of supporters from Europe, especially from Germany."

German authorities believe several dozen German-born jihadists are currently in Afghanistan and Waziristan.

Is higher education hiding the truth?

Hiding the Truth at John Jay?

August 30, 2010

Public discourse and community outreach are hallmarks of higher education. That’s how academia spreads knowledge beyond its walls.

Instead last Friday, the John Jay College of Criminal Justice became The Forbidden City.

The college barred reporters from hearing criminologists John Eterno and Eli Silverman detail an inconvenient truth: the NYPD is low-balling crime statistics.

The two professors had invited the media to their presentation, based on their survey of nearly 500 former high-ranking police officials. [Eterno is himself a former NYPD captain.] Some 25 per cent said the NYPD under-reported crimes to make the city seem safer than it is.

Eterno and Silverman both maintain that a conference organizer, John Jay Public Management Department Professor Marilyn Rubin, had okayed the invitation to reporters.

“We inquired weeks ago,” said Eterno. “We checked with conference organizers. She was one of them. We were told media could come.”

John Jay spokeswoman Doreen Vinas said, however, that Rubin told her it was a closed conference and that no permission had been granted.

Perhaps publicity in the form of a Daily News article the day of the conference spooked John Jay into abandoning its mission to educate and inform.

The News merely reported the truth: “Two academics at an FBI-sponsored conference Friday will accuse the NYPD of cooking the books to make the city appear safer.”

But apparently that was too much truth for John Jay, a school dependent on its relationship with police departments, especially the NYPD.

Long-standing police ties (the president of John Jay, Jeremy Travis, is a former NYPD Deputy Commissioner) apparently trumped the public’s right to know, and higher education’s role to inform them.

Then there was the problem of possibly antagonizing Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.

When the Eterno-Silverman study was reported last February in the Times, the police department disputed its findings. Deputy Commissioner for Public Information Paul Browne, Kelly’s closest aide, said that two more comprehensive studies analyzing the integrity of the city’s crime statistics had found them to be reliable and sound.

The timing of John Jay’s about-face is also suspect because recent events have bolstered the conclusion that the police are indeed cooking the books.

Most notable are allegations by police officer Adrian Schoolcraft, who secretly tape-recorded roll call meetings at the 81st precinct, where officers were told to downgrade felonies to misdemeanors to make crime appear less than it actually is.

Adil Polanco of the 41st precinct in the Bronx has made similar allegations, including the fact that cops were instructed to arrest innocent people to make their quotas.

After he made his claims, Polanco was suspended.

Schoolcraft was taken by police in handcuffs to Jamaica Hospital, where he was kept in the psychiatric ward against his will for six days.

Yes, Commissioner Kelly does play hardball.

This is the department’s modus operandi these days under Kelly and Mayor Michael Bloomberg. [Whatever happened to Mayor Mike’s promise of “more transparency than existed under Rudy Giuliani?” Probably the same as his pledge not to seek a third term.]

“Yes, the trend in crime is down,” said Eterno, in a telephone interview after his presentation Friday. “But the question is by how much. There is a perception by commanders that integrity is not as important as it was years ago. There is an unrelenting demand for the numbers to go down. That has led to manipulation of crime statistics.

“You fight crime by using timely and accurate statistics,” he continued. “You investigate immediately. You don’t tell people that, if they don’t go to the detective squad, we won’t take a report.

“Even a blind man can see it. It is so patently obvious but the mainstream media just doesn’t get it.”

Well, the mainstream media is starting to get it.

And, despite their denials that anything is amiss, Kelly and Bloomberg get it too. And, by hiding information, they are trying to keep the public from getting it.

Kelly recently transferred the commander of the 81st precinct, Steven Mauriello, although spokesman Browne said the move was unrelated to Schoolcraft’s allegations. Mauriello is now said to be under investigation, although the department has not publicly acknowledged it.

Deputy Chief Michael Marino, who led the police posse that dragged Schoolcraft to Jamaica hospital in handcuffs, is also said to be under investigation, although the department hasn’t acknowledged that either.

No doubt Kelly’s concern that the public might catch on explains the department’s bizarre attempt by a Bronx captain to offer a sweetheart deal to Schoolcraft.

According to Schoolcraft’s lawyer Jon Norinsberg, who rejected the deal as “ridiculous,” the offer conveyed to him by Captain Brandon del Pozo of the 50th precinct in the Bronx, emanated from the office of Deputy Commissioner Michael Farrell.

Farrell is the character who came up with the FBI statistics [which the FBI has disavowed] that describe New York as America’s Safest Large City.

Equally bizarre was del Pozo’s description of Farrell to Norinsberg in explaining the origins of Schoocraft’s so-called deal.

According to Norinsberg, del Pozo described Farrell as “Kelly’s civilian equivalent.”

Just for the record, Kelly is a civilian.


http://www.schoolcraftjustice.com/SchoolcraftAmended.pdf

Executing women: Fair or have we crossed the line?

Virginia put to death a 41-year-old woman Thursday night, the first execution of a female in the country in five years and the first in that state for nearly a century.

The lethal-injection death of Teresa Lewis, convicted of the 2002 contract killing of her husband and stepson, broke with a tradition of societal "queasiness" about executing women, one legal expert said. It could also psychologically clear the way to carrying out death sentences on others among the 60 condemned women in the nation — including 18 in California, according to some capital punishment observers.

Lewis' death sentence was only the 12th carried out against a woman prisoner in the 34 years since capital punishment was restored as a sentencing option. In that same period, 1,214 men have been put to death.

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Legal scholars attribute the "gender bias" in executions to women's lower propensity to kill and the tendency of those who do to kill a husband, lover or child in the heat of emotion, seldom with the "aggravating factors" states require for a death sentence. Lewis pleaded guilty to having arranged the killings to collect $250,000 in insurance money on her stepson.

"The way capital punishment statutes are written inadvertently favor women. They make it a worse crime if a homicide is committed during a felony, like robbery or rape, which are rarely involved in women's homicides," said Victor Streib, a Northern Ohio University law professor who has spent 30 years researching condemned women. "It's also easier to convince a jury that women suffer emotional distress or other emotional problems more than men."

Still, Streib added, "there are some cases that can't be explained by anything except a queasiness at executing women. We just seem to be reluctant to do that."

Lewis was the first woman to be executed in Virginia since 1912, when a 17-year-old African American maid named Virginia Christian was sent to the electric chair for killing her employer after being accused of stealing a locket.

Lewis was the only woman on death row in a state that is second in the number of executions since 1976, with 107 compared with Texas' 463.

Texas carried out the last female execution in the United States on Sept. 14, 2005. Frances Newton was put to death by lethal injection for the murders of her husband and two children. Prosecutors said she wanted to collect $100,000 in insurance money.

A British national convicted in Texas of hiring men to kill a neighbor and steal the victim's newborn son also is likely to face execution this year. The U.S. Supreme Court has denied review of the conviction of 51-year-old Linda Carty, despite appeals by the British government to spare her life.

California has the nation's largest death row, with 708 condemned inmates. Nationally, there were 61 condemned women at the start of this year, compared with more than 3,200 men, according to the Death Penalty Information Center database.

University of New Mexico law professor Elizabeth Rapaport explains the death-sentence disparity with the kinds of crimes women tend to commit.

"Two thirds of the homicide crimes by women are domestic," she said, usually committed in the heat of argument or under impairment by drugs or alcohol, seldom with the premeditation or other aggravating circumstances that draw capital charges.

Rapaport said she was perplexed by the social perception that killing an intimate is less heinous than killing a stranger.

"Why do we reserve our greatest penalties for crimes against strangers, rather than those who violate the trust of the heart?" she asked. One reason, she speculated, is that murder in the course of kidnapping, rape or robbery induces fear of the unforeseeable, while few people read of spouses killing each other and think it could happen to them.

Most of the women on the nation's death rows are there because they committed the heinous crimes for which the death penalty was intended, Rapaport said.

"Is there some bias in the system? Might there be a prosecutor or a jury from time to time less inclined to prosecute a woman or convict a woman? I can't rule that out," she said. "But if someone wants to argue that a systematic preference exists, they have to get beyond hunch and anecdote and show me the money."

Even the comparatively few women on death row tend to be convicted of crimes against family and others they know.

California's condemned women include Dora Buenrostro, a Riverside women who stabbed her three children to death in a rage after a fight with her ex-husband. Susan Eubanks was sentenced to die by a San Diego judge for the 1997 shooting deaths of her four sons, and Sandi Dawn Nieves was convicted of setting fire to her Santa Clarita home in 1998, killing her four daughters to prevent their father from gaining custody. Mary Samuels, Catherine Thompson and Angelina Rodriguez, all of Los Angeles, received death sentences for the aggravated murders of their husbands.

State officials have been gearing up to resume executions after a nearly five-year hiatus, perhaps as soon as Wednesday. However, none of the women on death row have exhausted their appeals.

Newark Officer pleads guilty!

A decorated Newark police detective whose background was highlighted in a petition the ACLU filed earlier this month seeking federal oversight of the department, pleaded guilty today to beating a handcuffed prisoner four years ago.

Vernon Parker, 37, of West Orange, faces eight years in prison for fracturing Shannon Taylor’s eye socket and shattering his jaw during a 2006 assault at the Franklin Street lockup, Acting Essex County Prosecutor Robert Laurino said.

Parker, an 11-year veteran of the force, also pleaded guilty in a separate, unrelated incident, to endangerment for disciplining his teenage stepdaughter, Laurino said. And in a third case, he was convicted in July of physically abusing the girl, said Katherine Carter, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office.

"We are pleased with the resolution of this case," Assistant Prosecutor John Anderson said. "We hope it sends a clear message that this office will investigate and prosecute wrongdoing by police officers when appropriate."

Parker was one of 11 Newark police officers facing criminal charges who were identified in the New Jersey American Civil Liberties Union’s petition. The petition, which calls for a federal monitor to oversee the state’s largest police department, cited 407 lawsuits and allegations of misconduct, and claimed the department’s Internal Affairs Bureau was incapable of disciplining officers.
According to the petition, only one of 261 "serious" internal affairs complaints were substantiated over a two-year period.
Detective Hubert Henderson, a police spokesman, would not disclose Parker’s Internal Affairs record, but said the plea deal likely means the end of his career.

"Since he has plead guilty, the department is now going to move through our disciplinary process to terminate him," Henderson said. "We’re not going to delve into his disciplinary record, but we are going to go through the process we need to go through to move for termination."

Parker had been suspended without pay since he was indicted on assault and misconduct charges in 2008, Henderson said. Parker is being held at the Essex County jail. He will be sentenced Oct. 22.

Appearing before Superior Court Judge Ronald Wiger in Newark today, Parker admitted he beat a handcuffed Taylor after arresting him on a municipal warrant on Sept. 19, 2006. Anderson, the assistant prosecutor, said Parker ignored police protocol when he drove Taylor around the city for an hour in an unmarked police cruiser and arrested six other people before returning to the lock-up.

Once inside the Franklin Street facility, Taylor, 43, asked to file a complaint with Parker’s supervisor, Anderson said. Instead of taking Taylor to see a ranking officer, Parker dragged Taylor into a storage room and beat him unconscious, Anderson said.
In addition to a fractured eye socket and broken jaw, Taylor suffered other injuries to his face, Anderson said, adding that at least eight other people "heard" the assault. Taylor was taken to University Hospital, where he was treated for his injuries, Anderson said.

As part of a plea deal, the prosecutor’s office dismissed assault and misconduct charges against Officer Kyle Bowman and Sgt. Marilouise Bailey, whom Anderson said were with Parker the night of the incident but did not take part in the assault.
Bowman and Bailey were suspended after the incident and then placed on administrative leave, police said.

Anthony Fusco Jr., who represented all three officers, called yesterday’s guilty plea a "sad day" for Parker, who received a medal of excellence from then-Mayor Sharpe James after he was shot during a 2006 gun battle three years earlier.

"I’ve known Vernon a long time, and with the exception of these two episodes, he was one productive officer. I feel terrible about it," Fusco said. "By him pleading guilty, the state agreed to dismiss charges against the other officers. It’s a sad day for Vernon. The other officers are happy and relieved."

Editorial response to ACLU condemnation of Newark PD.

Garry McCarthy has done a remarkable job as police director in Newark. He has brought modern police management to a force that deperately needed it, and the crime rate — most notably, shootings and murders — has dropped sharply.

But now the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey has crafted a 96-page petition calling for a federal investigation into the department, citing police brutality, false arrests, improper searches, malicious prosecutions, planting of false evidence and other corrupt practices. It itemizes conflicts between officers and superiors, charges and countercharges, harassment and retaliation.

Perhaps this is the most alarming part of the petition: According to ACLU research, in 2008 and 2009, there were 261 internal affairs complaints filed — alleging excessive force, improper arrest and other violations by cops — and only one was upheld.
One out of 261.

That seems to us good reason for the Department of Justice to pay a visit to Newark and take a look. The public has no access to those internal affairs reports, but the Department of Justice does. These are serious charges, and it there is no great cost to checking them out.

The feds have helped New Jersey before. When the State Police were targetting minorities on the highways, the Department of Justice pressured New Jersey into agreeing to federal monitoring, and that led to fundamental changes in the force’s hiring, promotion, procedures, and internal affairs investigation. It worked.

We are not suggesting that for Newark right now. This is only a first step, to test the veracity of the ACLU’s charges. Even McCarthy calls this self-policing statistic “problematic.” He says he has addressed the suspicious batting average by rotating officers on internal affairs panels. The NPD has made it easier for civilians to file complaints — in-person or online. McCarthy says undercover cops have filed civilian complaints, and he has made sure the paperwork didn’t end up in a shredder.

Along with reducing murders and protecting citizens from errantly swung police flashlights, McCarthy’s duties include making Newark’s internal affairs statistics credible so the public has a good idea of what’s happening. He has failed at this task. Even McCarthy concedes the numbers are “confusing.”

McCarthy would prefer the state Attorney General’s Office probe the ACLU charges. But the AG’s office is supposed to be watching the NPD anyway, so a thumbs-up would be seen as a whitewash. Plus, the AG’s office doesn’t have a sparkling reputation for investigating cops: For years, it denied the State Police profiling. Another monkey wrench: Paula Dow, the new AG, is a former Essex County Prosecutor.

The Department of Justice has experience investigating municipal police departments. Our hope is they accept the ACLU’s petition and take a look at Newark.

NJ State Police boss gets speeding ticket -- from himself - Newark Crime | Examiner.com

NJ State Police boss gets speeding ticket -- from himself - Newark Crime | Examiner.com







What was his motivation for turning himself in for speeding?

State Police Whistleblower Lawsuit

Suspended N.J. State Police sergeant files whistleblower suit
Monday, August 30, 2010
BY CHRIS MEGERIAN

STATE HOUSE BUREAU
A suspended New Jersey State Police sergeant has filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the division, saying he was retaliated against for reporting financial waste.

According to the lawsuit, filed last week in Superior Court in Warren County, Sgt. James DeLorenzo, a 28-year veteran, reported mismanagement and waste within the State Police’s Solid Hazardous Waste Unit in 2006.

"He hoped they would clean up their act," said his lawyer, George Daggett. "Instead of cleaning up their act, they made his life miserable."

Daggett said the waste included no-show jobs, but would not provide specifics.

The Solid Hazardous Waste Unit performs background checks on people and businesses seeking licenses to work in the solid and hazardous waste industry. It also investigates licensed companies to ensure they are compliant with regulations.

Since he made allegations of waste, the State Police has pursued three internal investigations of DeLorenzo, Daggett said. Two of the investigations were dismissed, but a third continued and prevented him from retiring, Daggett said.

Last August, DeLorenzo, who had started working at an insurance company in preparation for his eventual retirement, was suspended without pay from the State Police for conducting personal business during work hours, Daggett said.

"They said he shouldn’t have had another job," the lawyer said. "But the real reason is, it traces back to the fact he blew the whistle."
Daggett said DeLorenzo, of Blairstown, lost his insurance job when internal investigators reported him to the company.

"He has no job, he has no pay from the State Police, he has no benefits," Daggett said. "All because he pointed out that they were wasting money."

State Police spokesman Sgt. Stephen Jones declined to comment on the lawsuit. The internal probe of DeLorenzo has been referred to the state Division of Criminal Justice for further investigation, he said.

Lee Moore, spokesman for the Attorney General’s Office, also declined comment on the lawsuit.

Chris Megerian may be reached at (609) 989-0208 or cmegerian@starledger.com

ACLU petitions for oversight of Newark police

ACLU petitions for oversight of Newark police


Is this fair or overreaching?

Protest of Fatal LAPD Shooting Turns Violent: Top News Stories at Officer.com

Protest of Fatal LAPD Shooting Turns Violent: Top News Stories at Officer.com