In the speech (the full text can be read here and the video seen here) the mayor suggested that the reform proposals could lead to more murders, create deadly confusion among police officers and perhaps even make it easier for terrorists to strike the city.
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Bloomberg Invokes Terrorism in Case Against NYPD Reforms
Mayor Bloomberg on Tuesday attacked proposals to restrict and monitor the NYPD, saying those ideas "most often come from those who play no constructive role in keeping our city safe, but rather view their jobs as pointing fingers from the steps of City Hall."
Outside the NYPD, Inspectors General Are Everywhere
The New York Post's outrage at Council Speaker Christine Quinn's support for an NYPD inspector general may have reached biblical proportions ("JUDAS!" screamed its Thursday headline), but the newspaper has found inspectors general pretty useful in the past. Over the past five years, the newspaper has mentioned "inspector general"—in contexts not involving the NYPD—some 450 times.
Recent examples of government incompetence/corruption chronicled by the Post and involving inspectors general include a probe of the city's top traffic judge for pitching a rental property at work, a Queens nursing home exec billing Medicaid for the use of a Lexus, revelations that construction workers at the World Trade Center were smoking and dealing pot on site, and failures by then-Treasury Secretary Tim Geither to restrict executive pay at corporations bailed out by federal taxpayers.
Police Conduct at Parade Unlikely to Get Board's Review
When it comes to alleged abuses of police power, the official channel of recourse is to file a complaint with the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB), the independent agency formed in 1992 to investigate misconduct. But as of Tuesday, representatives for the two officials involved in this weekend's controversial incident at the West Indian Day Parade said neither had considered filing a CCRB complaint. It simply hadn't crossed their minds.
Recounting at a press conference on Tuesday the events at Monday's parade, Councilman Jumaane Williams and Kirsten John Foy, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio's community affairs director, said they showed their City-issued identification, explained they had permission to skirt the barrier, and were promptly handcuffed. A video of the incident shows officers surrounding Foy and tackling him to the grass in front of the Brooklyn Library. The NYPD claimed that an officer had been punched in the face, a claim that Williams termed "bald-faced lies."
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Opponents Of Over-Policing Target 'Vague Laws'
You lose your balance as the A train stops short, brushing against the newspaper and bag of a fellow commuter as you regain your footing. Have you just stumbled, or have you committed a class A misdemeanor, Jostling? Were a police officer to apply the statute's vague wording and arrest you, and a judge to agree with the officer's interpretation, you could be facing up to one year in prison.
Jostling, along with Criminal Trespassing, Disorderly Conduct, Loitering for the Purpose of Engaging in a Prostitution Offense and several other New York State laws contain broad and equivocal wording. Punishments for the above violations and crimes can potentially including jail time and heavy fines. Timothy Sandefur, the principal attorney of The Pacific Legal Foundation, condemns the serious consequences resulting from many vague laws on the federal and state level. "Vagueness," he wrote in a 2010 Forbes op-ed "turns the law into a sword dangling over citizens' heads."
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