Two policemen executed for Brown/Garner

[spreedom]

Everything is a stupid political angle for some people. Totally sickening to me.

[dude1394]

Originally Posted by spreedom

Everything is a stupid political angle for some people. Totally sickening to me.

I agree obama and holder really make me sick.

[spreedom]

Yeah that's totally what I said, especially considering how moderate Obama was through the whole Ferguson thing and now this shooting.

[Dirkadirkastan]

This is all an unfortunate but natural consequence of the superstition that protection services must be provided by government.

The superstition essentially goes like this: "People are dangerous and I do not trust them, therefore we need some kind of authority to keep such dangerous people in check." The obvious flaw in this sentiment is that this supposed "authority" is nothing more than other mere people, and so does not address the core issue. I refer to it as a superstition because of the emphasis on badges: when someone puts on a badge, suddenly they have extra rights no one else has and are deserving of reverence and praise, and once they take the badge off again, they're just ordinary, dangerous, unwashed mere people once again. (The only thing that makes this superstition hard to see is that it manifests itself in both the liberal and conservative ideologies in different ways.)

The key to understanding social issues is to stop viewing "government" or any "authority" as operating on a separate moral plane or having a different human nature than anyone else, and instead to simply look at the incentive structure of the proposed system. As government institutions consist of mere people, one should expect they are in fact as self-interested as anyone else.

It should be no surprise then that government courts have ruled that police officers have no legal obligation to protect anyone from anyone else, regardless of whatever hallowing mythology people like to conjure up about the nobility of police. Oh, but you do have the legal obligation to fund them. So there's that.

We've known for decades what the effect of authority has on people; the Stanford Prison Experiment was carried out in 1971. I'm not going to repeat the details here; suffice it to say that the results of an authoritarian paradigm are unproductive at best.

And why should one expect anything else? There's nothing about the aura of "authority" that prevents any crime. Gun advocates are aware of the argument: only good people will follow gun restrictions and bad people will disregard them. But that's true in any sphere. The fact that theft is "illegal" is only going to matter to people that don't have the inclination to steal in the first place, same with murder, fraud, etc. You're not exactly enhancing anyone's moral character this way.

Once you free yourself from the myth of authority, you can begin to analyze these police confrontations on an equal playing field; that is, you judge both the officer and the civilian according to the same standard. For example, it is my opinion that Michael Brown was likely the aggressor but Eric Garner was definitely a victim. Liu and Ramos were certainly victims, but I will not concede that the story is somehow more sad or the crime more serious simply because they were wearing badges. That idea is just propaganda perpetuated by a self-interested government. To quote Murray Rothbard:

We may test the hypothesis that the State is largely interested in protecting itself rather than its subjects by asking: which category of crimes does the State pursue and punish most intensely — those against private citizens or those against itself? The gravest crimes in the State's lexicon are almost invariably not invasions of private person or property, but dangers to its own contentment, for example, treason, desertion of a soldier to the enemy, failure to register for the draft, subversion and subversive conspiracy, assassination of rulers and such economic crimes against the State as counterfeiting its money or evasion of its income tax. Or compare the degree of zeal devoted to pursuing the man who assaults a policeman, with the attention that the State pays to the assault of an ordinary citizen. Yet, curiously, the State's openly assigned priority to its own defense against the public strikes few people as inconsistent with its presumed raison d'etre.

Someone who attacks random cops is certainly not working toward a solution, and I condemn all acts of aggression. Members of a group are not responsible for the actions of others in the same group, and that applies to cops as well as anyone else. Yet it would still be imprudent to dismiss the problems endemic to the current system as merely a case of bad apples, or of people blaspheming the police for no good reason.

[MavzMan]

Originally Posted by Dirkadirkastan

To quote Murray Rothbard:
We may test the hypothesis that the State is largely interested in protecting itself rather than its subjects by asking: which category of crimes does the State pursue and punish most intensely — those against private citizens or those against itself? The gravest crimes in the State's lexicon are almost invariably not invasions of private person or property, but dangers to its own contentment, ...

First off, I like the post and it's very well worded. Sorry, I'm not nearly as elloquent as you are, but ....

I'm not sure that I agree with the point being made by your quote of Rothbard. The analogy that comes to mind is airline instructions before the plane takes off. "In case of emergency, before helping the person next to you, put your own mask on."

I would argue that the most serious crime would actually be government corruption. With government corruption, it would be an anything goes scenario and then the whole purpose of protecting the people flies out the window or event worse, the people are actually terrorized by their own government. Thoughts?

Originally Posted by Dirkadirkastan

The superstition essentially goes like this: "People are dangerous and I do not trust them, therefore we need some kind of authority to keep such dangerous people in check." The obvious flaw in this sentiment is that this supposed "authority" is nothing more than other mere people, and so does not address the core issue. I refer to it as a superstition because of the emphasis on badges: when someone puts on a badge, suddenly they have extra rights no one else has and are deserving of reverence and praise, and once they take the badge off again, they're just ordinary, dangerous, unwashed mere people once again.

Again, I disagree with this mostly ... I don't neccessarily "praise" officers, but I do hold a certain amount of reverence for them and most definitely respect. Your equating them as ordinary, unwashed people like me doesn't really work. They go through a significant amount of training in order to put on that badge. If I walk into a police station and put on a badge, I don't instantly become their equal. Are they still human and make mistakes? Yes. But I think you are extremely minimizing what it takes not just in training, but also mentally to be prepared for daily confrontations that COULD result in people trying to kill you. I sit at a desk and am only in danger of either a paper cut or more likely a heart attack because I don't get enough excersize.

[dude1394]

Of course this is political. Cops are having a mini-strike against blasio because he was cozying up to the cop haters. Bambi has commented and commemted and commented about it, of course always tossing in some bambi political crap.

Damn near everything in the news except for kim kardashian is political.

Certainly ferguson is political, the entire cops are killing us meme is explicitly political.

[spreedom]

I don't know what that has to do with this subject (probably makes more sense in the White Justice vs. Black Justice topic) but I really think this should be on a Christmas card:

POLICE: Hey Blacks, At Least We're Not Killing All of You And Are Simply Arresting You At An Incredibly Disproportionate Rate To All Other Races

[DirkFTW]

1. Chant demands for dead cops during protests for Brown and Garner.

2. Protester then kills cops to avenge Brown and Garner.

3. Express shock and concern that protests will be 'derailed' by the violence.

Yea, if I were them, I wouldn't want to debate guilt or blame either to try to quiet their conscience... mistakes were made and the shooter is already dead, so let the protests continue!

[EricaLubarsky]

Originally Posted by DirkFTW

1. Chant demands for dead cops during protests for Brown and Garner.

2. Protester then kills cops to avenge Brown and Garner.

3. Express shock and concern that protests will be 'derailed' by the violence.

Yea, if I were them, I wouldn't want to debate guilt or blame either to try to quiet their conscience... mistakes were made and the shooter is already dead, so let the protests continue!

You know the first link has been completely discredited, right? Your media is lying to you.

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/fox-affil...understanding/

How many other articles are falsified? That one took only seconds to debunk.

[DirkFTW]

Originally Posted by EricaLubarsky

You know the first link has been completely discredited, right? Your media is lying to you.

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/fox-affil...understanding/

How many other articles are falsified? That one took only seconds to debunk.

Pretty sure that's a completely different video you're referencing. My link was to a video in NYC with lots of people marching, saying they wanted "dead cops." The one you're referring to was in DC with one lady where the Fox Affiliate made it sound like she said "kill a cop."

Are you saying the video I linked to on Real Clear Politics has also been discredited or withdrawn? I looked and have seen no claims of doctoring. But I'd love for it to have been fake too. Sadly, it looks all too real with people frantically trying to disown rather than dispute.

[spreedom]

And can we stop pretending that the majority of those protesting Brown/Gardner's deaths are declaring violent war on the cops? Most just feel the cops were unjustly exonerated. The only significant violence from the protests has been the response from the armed cops in Ferguson.

[dude1394]

Well whether these peaceful protests are responsible or not. The polcie have been warning for a month that having the city leaders supporting these "cops are Black killers" protests were dangerous. And it appears they were correct.

[Underdog]

Are you just Googling "police brutality" and reposting every article that comes up?

[I.Can't.Breathe]

Originally Posted by Underdog

Are you just Googling "police brutality" and reposting every article that comes up?

No, sir, but that might be easier.

Just looking up a few cases I remember reading about in recent months/years. A lot of stuff going on in Brooklyn. And if you kind of look into the stories a bit, you see that not all of the officers involved are Caucasian, nor are they all street cops; and not all of the citizens who have been murdered/abused are African-American teen males. You have some police officers assaulting white females involved in Wall Street protests, and some other police officers involved in assaulting a Caucasaian, senior-citizen, sitting family court judge; still other police officers involved in the infamous motorcycle gang assault against the Asian family out for a family drive.

The point being that the current climate of citizens being fed up with police brutality and police abuse with the police not suffering any criminal indictments has been brewing long before Eric Garner's and Michael Brown's murders, long before DeBlasio was elected mayor. The police in the United States have been running amok for the last 10+ years, probably in the wake of 9/11. But the police in New York have a long history of racially-motivated brutality, predating Giuliani's administration even, though things were particularly bad as the NYPD felt like they had an ally in Giuliani, and knew that he wouldn't do anything to rein them in. The level of criminal corruption in the New York police department is astounding, and reaches up into the highest levels of NYPD leadership. Remember Giuliani's right-hand man police commissioner Bernard Kerik, George Bush's aborted nominee for Head of Homeland Security, who went to prison for accepting bribes, concealing income and lying to investigators?

The murders of the two police officers are tragic and senseless and unjustified, and were the work of a mentally ill career criminal.

But the negative perceptions of the NYPD didn't just appear in the wake of the murder of Eric Garner. It's a problem at least 20 years in the making, an artifact of 8 years of Giuliani, and 12 years of Bloomberg. And DiBlasio, the father of a mixed-race son, is left to deal with the fallout.

[I.Can't.Breathe]

And here is what happens when an NYPD officer breaks ranks. Look up the name "Adrian Schoolcraft". Schoolcraft taped his supervisors who were demanding that officers in Brooklyn (again!) make weekly quotas of arrests/citations, which is illegal, and encouraging officers to harass and intimidate minority teens as a way of getting their fear/respect. When Schoolcraft started to go public with the tapes, a mob of his fellow police officers, including a high-ranking police lieutenant, raided his house, arrested him and ILLEGALLY committed him to a psych ward for 5 days, without notifying his family. Unfortunately for the police officers, Schoolcraft got the illegal raid and arrest on tape too.

Then after Schoolcraft moved out of New York City, some NYPD officers would drive HOURS to upstate New York, to illegally harass and threaten him with arrest at all hours of the night.

City Police Commissioner and Councilman Clash
By AL BAKER
Published: June 3, 2010

To those in the City Council chamber on Thursday, the bitter exchange between Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly and Councilman Albert Vann over a letter from the lawmaker to the commissioner might have been confusing.

But behind the showdown, which was brief and vague, lies a months-long controversy involving charges of manipulated crime reports, quotas, the department’s street-stop tactics and several instances of questionable police behavior — an array of provocative charges being met with a blanket response from a department that says it is broadly investigating.

A tipping point for Mr. Vann came last month, after The Village Voice published transcripts of audio recordings of what it said were station house conversations made by an officer in the 81st Precinct, in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, that laid bare what the newspaper’s report characterized as a pattern of pressure exerted by commanders there onto the precinct’s rank-and-file officers.

Mr. Vann was so concerned that he convened a meeting of elected officials, clergy members and community leaders on May 25. They wrote a letter to Mr. Kelly and delivered it to 1 Police Plaza the next day.

Mr. Vann has declined to make the letter public. But he said it noted the “secret tapings” cited in The Voice.

In repeating the charges in the audiotapes, Mr. Vann described the letter further, saying “it showed how innocent citizens were victimized; innocent people were arrested for no cause at all; how some of their complaints had been suppressed.”

“I mean,” he continued, “the whole array of inappropriate and perhaps, even, illegal action. So we reiterated that which was on the tapes and then we asked for him to take appropriate action.”

The issue popped up suddenly at a budget hearing on Thursday. It pierced an otherwise dry recitation of spending projections as Mr. Vann used his five minutes of speaking time to let Mr. Kelly know he was awaiting a response to or acknowledgment of the letter.

Mr. Kelly said he received it only on Tuesday.

The ensuing verbal sparring between the men moved fast. At one point, Councilman Peter F. Vallone Jr., the chairman of the Public Safety Committee, tried to tamp things down, only to be overrun.

“Before I respond to your letter, I need to find out the facts,” Mr. Kelly said to Mr. Vann. “You make allegations in that letter, and I need to find those facts before I respond.”

Mr. Vann shot back that the audiotapes stood on their own.

“We didn’t make allegations,” Mr. Vann said. “We responded to what was on the tapes; this is not hearsay.” He added: “You know what happened over there; we only responded to what is on the tapes, that cannot be denied.” He said he owed his constituents an update.

Mr. Kelly said it was not unusual, in the course of governmental give-and-take, for responses to take more than two days. Mr. Vann protested.

They traded a few more barbs before dropping the issue.

Afterward, Mr. Vann said he believed that the charges were so corrosive that they were damaging effective policing in the area. He said he would leave to others the job of discerning whether the conduct reported in the 81st Precinct was systemic in the Police Department. He said he had not called for an outside inquiry, though he was in touch with state lawmakers, as well as Representative Edolphus Towns.

Questions about conduct by some officers in the 81st Precinct go back four months, when The Daily News reported that an officer there, Adrian Schoolcraft, had come forward claiming that crime reporting was manipulated to improve the precinct’s statistics.

Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, confirmed then and again on Thursday that there was an internal inquiry on the matter. On Thursday, he said no one at the precinct, which is headed by Deputy Inspector Steven Mauriello, had been disciplined in connection with Officer Schoolcraft’s accusations.

The department’s Office of Management Analysis and Planning’s quality-assurance division “is looking into charges by a police officer there that complaints were discouraged or not properly recorded,” Mr. Browne said.

When pressed, he acknowledged that the audiotape recordings disclosed in The Voice were part of that review. The Office of Management Analysis and Planning “is looking at this whole issue, and has been for some time,” Mr. Browne said.

Roy T. Richter, the president of the Captains’ Endowment Association, said he believed there was a “reasonable explanation,” for each of Officer Schoolcraft’s claims. He said Inspector Mauriello “has the overwhelming support of his community.”

Mr. Richter said he was confident that the department would investigate anyone whose voices were heard on the tapes. He said the recordings struck him as a kind of clipped station house “banter,” that was meant to be motivational but that might have veered into the inappropriate at times.

“It’s more meant as an informal approach versus a formal training,” he said. “It’s someone telling you in 30 seconds your function, and what you need to get done, when that explanation really requires all day.”

[I.Can't.Breathe]

Police commanders demand that officers meet illegal ticket quotas.

Secret Tape Has Police Pressing Ticket Quotas
Robert Stolarik for The New York Times

Police commanders of the 81st Precinct in Brooklyn said each officer on day tour should write at least 20 summonses a week.
By AL BAKER and RAY RIVERA
Published: September 9, 2011

For nearly every New Yorker who has received a summons in the city — caught at a checkpoint monitoring seat-belt use, or approached by a small army of police officers descending on illegally parked cars — quotas are a maddening fact of life.

No matter how often the Police Department denies the existence of quotas, many New Yorkers will swear that officers are sometimes forced to write a certain number of tickets in a certain amount of time.

Now, in a secret recording made in a police station in Brooklyn, there is persuasive evidence of the existence of quotas.

The hourlong recording, which a lawyer provided this week to The New York Times, was made by a police supervisor during a meeting in April of supervisors from the 81st Precinct.

The recording makes clear that precinct leaders were focused on raising the number of summonses issued — even as the Police Department had already begun an inquiry into whether crime statistics in that precinct were being manipulated.

The Police Department’s chief spokesman, Paul J. Browne, did not respond Thursday to three e-mails and three phone calls requesting comments on the tape. He was sent extensive excerpts from the recording.

On the tape, a police captain, Alex Perez, can be heard warning his top commanders that their officers must start writing more summonses or face consequences. Captain Perez offered a precise number and suggested a method. He said that officers on a particular shift should write — as a group — 20 summonses a week: five each for double-parking, parking at a bus stop, driving without a seat belt and driving while using a cellphone.

“You, as bosses, have to demand this and have to count it,” Captain Perez said, citing pressure from top police officials. At another point, Captain Perez emphasized his willingness to punish officers who do not meet the targets, saying, “I really don’t have a problem firing people.”

The recording is the latest in a series of audiotapes from the precinct that have raised concerns among community leaders and residents of the neighborhoods it covers, Brownsville and Bedford-Stuyvesant. Those Brooklyn residents contend that the tapes show a department fixated on the number of summonses and low-level arrests, and that the result is a pattern of harassment.

Critics say this is the flip side of CompStat, the Police Department analysis system that has been credited with bringing down major crimes but faulted as creating a numbers-driven culture.

Police officials have long denied the existence of a quota system, but they add that they do have “performance goals” they expect officers to meet.

A previous set of recordings of station-house roll calls was made in 2008 and 2009 by Patrol Officer Adrian Schoolcraft, who has filed a lawsuit against the department claiming retaliation after he reported accusations to the Internal Affairs Bureau.

Officer Schoolcraft accused supervisors in the precinct of manipulating crime statistics and enforcing ticket and arrest quotas, which are a violation of state labor law.

The accusations are at the center of a broad internal investigation of how the precinct recorded crime statistics. Amid the inquiry, Deputy Inspector Steven Mauriello, who had been the commander at the 81st Precinct, was transferred in July to a transit district in the Bronx.

The latest recording was made on April 1, as the internal inquiry was under way, and after some of Officer Schoolcraft’s allegations had become public in The Daily News and The New York Post.

Inspector Mauriello invoked Officer Schoolcraft’s name at the April 1 meeting, as he warned precinct leaders about “rats coming out of here wearing tape recorders.”

The person who made the recording gave it this week to Officer Schoolcraft’s lawyer, Jon L. Norinsberg, in an effort to show that Officer Schoolcraft, who has been suspended from the force, was not alone.

“He wanted to do anything in his power to support Schoolcraft, and I think this is his way of corroborating Schoolcraft’s allegations,” said Mr. Norinsberg, who said the new recordings would be used as evidence in his case. “It is evidence the quota system is ongoing. Subsequent to the public revelations that have taken place, it’s business as usual in the N.Y.P.D.”

At one point in the new tapes, Inspector Mauriello introduced Captain Perez, who the supervisor said was second in command, as someone who “wants his summonses.”

“They’re counting seat belts and cellphones; they’re counting double parkers and bus stops,” Captain Perez said, referring to types of low-level summonses typically tracked by the department’s TrafficStat program. “If day tours contributed with five seat belts and five cellphones a week, five double-parkers and five bus stops a week, O.K.

“Your goal is five in each of these categories, not a difficult task to accomplish on Monday,” he added. “If it’s not accomplished by Monday, you’ve got to follow up with it on Tuesday. But there’s no reason it can’t be done by Thursday. So whatever I get by Friday, Saturday, Sunday is gravy. I’m not looking to break records here, but there is no reason we should be losing this number by 30 a week.”

Losing by 30 a week refers to a decline in the activity as reflected in departmental CompStat reports, which tally the weekly summons totals and the year-to-date totals for every command, said the person who made the recording. He spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation and of risking his standing with people in the department.

Asked if the conversations were evidence of a quota, he said, “Absolutely,” adding that he had seen evidence of it in several boroughs.

He added that his concerns about the precinct’s integrity led him to begin recording meetings, well before he had ever met Officer Schoolcraft.

Roy T. Richter, the president of the Captains Endowment Association, said he did not believe that what Captain Perez, a member of his union, said “articulates a quota.”

From several references in the new recording, and in a separate recording made after April 1 and given to Officer Schoolcraft’s lawyer, it is clear that Inspector Mauriello and other supervisors were out to push underproducing officers — and punish them if they did not deliver.

“What I plan on doing — three cops are getting bounced to midnights, and three midnight cops are getting bounced to day tours,” Captain Perez said in the April 1 meeting.

“I don’t care about people’s families, if they don’t want to do their job,” he said. “Their paycheck is taking care of their family. If they don’t realize that, they’re going to change their tour; they’re going to start being productive if they want a tour that works for their family.”

He explained how punishment for failure would proceed.

“After I bounce you to a different platoon for inactivity, the next thing is to put you on paper, start rating you below standards and look to fire you,” Captain Perez said on the tape.

“I really don’t have a problem firing people,” he continued. “I don’t need to carry you. So that’s the attitude that you’ve got to sell to the cops.”

At one point in the second recording, made after the tapes by Officer Schoolcraft were put online in May by The Village Voice, Inspector Mauriello told supervisors to get officers out of squad cars and onto the streets.

People in the community “think cops are on the take,” Inspector Mauriello said. “I know it ain’t true, but that’s what they say: ‘Man, I need help. I got drug dealers in front of my house, and they’re in their car and they’re not getting out, not moving them.’ ”

He also told supervisors not to emphasize specific numbers, even while pressing their officers for more activity. And at one point, he made clear the pressure he felt from his bosses.

“I’m going to get beat up,” Inspector Mauriello said. “Everybody took a shot at me at CompStat, like a piñata last time, so I’m expecting that again.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: September 11, 2010

Because of an editing error, an article and a headline on Friday about a Brooklyn police precinct that appeared to be using quotas for summonses described incorrectly the number that officers were expected to write each week. In a recording of a meeting at the precinct, supervisors said that officers on a particular shift should write — as a group — 20 summonses a week; they did not say that each individual officer should write 20 a week. An article about the police’s response to the accusations is on Page A15.

[I.Can't.Breathe]

Village Voice Breaks the Story. Secretly recorded tapes document how police commanders coerce street cops into making illegal arrests in order to manipulate crime stats for Giuliani's ballyhooed ComStat system.

The NYPD Tapes: Inside Bed-Stuy's 81st Precinct
By Graham Rayman Tuesday, May 4 2010

Two years ago, a police officer in a Brooklyn precinct became gravely concerned about how the public was being served. To document his concerns, he began carrying around a digital sound recorder, secretly recording his colleagues and superiors.

He recorded precinct roll calls. He recorded his precinct commander and other supervisors. He recorded street encounters. He recorded small talk and stationhouse banter. In all, he surreptitiously collected hundreds of hours of cops talking about their jobs.

Made without the knowledge or approval of the NYPD, the tapes—made between June 1, 2008, and October 31, 2009, in the 81st Precinct in Bedford-Stuyvesant and obtained exclusively by the Voice—provide an unprecedented portrait of what it's like to work as a cop in this city.


JANUARY 28, 2009
"How Many Superstars and How Many Losers Do You Have"

In this excerpt, the 81st Precinct commander, a lieutenant and a sergeant talk about the constant pressure from bosses, and push cops to "get their numbers."


JUNE 12, 2008
"The Hounds are Coming"

Precinct supervisors talk about a specific "numbers" quota, warn cops to pick up their numbers, or else, and complain about outside inspections.

SEPTEMBER 1, 2009
"Just Knock It Off, All Right? We're Adults"

In this roll call, a supervisor tells officers to stop drawing penises in each other's memo books and drawing graffiti on the walls. There's also an extended speech on the virtues of personal hygiene.

SEPTEMBER 26, 2009
"This Is Crunch Time"

The pressure for "numbers" (summonses, arrests, stop and frisks and community visits) was worst at the end of each month and the end of each quarter because that's when individual officers had to file their activity reports. In other words, stay away from cops after the 25th of the month.

OCTOBER 4, 2009
"It's Not About Squashing Numbers"

In this roll call, precinct supervisors order officers to be skeptical about robbery victims, and tell the cops that the precinct commander and two aides call victims to question them about their complaints.


OCTOBER 12, 2009
"How Do We Know This Guy Really Got Robbed?"

Police officers are supposed to take crime complaints, but in this roll call, a sergeant tells cops not to take robbery complaints if the victim won't immediately return to speak with detectives. She questions the victim's motives, too.

They reveal that precinct bosses threaten street cops if they don't make their quotas of arrests and stop-and-frisks, but also tell them not to take certain robbery reports in order to manipulate crime statistics. The tapes also refer to command officers calling crime victims directly to intimidate them about their complaints.

As a result, the tapes show, the rank-and-file NYPD street cop experiences enormous pressure in a strange catch-22: He or she is expected to maintain high "activity"—including stop-and-frisks—but, paradoxically, to record fewer actual crimes.

This pressure was accompanied by paranoia—from the precinct commander to the lieutenants to the sergeants to the line officers—of violating any of the seemingly endless bureaucratic rules and regulations that would bring in outside supervision.

The tapes also reveal the locker-room environment at the precinct. On a recording made in September, the subject being discussed at roll call is stationhouse graffiti (done by the cops themselves) and something called "cocking the memo book," a practical joke in which officers draw penises in each other's daily notebooks.

"As far as the defacing of department property—all right, the shit on the side of the building . . . and on people's lockers, and drawing penises in people's memo books, and whatever else is going on—just knock it off, all right?" a Sergeant A. can be heard saying. "If the wrong person sees this stuff coming in here, then IAB [the Internal Affairs Bureau] is going to be all over this place, all right? . . . You want to draw penises, draw them in your own memo book. . . And don't actually draw on the wall." He then adds that just before an inspection, a supervisor had to walk around the stationhouse and paint over all the graffiti.

The Voice is releasing portions of the tapes in batches on our website, villagevoice.com, and is also publishing several stories to deal with the issues that the recordings present. In this week's installment, we look at the roll calls at the Bed-Stuy precinct and the conflicting instructions given to street cops, who must look busy at all times, while actually suppressing crime reports. (Repeated attempts to get an official response from the police department have been met by silence.)

The Voice obtained the digital audio recordings from Police Officer Adrian Schoolcraft, an eight-year veteran of the NYPD. (The Voice has identified the NYPD bosses speaking at roll calls, but is using initials—different from their names—for most of them.)

Schoolcraft first made headlines in February, when the Daily News reported that he was speaking out about manipulation of crime reports at the 81st. His complaints, the Daily News wrote, had sparked an investigation that had put even the precinct's commander, Deputy Inspector Steven Mauriello, under suspicion. Those stories, however, gave no indication that Schoolcraft was also in possession of the remarkable audiotapes.

Schoolcraft tells the Voice he carried the audio recorder initially to protect himself from the civilian complaints that can result from street encounters. But then he began to document things happening in the precinct that bothered him. After he ran afoul of precinct politics, he recorded what he viewed as retaliation by his bosses.

"How else would you present the fraud being committed on the public?" he asks.

ON JANUARY 28, 2009, PATROL OFFICERS on the evening tour at the 81st Precinct gathered in the utilitarian muster room at the 30 Ralph Avenue stationhouse. They stood on white floors in ranks. The blue-and-white walls are decorated with old Wanted posters, two glass cupboards with crime maps, posters with warnings about sexual harassment and retaliation, and a flat-screen television. There are two tables, three chairs, and a podium used by supervisors to address the cops.

A roll call is the key moment in the workday of any police officer. Think Hill Street Blues and "Let's be careful out there." The sergeants, lieutenants, and, sometimes, the precinct commander relay orders to the rank-and-file. The officers are told about recent crimes and trouble spots in the neighborhood. Officers are subject to inspection and are given training. The language, naturally, is a mix of quasi-military jargon, street slang, rough epithets, and a fair bit of gallows humor—in other words, cop-speak.

The 81st Precinct covers Bedford-Stuyvesant, a densely populated, multiracial patchwork of low-income areas, public housing projects, and blocks going through gentrification. At just 1.7 square miles, Bed-Stuy is geographically small, but a place that, according to the tapes, the officers view as a "heavy precinct."

"You're not working in Midtown Manhattan, where people are walking around, smiling and being happy," a lieutenant tells officers in a November 1, 2008, roll call. "You're working in Bed-Stuy, where everyone's probably got a warrant."

On this particular day, the precinct commander, Deputy Inspector Steven Mauriello, a Lieutenant B., and a Sergeant C. are leading the session.

After attendance has been taken and assignments handed out, Mauriello, a hard-charging boss given to colorful language, exhorts the officers to disperse crowds away from certain buildings, and stop and question people.

"Listen, if it's micromanaging, it's micromanaging," he says. "Just do your job. If you see a large crowd, get out [of your car]. Just do what you gotta do. You know them, you stop them. Go somewhere else. Stay off the radar."

Mauriello then relates how a three-star chief, Michael Scagnelli, closely questioned him on the number of tickets the officers write, and warns them to make their numbers. "He says, 'How many superstars and how many losers do you have?' " Mauriello says. "And then he goes down and says, 'How many summonses does your squad write?' I want everyone to step up and be accountable and work. Don't get caught out there."

He then mentions the patrol borough commander, Marino, who is apparently examining the "activity" of every cop in the 10 precincts he oversees. "If you don't want to work, then, you know what, just do the old go-through-the-motions and get your numbers anyway," he says. "He's taking this very seriously, looking at everyone's evaluations. And he's yelling at every CO [commanding officer] about 'Who gave this guy points?' or 'This girl's no good.' "

Sergeant C. then says the cops should be able to hit their numbers' targets. "I told you guys last month: They are looking at these numbers, and people are going to get moved," he says. "It ain't about losing your job. They can make your job real uncomfortable, and we all know what that means."

Next, Lieutenant B. cites the declining numbers of officers in the department. "A lot of people are leaving the job," he says. "They aren't getting new recruits. Patrol is not getting new people. It's more accountability, it's less people. They got this catchphrase, 'Do more with less,' right? And they're looking at the numbers."

He adds that the top bosses are pressuring the precinct commander, who is pressuring his supervisors, who then have to pressure the cops.

"Unfortunately, at this level in your career, you're on the lowest level, so you're going to get some orders that you may not like," he says. "You're gonna get instructions. You're gonna get disciplinary action. You gotta just pick up your work. I don't wanna get my ass chewed out, in straight words. I'm sick of getting yelled at."

THE SAME THEMES—of shit rolling downhill, and that constant pressure to do more with less—appear again and again throughout the tapes dating back to June 1, 2008.

Bosses spend more time in the roll calls haranguing the officers for "activity"—or "paying the rent," as it was known—than anything else. In other words, writing summonses, doing stop-and-frisks (known as "250s"), doing community visits, and making arrests. Or else.

Officers were under constant pressure to keep those numbers high to prove that they were doing their jobs, even when there was little justification for it. Like a drumbeat, this mandate was hammered home again and again in almost every roll call.

"Again, it's all about the numbers," a Sergeant D. tells his officers on October 18, 2009.

Command often set up special summons duty to artificially increase the numbers of tickets issued. On December 13, 2008, there was this from a Sergeant E.: "In order to increase the amount of C summonses patrol is writing, they are going to try to, when they can, put out a quality-of-life auto. Your goal is to write C summonses, all right?"

A "C summons" requires a warrant check and covers a wide range of offenses, like public drinking, disorderly conduct, littering, blocking the sidewalk, and graffiti. An "A summons" is for illegal parking, and a "B summons" is for traffic violations like running a red light or using a cell phone while driving.

Certainly, there's enforcement value to issuing tickets and stopping people on the street, but the true value of this "activity," the tapes indicate, was that it offered proof that the precinct commander and his officers were doing their jobs. With those numbers, the precinct boss could go to police headquarters with ammunition. Low numbers meant criticism and demotion; high numbers meant praise and promotion.

The NYPD has always claimed that there are no specific numerical targets or quotas. Most recently, police spokesman Paul Browne denied the existence of quotas in early March, but said that "police officers, like others who receive compensation, are provided productivity goals, and they are expected to work."

The tapes show, however, that, of course, quotas exist.

On June 12, 2008, Lieutenant B. relayed the summons target: "The XO [second-in-command] was in the other day. He actually laid down a number. He wants at least three seat belts, one cell phone, and 11 others. All right, so if I was on patrol, I would be sure to get three seat belts, one cell phone, and 11 others.

"Pick it up a lot, if you have to," he says. "The CO gave me some names. I spoke to you."

While the NYPD can set "productivity targets," the department cannot tie those targets to disciplinary action: "What turns it into an illegal quota is when there is a punishment attached to not achieving, like a transfer or loss of assignment," says Al O'Leary, a spokesman for the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association.

In the 81st Precinct, however, the tapes indicate that "activity" was routinely tied to direct and implied threats of discipline. The message, relayed down the chain from headquarters, is repeated over and over again in the roll calls by the precinct commander, the lieutenants, and the sergeants.

On October 28, 2008, for example, the precinct commander, Mauriello, tells officers he will change their shifts if they don't make their numbers: "If I hear about disgruntled people moaning about getting thrown off their tours, it is what it is. Mess up, bring heat on the precinct—you know what, I'll give you tough love, but it doesn't mean you can't work your way back into good graces and get back to the detail and platoon you want."

He adds: "If you don't work, and I get the same names back again, I'm moving you. You're going to go to another platoon. I'm done. I don't want to be embarrassed no more."

On July 15, 2008, he says, "I don't want to see anyone get hurt. This job is all about hurting. Someone has to go. Step on a landmine, someone has to get hurt."

On December 8, 2008, he excoriates officers who failed to write enough tickets for double-parking, running red lights, and disorderly conduct, and who failed to stop-and-frisk enough people.

"I see eight fucking summonses for a 20-day period or a month," he says. "If you mess up, how the hell do you want me to do the right thing by you? You come in, five parkers, three A's, no C's, and the only 250 you do is when I force you to do overtime? I mean it's a two-way street out here."

Later, he adds, "In the end, I hate to say it—you need me more than I need you because I'm what separates the wolves from coming in here and chewing on your bones."

In the same roll call, Sergeant C. adds: "When I tell you to get your activity up, it's for a reason, because they are looking to move people, and he's serious. . . . There's people in here that may not be here next month."

The pressure is the worst at the end of the month and at the end of every quarter, because that's when the precinct has to file activity reports on each officer with the borough command and police headquarters. (Put another way: If you want to avoid getting a ticket, stay away from police officers during the last few days of the month, when the pressure for numbers is the highest.)

From the tapes, it's not hard to imagine an officer desperately driving to the precinct, looking for someone smoking pot on a stoop or double-parking to fill some gap in their productivity.

In a roll call from September 26, a Sergeant F. notes that the quarter is coming to an end, and a deadline is nearing for applying to take the sergeants' exam. "If your activity's been down, the last quarter is a good time to bring it up, because that's when your evaluation is going to be done," he says. "We all know this job is, 'What have you done for me lately?' "

He goes on to lay on the pressure for more numbers. "This is crunch time," he says. "This is Game Seven of the World Series, the bases are loaded, and you're at bat right now. . . . It's all a game, ladies and gentlemen. We do what we're supposed to, the negative attention goes somewhere else. That's what we want."

And take August 31, 2009. Sergeant Rogers tells his officers, "Today is the last day of the month. Get what you need to get."

Or as Sergeant F. says just a few days before that: "It's the 26th. If you don't have your activity, it would be a really good time to get it. . . . If I don't have to hear about it from a white shirt [a superior officer], that's the name of the game."

IT'S ALSO CLEAR FROM THE recordings that supervisors viewed the constant pressure for numbers as an annoyance, busy work to fill the demand from downtown. "We had a shooting on midnight on Chauncey, so do some community visits, C summonses over there, the usual bullshit," Sergeant A. says in an August 22, 2009, roll call.

The obsession with statistics at police headquarters bleeds out into the borough commands as well. In early 2009, the Brooklyn North patrol command started holding its own CompStat meetings, reviewing everything from crime stats to the number of tickets written by each officer to sick reports.

The move was seen in the precinct as yet another layer of unnecessary oversight. "This job is just getting tighter and tighter with accountability," Lieutenant B. says on January 13, 2009. "So there are certain things I'd like to get away with, but I can't anymore. It just goes down the line and, eventually, it falls on you."

Eight days later, he offers his view of these so-called Boro Stat meetings, on January 21, 2009: "Robbery spikes, crime spikes, on and on and on. It's a lot of horseshit I gotta sit through, but it's accountability, all right?"

As a result of this outside pressure, the precinct was constantly worried about violating bureaucratic rules that would result in even more scrutiny, and result in Command Disciplines (CDs), a penalty that could carry a loss of vacation days.

Take one example: A sergeant spends a roll call upbraiding his officers for not having the proper equipment. "Nobody's got your whistle holder, and half of you don't have your whistle," he says. "That's unacceptable. When I fall down the mine shaft, I'm the only one that's going to be able to call for help. The rest of you are going to have to fire off your gun, and they'll give you a CD for that."

The officers in Bed-Stuy viewed a unit called Brooklyn North Inspections with a particular measure of contempt. Inspections, known as "the hounds," would slip into the precinct, look for rules violations, and then hit officers with CDs.

"Inspections—they pull you over like a perp, and you know it's disrespectful to us, but this is what they're doing," Lieutenant B. says on June 12, 2008. "So Inspections is not really our friend. Let's leave it at that."

On November 12, 2008: "Brooklyn North Inspections is not our friend. I'm just going to lay it out there right on the line," he says. "If you see they're here, they're probably here to hurt someone."

Hurting someone means issuing a CD for, say, not having your shirt tucked in, or reading the newspaper on duty. In one instance, in October 2008, four officers were given CDs for leaving the precinct to have lunch. (81st Precinct officers seemed to believe there weren't any decent restaurants in the precinct itself.)

During a roll call on October 30, 2008, Sergeant C. upbraids the officers for their appearance. "It keeps the hounds off," he says, adding, "That includes smirks. One smirk cost the whole borough 13 CDs last week."

ONE OF THE MOST BASIC THINGS a police officer does is take crime complaints from victims. But that very simple edict evolved into something substantially different in the 81st Precinct.

Usually, an officer arrives at a crime scene and begins taking information. Then, either on the scene or at the precinct, the officer fills out a report known as a "61" and presents it to the desk officer, a sergeant, for his signature.

After the sergeant classifies the crime, the 61 is then entered into a computer system, making it official, and it's passed on to the detective squad for investigation. Police veterans say their standard was always, "Refer the complaint, not the complainant." In other words, if someone wants to make a report, you take it, and let the squad check it out. It was the squad's job to determine whether the complainant's story was worth checking further.

In the 81st Precinct, that traditional discretion of a street cop was being taken away from them, the tapes indicate. There was constant second-guessing and questioning of crime complaints and crime victims before cases were ever entered into the computer. The message to street cops was to exercise extreme skepticism with crime victims—unless you didn't mind getting yelled at.

Officers were told that, unlike in the past, their bosses would need to be present at the scene of a possible robbery, for example, to look over their shoulders. "There are certain jobs that I must be present on," Sergeant C. says on October 13, 2008. "If I'm not present, you gotta call me up. You can't come in here with a robbery, and I don't know anything about it."

Rank-and-file cops don't like the change, which is reflected on Internet bulletin boards, where they leave messages like this recent posting: "It used to be that a radio car turned out and two partners went from job to job making decisions, applying common (uncommon) sense to solve problems," an officer writes. "A Sgt. or Lt. was not called to the scene unless there was a death or serious incident. Patrol officers now have been indoctrinated that they are not qualified to make any decisions about anything."

During a September 12, 2009, roll call, a fellow cop tells Schoolcraft: "A lot of 61s—if it's a robbery, they'll make it a petty larceny. I saw a 61, at T/P/O [time and place of occurrence], a civilian punched in the face, menaced with a gun, and his wallet was removed, and they wrote 'lost property.' "

The practice of downgrading crimes has been the NYPD's scandal-in-waiting for years. The NYPD claims that downgrading happens only rarely, but in the course of reporting this story, the Voice was told anecdotally of burglaries rejected if the victim didn't have receipts for the items stolen; of felony thefts turned into misdemeanor thefts by lowballing the value of the property; of robberies turned into assaults; of assaults turned into harassments.

How widespread that kind of thing was in the 81st Precinct is unclear just from the recordings, but Schoolcraft claims it was common. Of course, caution in taking a complaint is prudent. But the fact that the precinct commander discourages the taking of robbery complaints has to influence other decisions down the chain.

So officers get marching orders like the following, which was recorded October 4: "If it's a little old lady, and I got my bag stolen, then she's probably telling the truth, all right?" Sergeant D. says. "If it's some young guy who looks strong and healthy and can maybe defend himself, and he got yoked up, and he's not injured, he's perfectly fine—question that. It's not about squashing numbers. You all know if it is what it is—if it smells like a rotten fish—then that's what it is. But question it. On the burglaries as well."

LAST OCTOBER 11, TWO PATROL officers made a terrible mistake: They took a robbery complaint. A man reported that some suspects had forcibly taken his cell phone, but the victim didn't want to immediately accompany officers to the precinct to talk to the detective squad. The victim, the tapes show, told the officers he didn't want to go back with them because he didn't want to be seen getting into a marked police car.

The next day, Mauriello took out his anger on what the officers had done on their sergeant, the tapes show. And she, in turn, took it out on the officers.

"OK, so he [Mauriello] was flippin' on me yesterday because they wrote a 61, and the guy talking about he not coming in to speak to nobody," says a Sergeant G. in the October 12 roll call. "He don't want nobody see him getting in the car."

While one of the core duties of a police officer is to take crime complaints, the 81st Precinct had a controversial policy that held that if a victim refused to come to the stationhouse and speak to the detective squad, officers should refuse to take the complaint.

"You know, we be popping up with these robberies out of nowhere, or whatever," Sergeant G. tells her officers in the roll call. "If the complainant does not want to go back and speak to the squad, then there is no 61 taken. That's it. They have to go back and speak to the squad."

In effect, under this policy, a robbery complaint would be rejected if the victim was unable to come to the stationhouse. It didn't matter if a victim was unable to come down because he or she had to work or take care of kids. Perhaps not coincidentally, that would also be one less robbery to count against the precinct's crime statistics.

The sergeant went on to suggest that the victim was lying: "How do we know this guy really got robbed?" she asked. "He said he had no description. Sometimes they just want a complaint number—you know what I'm saying?—so if he don't wanna come back and talk to the squad, then that's it."

This policy was mentioned repeatedly starting last August. The sergeant repeated the directive on October 24. "If the complainant says, 'I don't want to go to the squad, I don't want to go to the squad,' then there's no 61, right?" she says. "We not going to take it, and then they say they're going to come in later on, and then the squad speaks to them and usually they don't want to come in."

She repeats the admonition again on October 27, and this time, a Lieutenant K. adds, "Don't take that report. That's it. It's over."

There's no reference to this policy in the NYPD Patrol Guide, the department bible of practices and procedures.

Retired detectives tell the Voice that the practice is highly questionable: "I've never heard of something like that," says Greg Modica, who retired in 2002 as a Detective First Grade after 20 years with the Manhattan Robbery Squad. "And I don't think the commissioner would care for it. If the complainant couldn't come in on the spot, patrol would take the complaint, turn it over to us, and we'd follow up.

"If the victim can't come in for some reason—maybe they have a babysitter at home or they have to work—you take the report and tell them the detectives will make an appointment to see them," he adds.

Modica and other ex-detectives say it simply isn't patrol's job to determine whether or not a victim is lying. Their job is merely to take the report and turn it over to the detective squad.

"You might get a feeling on the street, but that doesn't mean you don't take it," he says. "It's the detective's job to determine that. And anyway, [a false report] didn't happen that many times. Robbery is a very serious crime."

ALL OF WHICH BRINGS UP something known as a "callback"—which occurs when an officer or a detective makes a follow-up call to a crime victim, usually when he needs another piece of information or has to check his information. That's the traditional definition.

In the 81st Precinct, it meant something substantially different, Schoolcraft says. It meant calling a crime victim and questioning them closely on the details of their complaint with an eye toward downgrading it or scrapping it.

"It's, 'Are you sure you want to do this?' " Schoolcraft says, describing the practice. "Sometimes, it's, 'Have you ever been arrested?' or 'We're going to know if you're lying or not.' "

Mauriello himself and at least two of his lieutenants were doing their own callbacks.

Mauriello's involvement in callbacks is confirmed in an October 4, 2009, roll call, during which Lieutenant K. tells the officers, "Whether it's CO, Lieutenant L., or [Sergeant] M., they always do callbacks. So a lot of time, we get early information and they do callbacks."

"And then we look silly," Sergeant D. adds. "A woman says, 'Hey, my boyfriend stole my phone.' He didn't really steal the phone. It's his phone, and he was taking it. Did he snatch it out of her hand? Yeah. Is it a grand larceny? No, because I'm telling you right now the D.A. is not going to entertain that."

Modica and other retired detectives say they're stunned that a precinct commander and his aides would be calling crime victims directly and asking about their complaints. "I don't think he should be doing it," Modica says. "It's the detectives' job. If the captain comes up and says, 'It's not a robbery,' I say, 'That's OK, but we have a case, and it's up to us to investigate it now.' It makes you wonder whether they are doing it to cut down on statistics."

It's also unclear why a patrol sergeant would worry about what a prosecutor would do with a complaint, unless he was looking for a reason to reject it before it reached the prosecutor's desk.

"Whether a district attorney decides to take a case or not is not something for a precinct supervisor to worry about," says John Eterno, a retired NYPD captain who is now a professor of criminal justice at Molloy College. "He is making a judgment call based on what he thinks the D.A. will do. But the person made a complaint. That complaint needs to be taken."

THE NYPD HAS A UNIT THAT audits precinct crime stats, known as the Quality Assurance Division (QAD). The unit operates something like Internal Affairs, but is actually attached to the management and planning office.

On October 7, Schoolcraft was ordered downtown by QAD for a nearly-three-hour formal, on-the-record interview with an inspector, a lieutenant, and three sergeants.

Schoolcraft was advised that he could have an attorney represent him in the meeting, but he chose not to. It's also important to note that if he had lied during the interview, he could have been brought up on department or criminal charges. Plus, he was laying his career on the line by discussing misconduct he claimed to witness. He also supplied documentation of his claims. And the interview took place prior to his controversial suspension, and months before he spoke to the media. In short, he had little to gain and a lot to lose by speaking with the investigators.

Once again, Schoolcraft had brought along his audio recorder, and recorded the meeting without the knowledge of the others in the room. During the meeting, the QAD officers make some interesting off-handed observations about the extent of crime statistic manipulation in the precincts.

After a long description of how he does investigations, one of the supervisors says, "You know, I've been doing this over eight years. I've seen a lot. The lengths people will go to try not to take a report, or not take a report for a seven major [crime]. So nothing surprises me anymore."

The supervisor notes such instances can be criminal [falsification of business records], but district attorneys typically "don't want to touch" cases of officers manipulating statistics. "They'll give it back to the department to handle it internally," he says.

He goes on to note that, yes, precincts do downgrade reports: "We look at grand larceny because, as you know, they don't want to take the robbery," he says. "They punch a lady in the face, and they took her pocketbook, but they don't want to take that robbery, so they'll make that a grand larceny."

Schoolcraft tells the QAD officers that sergeants and lieutenants were berated for taking major crime reports. "Just about all of them, if they work patrol," he says. "When they come out, they say, 'It is what it is. It was a robbery—what could I do about it?' "

During the meeting, Schoolcraft provides documentation on an incident from December 5, 2008, that was initially taken as an attempted robbery—a teen reported that he was attacked by a gang of thugs who beat him and tried to take his portable video game—and later downgraded by a sergeant to an misdemeanor assault.

In the meeting, the QAD officers check their computer files and find that, indeed, the incident was classified as a misdemeanor assault.

Schoolcraft also provides documents from a June 29, 2009, auto theft report, in which the victim came in to obtain the report number, but no report existed. A sergeant told Schoolcraft to do a new report.

Schoolcraft tells the QAD officers that Mauriello came to the desk and told him, "I'm not taking this. Have the guy come in. I've gotta talk to him."

A couple of days later, the man arrived and was ushered into Mauriello's office. Mauriello interrogated the victim and his cousin. "There was yelling," Schoolcraft says. "They were in there for about 40 minutes. The cousin stormed out of the office yelling and screaming."

The stolen car complaint became an unlawful use of a motor vehicle, Schoolcraft said.

In another incident, an elderly man walked in off the street to report that someone had broken the lock on the cash box in his apartment and had stolen $22,000. When he reported the incident at another precinct, he was told that it was a "civil matter" and to call 3-1-1, the city's complaint hotline.

The desk sergeant told Schoolcraft to send the victim back to the other precinct because he was "loopy."

The Voice asked a retired detective about this incident. If it had been handled properly, he replied, someone would have checked his apartment for signs of a burglary. "Even if they don't believe the guy, it's still a crime," the ex-detective says. "You take the report. The detectives investigate it. They determine whether he was lying."

Among many other incidents Schoolcraft discussed were:

* A man walked in to report that he was choked unconscious and robbed of his wallet. He left with a slip that would allow him to renew his driver's license. Then, a detective came down and said, "If that guy comes back, don't let him upstairs."

* Another downgraded robbery from October 23, 2008: Two officers responded to a robbery and found a guy beaten up and bleeding. A lieutenant responded to the scene and said, "We can't take this robbery." It came in as a lost property.

Schoolcraft says he contacted the victim, who sent him a written statement detailing what had happened.

By the end of the meeting, Schoolcraft seems to have their attention. "I'm not looking to burn anyone," he tells the investigators. "What this is doing is it's messing with the officers. They're losing track of what's real and what's not real, what their duties are and what their duties aren't."

The investigators are heard pledging a thorough examination of the precinct's crime reports. "We're very serious about this, and we will do a thorough investigation," an Inspector H. says. "That, I can promise you." Later, he adds, "Personally, I appreciate you coming in and bringing this to our attention. I know it's not an easy thing to do."

After the meeting ends, a supervisor makes a couple of other off-handed comments to Schoolcraft, noting that the pressure to artificially lower crime statistics is fueled by the bosses downtown. "The mayor's looking for it, the police commissioner's looking for it . . . every commanding officer wants to show it," he says. "So there's motivation not to classify the reports for the seven major crimes. Sometimes, people get agendas and try to do what they can to avoid taking the seven major crimes."

It is unclear what direction the QAD investigation has headed, but a law enforcement source assured the Voice that it is ongoing. The source declined to detail any findings.

Curiously, after questions were raised earlier this year about the 81st Precinct statistics, crime there jumped by 13 percent.

That increase has remained steady, fueled chiefly by a huge 76 percent jump in felony assaults. That jump in assaults is far ahead of the citywide increase of 4.6 percent.

In the 81st Precinct, at least, it appears that assaults are no longer being downgraded since Schoolcraft blew the whistle.

Schoolcraft decided to give the tapes to the Voice out of frustration that his attempts to report questionable activities went largely ignored within the NYPD. Instead of the department acting on his complaints, he says, he was subjected to retaliation by precinct and borough superiors.

Three weeks after his meeting with QAD investigators, on October 31, Schoolcraft felt sick and went home from work. Hours later, a dozen police supervisors came to his house and demanded that he return to work. He declined, on health grounds. Eventually, Deputy Chief Michael Marino, the commander of Patrol Borough Brooklyn North, which covers 10 precincts, ordered that Schoolcraft be dragged from his apartment in handcuffs and forcibly placed in a Queens mental ward for six days.

Today, he lives upstate, north of Albany, and is still hoping that the department will take his concerns seriously.

THE VOICE SHOWED TRANSCRIPTS OF the roll calls to Eterno, the Molloy College professor who has, in the past, testified for the NYPD as an expert witness, and Eli Silverman, a John Jay College professor who wrote a 1999 book on NYPD crime fighting strategies that was well received in the department.

Earlier this year, Eterno and Silverman published a survey of retired NYPD supervisors, more than 100 of whom said the intense pressure to show crime declines led to manipulation of crime statistics. (That survey was roundly attacked by the NYPD, the mayor's office, and some commentators.)

"These tapes are an independent source of data that supports just about everything we found," Eterno said, speaking for both professors. "You're seeing relentless pressure, questionable activities, unethical manipulation of statistics. We've lost the understanding that policing is not just about crime numbers, it's about service. And they don't feel like they're on the same team. They are fighting each other. It's, 'How do I get through this tour, making a number, without rocking the boat?' "

"The pressure comes from the commanding officer, because of CompStat, and you're seeing the sergeants and lieutenants trying to deal with it and translate it into actionable terms."

And the police said Adrian Schoolcraft was crazy.

They whisked him off for psychiatric evaluation against his will. But the tapes reveal crazy behavior by the bosses of the nation's largest police force.

In the next "NYPD Tapes" article, the Voice will examine the effects of these behaviors on the community—particularly the campaign by the precinct commander to "clear" corners and buildings in the precinct, as well as staffing shortages, why stop-and-frisk numbers have skyrocketed, and how training requirements were fudged.

And, in another installment, we'll look at what happened to the whistleblower himself, Schoolcraft, when he dared to question what was going on around him.

[EricaLubarsky]

This page makes my thumb hurt scrolling through it on my phone

[spreedom]

Originally Posted by EricaLubarsky

This page makes my thumb hurt scrolling through it on my phone

The extreme opinions on each side make my head hurt even more.

[Dirkadirkastan]

Those links should all be in one post and without quote blocks.

[Murphy3]

Obviously, Pandora's box has already been opened. I don't see how making guns "illegal" could possibly be a good idea at this point. There are quite simply too many out there.. and they can too easily be brought across the border. It's just not realistic.

As for the tragedy.. It's horrific. Obviously, there are good cops and there are bad cops. I have never run across a cop that was in any way anything other than professional. But as in any profession, there are bad seeds. Especially when you consider the stress that they go through. Can you imagine what it's like going to work with at least a somewhat realistic chance that someone is going to try and end your life at some point during your shift? Imagine being a cop in places that are riddled with violence.. You have so many split second decisions to make. I get really, really tired of people talking about a policemen shooting an "unarmed" teen. I wasn't the kind of guy that was going to strike fear in anyone's eyes as a teen. However, I knew a lot of people that could have easily killed another man with their hands at that age. Not having a knife or a gun does not mean that you're not more than capable of severely injuring or even ending someone's life.

Obviously, we have a media that is all about the controversy for ratings. Rush to judgment to get more viewership. Say whatever has to be said to make sure that your constituents are riled up.... Turn it everything into a political rant even when it has no business being political... Or turn it into a racial issue because that will help your politics as well. It's all about politics and ratings.. keep people angry so they'll keep viewing.. Keep people angry so they'll get out and vote... regardless of what the truth is for the particular case.

[SeanL]

Originally Posted by Murphy3

Obviously, Pandora's box has already been opened. I don't see how making guns "illegal" could possibly be a good idea at this point. There are quite simply too many out there.. and they can too easily be brought across the border. It's just not realistic.

They did exactly that in Australia, and it worked. And the President who passed that law was conservative John Howard.

[dude1394]

The constitutional amendment process is well documented, get on it.

[SeanL]

Originally Posted by dude1394

The constitutional amendment process is well documented, get on it.

Or wait until there are 5 liberal justices and convince them that the 2nd amendment only applies to militias.

[dude1394]

I believe there is a gadsen flag for that eventuality. I guess everyone will join a militia.

[SeanL]

Originally Posted by dude1394

I believe there is a gadsen flag for that eventuality. I guess everyone will join a militia.

2nd amendment specifies a WELL REGULATED militia. So I'd assume it wouldn't be that easy.

[dude1394]

Lets absolve them from their rhetoric, they really mean good.

http://www.bizpacreview.com/2014/12/...y-dad-2-168414

"This Christmas, Eric Garner’s daughter gave the gift of stupidity.

Erica Garner, who has called for calm and expressed sadness over the murder of two NYPD police officers, engaged in an incredible act of foolishness on Christmas Day.

She took to Twitter to post a link to the address of one of the officers involved in the altercation with her father that led to his death.

The link also included the addresses of five of the officer’s potential relatives."

[spreedom]

Stupid, reprehensible, irresponsible, dangerous behavior by her.

[dude1394]

Originally Posted by spreedom

Stupid, reprehensible, irresponsible, dangerous behavior by her.

It is just anti-cop rhetoric, what could it hurt? Who would be influenced by mere rhetoric?

[spreedom]

Originally Posted by dude1394

It is just anti-cop rhetoric, what could it hurt? Who would be influenced by here rhetoric?

I believe the police were 100% in the wrong in that particular case but even so, encouraging retaliation is not only flagrantly dangerous, but it just contributes to the deceased being painted in a negative light.

[Murphy3]

Any country with Obama at the head of the government needs a well armed public.

[SeanL]

Originally Posted by Murphy3

Any country with Obama at the head of the government needs a well armed public.

Why? And what would you do with those guns?

[mcsluggo]

Originally Posted by Murphy3

Any country with Obama at the head of the government needs a well armed public.

Anybody that makes dumbass statements like that needs to get kicked in the shin by an old lady in tap shoes

[dude1394]

The great Heather MacDonald.

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/h...icle-1.2062346

"The real injustice occurred decades ago, when police officers across the country ignored crime in black neighborhoods. Today, the NYPD devotes the majority of its resources and energy to saving lives in poor communities. Any “danger” that Dante de Blasio might face comes overwhelmingly from black criminals, not the police, de Blasio should acknowledge.

In 2013, criminals committed 1,103 shootings, wounding or killing 1,299 victims. NYPD officers, by contrast, fired their guns 40 times, despite having been dispatched 80,000 times to investigate weapons reports and having encountered guns and other weapons in more than 30,000 arrests.

That firearms discharge number is the lowest since the department began collecting data. The police injured 17 people and killed eight — again, a record low. Almost all those victims had extensive and serious criminal records; most had threatened the officer with deadly force.

Whites were far more likely to be shot by the police than blacks when their crime rates are taken into account.

Whites were 5% of all suspects shot by the police in 2013 though they committed only 2% of the city’s shootings — a 250% disparity. Blacks were 75% of criminal shooters and 79% of police shooting victims — virtual parity."

[spreedom]

LOL

[dude1394]

I expect the politicians and the leaders are outraged about these incidents so they do not have to address these incidents. Gotta keep those sheep riled up about the correct stuff.

Thats 7 x 1000 murders. Maybe if they keep those cops out of the neighborhoods it will get better.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/bl...rticle/2557725
"Then there's the high crime rate. Each year, roughly 7,000 blacks are murdered. Ninety-four percent of the time, the murderer is another black person. Though blacks are 13 percent of the nation's population, they are more than 50 percent of homicide victims. Nationally, the black homicide victimization rate is six times that of whites, and in some cities, it's 22 times that of whites. Along with being most of the nation's homicide victims, blacks are most of the victims of violent personal crimes, such as assault and robbery."

[dude1394]

Wonder why all of these policemen are being shot at. I guess it is just peaceful grass roots protestors.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archive...the-police.php
"
In the wake of the murders of Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, armed attacks on law enforcement have continued across the country. In Florida, a drive-by shooter fired at two sheriff’s deputies. In North Carolina, two black men fired six shots at a police officer. In Los Angeles, two police officers were shot at in their patrol car.
Are these enough incidents to constitute a trend? Let’s hope not. But there is no doubt about the fact that a “kill the police” movement exists. In Portland, demonstrators chant, “Deck the halls with rows of dead cops”:"

[dude1394]

Ruh roh..

"Angry union leaders have ordered drastic measures for their members since the Dec. 20 assassination of two NYPD cops in a patrol car, including that two units respond to every call.

It has helped contribute to a nose dive in low-level policing, with overall arrests down 66 percent for the week starting Dec. 22 compared with the same period in 2013, stats show.

Citations for traffic violations fell by 94 percent, from 10,069 to 587, during that time frame.
Summonses for low-level offenses like public drinking and urination also plunged 94 percent — from 4,831 to 300.

Even parking violations are way down, dropping by 92 percent, from 14,699 to 1,241.
Drug arrests by cops assigned to the NYPD’s Organized Crime Control Bureau — which are part of the overall number — dropped by 84 percent, from 382 to 63."

[fluid.forty.one]

I don't really understand the point of debate if both parties are so set in their ways that nothing could change their mind.


In turn, I see nothing productive, useful, insightful or positive about this sub forum.

[dude1394]

Yes no need to discuss this type of behaviour.
http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/200589/

"LIFE IN OBAMA’S POST-RACIAL AMERICA: “Peaceful protesters” disrupt ceremony for 100 yr old war veteran.

While the disrespect shown for Mr. Raschio is beyond the pale, this is fairly characteristic of the latest rounds of anti-cop, “peaceful protests” going on around the country. One of the defining characteristics of these schemes is that they are so completely outside the realm of the issue they are purportedly out there to correct. If you are angered about perceived injustice by police against minorities, what could that possibly have to do with Mr. Raschio? This theme is repeated in the so called Black Brunch protests in Oakland and New York City this weekend. Protesters invaded various businesses to disrupt service and dining in what they referred to as “white spaces.”

This is simply a continuation of the theme we saw when more allegedly peaceful protesters blocked traffic and tried to shut down the highways. What on earth do people eating french toast in a diner have to do with police practices? How does stranding thousands of motorists in rush hour traffic convey any sort of relevant message? The disconnect is obvious, but these protesters may be doing the rest of us a favor. By demanding an end to “business as usual” and screwing up the daily lives of regular working people with an off tune message which is inappropriate for the situation, the nation will tire of them even faster than they did with the filthy homeless camps of the Occupy movement.

The vast majority of the nation is not anti-cop. The further these agitators push the rest of the rank and file citizens, the quicker they will find that out.

This is bullying for the sake of bullying, by racists. It is designed to intimidate, but it is likely to have the opposite effect. It has also completely undermined what looked like a substantial bipartisan consensus on police reforms.