Researcher finds 95,000 NYPD Stop & Frisks Unconstitutional / Stop & Frisk to be Big Issue in 2013 Vote

According to a new report analyzing stop-and-frisk data made public by the New York Police Department, 95,000 stops were unconstitutional. MORE

At Capital New York, By Azi Paybarah, December 12, 2012 4:44 pm

According to a new report analyzing stop-and-frisk data made public by the New York Police Department, 95,000 stops appear to have been unconstitutional.

The report released today is from the Center for Constitution Rights and professor Jeffrey Fagan of Columbia University, a critic of stop-and-frisk who is currently part of a class-action lawsuit against the city.

The report says that "based on the information recorded on NYPD stop-and-frisk forms by police officers themselves, more than 95,000 stops lacked reasonable articulable suspicion and therefore violated the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures."

Asked about that claim, MYPD spokesman Paul Browne responded by email, "Stops save lives and they comport with descriptions provided by victims of violent crime."

Go to Capital NY for the conclusion of the article.
One of the more telling findings about the upcoming New York mayoral race in a new Quinnipiac poll of city residents is buried deep within the survey. MORE

At Capital New York, By Blake Zeff, November 21, 2012 12:42 pm

The article on a Quinnipiac University poll begins with the usual concerns of which candidate's ahead (the poll shows Quinn the first choice of 32 percent, versus 10, 9, 5, and 4, respectively for Bill Thompson, Bill de Blasio, John Liu, and Scott Stringer). However, this poll was taken before Stringer quit the mayoral race.

Yet, it closes with a note on how stop and frisk is heavily opposed by Democratic, African-American and Latino voters.

A more telling finding in the poll, in my view, regards police practices. New Yorkers strongly support the performance of police commissioner Ray Kelly (68-23) and that of the NYPD as a whole (62-31), but they sharply oppose stop-and-frisk tactics (by 53-42) that have mostly targeted black and Hispanic men. This dichotomy indicates that the disapproval of stop-and-frisk is not merely a proxy or byproduct of blind hatred toward (or even dissatisfaction with) the police department, but rather, a stand-alone concern about which there is very real discontent.

Dig deeper into the stop-and-frisk question, and the numbers are even more telling: Democrats oppose the practice by 62-33, black voters by 70-28, and Hispanic voters by 64-33.

Don’t think this has escaped the attention of the candidates and their campaigns. If you’re a Democrat running for mayor in 2013, this is an issue you must address if you want to connect with the base of your party.

New Yorkers have plenty of positive things to say about Michael Bloomberg’s tenure. Impressively, 57 percent think his health initiatives have either been right or have not gone "far enough.” Nearly two thirds are somewhat or very satisfied with the way things are going in the city today.

Stop-and-frisk is a glaring exception. I’d expect we’ll be hearing a lot about this from the candidates in 2013.

Enough is enough! NYPD Officers' Stop & Frisk Harass of Alvin

NYPD obscenities partially censored to make this blog safe for work.

The Nation exclusive: Stopped-and-Frisked: 'For Being a F**king Mutt' [VIDEO]
Ross Tuttle and Erin Schneider
October 8, 2012  

Exclusive audio obtained by The Nation of a stop-and-frisk carried out by the New York Police Department freshly reveals the discriminatory and unprofessional way in which this controversial policy is being implemented on the city’s streets.

About the Author
Erin Schneider is a filmmaker and producer of a documentary on stop-and-frisk.
Ross Tuttle
Ross Tuttle is a documentary filmmaker and freelance journalist living in New York who is working on a long-form...
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On June 3, 2011, three plainclothes New York City Police officers stopped a Harlem teenager named Alvin and two of the officers questioned and frisked him while the third remained in their unmarked car. Alvin secretly captured the interaction on his cell phone, and the resulting audio is one of the only known recordings of stop-and-frisk in action.

In the course of the two-minute recording, the officers give no legally valid reason for the stop, use racially charged language and threaten Alvin with violence. Early in the stop, one of the officers asks, “You want me to smack you?” When Alvin asks why he is being threatened with arrest, the other officer responds, “For being a f--king mutt.” Later in the stop, while holding Alvin’s arm behind his back, the first officer says, “Dude, I’m gonna break your f--kin’ arm, then I’m gonna punch you in the f--kin’ face.”

Listen to the full audio of the stop:

“He grabbed me by my bookbag and he started pushing me down. So I’m going backwards like down the hill and he just kept pushing me, pushing me, it looked like he we was going to hit me,” Alvin recounts. “I felt like they was trying to make me resist or fight back.”

Alvin’s treatment at the hands of the officers may be disturbing but it is not uncommon. According to their own stop-and-frisk data, the NYPD stops more than 1,800 New Yorkers a day. A New York Times analysis recently determined that more than 20 percent of those stops involve the use of force. And these are only the numbers that the Department records. Anecdotal evidence suggests both figures are much higher.

In this video, exclusive to TheNation.com, Alvin describes his experience of the stop, and working NYPD officers come forward to explain the damage stop-and-frisk has done to their profession and their relationship to the communities they serve. The emphasis on racking up stops has also hindered what many officers consider to be the real work they should be doing on the streets. The video sheds unprecedented light on a practice, cheered on by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, that has put the city’s young people of color in the department’s crosshairs.

Those who haven’t experienced the policy first-hand “have likened Stops to being stuck in an elevator, or in traffic,” says Darius Charney, senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights. “This is not merely an inconvenience, as the Department likes to describe it. This is men with guns surrounding you in the street late at night when you’re by yourself. You ask why and they curse you out and rough you up.”

“The tape brings to light what so many New Yorkers have experienced in the shadows at the hands of the NYPD,” says Ben Jealous, President of the NAACP. “It is time for Mayor Bloomberg to come to grips with the scale of the damage his policies have inflicted on our children and their families. No child should have to grow up fearing both the cops and the robbers.”

“This audio confirms what we’ve been hearing from communities of color, again and again,” says Donna Lieberman, executive director of the NYCLU. “They are repeatedly subjected to abusive and disrespectful treatment at the hands of the NYPD. This explains why so many young people don’t trust the police and won’t help the police,” she adds. “It’s not good for law enforcement and not good for the individuals who face this harassment.”

The audio also betrays the seeming arbitrariness of stops and the failure of some police officers to fully comprehend or be able to articulate a clear motivation for carrying out a practice they’re asked to repeat on a regular basis.

And, according to Charney, the only thing the police officers do with clarity during this stop is announce its unconstitutionality.

“We’ve long been claiming that, under this department’s administration, if you’re a young black or Latino kid, walking the street at night you’re automatically a suspicious person,” says Charney, who is leading a class-action lawsuit challenging the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk practices. “The police deny those claims, when asked. ‘No, that’s not the reason we’re stopping them.’ But they’re actually admitting it here [on the audio recording]. The only reason they give is: ‘You were looking back at us…’ That does not rise to the level of reasonable suspicion, and there’s a clear racial animus when they call him a ‘mutt.’”

The audio was recently played at a meeting of The Morris Justice Project, a group of Bronx residents who have organized around the issue of stop-and-frisk and have been compiling data on people’s interactions with police. Jackie Robinson, mother of two boys, expected not to be surprised when told about the contents of the recording. “It’s stuff we’ve all heard before,” she said at the gathering. Yet Robinson visibly shuddered at one of the audio’s most violent passages. She had heard plenty about these encounters, but had never actually listened to one in action.

“As a mother, it bothers you,” says Robinson. “The police are the ones we’re supposed to turn to when something bad happens. Of all the things I have to worry about when my kids walk out the door, I don’t want to have to worry about them being harmed by the police. It makes you feel like you can’t protect your children. Something has to be done.”

Officers who carry out such belligerent stops face little accountability under the NYPD’s current structure. The department is one of New York City’s last agencies to operate without independent oversight, leaving officers with no safe place to file complaints about police practice and systemic problems.

“An independent inspector general would be in a position to review NYPD policies and practices—like the recorded stop-and-frisk shown here—to see whether the police are violating New Yorkers’ rights and whether the program is in fact yielding benefits,” says the Brennan Center’s Faiza Patel. “An inspector general would not hinder the NYPD’s ability to fight crime, but would help build a stronger, more effective force.”

NYPD spokespeople have said that stop-and-frisk is necessary to keep crime down and guns off the street. But those assertions are increasingly being contradicted by the department’s own officers, who are beginning to speak out about a pervasive culture of number-chasing.

Two officers from two different precincts in two separate boroughs spoke to The Nation about the same types of pressures put on officers to meet numerical goals or face disciplinary action and retaliation. Most chillingly, both officers use the word “hunt” when describing the relentless quest for summonses, stops and arrests.

“The civilian population, they’re being hunted by us,” says an officer with more than ten years on the job. “Instead of being protected by us, they’re being hunted and we’re being hated.”

The focus on numbers, and the rewards for those who meet quotas has created an atmosphere, another veteran officer says, in which cops compete to see who can get the highest numbers, and it can lead to the kind of arbitrary stop that quickly became violent in this recording.

“It’s really bad,” says the officer after listening to the audio recording. “It’s not a good thing at all. But it’s really common, I’m sorry to say. It doesn’t have to be like that.”

Lieberman from the NYCLU agrees: “It’s time for the Mayor and the Police Commissioner to stop trying to scare New Yorkers into accepting this kind of abuse, and to recognize that there is a problem.”

Additional reporting by Erin Schneider. To see this and other related media, go to:
facebook.com/stopandfriskmedia or e-mail stopandfriskmedia at gmail dot com Ross Tuttle and Erin Schneider
October 8, 2012

NYPD Stalks Two Police Reform Activists, Posts "Wanted"-Like Posters

From Alternet: Police Reform Activists Targeted by NYPD Won't Give In to Threats: Two activists found a surprise in their local police precinct--a poster with their mug shots, calling them "professional agitators" and providing police with their address.

By Kristen Gwynne, July 7, 2012
Two West Harlem residents, Christina Gonzalez, 25, and Matthew Swaye, 35, ran into a surprise when they showed up for a community meeting at their local NYPD precinct last week. There, on the wall of the 30th Precinct, were their mug shots—only they weren’t wanted for any crime.

Christina Gonzalez and Matthew Swaye are police reform activists who regularly film police interactions in their neighborhood, especially to record the NYPD’s controversial Stop and Frisk policy. Although filming police is completely legal, the poster (which was full of misspellings, I might add), advised officers to "be aware" that these "professional agitators" not only film police "performing routine stops," but also" post the videos on YouTube.
"Subjects purpose is to portray officers in a negative way and to [sic] deter officers from conducting their [sic] responsibilities." the warning from Sergeant Nicholson reads. "Do not feed into above subjects’ propaganda."
Gonzalez says it is the NYPD spreading propaganda and that the poster is an obvious tactic to criminalize, intimidate and target her. Since Gonzalez became involved with Occupy and the Stop-and-Frisk movement this fall, police have given her plenty of reasons to look over her shoulder, including calling her out by name and address, erecting a watchtower on her corner and aggressively arresting her sister in front of Gonzalez.
Of course, this is not the first time the NYPD or other police departments have targeted activists. The New York police have a history of infiltrating and intimidating activists, particularly during the Black Panther movement of the 1960s and 1970s.
For activists like Gonzalez, Stop-and-Frisk, a racial profiling tactic, is not only a violation of one’s constitutional rights, it is also part of the NYPD’s larger apparatus of racial oppression. Police stop more than 700,000 people per year, almost 90 percent of whom are young Black and Latino men. The best defense against the illegal searches, which occur during about 50% of stops, has proven to be video, and the ACLU recently launched an app to combat and document unconstitutional stops. But while the movement relies on cameras to expose Stop-and-Frisk, the NYPD targets filmers like Gonzalez with the same type of surveillance and repression police have used against activists in the past.

For the rest of Kristen Gwynne's article, click to the original page at AlterNet.

NYPD Busts Middle-Aged Couple for Dancing in Subway

Routinely we read of the police killing minority youths over mistaken interpretation of objects. Now, the invincible abuse their power with a middle aged couple, and they find themselves the target of a lawsuit, rightly so.
New York's Finest, the New York City Police Department, NYPD, arrested a couple after they were dancing, United Press International reported.
The papers have reported that dentist Caroline Stern, 55, was dancing with her boyfriend when waiting on a nearly empty IRT platform at Columbus Circle / 59th Street. Goodness, did the New York Post miss another opportunity to bash a teacher??? One outlet reported that boyfriend George Hess, 54, is a teacher of film and prop industry. He must be a teacher at some private institution, since this did not produce a "Teacher Busted" headline in the Post.
Of course, we find that the real reason for the arrest was that Hess filmed the proceedings and that got the police calling for back-up.
A commenter at one page quipped:

A multiple choice question: You are a NYPD police officer and you encounter a couple dancing at midnight on a deserted subway platform.
You:
A) Join in briefly and jokingly move on.
B) Say "Nice evening, isn't it?" and move on.
C) Tell them it's late and that dancing isn't allowed here, but have a safe ride home and move on.
D) Argue with them, refuse their ID, call for backup, wrestle them down and take them handcuffed into custody.

"The city Law Department is reviewing the court papers, a spokeswoman said," the Post reports.
Accountability only for teachers; not for police.
Your tax dollars hard at work.

Past and Current NYPD Officers, Forum: Current NYPD Policies and Tactics

"From Behind The Blue Wall of Silence"

A Public Forum Featuring Current and Former NYPD Officers

Speaking about Their Experiences on the Job and Presenting

Their Critique of Current NYPD Policies and Tactics.

Thursday, May 3, 2012

6-8PM

LGBT Community Center

208 W. 13th St.

btw. 7th & 8th Aves.

MODERATED BY:

Graham Rayman

Staff Writer for the Village Voice.

PANELISTS INCLUDE:

Carlton Berkeley

President of Brothers and Sisters Who Care and former NYPD Detective 2nd Grade. 

John Eterno 

Professor at Molloy College and former NYPD Captain. 

Jeff Kaufman 

NYC High School Teacher in Brownsville and former NYPD Officer and Counsel.

Anthony Miranda

Chair of National Latino Officers Association and former NYPD Sergeant.

Colleen Meenan

Practicing attorney, former NYPD Sergeant, former executive director of the Gay Officers Action League (GOAL).

Adhyl Polanco

Current NYPD Officer.

Graham Weatherspoon

Black Law Enforcement Alliance and former NYPD Detective.
         Download the flyer on the event.

Police Reform Organizing Project, Urban Justice Center

123 Williams Street, 16th Floor, New York, NY 10038

646.602.5625

prop@urbanjustice.org

In an "unusual" meeting, NYPD gathers press corps to address recent A.P. reports on surveillance of Muslim groups; Bloomberg successors timid

(Scroll below for Bloomberg successors to mayor, and their taking wait and see approach to NYPD profiling Muslims issue.)
From Capital New York:

By Joe Pompeo, 2:42 pm Feb. 24, 2012

The Lineup collects the media stories, big and small, that are on our radar each day.
A.P. vs. NYPD

Late yestserday afternoon, we got a tip that NYPD brass had rounded up all the local police beat reporters for a spontaneous meeting related to something that has become a perpetual thorn in the department's side in recent months: The Associated Press' ongoing probe of police surveillance of Muslim communities in and around the city.

Specifically, we were told, the meeting was convened in response to the latest installment in the series, which began last August—a report earlier this week that "Americans living and working in New Jersey's largest city were subjected to surveillance as part of the New York Police Department's effort to build databases of where Muslims work, shop and pray. The operation in Newark was so secretive even the city's mayor [Cory Booker] says he was kept in the dark."

Indeed, When the new A.P. report landed on Wednesday, Booker was furious, telling the Star-Ledger: "I have deep concerns and I am very disturbed that this might have been surveillance that was based on no more than religious affiliation." And so once again, the NYPD spun into damage control mode.

The Daily News reports:

At an unusual press briefing, chief spokesman Paul Browne said the NYPD operates under the tightest civil liberties regulations of any police department in the land.

“There's been a suggestion that what we are doing doesn't comport with legal requirements, and that's not the case,” Browne said. “Everything we're doing is done constitutionally.”

For the most part, both city tabloids have come down hard on the A.P. investigation in their opinion pages, painting the wire as unpatriotic and naive for questioning tactics that some would view as a necessary defense in the war on terror. Earlier this week, for instance, New York Post columnist Michael A. Walsh suggested that the A.P. "for months now has been waging a journalistic jihad against the NYPD and its counterterrorism tactics in the name of 'civil rights.'"

But the A.P. found a more sympathetic ear in today's News, which includes a piece from progressive columnist Juan Gonzalez in which he calls the NYPD program "religious profiling on steroids" and writes of the department's controversial spokesman: "Browne is one the most capable and likeable NYPD spokesman in decades. But he has been caught making so many false statements lately about the department’s anti-terrorism program that his credibility has been irreparably damaged."

VARYING QUALITY RESPONSES FROM BLOOMBERG SUCCESSORS FOR NYC MAYOR:
(From "Asked about Police surveillance of Muslims, Bloomberg's successors take a wait-and-see approach", Feb. 25, 2012)
From City Council Speaker Christine Quinn's spokesperson:

"Regarding the NYPD's actions in New Jersey and other jurisdictions, unless we know that laws were broken or someone's civil liberties were violated it is difficult to judge police techniques without knowing the specifics of the case," said Josh Isay, a spokesman for Quinn.

From former city comptroller and head of the pre-Bloomberg Board of Education, Bill Thompson:

“The NYPD must continue to be vigilant in protecting the people of New York City from terrorism," said Bill Thompson, the 2009 Democratic nominee for mayor and former city comptroller. "But to single out one segment of our diverse, religious community for surveillance without cause raises questions of fairness and equal justice.”

From Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, "who has called for a federal probe into whether the NYPD's stop-and-frisk policy unfairly targets young black and Latino men (without calling for an outright halt to the practice), said the surveillance policy, too, needs a closer look," Capital New York said. Scott Stringer said:

"The New York Police Department has done an extraordinary job protecting our city from the ever-present threat of terrorism, no matter where it originates," Stringer said. "Whenever the police get wind of a potential threat, we expect them to pursue the matter with all deliberate speed and keep New York City safe. But it is troubling when people are subject to surveillance and investigation simply because they are members of a particular group. We need to ensure that our efforts to combat the threat of terrorism does not trample on the civil liberties that all citizens have a right to enjoy.”

From publisher Tom Allon:

"The surveillance and random checking of American citizens is an extremely complex issue that cannot be reduced to a sound bite," Allon said in a lengthy email. "'Profiling' is a loaded term that has somehow replaced 'probable cause' in law enforcement lexicon. We need to face realpolitik realities rather politically correct idealism. The people who attacked us 10 years ago and in 1993 were all Muslims. The few planned attacks that the NYPD has thwarted since then were also plotted by young Muslims ... If you randomly stop a fidgeting 20-year-old Muslim on the street or on the subway, this should be called `probable cause' rather than `profiling.'"

"[New York City Public Advocate] Bill de Blasio was traveling and couldn't be reached for comment," Capital New York wrote. CNY was not able to reach current city comptroller John Liu.

Democracy Now, AP: NYPD Tracked Muslim Students Far Beyond NYC; News Video Link

{BREAKING: Democracy Now! is streaming on its website, an interview between Amy Goodman and a Muslim college student that encountered an NYPD spy.}
The Associated Press has reported that the New York Police Department tracked Muslim college students far beyond New York City:
"NYPD monitored Muslim students all over Northeast: Names recorded in reports, even though they hadn't been accused of any crimes," February 18, 2012

The New York Police Department monitored Muslim college students far more broadly than previously known, at schools far beyond the city limits, including the elite Ivy League colleges of Yale and the University of Pennsylvania, The Associated Press has learned.

Police talked with local authorities about professors 300 miles away in Buffalo and even sent an undercover agent on a whitewater rafting trip, where he recorded students' names and noted in police intelligence files how many times they prayed.
Detectives trawled Muslim student websites every day and, although professors and students had not been accused of any wrongdoing, their names were recorded in reports prepared for Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.

See this video from the Associated Press: http://news.yahoo.com/video/us-15749625/nypd-monitored-muslim-coeds-all-over-northeast-28354193.html.

Yet, as the Triangle Research Group reported early this month in a public release of its research, "Radical U.S. Muslims Little Threat, Study Says," as cited by Scott Shane in "The New York Times," February 7, 2012. As the New York Times reported, "Of about 14,000 murders in the United States last year, not a single one resulted from Islamic extremism, said [Charles] Kurzman, a professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina [and author of the report]."

The report this week of the NYPD monitoring Muslim students all over the Northeast follows on a damning revelation late last month that it had repeatedly shown a highly defamatory video, "The Third Jihad," as part of its training, to more than a thousand officers in its ranks. See: Michael Powell, "In Police Training, a Dark Film on U.S. Muslims," Janary 23, 2012.

New York City's Mayor Michael Bloomberg has staked his reputation on education. His legacy on respecting Muslims is rather poor, as evidenced by his police department's policies towards Muslims. These blemishes on his record follow on his unfortunate double standard in allowing Christian and Jewish days off from New York City public schools, but not for the Muslims' major holidays. See this example of several articles from summer, 2010: Asma T. Uddin, "The other Islam controversy in NYC," "Washington Post," August 10, 2010.

NYC Dept of Education's history of electronic spying

It is always good to be wise to the chicanery that the New York City Department of Education (DOE) engages in, with regard to freedom of speech, particularly when regarding the speech of teachers and the spying on teachers.
Consider the technology that the DOE for a time was promoting spying technology for its principals to use on their classroom teachers
See this Open Salon blog post about one year: "The NY Department of Education Had a Spy Site for Principals"

Teachers may have been watched secretly. School pupils may have been under surveillance covertly. The principals of New York schools may have been assisted by the Department of Education in performing spying tasks, within schools. The spy gear would have fit into any fictional tale of intrigue and subterfuge. There were supplies like a teddy bear with a hidden camera, a pencil sharpener fitted with a cam and, of course, the neckties that had spy capabilities. The supply site is now down:"... The city Education Department pulled the plug on its website portal to an I-Spy-type arsenal where principals browsed for hidden cameras to trick out their halls."
link: Officials pull plug on website promoting hidden camera gadgets for principals

Educational guidelines differ from region to region. However, it is usually standard practice to have open surveillance at educational facilities. In many cases, signs are posted. Parents know that there are security cameras on the school grounds, hallways and classrooms. There have been controversies about having surveillance of washroom facilities. That illustrates the clash between security issues and privacy.
These are open surveillance situations. In many regions, it is simply against the law to take covert images of students, without the students' and parents' permission. Teachers' unions do not want their members to be under constant secret watch. These practices do not generate an environment of trust. It is not a friendly work environment. The Department of Education in New York seems to have a different approach.
The operational paradigm of the Department of Education seems to have been to develop a level of secrecy between principals and their staff and students. The tax dollars function under the rubric of 'what-they-don't-know-won't-hurt-them'.
Welcome to George Orwell's 1984 and Big Brother.
Mr Orwell just had the date wrong.
Catherine Forsythe

Additionally, the New York Daily News has the article on the above link on officials promoting surveillance, "'Spier' education: Officials pull plug on website promoting hidden camera gadgets for principals", by Rachel Monahan, February 14, 2012.

* * *CENTRALIZED MAYORAL CONTROL AND POLICE SURVEILLANCEWe are dealing here with centralized state power a the city level, and one elected representative says that the city cannot supervise the New York Police Department, "Councilman Says City Can't Oversee NYPD Spy Unit". (This instance is regard to police spying on Muslims; the article subtitle reads: "Probe revealed a secret squad known as the Demographics Unit sent teams of undercover cops to keep tabs on area's Muslim communities.")
Excerpts from WNYC-TV report:

Nobody in New York government has the expertise and authority to oversee the police department's secret intelligence operations, a leading city councilman says, raising questions about what checks exist on a department that has infiltrated mosques and subjected entire Muslim neighborhoods to surveillance and scrutiny.
Peter Vallone, the chairman of the council's Public Safety Committee, said the council doesn't have the power to subpoena the NYPD for its intelligence records. And even if it did, he said the operations are too sophisticated for city officials to effectively oversee. More oversight is likely needed, he said, perhaps from the federal government.
"That portion of the police department's work should probably be looked at by a federal monitor," he said after Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly testified Thursday at City Hall.

Qns HS Students' Occupy-type Protest & Need for Parents & Students to Mobilize

On their front page today The Daily News ran a story on how students at Frederick Douglass VI High School co-located with Far Rockaway High School protested and got an administration pledge to get an English teacher.

Here's the synopsis with some decoding:
75 students did not have an English teacher. Instead, they had rotating substitutes that changed every week. Translation: the students had different absent teacher reserve (ATR) teachers every week.

"English class at Frederick Douglass Academy in Queens hasn't had a regular teacher in three months" told how parents called 311 and how the city gave them the brush off.

Well, of course the city or the Department of Education gave the parents the brush-off. The city is being spiteful. It is not interested in hiring an ATR. One can get a qualified, experienced English teacher in the form of an ATR. The ATR pool remains at 1,126; there must be some English teachers in that pool. But, no, they city is too spiteful to hire a qualified, experienced teacher.

Students at Frederick Douglass Academy VI High School don't have English teachers and protested in front of the school.
Seniors at a struggling Queens high school have gone the first three months of the school year with no English teacher, the Daily News has learned.
About 75 students at Frederick Douglass Academy VI in Far Rockaway have been warehoused in a bunk class with a different substitute each week and no coherent lesson plan, they say.
For weeks, students begged administrators at the C-rated school for a steady instructor, but their request was denied — until Friday, when they protested and refused to go to class until their demands were met.
“We deserve to have a proper English teacher, not just a bunch of subs,” said senior Dominique Boatwright, 17, of Far Rockaway.

Another egregious fact is that part of the problem was that the students were being "educated" by a computer program called iLearn. Quite unsettling is the news that this school is but one of 160 city schools that use automated education from the iZone initiative that uses such programs. This program is being used in Far Rockaway, a largely minority community. One wonders whether computer-driven education supplants accredited teachers in schools in whiter, middle class neighborhoods.

Education officials said that the school — where 27% of students graduated ready for college last year — is part of a citywide online learning initiative called the iZone.

Computer-based classes are a key component of the iZone program, which is used by more than 160 schools around the city.

But students said that they still need a teacher who’s familiar with the course work, even if they’re using computers to deliver instruction.

The fedup teens decided to take matters into their own hands and stage a protest outside the school on Friday morning to demand a teacher for their English classes.

Senior class president Shamia Heyliger of Far Rockaway organized the rally, which began at 7 a.m., before classes were scheduled to begin.

“We needed to get the message across that we need a teacher,” said Heyliger, who has a 93 average and wants to be a lawyer.

The spunky teen used Facebook to spread word about the rally, and about 40 kids turned out before class for the protest.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/english-class-frederick-douglass-academy-queens-a-regular-teacher-months-article-1.980188#ixzz1eKdg0zXh

Hats off to the students for refusing to go to class until they were given a proper teacher. This calamity of the spiteful city/ Department of Education shows the need for parents and student to organize and push the city to act in ways that respond to community's needs.

Kelly's Absent Police Reserve? Shades of Things to Come for Teachers Under a Kelly Administration?

Factors that send teachers into the Absent Teacher Reserve are said to include age, salary and sometimes, principals' dispositions (nice way of saying preference or bias).

Apparently, the last factor has a strong parallel in the parallel universe of New York Police Department (NYPD) professional limbo: thousands of police are in a demoted, limbo status for an interminable period. What has got them there? --Partial clearance from accusations or charges of wrongful behavior, and from one phrase, "out of favor," we can surmise that it means, falling out of favor with supervisors or not quite fitting in or playing along with the institutional culture of a particular unit.

It is interesting, the media has wide-spread indignation and immediate presumptions of guilt regarding teachers in a similar status: assignment to Teacher Reassignment Centers (TRCs) or rubber rooms or Absent Teacher Reserve (ATR). Yet, here we have a quite parallel phenomenon in the police department and no copy-cat articles by other media organizations after the article, "Ray Kelly's Gulag", hit the sidewalk Village Voice bins this Wednesday. Where are the front page articles in the New York Post?

Speaking of hypocrisy and double-standards, this brings to mind the four year free pass that one Mychael Willon, and educrat with a public lewdness conviction (Kansas, 1989) (and see this post also for reference) got from the New York City Department of Education. The DOE never looked into his past but instead allowed him hired him from 2005 to 2009, for one period, to monitor all levels of education personnel in the very cushy job of LIS (Local Instructional Superintendent) in the Bronx's District 9 and later, the Director of the Principal Candidate Pool. He then went on to become a chief officer at a DOE vendor that contracts to provide supplemental tutoring to NYCDOE students. Aside from his infraction at the Wichita bookstore, he distorted his credential on his DOE application, misrepresenting his dubious doctorate from a diploma mill. Needless to say, infractions on this last matter alone would get a sub-superintendent DOE employee into very deep water. Interestingly, this story only got traction at a New York City oriented blog.


Aside from an interesting look into the background of assignment to the Police Department's dumping ground or long-term desk duty, this article brings up the profound degree to which NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly micromanages the assignment of officers' files and assignment to long-term desk duty. (The key phrase is more of a mouthful than just "desk duty." It is: "do not transfer without PC approval.") Commissioner Kelly's monitoring has no limits of enthusiasm, for example, he apparently goes to headquarters on weekends to look into the files.
This picayune enthusiasm does not bode well for teachers, should he become mayor.
One can be sure that he will have the opportunity to stroll into Tweed Department of Education headquarters on his slow weekends and pore into files. And one cannot put it past him that he might have the will to choose to make lives hell, particularly to go after the activist teachers, and more specifically the ones at rallies around Foley Square or NYPD HQ.

Here is the lead page of the article by Graham:
(Disclaimer: there are indeed some bad apples in NYPD limbo or APR status, e.g., such as some of those officers involved in the killing of Amadou Diallo. Some others in the limbo status we can surmise are there, not fro misdeeds, but from rubbing some supervisor the wrong way. The latter do not deserve to suffer professional limbo. Again, speaking of media hypocrisy, how is it that officers responsible from Diallo's death are still on the force and suffer no endless media campaign, when the standards are harsher for teachers???)

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly keeps a secret list of police officers who cannot be transferred without his specific approval. The list, which the Voice obtained from an NYPD employee, is part of a 23-page spreadsheet that contains the names of 2,300 officers, their ranks, their ID numbers, old units, new units, and coded descriptions of thousands of personnel decisions throughout the past several years. Strangely, the document isn't marked with any police insignia or command titles.

In all, according to the list, Kelly banned transfers without his specific approval for at least 96 police officers over the past several years and rejected pending transfers for at least 59 more, which overrules his subordinates. He also transferred 228 officers to VIPER, where cops sit and stare at video screens to monitor crime in public housing—a unit seen as a dumping ground for those in trouble or out of favor, where careers can languish for years. Hundreds more names on the list are of officers "transferred for cause," or sent to another command for some transgression, which could be anything from serious misconduct to irritating a commander.

Most of the officers who made the list don't know that the commissioner essentially froze their careers in place, in what some department insiders say is Kelly's version of the city's notorious former "rubber room" system for teachers awaiting adjudication of their cases, where they were asked to sit indefinitely in classrooms away from students. Others call the list Kelly's "gulag," a way of punishing officers without forcing them to retire or quit.

Once a name goes on the list, it doesn't come off, even after years have passed and an officer has been brought back into the fold—a circumstance that someone likened to being forced to wear a scarlet letter for the duration of his or her career. In its stark, clipped language, the secret spreadsheet offers a rare insight into how the department is run by Kelly, who will soon become the city's longest-serving police commissioner. It also might give an indication of how he would run the city if he runs for and is elected mayor.

Most importantly, the list confirms Kelly's reputation as a micromanager who reviews just about every transfer that takes place in the largest police department in the country.

Paul Browne, a police spokesman, did not respond to Voice requests for a discussion of the spreadsheet.

Ray Kelly has a big job, overseeing 40,000 employees and a multibillion-dollar budget larger than that of at least five states. But he is apparently also involved in many decisions that used to be delegated to subordinates.

To put it in context, prior to Kelly, police commissioners did not bother with low-level, routine transfers.

"In the old days, the police commissioner didn't get involved in that," says a former Kelly staffer. "The borough commanders would call each other and say, 'I need to move a guy,' or, 'I need a guy from Precinct X.' Kelly centralized all of that."

Insiders attribute Kelly's involvement in these decisions to the behavior of his predecessor, Bernard Kerik, who, over Kelly's objections, promoted a large number of his NYPD cronies during his last days in office.

The source says that he often saw Kelly come into his 14th-floor office at One Police Plaza on Sunday afternoons to pore over transfer requests and related documents.

That's a different image than the one Kelly himself has been promoting lately as his department is hit with a series of corruption cases. Kelly has put these problems down to a "few bad apples," as if there were things going sour in his department that he was unaware of.

Murray Weiss, a respected longtime police reporter now writing for DNAinfo, recently noted that the "bad apple approach may deflect a troublesome story, but it has insidious shortcomings. It sends the message that the NYPD is a closed society that will protect its own."

The spreadsheet illustrates, however, that Kelly is even more hands-on than he lets on with individual police officers he considers problematic in some way. In this story, we have looked at some of the many decisions Kelly has made that are indicated in the spreadsheet. In some cases, we do not have a complete set of facts or history to explain Kelly's decisions. For that reason, the Voice is withholding some names that appear on the list.

One of the officers designated "do not transfer without PC approval" is James Albertelli, who was indicted in 2005 on bribery and coercion charges when he was assigned to the 13th Precinct in Manhattan.

But in 2006, he was acquitted of all charges, and Patrolmen's Benevolent Association boss Patrick Lynch called it a "politically motivated case." "With nothing more than a bogus complaint and no evidence, the DA's office charged two honorable police officers in a successful attempt to generate pre-election publicity," Lynch said.

And then, in January 2008, Albertelli was transferred to the 111th Precinct with the notation "Don't move again without PC approval."

Was that failed indictment enough to plant the scarlet letter on Albertelli for the rest of his career? Did he get in trouble for something else?

Read the entire article at the Village Voice at this link.

Will Autocratic NYC Mayoral Power Mean 100s of Homeless Deaths This Winter? & Calls for Indep. Police Oversight

We hear much about the ill effects of autocratic mayoral control upon public education. The details are too numerous to account here. Just see Ed Notes Online or the latest ATR farce details at NYCATR.

The latest outrage and testament to the crazed policy decisions of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's being drunk with power is the following plan by New York, to insist that single homeless persons prove that they are homeless (Yes, this is real, not GBN from another NYC blog):
From various New York news outlets, this from WNBC-TV:
"Analysis: The City Demands the Homeless Prove It"
(a photo caption)

A sign of a man panhandling for money is displayed on the streets of Manhattan October 26, 2009 in New York City. In a recently released report by the advocacy group Coalition for the Homeless it was revealed that the numbers of homeless people using New York City shelters each night has reached an all time high. Since Mayor Michael Bloomberg took office eight years ago there has been a 45 percent increase in shelter use with over 39,000 homeless people, including 10,000 homeless families, checking in to city shelters every evening. The group also said that 2009 has turned out to be 'the worst on record for New York City homelessness since the Great Depression. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

and the text of the news story, including some hard hitting comments:
IT COMES DOWN TO SAVING MONEY:

New York has a tradition of caring for its most vulnerable people. That’s why it’s shocking to hear that homeless single people will have to prove they are truly homeless to get into a shelter.

My colleague, Melissa Russo, reports that the city’s Department of Homeless Services plans to save $4 million a year by cracking down on those who are unable to show they have no other option but going to a homeless shelter. I have covered the homeless crisis in New York for 32 years -- and this latest development is outrageous.

It was back in 1979 that a young, idealistic lawyer named Robert Hayes brought a lawsuit in behalf of all homeless men in New York. He filed it in the name of a man named Robert Callahan. On a cold winter night, Hayes introduced me to Callahan, who was sleeping on a bench in a park in Kips Bay. Callahan said: “I want a home.”

The State Supreme Court ultimately ruled that everyone had a constitutional right to shelter. It was a landmark decision for New York and the nation.

Over the years various bureaucrats have nibbled away at the essence of that decision. Now, the city’s Homeless Commissioner Seth Diamond, says: “People who have alternatives are not homeless. If they have a brother or a sister who can house them, that’s where they should go.”

This sets the city up as the ultimate judge of whether or not someone is actually homeless. It’s an astonishing turn in a history in which New York stands out as a place where compassion, not the dollar sign, rules.

As winter approaches, is compassion out of style? In this city, the Callahan case should be enshrined as a standard for charity and decency. It’s hard to accept that this is no longer the case. When the first person freezes to death on the streets, will the bureaucracy change its mind? Are we going to try to force relatives to take in homeless people? What provision in the Constitution or the law entitles City Hall to do that?

Mary Brosnahan of the Coalition for the Homeless told me: “This new policy is unconscionable. Just as winter approaches and Thanksgiving, we are putting the most vulnerable people at severe risk. People will die if this policy goes unchallenged.”

And the coalition intends to challenge it. Meanwhile, at last reports, there are a record 39,000 homeless people in New York, including single adults and families.

People have written to NBC New York about this development. Richele Lewis wrote: “The option of sleeping on someone’s floor is not considered adequate housing although it is better than having to sleep on the subway or in a park…”

And an e-mail from Eva Clark: “It’s hard to sleep on someone’s floor, especially if they really don’t wish you there and wish you get out and go somewhere and get lost and don’t come back.”

As Thanksgiving and Christmas approach, I’m inclined to believe that compassion is not out of style. In the scriptures are the words: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Mother Teresa said: “At the end of life we will not be judged by how many diplomas we have received, how much money we have made, how many great things we have done. We will be judged by ‘I was hungry and you gave me to eat, I was naked and you clothed me, I was homeless and you took me in.'"

* * *
NYPD AND CALLS FOR INDEPENDENT OVERSIGHT
(I have to move on, so here are quick parts --maybe I'll be able to clean up later.)
Alisa Chang (I spelt it properly, as compared to WNYC which botched her first name on the website) reported, "Police Misconduct Cases Draw Calls For Greater NYPD Oversight," on Friday, November 4, afternoon.
the lede:

With recent reports of misconduct within the New York City Police Department mounting, criminal justice experts are calling for greater oversight of the department.

A new study by the Citizens Crime Commission, an independent non-profit organization that focuses on criminal justice reform, shows that major cities other than New York are more aggressive in monitoring their police departments.

Richard Aborn, president of the Commission, said New York City should follow examples set by Chicago, Los Angeles and Philadelphia.

"They have, what I think, are the gold standards of oversight," said Aborn during an interview on WNYC's Brian Lehrer Show on Friday. "They are independent of the department, they are transparent , they have compulsory power, meaning they have subpoena power, and they are permanent. And the NYPD doesn't have any of that."

Recently, 16 police officers were indicted in the Bronx as a result a ticket-fixing investigation; seven New York City narcotics investigators were convicted of planting drugs on people; eight current and former police officers were indicted for smuggling guns; an officer in Staten Island was charged with making a false arrest; and three officers were convicted of robbing a perfume warehouse.

Click to the article's link above for the full WNYC story.

NYPD Officers Rally for Accused Ticket-Fixing Cops at Courthouse, Sup's Faked Job Placement Nos.

The Njavascript:void(0).Y. Daily News reports that New York Police Department officers rallied today at the Bronx Courthouse.
(reports elsewhere report a crowd of at least 500)
The beginning of Kevin Deutch, Bob Kappstatter and Larry Mcshane's article posted online:

The cop at the center of the massive ticket-fixing scandal was held Friday on $500,000 cash bail after his arraignment in a Bronx courtroom packed with furious police officers.

Officer Jose Ramos of the 40th Precinct was the only one of the 16 accused cops not to make bail after their court appearances in the worst NYPD scandal in two decades.

Ramos' lawyer denounced the proceeding as a "media circus" and blasted the high bail after a hearing with even higher tension.

"This isn't a $500,000 case," said attorney John Sandleitner. "He's charged with nonsense for the most part."


SCANDAL PUTS THOUSANDS OF CRIMINAL CASES IN JEOPARDY

Ramos, suspected of ties to a drug dealer, was caught on wiretaps discussing ticket-fixing after cops received a tip about the 17-year police veteran. He faces charges of attempted grand larceny, attempted robbery and attempted heroin possession.

Ramos was arrested Thursday night while leaving a parent-teacher conference at his stepchild's Inwood school. His wife was nabbed at their home on a charge of filing a false report in a car accident.

Officer Christopher Scott was revealed as the most egregious ticket-fixer, charged with more than 150 separate counts ranging from official misconduct to conspiracy, officials said.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2011/10/28/2011-10-28_nypd_officers_gather_at_bronx_courthouse_in_support_of_indicted_cops_in_ticketfi.html#ixzz1c70xUVTZ

FAKE, CORRUPTED NUMBERS AT CITY-FINANCED JOB PLACEMENT AGENCY; ECHOING NYPD ARREST QUOTAS, AND TOP-DOWN CULTURE OF ACCOMMODATING TEST-CHEATING IN NYC SCHOOLS
*SEEDCO AND WORKFORCE 1 IMPLICATED
On September 27, 2011, Michael Powell, in "The New York Times" reported on this problem in "Managers Pushed for Fake Job-Placement Numbers, Ex-Workers Say." excerpts:

. . . . Our mayor takes much pride in his “I’m one tough businessman” ethos. Each year he instructs commissioners to set higher goals for placing the unemployed in jobs, and each year contractors deliver those numbers on the dotted line, even in hard economic times.

It is quite miraculous, particularly if the numbers are based in reality.
Unfortunately, a question mark hangs over such claims. . . . .
Seven former Seedco [city-financed agency] employees say managers encouraged employees to produce hundreds, even thousands, of fake job-placement numbers over several years.

“The falsification of this data was not a mistake, nor was it an accident,” said Ana Defillo, who came to Seedco as an AmeriCorps worker. “It was endemic.” . . . .
For years now, the mayor and his officials have set job-placement goals as if playing a game of bar darts: Close your eyes and toss one high on the wall and — voilà! — a reasonable goal. Certainly city statistics suggest success leaping upon success. Workforce1 placements rose to 24,701 in the last fiscal year from 17,218 in fiscal year 2007. In the same period, the city unemployment rate rose to 9 percent from 4 percent. “Their goal,” said Mr. Harper, who now works in Seattle, “is to lightly touch as many people as possible and take credit for whatever jobs they get.” . . . .

NEWS: On "Occupy the PEP"

Education activists, including allied parents and students, took over the Panel for Educational Policy. In the spirit of the Occupy Wall Street movement downtown, the protesters began the public's speech by saying "mic check."
The PEP meeting at the Seward Educational Complex (with five, count 'em, five schools), convened to discuss "Core Curriculum" standards, began at 6:00 and closed up at 6:10 PM and relocated to elsewhere in the building.

DOE PEP'S PROVOCATION
Any honest and complete presentation of tonight's events must recognize that the PEP set up a provocation tonight. In a break from previous policy, the PEP insisted in procedural rules announced days before the meeting that people with questions submit them in writing.
The PEP thus set the stage for high tension. What was the reason for denying open microphone opportunities? After all, at many PEP meetings in the last twelve months plenty of people had opportunities to speak. One might say that the time limits afforded many people the chance to speak.
Reminder, I am still speaking about PREVIOUS meetings. Varying opinions were expressed, con, mainly, and a handful endorsing the PEP's policy objective of the night.
Yes, the nights could be rowdy and noisy, but both sides could always be expressed and the PEP could always do its voting. Now if one objects that opponents (upset at a total lack of popular political --democracy, remember?-- participation) were louder than the PEP facilitators of the business of the night, one should recognize some basic things: save for Patrick Sullivan, the PEP members, almost to a person, did not care what the public thought anyway. If they (the PEP, not the public --b'sides, what business does the public have in interfering in public policy?) were peeved at the noise, they could always chat among themselves to pass the business of the evening.

Click on this link to see Gotham Schools report, to this minute, THE ONLY Internet news outlet, up to 9:45 PM, to have reported anything on the PEP occupation story.

So, why did the PEP decide to deny the public any chance to pose impromptu questions or statements? Maybe, we need to direct our speculations to the man that runs the PEP, the mayor, who picks the eight of of the panel's thirteen members. Maybe it's that he just does not want teachers gathering publicly. Note how his NYPD gendarmes this weekend told teachers that they must stop their "grade-in" at Occupy Wall Street: “No grading papers in public," according to Fred Klonsky's story, "NYPD tells teachers, 'No grading papers in public'."

Hey, why are these important stories only covered by the blogs, and not by the commercial news?

UPDATE:
News coverage:
Well-edited youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbmjMickJMA

NYTimes coverage in SchoolBook: http://www.nytimes.com/schoolbook/2011/10/25/walcott-event-disrupted-by-protesters/

NY1 coverage: http://www.ny1.com/content/news_beats/education/149635/education-panel-meeting-disrupted-by--occupy--protesters

Epoch Times: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/united-states/teachers-and-parents-occupy-education-meeting-63296.html

Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/25/occupy-wall-street-department-of-education_n_1031812.html

GothamSchools: 1) http://gothamschools.org/2011/10/25/discussion-of-common-core-to-compete-with-human-mic-tonight/

2) http://gothamschools.org/2011/10/25/protest-derails-doe-meeting-on-curriculum-after-just-minutes/

3) http://gothamschools.org/2011/10/25/underneath-the-shouting-a-hum-about-curriculum-standards/

Occupy wall street livestream videos (though they are hard to sort through): http://www.livestream.com/occupynyc

Daily News: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2011/10/26/2011-10-26_school_boss_disrupted.html

Fox News: http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/protesters-shout-down-schools-chancellor-walcott-20111025

A NYPost editorial: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/the_thugs_win_again_sIavzdrhUBM3HxPHHY7IxH?CMP=OTC-rss&FEEDNAME=

Blogs---
http://ednotesonline.com/

http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2011/10/last-night-at-pep-we-occupied-doe.html

http://raginghorse.wordpress.com/2011/10/26/occupy-the-department-of-education-walcott-takes-it-on-the-hop/

Galling WNYC, Village Voice inconsistency re NYPD, DOE malfeasance coverage

Yesterday (Wednesday, August 25, 2010) I heard WNYC's Brian Lehrer speak about New York State's victory in the "Race to the Top." The voice of New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein graced the show. While there was at least one caller that bemoaned the rising stress on teachers from test-driven teaching to the test, the general reception of Klein was congratulatory in New York State's competition with neighboring New Jersey.
A blogger has cited the Broad Foundation's friendly relationship with WNYC after my open question: why is WNYC treating New York City's Department of Education with such kid gloves?
One would hope that the exposure of New York City's plummeting scores (when the notoriously easy New York State tests were made more difficult this year) would prompt WNYC to lessen the fawning treatment of Chancellor Klein. No. Klein was allowed to wax on an on, in an uninterrupted soliloquy. Valuable time that could have gone to parents or teachers was lost in deference to his ego.
In contrast to the kid gloves treatment that Lehrer gave Klein last Thursday, August 19, note these essential questions that a poster to Lehrer's site offered:

1. Isn't Klein a total failure? Eight years of an experiment on our kids and no progress?

2. Wasn't claiming progress on flawed tests a lie?
Wasn't he promoting and firing teachers on the basis of these flawed tests? And telling parents which schools are good on the basis of these tests? And so if he knew these tests were flawed why did he give all this bad advice and claim progress that didn't happen?

3. Shouldn't he just resign?

When Lehrer usually organizes a segment on an issue with opposing perspectives he invites guests from different sides of an issue. Not so with the NYC DOE. No Leonie Haimson, no Juan Gonzalez or no Norm Scott for balance. On Lehrer's show there is no speaking truth to the power of Mr. Klein.

*SUDDENLY NO LEHRER FOR ONE OF THE MAYOR'S DEPARTMENTS WHEN NYPD MISDEEDS ARE THE SUBJECT*
So, it was grandly disappointing when Lehrer segued over to a piece dealing with insensitive treatment of police officers. The piece centered around "NYPD Tapes 5: The Corroboration," the latest of a series of journalistic pieces by The Village Voice that has looked into corrupt practices in the New York Police Department, New York City's police force. It was obvious --but Lehrer did not pick up on it-- that there is a direct parallel: in both the NYC DOE and in the NYPD there is a management culture that only values the professionals, teachers and police officers, respectively, on the basis of their statistics.

In both cases the public suffers. Students get a dullened education that only lives for tests (see Gabe Pressman's report from his interview of Diane Ravitch and see this City University of New York study, "Teaching to the Test: How No Child Left Behind Impacts Language Policy, Curriculum, and Instruction for English Language Learners"). No appreciation of knowledge, just prep for the test, all to the end of making the great Oz (his holiness Mike Bloomberg). In the case of police performance, police offices do not report larcenous thefts as such, police officers willy-nilly harass black and Hispanic New Yorkers (see this Times story and this New York Civil Liberties Union report), all in the name of protecting the great Oz (mayor Bloomberg, just to remind you) and his ever improving statistics.

The Village Voice's disturbing report is a good deed. Perhaps the Pulitzer Prize committee will reward the newspaper or its reporters. But why the attention to stats mania in the police department, but no attention to similar abuses in the Education Department? The allegations that police department supervisors pressure police officers, with a singular mind to statistics, in self-interest for promotion or bonuses resonate with the allegations that teachers make about principals that harass teachers over test statistics. Yet, neither The Village Voice nor WNYC will address the parallel patterns of harassing of teachers and mis-serving the students.

Where is our free press? Where are the investigative reporters? The "alternative" or "non-commercial" media outlets fail at their duty. We bloggers don't carry the same weight as these outlets or the daily newspapers. Otherwise, Bloomberg would have lost to Bill Thompson last fall.

NYPD photographed protesters outside King Bloomberg's home

On Thursday January 21, 2010, students, parents and teachers protested outside of King ("mayor") Michael Bloomberg's East 79th Street residence.

Little did they plan for surveillance work done by police officers from roof-tops, aiming down at the protesters.
Shouldn't people have the right to peacefully protest?
Where's the outcry from the elected representatives?
Oh yeah, I forgot, we're not in a democracy. This is a city-state, under the thumb of an autocratic king.

Here's the NY1 report from today, January 24:

Parents, students and teachers say the New York City Police Department violated their civil rights during a protest last week.

They released a video Sunday showing several officers taking pictures of them as they protested plans to close city schools outside Mayor Bloomberg's home on Tuesday.

In 1985, a federal court ruled it is illegal and a violation of civil rights for the NYPD to take photos of protesters, unless they have cause to believe a crime may be committed.

"It was a very peaceful demonstration, and I'm outraged that I'm being photographed. There was no mention of any photography going to take place at that meeting and I resent the fact that I have to come home after living up to my fulfillment, fighting for my rights to protest on that block and having my picture taking without my permission," said protest participant Lydia Bellahcene.

"We want an explanation as to, one, why these officers were taking pictures of the demonstration, and two, what is the NYPD planning to do with those pictures? We need to be assured that no one, no one's civil rights have been, or will be violated," said civil rights attorney Norman Siegel.

A police spokesperson says the pictures did not focus on individuals and were taken for crowd control planning which is permitted under the 1985 law.

Criminalizing the Classroom - It has gone overboard under Bloomberg

Truth be told the NYPD replaced the NYC Board of Education-provided police by a 1998 Board of Education vote; however, conditions have worsened for our schoolchildren under Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Click here for the NYCLU report, "Criminalizing the Classroom."

The blog, "Bloomberg Watch," has a valuable summary of the report on the rough mistreatment of public school students.

At the start of the 2005-2006 school year, the city employed a total of 4,625 School Safety Agents (SSAs) and at least 200 armed police officers assigned exclusively to schools. These numbers would make the NYPD’s School Safety Division alone the tenth largest police force in the country – larger than the police forces of Washington, D.C., Detroit, Boston, or Las Vegas.

Because these school-assigned police personnel are not directly subject to the supervisory authority of school administrators, and because they often have not been adequately trained to work in educational settings, SSAs and police officers often arrogate to themselves authority that extends well beyond the narrow mission of securing the safety of the students and teachers. They enforce school rules relating to dress and appearance. They make up their own rules regarding food or other objects that have nothing whatsoever to do with school safety.

On occasion they subject educators who question the NYPD’s treatment of students to retaliatory arrests. More routinely, according to our interviews and survey, they subject students to inappropriate treatment including:

• Derogatory, abusive and discriminatory comments and conduct;
• Intrusive searches;
• Unauthorized confiscation of students’ personal items, including food, cameras and essential school supplies;
• Inappropriate sexual attention;
• Physical abuse; and
• Arrest for minor non-criminal violations of school rules.

READ ABOUT THE VULGAR, UNCONSTITUTIONAL TREATMENT OF AN ELECTED STUDENT LEADER, AN ELEVENTH GRADER AT THE WADLEIGH SCHOOL (I have scrubbed the NYPD officer's profanity.)

Carlos

Throughout the morning, police personnel hurled invective and threats at the students they were charged with protecting. Officers threatened students with arrest for refusing to turn over cell phones, for stepping out of line, and for refusing to be scanned. Officers cursed at students and scoffed at educators. When a student wandered out of line, officers screamed, “Get the f--- back in line!” When a school counselor asked the officers to refrain from cursing, one officer retorted, “I can do and say whatever I want,” and continued, with her colleagues, to curse.

The threats of arrest turned out to be more than bluster. Several Wadleigh students were hauled to the 28th Police Precinct that morning for minor non-criminal violations of school rules. Among them was Carlos, an eleventh grader and Vice-President of the School Government Association. Carlos, who worked thirty to forty hours each week after school and needed to communicate frequently with his mother about his whereabouts, did not want the police to confiscate his cell phone. When he became aware of the police activity in the school, he chose to remain outside in order to call his mother and ask her to pick up the phone, which she agreed to do.

As Carlos stood outside the school, a police officer approached and asked for identification. Carlos explained: “My mother’s on the way. She should be just up the block. You can talk to her.” In response, the officer said to a second officer, “What are we going to do with this smart aleck? The second officer replied, “Take him to the precinct.”

The officers handcuffed Carlos, seized his cell phone, forced him into a police vehicle, and took him to the precinct without informing school officials or his mother. At the precinct, Carlos was ordered to remove his belt and shoelaces and was forced into a cell. Meanwhile, Carlos’s mother – who did not find Carlos waiting for her when she arrived at the school to pick up his cell phone – began a frantic search for her child. Many phone calls later, she learned that Carlos had been arrested. When she arrived at the precinct, officers returned Carlos’s phone to her, but refused to release her son into her care. Carlos was released only after his mother had finally left the precinct. Upon his release, the officers issued him a summons threatening that if he did not appear in court, a warrant would be issued for his arrest. The charges were ultimately dropped. What happened to Carlos and the other students at Wadleigh Secondary School on November 17 was not an aberration. In fact, this scenario takes place in New York City schools every day.

I supported Bill de Blasio for Public Advocate; I would hope that, in office, he will advocate for the children and stop this flagrant abuse of the children.

I supported the formation of the Coalition for Public Education; stopping the police abuse of our city's schoolchildren should be a number one agenda item for the organization.