All Articles Tagged "law enforcement"
“She’s The Boss” Episode 16 – Patricia Gatling, Commissioner And Chair Of The NYC Commission On Human Rights
Meet Patricia Gatling, Commissioner and Chair of the New York City Commission on Human Rights. A top enforcer of the Human Rights Law, Commissioner Gatling is committed to combating and eradicating discrimination throughout the City of New York. Having served as the First Assistant District Attorney at the Kings County District Attorney’s Office, Commissioner Gatling attributes her interest in law to her days growing up in the south during the Civil Rights Movement. Bright, Gifted and authentic, find out why She’s the Boss!
Police Track Gangs Online
(The Star Ledger) — Keith Williams and Karim Sampson, a pair of Bloods gang members known to Trenton authorities, thought they had a snitch in their midst. So in April of 2008, authorities allege, they planned to kill him. ”If I had my wifey (gun), I’d get it done,” Sampson told Williams, according to court records. “But you’ve got (a gun), so it’s on you.” The men knew they had to hurry, court records show. Their victim — 20-year-old fellow Blood Arrel Bell — was planning a trip. ”He’s supposed to be going to New York for two weeks. I can’t risk him not coming back,” Sampson said. ”Then that (expletive) ain’t coming back,” Williams replied. “We’ve got 48 hours.” This conventional crime has a new age twist. Authorities didn’t use a wiretap to capture the conversation between Sampson and Williams, and they didn’t stitch it together from eyewitness accounts. The two gang members wrote it all down in a series of MySpace messages, according to court records, where they discussed the killing of another human being in between “LOL”s.
Blue-Light Cameras Get Mixed Reviews on Deterring Crime
(Chicago Sun Times) — Chicago’s blue-light cameras have become a fixture in high-crime neighborhoods since they were first installed in 2001, but do they really deter crime and help prosecutors convict criminals? A study being released Monday gives the surveillance cameras a mixed review, saying they appear to have prevented crime in one neighborhood but not in another — and that the video quality is usually poor and rarely leads to a conviction on its own. The Urban Institute focused on Chicago Police Department cameras in sections of Humboldt Park and West Garfield Park. Crime there was compared with crime in similar areas without the cameras. The study found crime decreased more than 12 percent — or 38 fewer crimes per month — in the Humboldt Park study area from 2001 to 2006. The researchers found crime didn’t appear to migrate from the study area into the surrounding neighborhood.
Parole Board Swamped with Troy Davis Petitions
(AJC) — The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles on Thursday was given petitions with more than 663,000 names of people asking that Troy Anthony Davis be spared from being executed next Wednesday, saying there is too much doubt he killed a Savannah police officer in 1989. Davis’ supporters, led by Amnesty International and the Georgia chapter of the NAACP, appeared at the board’s offices and handed over 15 boxes filled with petitions, Amnesty Laura Moye said. The board, which will hear Davis’ clemency petition Monday, also was given letters signed by more than 1,500 legal professionals, more than 3,300 religious leaders, 26 death-row exonerees and 110 relatives of murder victims asking for Davis’ execution to be halted.
Chicago to Publish Crime Stats Online
(AP) — Long a city with a reputation for withholding information, Chicago now wants to make public every crime over the past 10 years — a highly unusual move among the nation’s major police departments. Starting Wednesday, millions of crime statistics dating to 2001 will be posted online in a searchable database. It will be updated daily, providing fodder for residents to evaluate their own neighborhoods, academics to study crime and techie types to create websites or apps. The release is the latest attempt by the administration of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who took office in May, to make city dealings more open and counter Chicago’s reputation for entrenched systemic corruption and backroom deals. Chicago officials recently posted online the salaries of city employees, city contracts and lobbying data, with more information expected in coming months.
C.I.A. Examining Legality of Work With Police Dept.
(New York Times) — The Central Intelligence Agency has opened an internal inquiry into whether its close cooperation with the New York Police Department in the decade since the Sept. 11 attacks has broken any laws prohibiting the agency from collecting intelligence in the United States. During his first Congressional testimony as the C.I.A. director, David H. Petraeus said Tuesday that the agency’s inspector general had begun to investigate its work with the Police Department “to make sure we are doing the right thing.” Mr. Petraeus said the inquiry began last month, but gave few details about its scope.
Chicago Police Go on Record Warrant Blitz
(Chicago Tribune) — Traveling one behind the other on a gray early morning through the Far South Side, three unmarked squad cars pulled up quietly in front of a two-story apartment house — one of dozens of similar stops Chicago police Sgt. Sam Dickerson and his team of eight officers made last week. This time Dickerson and the other plainclothes cops, all from the gang-enforcement unit, were looking for a 21-year-old man wanted on a misdemeanor domestic battery charge from October 2010. When he answered the officers’ knocks on his front door, he was almost immediately placed in plastic flex-cuffs, and the team waited for a squadrol to take him to a nearby station. Although “warrant missions” are routine, this man was one of several hundred people targeted last week in a three-day roundup of fugitives never conducted on such a large scale by Chicago police, officials said.
Preparing for 2012, Chicago Police Create Counterterrorism Unit
(Chicago News Cooperative) – As the city prepares to host two international summits next year, and with the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks approaching, the Chicago Police Department is creating a counterterrorism unit, which will bolster security and incorporate lessons from academic research and from New York City’s counterterrorism tactics. The threat of terrorism is a real concern for Chicago officials, with world leaders expected at both the Group of Eight and NATO summits here next year. The city has been home to violent extremists and the target of terrorist plots: David C. Headley of Chicago helped to plan the deadly November 2008 attacks in Mumbai, and documents taken from Osama bin Laden’s compound in May included plans to attack the city.
Stop-and-Frisk Targeted After Councilman's Arrest
(Crain’s) — The arrest of a black city councilman and top aide to the public advocate after the West Indian Day Parade yesterday has renewed criticism of the Police Department’s controversial stop-and-frisk policy, which critics say has given cover for police to inappropriately target otherwise law-abiding minorities. The outcry, on display at a City Hall press conference Tuesday morning that was attended by more than a dozen high-ranking state and city officials, stems from a Monday incident when police briefly handcuffed and detained Brooklyn City Councilman Jumaane Williams and the public advocate’s director of public affairs, Kirsten John Foy. The conflict came at the tail end of a particularly violent weekend that saw nearly three dozen shootings, several fatalities and the wounding of two police officers. Police maintained a heightened presence and state of alert Monday around the parade site near Prospect Park in Brooklyn.
Plaintiff's Attorneys Continue Push to Depose Daley for Burge Lawsuit
(Chicago Tribune) — Attorneys representing a man who says he was tortured as part of an alleged police brutality conspiracy under former Chicago police Cmdr. Jon Burge on Tuesday continued to press the city to make formerMayor Richard Daley available to answer questions about what he knew about the widespread scandal. The pressure to question Daley under oath came after the rare decision by a federal judge that Daley could remain a defendant on the case brought against him and several others by Michael Tillman, who says he was tortured into a confession and then served nearly 24 years in prison before charges against him were vacated. Several lawsuits have stemmed from the abuse scandal that unfolded under Burge, and Daley has been sued before, only to be dropped from the suits later.
