According to gun control advocates, you don’t need a gun. You, the law-abiding citizen, are protected by the police. The po-po have no legal obligation to protect you, but c’mon. You’re no a crime fighter. And see? Crime’s going down. So forget all this armed self-defense stuff, kick back and let the cops do their job. Nowhere is this agit-prop more prevalent than it is in New York City. Mayor Michael Bloomberg is America’s most ardent and active gun control advocate. But how would that play out if it were widely known that New York City’s Finest (air quotes optional) have been intentionally under-reporting all sorts of crimes, including assault, armed assault and armed robbery? That the threat against law-abiding citizens is larger than advertised? Well guess what Serpico fans? The Village Voice has news for you . . .
For more than two years, Adrian Schoolcraft secretly recorded every roll call at the 81st Precinct in Brooklyn and captured his superiors urging police officers to do two things in order to manipulate the “stats” that the department is under pressure to produce: Officers were told to arrest people who were doing little more than standing on the street, but they were also encouraged to disregard actual victims of serious crimes who wanted to file reports.
Arresting bystanders made it look like the department was efficient, while artificially reducing the amount of serious crime made the commander look good.
And so the NYPD’s “Quality Assurance Division” investigated Schoolcraft’s claims. Even as the po-po persecuted the whistleblower, their own peeps discovered that Schoolcraft wasn’t whistling Dixie.
Investigators went beyond Schoolcraft’s specific claims and found many other instances in the 81st Precinct where crime reports were missing, had been misclassified, altered, rejected, or not even entered into the computer system that tracks crime reports.
These weren’t minor incidents. The victims included a Chinese-food delivery man robbed and beaten bloody, a man robbed at gunpoint, a cab driver robbed at gunpoint, a woman assaulted and beaten black and blue, a woman beaten by her spouse, and a woman burgled by men who forced their way into her apartment.
“When viewed in their totality, a disturbing pattern is prevalent and gives credence to the allegation that crimes are being improperly reported in order to avoid index-crime classifications,” investigators concluded. “This trend is indicative of a concerted effort to deliberately underreport crime in the 81st Precinct.”
And throughout ALL of New York City. I repeat the gun control connection: if you want to prevent citizens from taking up arms in their own self-defense, a practice protected by the United States constitution, you want those citizens to believe there’s no need.
I’m not saying this scandal is a conspiracy to deny New York City dwellers their 2A rights. I’m saying it’s part of that conspiracy. The New York City police lied and people died. People who might have been able to save their own lives.
Nothing the mayor or his minions do surprises me. The guy is a scumbag of the lowest possible order. What I don’t understand is why he is still in office.
I agree. This is just SNAFU.
I could not disagree more, sir! The Honorable Mr. Bloomberg is a multi-billionaire. He is, therefore, a man whose personal integrity and high-moral-standing is beyond reproach. Shame on you for questioning his awesomeness! Shame!
LOL x 1000
Bloomberg continues in office because… well…
Back in the 30s, a NYC reporter by the name of H. L. Mencken wrote “You’ll never go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people”.
True then. True now.
A strong common-sense society values individual self-sufficiency and self-reliance, personal accountability, extended family support reciprocity among members, and neighbors being good Samaritans helping out other neighbors, etc — all values the police-nanny state is against.
But if instead you convince everyone to rely on the government to do that for you than you can keep convincing them that they need a larger and larger government.
Adrian Schoolcraft is currently suing the NYPD. I heard an interview with him several months back. The story he tells is horrific in the extreme, and that was just in his precinct; extrapolate across all of NYPD’s jurisdiction and I think that it paints a very ugly picture. His interview was on This American Life, on NPR, back in September 2011.
You should check out Schoolcraft’s web page.
Here’s Schoolcraft’s web page: http://schoolcraftjustice.com/
He tells a pretty horrific story.
I lived in NYC for a number of years during the last decade. While I was there, a few times a year or so there would be a blurb in the NY Post or wherever talking about how the stats were being manipulated lower and that the city wasn’t as safe as Nanny Mike claimed it was. The story usually involved the police pressuring crime victims into not reporting the crime. Hence less crime reported = unicorns and rainbows! The story line never seemed to pick up steam and always went away after a day or two. Myself and all my colleagues never understood how the official stats never seemed to jive with reality – sort of like today’s unemployment numbers.
It’s not just in respect to crime stats, it’s stats in general. These days statistics are so widely used it seems like people are more apt to look at what the statistics say than to use their own eyes, ears, and reasoning. Take teaching for example, we have all these standardized tests and rating systems used to judge teachers instead of the administrators simply looking at the students to see if they are learning what is being taught and if it’s being taught well.
Statistics are useful when used as a part of the whole picture, but it seems like far too many are simply relying on statistics alone, and others are using it to manipulate and give false impressions. For instance in Maryland the antis proudly trumpet that the MSP approve something like 90% of all applicants for a CCW permit. This ignores the fact that most people are advised not to even apply (until the recent Wollard ruling) since they would be denied and would have wasted their $112+ application fees.
Sounds like the Five-O-Clock Follies in Vietnam.
Really skews some of the Gun Control Data in favor of the Pro 2A side.
Total Gun Control = High Crime.
Does anyone think that the 81st is the only NYC precinct that’s cooking the books? No? Neither do I.
http://newsandinsight.thomsonreuters.com/Legal/News/2011/10_-_October/NYPD_case_puts_spotlight_on_stop-and-frisk_policy/
There were 700,000 illegal stops in 2011. This kind of fascism doesn’t start with the donut-eaters, it starts at the top, with that POS Bloomberg and his scumbag chief Ray Kelly. Well, Kelly seems to have his hands full now trying to get his son off on a rape charge, while Obama is romancing Bloomberg for reasons that I don’t even want to think about. Gun Czar, anyone?
Gun Czar, anyone?
Oh man. Don’t even joke about that Ralph.
I’d guess, in this order, romancing him for money and an endorsement. Greg’s charges disappeared a month ago. Well, now London and New York seem to be in a neck-and-neck race for most heavily bleached crime statistics. Surprise. Have to keep the RE prices up and the two financial districts extra-safe with unusual policing methods and a concentration of surveillance and firepower. The concentration is hurting both nations, but both cities are fighting tooth-and-claw (well, checkbook and wire-transfer) t0 keep their good thing going. Chicago’s joined the fray, same play-book, so it’s not over yet. LA’s up next. Frankfurt is donning its armor. They all want the peasants and freemen disarmed, I would suppose. Nothing new there. Hope SCOTUS stays on the ball. Iffy.
Wait, I thought Frank Reagan was Comish and I remember him firing a District Commander for this kind of business — wait a minute that was a TV show and not reality.
We could only wish that Frank Reagan was the commish (I watch the show too). Been quite a few years since NYC had that kind of honesty at that level of govt.
When Malcolm Gladwell talked about the startling decreases in crime in NYC, I guess faking the stats is one explanation that never occurred to him…
A better question to ask is, whether or not these trumped up stats were used to apply for and/or receive federal money to fight crime. That kids, is a big no-no and involves magical words like “conspiracy” and “fraud” and “false pretenses” and “RICO”. I am just saying . . . . . .
I will go out on a professional limb, but I suspect NYC’s “finest” did obtain federal money to buy lots of new toys and to arm Bloomberg’s army as they march across the Hudson. And you know what federal charges bring? SNITCHES! People willing to drop dime to save their own sorry A$$e$ !!! Betch someone has a copy of a piece of paper with Bloomie’s signature or email showing he was involved. Now if we can just change over the Justice Dept. leadership in November’s elections . . . .
I like the way you think! And yeah, for this to work, there definitely needs to be some house cleaning at the Dept. of Justice.
Program Fraud is another federal charge. I would love to see Ray Kelly or Bloomie himself in a mugshot. . . . . . . .
One could say it’s their problem and their city but Mayor Mike likes to extend his reach outside of Gotham regularly. This makes their business our business because if he can get away with sending NYPD all the way to VA on secret missions then we need to be aware of how his little army is acting up.
Mike is older than I, so I look forward to reading his obituary.
“I’m not saying this scandal is a conspiracy to deny New York City dwellers their 2A rights. I’m saying it’s part of that conspiracy. The New York City police lied and people died.”
NEWS FLASH for liberal NYC voters: There ARE consequences to voting for an anti-gun politician like Bloomie. You just have to wait a while to experience them.
The Soviets would be (and are) proud of us! We are using their methods perfectly, except for a few uncontrolled news outlets and the Internet. I’m quite sure they will get around to that too.