Tag: nypd

Top-ranking NYPD officer abruptly resigns amid sexual misconduct allegations

The top uniformed police officer in the New York Police Department has resigned amid allegations he demanded sex from a subordinate in exchange for opportunities to earn extra pay.

Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch accepted the resignation of Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey Friday night, effective immediately, according to an emailed statement from the department Saturday.

John Chell, the department’s chief of patrol, will take over as interim chief of department and Philip Rivera will assume Chell’s duties as the head of the patrol division, the department said.

The department declined to comment on the allegations against Maddrey other than to say it “takes all allegations of sexual misconduct seriously and will thoroughly investigate this matter.”

A lawyer for his accuser, Lt. Quathisha Epps, said the move was overdue.

“This should have been done a long time ago,” attorney Eric Sanders said by phone Saturday. “This has been years in the making, this kind of behavior. This is not shock for anyone who understands how things work in this department.”

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The NYPD Is Illegally Leaking Sealed Records About Children to Tabloids

Last spring, New York City police officers stopped a 19-year-old on the subway during her commute. She was eligible for a free transfer from the bus to the subway, but the transfer failed to register at the turnstile, so she and a friend entered through the platform emergency exit door.

Police stopped them, took their names, and let her friend go. Officers told the 19-year-old she had a prior arrest — from 2018, when she was in her early teens — and began to question her.

The cops should not have known about that past arrest. A New York state law protects juvenile records in cases without any finding of guilt from access by anyone, including law enforcement, without a court order.

The arrest had occurred after an incident involving the girl’s mother that resulted in child services filing a petition against her mother for abuse and neglect, and removal of the girl from her mother’s custody. At the time of the subway encounter, she was still in foster care.

The arrest was never prosecuted and was later dismissed and sealed. Yet officers had managed to access the sealed record from their phones and question her about it.

The young woman is one of three plaintiffs who filed a class-action suit in July against the city and NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban for what they said was a practice of illegally accessing, using, and leaking sealed youth records. The suit, which was unsealed Thursday, alleges that officials routinely share those sealed records with prosecutors and the media — specifically with pro-cop tabloids that regularly publish juvenile arrest information sourced from police.

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Investigation Finds NYPD Disciplinary Records Often Go Missing

In the summer of 2021, New York Police Department officer Willie Thompson had sex at least twice with a witness to a Harlem carjacking that he was investigating. When a prosecutor questioned Thompson about his relationship with the witness, Thompson first lied, denying the relationship, before recanting and confessing the next day, according to an internal discipline report. About a week later, the woman, sounding upset, called the prosecutor and said Thompson had cornered her at a bodega, blaming her for getting him in trouble and threatening that officers from the precinct would be coming to her home, the document shows.

Thompson, who declined to comment, was found guilty by the NYPD on two misconduct charges and was placed on probation.

But if you looked up his disciplinary history on the department’s public database of uniformed officers, you would be unlikely to learn that.

ProPublica has found the NYPD site for allowing the public to track officers’ misconduct is shockingly unreliable. Cases against officers frequently vanish from the site for days — sometimes weeks — at a time. The issue affects nearly all of the officers in the database, with discipline disappearing from the profiles of patrol officers all the way up to its most senior uniformed officer.

ProPublica examined more than 1,000 daily snapshots of the database’s contents and found that, since the fall of 2022, the number of discipline cases that appear in the database has fluctuated often and wildly. Try to pull up the record for a disciplined officer and the site sometimes spits back, “This officer does not have any applicable entries.”

Since May 2021, at least 88% of the disciplinary cases that once appeared in the data have gone missing at some point, though some were later restored. As of this week, 54% of cases that had at one point been in the system were missing.

“It is really disconcerting to see that there are records that are there one day that are not the next,” said Jennvine Wong, a supervising attorney with the Legal Aid Society’s Cop Accountability Project.

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New Columbia Wrinkle: Police Takedown Facilitated By Faculty Member Who Serves On NYPD Anti-Terror Squad…Conspiracists Cry Foul

The recent ousting of students and professional agitators from a Columbia University building was led in part by a Columbia adjunct professor who is also the civilian Deputy Commissioner for Intelligence and Counterterrorism for the NYPD.

The story is from The Grayzone, a media project headed by Max Blumenthal, Jewish blogger and former Clinton aide. That said, the article is written with a decidedly pro-Palestine bent. Author Wyatt Reed describes the Columbia uprising as a “protest model [that] has since spread to over 100 other universities in the US, and even been taken up abroad, with similar actions occurring at Leeds University in the UK and the Sorbonne in Paris”, as if it were organic, and not, in fact, funded by groups such as the Soros-backed U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR).

Still, Reed injects some salient points into the Columbia conversation. He correctly notes that, “During the NYPD’s triumphant May 1 post-raid press conference, Weiner blamed ‘outside agitators’ for triggering the military-style police crackdown at Columbia. However, she refused to name the outsiders supposedly on the scene.”

Next, Reed asserts that Weiner falsely used the terroristic past of an elderly Columbia encampment visitor–Nahla al-Arian, 63, as preface for police intevention:

“…a brief visit to Columbia by Nahla Al-Arian, who Weiner incorrectly described as ‘the wife of somebody who had been convicted for material support to terrorism.’

‘That’s not somebody who I would want necessarily influencing my child if I were a parent of somebody at Columbia,’ Weiner commented.

Nahla’s husband, Palestinian academic Sami Al-Arian, had been indicted on flimsy terrorism charges in 2003, but a jury refused to convict him. Nevertheless, her brief stop at the Columbia encampment — where she says she did not even interact with any demonstrators — was cited by Adams during three separate media engagements to justify the police repression.”

–Ibid., editorial emphasis.

Further, Reed points out, somewhat ominously, that Weiner is the granddaughter of one of the creators of the hydrogen bomb:

“Weiner is the granddaughter of Stanislaw Ulam, the Polish Jewish mathematician who helped conceive the hydrogen bomb as part of the Manhattan Project. “I’m very proud of that legacy,” Weiner said of her grandfather’s work upon being appointed as NYPD intelligence chief.“

–Ibid.

Reed stops short of calling Weiner a Mossad asset, but he sets the table elaborately, stopping just short of lighting the dinner candles:

“The NYPD’s Counterterrorism Bureau currently maintains an office in Tel Aviv, Israel, where it coordinates with Israel’s security apparatus and maintains a department liaison. Weiner appears to serve as a bridge between the Bureau’s offices in Israel and New York.

A 2011 AP investigation revealed that a so-called ‘Demographics Unit’ operated secretly within the NYPD’s Counterterrorism and Intelligence Bureau. This shadowy outfit spied on Muslims around the New York City area, and even on students at campuses outside the state who were involved in Palestine solidarity activism. The unit was developed in tandem with the CIA, which has refused to name the former Middle East station chief it posted in the senior ranks of the NYPD’s intelligence division. 

The ‘Demographics Unit’ appears to have been inspired by Israeli intelligence as well. As a former police official told the AP, the unit attempted to ‘map the city’s human terrain’ through a program ‘modeled in part on how Israeli authorities operate in the West Bank.‘”

–Ibid., editorial emphasis.

To sum up: Rebecca Weiner is, plainly, a liaison between the NYPD and Columbia University. The police division she works for was formed as a response to 9/11, and was done so with Israeli intelligence guidance, as would seem a natural fit for a country that has dealt with Middle East terrorism for decades.

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NYPD faces backlash as it prepares to encrypt radio communications

The New York police department (NYPD) is facing serious backlash after announcing additional details about its plan to encrypt its radio communications system, which experts warn will limit transparency and accountability.

NYPD radio signals have been publicly accessible since 1932, allowing journalists and civilians to listen to police communications, Gothamist reported. The NYPD will now be encrypting its radio channels for the first time ever. Police radio encryption is already underway in several US cities, including Chicago and Denver.

Since starting in July, 10 precincts have already “gone dark”, or fully encrypted their radio systems. The entire “upgrade” to a new, encrypted radio system will be completed by December 2024 and cost an estimated $400m, a hefty price tag as several city agencies have been forced to swallow major budget cuts.

Critics of encryption say that the public radio channels are necessary for police accountability, press freedom and public safety.

Albert Fox Cahn, the executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (Stop), a New York-based civil rights organization, called planned encryption a “disturbing attack on transparency and public oversight of the police”.

“Radio monitoring is one of the few ways that we can get an unfiltered look at how the NYPD is policing,” Cahn said.

Several police-involved killings have been uncovered by the press after listening to police radios, Cahn said. Video of an NYPD officer killing Eric Garner in 2014 was obtained due to a call on the police radio, Gothamist reported. The police killings of Amadou Diallo in 1999 and Sean Bell in 2006 were also uncovered due to police radio communications.

“Without public radio, we will simply be at the mercy of police to tell us when they killed someone. There’ll be no one else who knows,” Cahn said.

Press freedom advocates have also argued that encrypting police radios will prevent journalists from accurately reporting or covering police misconduct, ultimately allowing the NYPD to decide what should be considered news.

Todd Maisel, founder of New York Media Consortium, a group of eight media organizations against radio encryption, says: “Having the NYPD controlling the narrative is the worst possible scenario.

“They’re not going to tell you stories about anything that didn’t go well,” he added.

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NYPD ACCUSED OF FABRICATING DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SURVIVOR’S MURDER CONFESSION

A WOMAN WHO was charged with murdering her husband in 2020 sued the New York City Police Department, alleging that police officers fabricated the confession that was the basis of the case against her. The federal civil rights lawsuit also alleges that the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office obtained a search warrant for an email account she created to draw attention to her case — and never disclosed it, as required by law. 

Prosecutors dropped their case against Tracy McCarter last December, citing insufficient evidence. In the lawsuit, which was filed on November 2 in the Southern District of New York, McCarter said she had “sustained serious physical and psychological harm as a result of being wrongfully arrested, charged, imprisoned, searched, and prosecuted.” 

The lawsuit names four NYPD officers who were involved with the arrest and one investigator from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office who worked on the case. All four of the police officers have previously faced civilian complaints of misconduct, though such allegations are famously hard to prove. A spokesperson for the NYPD declined to comment on whether any of the officers are being investigated in relation to McCarter’s case, citing the pending litigation. The district attorney’s office declined to comment on the allegation involving the undisclosed search warrant. 

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NYPD Will Spend Nearly $400 Million to Hide its Radio Communications

The New York Police Department (NYPD) will spend nearly $400 million to upgrade its radio system, including encrypting its communications channels, which the public has been able to tune into since 1932.

At a New York City Council meeting Monday, NYPD Chief of Information Technology Ruben Beltran said the upgrade, expected to cost $390 million, will be completed by the end of next year, replacing the old analog radio network with a fully encrypted digital system. 

The move is part of a growing trend. Over the last decade, other large police departments in Chicago, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Portland have all encrypted their radio communications or are planning to do so. Departments say broadcasting in the clear gives criminals advance warning. Beltran said encryption would also protect the information of crime victims and block pranksters who jam up NYPD frequencies. (The NYPD regularly leaks information on arrestees and even victims for political purposes.)

However, scanner enthusiasts, news organizations, and elected officials complain that encrypted radio is cutting off a longstanding and useful source of information on police activity. As Gothamist reported, NYPD radio chatter has been the source of several major news stories over the years:

The New York Daily News obtained the crucial video of Officer Daniel Pantaleo killing Eric Garner thanks to a call that came over the police radio in Staten Island. As tens of thousands of peaceful demonstrators flooded the streets in June 2020, Gothamist recorded NYPD officers on radio airwaves using threatening language about the protesters, including saying that officers should run protesters over and shoot them. Responding, one officer was recorded saying “don’t put that over air.”

Police frequencies going dark is especially challenging for photojournalists, who rely on scanners to get to emergency scenes as fast as possible. The Chicago Police Department is considering a 30-minute public broadcast delay to allow news organizations to still hear dispatch calls.

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NYPD detective Louis Scarcella dubbed ‘the closer’ is accused of rigging DOZENS of murder cases and costing taxpayers $110 MILLION in settlements to wrongly-convicted prisoners

A retired NYPD detective accused of rigging dozens of murder cases has cost taxpayers $110million in settlements from 14 overturned convictions.

Louis N. Scarcella, known to colleagues as ‘the closer,’ allegedly coerced confessions and made up witness testimony to help secure convictions leading to people spending decades locked up before being exonerated.

The cost to the taxpayer has been colossal. New York City has paid $73.1 million in settlements to people investigated by the former detective, and the state has paid out another $36.9 million, according to The New York Times. 

The city is expected to be on the hook for tens of millions more, as three men cleared last year of burning a subway token clerk alive in 1995 have filed lawsuits. 

A second-generation cop who smoked cigars, ran marathons, worked a side job at a Coney Island amusement park and jokingly put ‘adventurer’ on his business card, Scarcella, now 72, worked in the Brooklyn North homicide squad during the crack epidemic of the eighties and nineties.

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Neo-Nazi Maniac Who Planned to Shoot Up Synagogue Was Given His Guns by Law Enforcement

Former U.S. Marine Matthew Belanger is a maniacal psychopath who reportedly belonged to a Neo-Nazi group called “Rapekrieg” which planned to carry out a mass shooting on a Synagogue. Kicked out of the Marine Corps over his affiliation with Neo-Nazis, Belanger was barred from purchasing firearms but that didn’t stop him from obtaining two of them.

Fortunately, Belanger was outed by a fellow member of the “Rapekrieg” group before he was able to commit mass murder. However, the details surrounding his case lay the groundwork for wild conspiracy theories — especially since it was a New York police officer who supplied Belanger with the guns to carry out the shooting.

An explosive article in Rolling Stone lays out Belanger’s story in shocking detail, up to and including the mission of the Rapekrieg Neo-Nazi group in which Belanger was a member and author of the group’s manifesto.

According to court documents, reported on by Rolling Stone, while he was in the Marine Corps, Belanger was plotting a killing spree against minorities and to rape “white women to increase the production of white children,” according to federal prosecutors.

In a July 14 court memo, federal prosecutors say that while a Marine, Belanger plotted far more serious crimes as part of the neo-Nazi group. The memo says Belanger trained with airsoft guns in the woods of Long Island as part of a plot to attack the “Zionist Order of Governments.” The memo also says Belanger was the subject of an FBI Joint Terrorism Taskforce investigation into allegedly plotting to “engage in widespread homicide and sexual assault.” Much of Belanger’s ideology and plotting, the memo says, is based around a desire to lessen the number of nonwhite Americans and to rape “white women to increase the production of white children.”

One would think that pursuing the mission of raping white women and murdering minorities would set off red flags for law enforcement and one would be right. Belanger was well known to law enforcement, according to court documents, but that didn’t stop law enforcement from illegally arming the racist Marine.

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NYPD Police Union President Arrested for Stealing Over $1 Million from Fellow Cops in Lowlife Scheme

Nothing says “culture of corruption” quite like cops committing crimes against their fellow cops. And, perhaps nothing highlights this point better than one of the highest ranking cops in the country waging an elaborate scheme to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from his fellow officers.

This week, Edward Mullins, the former President of the Sergeants Benevolent Association (“SBA”), the union that represents all current and former Sergeants of the New York City Police Department, was charged for fraudulently using union funds for personal gain.

On Wednesday, Mullins turned himself in to the FBI and was charged with one count of wire fraud in connection with his despicable scheme. Mullins’ scheme involved using police union funds to live a lavish lifestyle at the expense of his fellow officers.

After his arrest, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said: “As alleged, Edward Mullins, the former President of the SBA, abused his position of trust and authority to fund a lavish lifestyle that was paid for by the monthly dues of the thousands of hard-working Sergeants of the NYPD.

“Mullins submitted hundreds of phony expense reports to further his scheme, stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from the SBA.  This Office is committed to rooting out corruption at all levels of government, and that includes public officials like Mullins who use their positions of power to line their own pockets to the detriment of others.”

According to the Department of Justice, for nearly two decades, from 2002 until October 2021, Mullins served as President of the SBA. As president Mullins was responsible for for promoting the general welfare of the SBA’s membership. Instead of doing that, however, this top cop “orchestrated a scheme to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from the SBA and its members.”

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