The Blue Wall Cracks: NYPD Officers Approve Corruption
By By John Christopher Fine, The Epoch Times, On November 3, 2011
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NEW YORK—They are sworn to uphold the law. When they go wrong there is nobody to stop them. That there are corrupt cops is not surprising. That their criminal conduct is condoned, even applauded, by other police officers is appalling.

A continuing scandal in the New York Police Department under Commissioner Ray Kelly, has sparked protests by tough looking cops rallying around the courthouse to support Officer Joe Ramos, a 17-year veteran of the NYPD. Ramos was indicted for making a heroin buy and delivering it while on duty in his patrol car. Ramos is also charged with stealing $50,000 from a police undercover operative that posed as a drug dealer and for revealing an informant’s identity.

Corruption of the most evil sort, proved by taped recordings, with the worst motives and language, is condoned.

Sixteen NYPD officers were indicted on charges that they used the law they were sworn to uphold for their own purposes. Police Lieutenant Jennara Everleth-Cobb was reported to have leaked information about the investigation to a Police Benevolent Association (PBA) official and other cops. Wiretaps issued by the court, revealed in the indictments in Bronx Supreme Court, quoted Lt. Jennara Everleth-Cobb saying “Be careful when you’re on the phone. They’re listening.”

Jose Ramos is quoted on the wires saying “I stopped caring about the law a long time ago…I could drive a dead body in the trunk of my car where I want to and nobody would stop me.”

Officer Christopher Scott was recorded saying to other cops in an assault cover-up fix, “We don’t know who did this, ok? We’re going to make this go away for him.”

Another NYPD officer, Jamie Pagan, fixed a relative’s ticket and was recorded saying, “Whatever you need, you tell me and I’ll take care of it. You won’t get no f… hassle. It will be like it never happened.” Pagan is a PBA Delegate.

That these NYPD officers were caught is a wonder in and of itself. That many of them were involved as officers with the PBA is a disgrace to police officers everywhere.

PBA Trustee Brian McGuckin was charged with 2 counts of forgery, 2 counts criminal possession of a forged instrument, 62 counts of official misconduct and more.

PBA Trustee Joseph Anthony was charged with 1 count tampering with a public record, 10 counts of grand larceny, 44 counts of official misconduct and more.

PBA Trustee Michael Hernandez was charged with 1 count tampering with public records, 22 counts of grand larceny, 48 counts of official misconduct and more.

PBA Delegate Luis Rodriguez was charged with 17 counts of grand larceny, 40 counts official misconduct, 19 counts of conspiracy and more.

Surprising? No. Not in the NYPD where corruption scandals reached even the top echelons of administration. A recent Commissioner was proposed for a U.S. cabinet position in Homeland Security until his misconduct was revealed.

What is menacing to society is the fact that PBA union delegates and officers were arrested and indicted for serious crimes and that 500 other officers and their PBA union rallied to their support outside the courthouse where they were arraigned on the charges.

The signal is very clear. Corruption of the most evil sort, proved by taped recordings, with the worst motives and language, is condoned. It is approved. Police officers waved placards that proclaimed “NYPD Culture, Not A Crime.” And, “Just Following Orders.” The arrests and protesters ran the gamut of NYPD population: women, men, blacks, Hispanics, Irish descendants, veterans and younger officers.

The disgrace and shame brought to the NYPD by the arrests pales in comparison to the boldness of the ostensible cover-up and approval by their peers.

When terrorists wear a police uniform and flout the law, when their colleagues in the department cover-up and condone their criminal conduct then it is time to reassess the power put in the hands of bad people.

That this NYPD scandal existed at all is a direct result of defective management. Some ranking police officers seek ambitious goals beyond their status. That they receive publicity in connection with their appearances on television helps them along in their egotistical agendas. When a commissioner is on watch and a scandal of major proportions happens, it is time to put aside personal goals and take responsibility for the massive corruption that could only take place through bad management.

Laughing and sneering NYPD officers boasted their support for these crooked cops with placards reading “‘It’s been going on since the days of the Egyptians.’—Mayor Mike Bloomberg.” The comment by New York City’s mayor in April justifying ticket fixing because it has always happened is a form of approbation. Corruption, brutality and misconduct cannot exist in any police department unless it is countenanced by other officers and an equally corrupt political structure.
John Christopher Fine served as senior Assistant District Attorney in New York County’s Rackets Bureau where he investigated and prosecuted matters involving official corruption and organized crime. He served as head of the Organized Crime Task Force and was Special Counsel to a U.S. Senate investigating committee. He continues as a consultant to government for matters involving official corruption and organized crime.

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NYPD Cops Arrested for Gun Smuggling

Ray Kelly, Police Commissioner, Under Fire Over Corruption Cases
By Graham Rayman, Village Voice, Fri., Nov. 4 2011 at 1:08 PM
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?Over the past few weeks, one scandal after another has hit the police department, making things increasingly uncomfortable for Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and his top advisors, and the accretion of negative news has some people arguing for change in the department's leadership.
Such a remark would be unheard of just a few months ago, but the hits just keep on coming. The eight officers charged with gun smuggling. The seven drug cops convicted of planting evidence on people to hit their arrest quotas--clear evidence of the danger of having quotas in the first place. Three others convicted of robbing a perfume warehouse. Sixteen officers charged with crimes in connection with ticket fixing, and hundreds of others swept up in looming disciplinary cases related to that probe.

Yes, things are looking bleak for Kelly. A major signal was an unusually critical piece in the New York Times this week. The article pointed out that outside investigators, not the NYPD's vaunted Internal Affairs Bureau uncovered the misconduct. A dozen current and former prosecutors with experience in investigating corruption told the Times that the department can no longer police itself, and the outside agencies which are supposed to monitor the department are weak and ineffective. The Mayor's Commission to Combat Police Corruption has been gutted and only issues one report a year.

The article makes a point the Voice made a year ago, in that Internal Affairs is crippled with bureaucracy, and it treats every case the same, whether major or minor. The result is that important cases languish, while minor cases get too much attention.

Meanwhile, Murray Weiss, the former New York Post police bureau chief now writing for DNA Info noted that while Kelly has tried to blame the scandals on "a few bad apples," the real message of that claim is that "the NYPD is a closed society that will protect its own."

And Bob Hennelly of WNYC reports that critics are questioning the secretive operations of the Police Foundation, which raises money for NYPD projects from wealthy donors who get access to the department in return. One critic said the money makes the NYPD "beholden" to a private entity with no oversight or transparency.

The New York Post reported that the department has stopped making observation drug arrests--that is, the practice of narcotics investigators arresting people when they see a drug deal taking place.

On Thursday, elected pols held a news conference calling on the mayor to create an independent commission to investigate systemic corruption in the NYPD. State Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries declared that the corruption cases "threatened to undermine the public's confidence in the police and the department's ability to police itself." Meanwhile, Sen. Eric Adams said he will introduce a bill in Albany to create an independent commission if the mayor doesn't do it.

Over the past 40 years, two such commissions have been empaneled. In the 1970s, the Knapp Commission looked into police taking bribes on a massive scale. In the 1990s, the Mollen Commission examined police robbing drug dealers.

A statement from the mayor's press office gave the pols the stiff arm, arguing there was no need for a commission, with the five district attorneys, two U.S. Attorneys, the CCRB and Internal Affairs. "There is absolutely no need to create another layer of government here," the statement read.