Police News Roundup (the Sequel)
On Friday, a 32-year-old transsexual and his (her?) 17-year-old lover were stuck up a tree in Central Park and refused to come down. They climbed the tree for an unexplained reasons, engaged in sex acts and refused entreaties by the police to come down instead continually taunting responding officers. It was well into the night by the time they climbed down and were arrested. You know sometimes you just can't make this stuff up. What is even more interesting is that the Mayor used this incident to answer critics that the new safe NYC has lost some of its charm.

Also in the Times, a story about a high-tech pilot project in the 115 Precinct that lets cops use cell phones to translate for foreign complainants. It's an interesting concept.

While not strictly police related, on Wednesday, the City came to a tentative agreement with the largest municipal union, DC 37. The pact calls for a $1000 cash bonus (in lieu of retroactive raises), a 3% raise in the second year and a 2% raise in the third year that is negotiable up to 3% for further productivity increases. In exchange, the union agreed to starting salaries for new employees to be set 15% lower than tenured employees for their first two years. This pact has tremendous impact on the uniform unions particularly the police, since it sets the pattern for future settlements with other unions. The problem for the police is that recruiting is already very difficult since rookie police officers already have a significantly lower starting salary and this kind of deal would not work. The best analysis is in the Times here, here, and here. See PD, FD and Teacher union response here.

The Post reports that off-duty cops, firemen and other municipal employees are parking for free in Flushing Meadow park. Better bring in the State Special Prosecutor on this one! In a somewhat related story, the Post also reports that self-styled whistleblower Sgt. John Marchisotto is claiming that officers assigned to the Viper Units (the video surveillance units that came under controversy a few weeks ago) were engaging in such nefarious acts of misconduct as watching Housing project residents having sex (apparently in public), watching rented movies, and fabricating logbooks. Remember when Police corruption involved graft? Let's hope the Police are better at catching criminals than they are at committing corruption.

Then again, maybe the Police Department hasn't completely forgotten how to do corruption. The Daily News reports grand jury testimony by three confidential informants against ex-detectives Julio Vasquez and Thomas Rachko in an expanding federal inquiry. The informants didn't know the information they passed on was used not to catch drug dealers but to steal from them.

The Post also has an interesting piece on DNA evidence and the occurrence of "cold hits" that lead to the identification of sex crime suspects. Many civil libertarians oppose this technology, but here is a guy that would have never been caught without the DNA database.

The News reports the NYPD made large scale arrests of thirty-six people for a string of burglaries in Queens of possibly up to 300 homes. Known as the Codwise Gang, the bad guys, mostly illegals from Cali, Colombia, targeted Asian families and stole an estimated $1.5 million dollars. A rape occurred during one of the crimes.

Congratulations to Michael Palladino, the newly elected president of the Detectives' Endowment Association. He has his work cut out for him given the current contract situation.

FDNY brass has ordered firefighters to be extra careful when going on Housing project rooftops after a group of firemen where startled by two cops with exposed handguns when the firemen responded to a stuck elevator in the building. I wonder if the cops were frightened by the big axes?

Lenny Levitt reports that the city has changed its vote in the controversial award of a disability pension to former Chief of Personnel Michael Markman. Litigation is apparently in the works.

In a story that hasn't caught on in the mainstream, the NYPD is engaged in a pilot project using high tech wireless computers to write traffic summonses. For more on this interesting story check here.

And finally, in the "there ought to be a law" department, a Louisiana legislator has proposed a law banning low-slung pants. The proposed statute would criminalize pants that exposed skin or intimate clothing like g-strings or boxers and subject their wearer's to fines of up to $500 and possible jail time. While local civil libertarians are skeptical of the proposed legislation, Base10 believes this would be a boom to law enforcement nationwide. Picture this conversation during a car stop:
"Officer why are you pulling me over?"
"Just the slacks, ma'am."
- posted by Base10 @ 12:28 PM