Police News Roundup
In some good news on the crimefighting front, NY1 reports decades-low levels of crime in the subways. The Department attributed the continuing decline in subway crime to greater police presence in the subway system due to counterterrorism activity.

Also in NY1, Manhattan Borough President/Mayoral Wannabe C. Virginia Fields announced that she will hold hearings Thursday regarding the use of video surveillance in public housing projects. Thoughtfully, Ms. Fields has provided a toll-free number for people who think they've been negatively affected by cameras in public housing to call. However, no such number was provided for those positively affected, such as crime victims who's assailants have been apprehended because of the program. I'm glad to see the Manhattan BP is retaining an open mind on this issue.

In a related story, the Post followed up today on the potential scandal involving the suicide video captured by NYPD cops that was leaked to the internet. Apparently, IAB investigators are slowly backtracking the computer video file to its originator. This story has the potential to cause a bit of strife at the Department since the PD routinely assigns disciplinary problem cases to monitor the "viper" cameras.

Base10 usually doesn't comment on specific crimes unless they are particularly heinous or--as is the case here--particularly interesting. The Daily News reports at 4AM this morning a man used a sledge hammer to break into Tourneau's midtown store and made off with an estimated $200,000 worth of watches. This is definitely not your typical smash-and-grab robbery.

Today's Village Voice picked up the story of Derrick Parker, a member of the NYPD's controversial "hiphop squad." This unit apparently tracks crime among the performers in the rap community. Atypically for a Voice article, they actually allow the Detective to explain how investigations like this develop and is actually more reasonable that the shrill sounding objections of the opposing side represented by Benjamin Muhammad, the head of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network (Come on, is this a real organization?). Base10's favorite quote in the article comes from another critic of NYPD monitoring:

We want our celebrities to be protected, but what about their communities that are not protected? Jam Master Jay's mural is surrounded by a whole lot of other dead people. Who killed those people?

Well, it wasn't the NYPD.

And in the "Catholic Church needs another scandal like it needs a whole in the head" department, a Roman Catholic priest in Ohio was sentenced to probation for growing marihuana at his church residence. While the defendant, Rev. Richard Arko, admitted that his career as a priest is now over, Base10 believes he will still remain a "holy roller."

- posted by Base10 @ 7:01 PM