Police News Roundup.
The Times has an interesting item about the possible repeal of the 1974 Rockefeller drug laws. Base10 sees both sides of this issue, but would rather the legislature err on the side of keeping drug dealers in jail. Short sentences mean that jail can be viewed as a cost of doing business and make the idea of selling drugs that much more appealing. Let's face it, if you deal you're unlikely to be arrested on any given day. However, you are likely to be arrested say, once a year. If the probable punishment is a slap on the wrist, you're more likely to deal anyway. The short sentence is a fixed cost, like the water bill.

Detectives released a person of interest in the subway shooting of model/actress Monica Meadows yesterday. Although fitting the description of the shooter, the man turned himself in. His account apparently satisfied investigators.

The Post is reporting that the FBI has sharply criticized the NYPD for crediting Detective George Corey for being solely responsible for the arrest of London's Islamic Cleric/Homicidal Maniac Abu Hamza al-Masri.

Testimony began yesterday in the suit by the self-styled defenders of our civil liberties, the NYCLU against the city regarding its crowd control tactics during the upcoming Republican National Convention. The NYCLU claims that the use of metal pens and Police horses should be right out! NYCLU Director Donna Lieberman said NYC has "a fundamental constitutional obligation, to be as welcoming to those that come to protest...as it is to the convention." Yes Donna, but don't other New Yorkers have a right to be safe from the riots we've seen in DC, Seattle and elsewhere? Are the protesters the only ones with civil liberties?

In another unusual privatization of law enforcement, the Times Square Alliance has funded bomb-sniffing canine patrols for the area. The organization has acquired three dogs and will conduct random patrols.

Heroes:

• Firefighters, medical personnel and the victim, Sherland Chandler-Torres, who had a 1 and 1/4 inch pole pierce her body in an auto accident. Base10 hopes she is okay.
  
• The US economy, for having a steady unemployment rate of 5.6% and adding almost 1 million jobs in the last three months.
  
• FDNY Medal Day recipients. Congratulations!

Goats:

• FDNY EMT Gary Ruiz, who was arrested for sexually assaulting a 14 year-old girl. The incidents allegedly happened when the girl was seven through nine year-old.
  
• Not to be outdone by the FDNY, Department of Education employee Limbert Charles, who was arrested for fondling two 13 year-old girls in a Brooklyn Middle School.
  
• Francisco Rodriguez, whose conscience got the better of him when he confessed to the commission of a 23 year-old murder/robbery in the Bronx. Rodriguez pleaded guilty yesterday and got 15-to-life.
  
• Mother of all goats, O.J. Simpson, for giving interviews to FOX and NBC that were disparaging to his victim and her family on the tenth anniversary of Nicole Simpson's death.
  
• Oh, and FOX and NBC for allowing him any airtime.

And finally, in the "art imitating luncheon meats" department, a Brooklyn "artist" has created a bed enrobed with ham in a midtown hotel window display. The article is quite funny. The artist, Cosimo Cavallaro, has previously worked in cheese having covered the inside of a hotel room with mozzarella. But the Italian Cavallaro wants to work in ham now, rejecting prosciutto as being too "pompous." Now if he could only find an artist who worked in bread, then we'd have something!
- posted by Base10 @ 9:47 AM