http://news.yahoo.com/…

When undercover detectives busted Jose and Maximo Colon last year for selling cocaine at a seedy club in Queens, there was a glaring problem: The brothers hadn’t done anything wrong.

But proclaiming innocence wasn’t going to be good enough. The Dominican immigrants needed proof.

“I sat in the jail and thought … how could I prove this? What could I do?” Jose, 24, recalled in Spanish during a recent interview.

As he glanced around a holding cell, the answer came to him: Security cameras. Since then, a vindicating video from the club’s cameras has spared the brothers a possible prison term, resulted in two officers’ arrest and become the basis for a multimillion-dollar lawsuit.

The officers, who are due back in court June 26, have pleaded not guilty, and New York Police Department officials have downplayed their case.

But the drug corruption case isn’t alone.

On May 13, another NYPD officer was arrested for plotting to invade a Manhattan apartment where he hoped to steal $900,000 in drug money. In another pending case, prosecutors in Brooklyn say officers were caught in a 2007 sting using seized drugs to reward a snitch for information. And in the Bronx, prosecutors have charged a detective with lying about a drug bust captured on a surveillance tape that contradicts her story.

Elsewhere, Philadelphia prosecutors dismissed more than a dozen drug and gun charges against a man last month when a narcotics officer was accused of making up information on search warrants.

The revelations in New York have triggered internal affairs inquiries, transfers of commanders and reviews of dozens of other arrests involving the accused officers. Many drug defendants’ cases have been tossed out. Others have won favorable plea deals.

The misconduct “strikes at the very heart of our system of justice and erodes public confidence in our courts,” said Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson.

Despite the fallout, authorities describe the corruption allegations as aberrations in a city where officers daily make hundreds of drugs arrests that routinely hold up in court. They also note none of the cases involved accusations of organized crews of officers using their badges to steal or extort drugs or money for personal gain — the story line of full-blown corruption scandals from bygone eras.

Peter Moskos, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, agrees the majority of narcotics officers probably are clean. But he also believes the city’s unending war on drugs will always invite corruption by some who don’t think twice about framing suspects they’re convinced are guilty anyway.

Prohibition creates a black market and a black market creates a distorted market situation waiting to be exploited. And those who are most incentivized to exploit it are those closest to it with the most power to cover up their actions.

… the news headlines could have read if I was an actual terrorist.

I was on my way out of the office and heading for the South Ferry 1 train. I noticed a group of three NYPD officers standing to the right of the turnstiles with their sign saying they can ask to search bags leaning up against the decorative gating. I see this from the bottom of the steps at the old N and R entrance and so I prepare myself for the possible bag search request.

Lately there has been an obvious increase in the frequency of these stations. Perhaps its a result of the grants from the federal government to expand the city security theater or something related to the recent stimulus bill. I don’t know and I’m not going to chat it up with one of the blue light gang to see if they know either.

So I always carry with me a cheap digital camera just in case I need to snap a photo of the growing police state or an official abusing their so called authority. Near the Metrocard machines at the N/R entrance I took the camera out of my pocket, made sure it was on video mode, and turned it on. Or so I thought.

As I walk toward the turnstiles and the officers a young woman with a large bass in a case with a single wheel walks out in from of a pillar and I pause to let her go around me. As that is occurring I’m tucking my copy of Ludwig Von Mises’ Socialism under my left arm pit so my left hand was free to take the Metrocard out of the sheath I keep in my right pocket in which I store my work ID and government transportation cards. Before the woman is able to get around me I hear: “HEY BUDD!” I know its directed at me since a prior survey of those walking with me showed no one else with a bag. I ignore it and continue to reach for my card but have yet to move forward again from stopping for the bassist. “HEY!” I hear again. I hesitate for what was not more than 500ms but surely felt longer in order to decide if I should respond or play deaf. I turned and with a innocent but slightly concerned and questioning look said: “Excuse me?”

I don’t recall if it was “Can we” or “We need to” “check your bag.”

I’ve gone through this situation before and in one case a far more intimidating scenario where I had already gone through the turnstile and was absolutely the only person around except for the officers standing three feet in front of me demanding to look through my things. So I’ve done mental exercises in hopes of better handling a similar encounter in the future. Maybe something to the effect: “For what reason? Under what authority? Do you have a warrant? Why can’t I use the subway? What if I just go down the street to the next station? What’s your name and badge number?” Unfortunately that all went out the window when I was in the spotlight and it came time for my response.

I say with a completely different demeanor from a second early, one of seriousness and likely contempt: “No.”

“You’re going to have to leave the subway then.”

Acting ignorant… “Can’t go over there either?” Pointing to the N/R entrance.

“No. Gotta go outside.”

“Hmm… OK.”

While this back and forth occurred I had turned to the right to face them and meandered a little to their left. To collect myself and put away my Metrocard. I notice the other office who was not behind the table talking to me but to his left was getting real close to me as if to escort me out. He didn’t lead me out but did follow me as I slowly walked toward where I entered. I kept peaking back and he eventually stopped and starred me down as I walked up the steps.

I started down the street toward the Bowling Green station. Turning back occasionally to see if I was being followed. After less than a block I decided I wasn’t in the mood to put up with that or take the Green line to Grand Central Station and then go to Port Authority by way of the Shuttle. I was already running late and given that the news of the MotorhomeDiaries crew’s arrest and imprisonment was still trickling out I wanted to get home as soon as possible.

So I turned around… headed back down the steps carefully checking to see if the officers were watching for me or in my direction. The way they were positioned give them the ability to see all those who entered so if I was going to get onto a train I needed to be careful or face arrest. So I waited a few minutes for a crowd to come down the steps and followed it to the turnstiles of the N/R and walked through down to the platform and onto the train. There was a slight scare when a couple stops down the train was held for several minutes without a reason and I noticed some officers on the south bound side looking around. But the doors eventually shut and I made it home with an elevated heart rate but otherwise untouched by the actors of the police state that is NYC.

So as I and many others have said hundreds of times before… baggage checks are nothing but security theater. In this instance I pushed it and entered the same station secretly but other times before the new South Ferry 1/N/R station combo I would be denied entry to the 1 and then just walk back across the street to the N/R and head uptown without a hitch. It’s extraordinarily ridiculous. If I’m rejected at 1… I’d suspect I’m not legally allowed to enter the N/R or any other station. Do they expect that once you are denied entry once that you can never ride again? If I’m a terrorist and am on my way to blow some train station up and am actually stopped… what keeps me from just going to the next station or waiting a few minutes and hiding in a crowd as it enters? Shouldn’t that officer followed me until I was off the island? It’s a big joke… on the public. They get to pay taxes to further oppress themselves with absolutely no gain. At least in Benjamin Franklin’s quote he assumed that the individual was giving up freedom for more security. In our case it is freedom for less security and explicit tyranny.

So my camera turned out not to be recording for the beginning of the brief conversation. I caught only the last of it and then I have a bunch of subway noise from when I made my reentrance. In the future I’ll just turn it on before I go in and leave it on. I’m thinking a digital audio recorder with an extended mic with a clip that I could have on my shirt would be better or maybe an audio/video recording wrist watch.

I’m going to try to better prepare myself for my next encounter by going over my script more and when I see the officers stationed in front of the enterance again I will pause, collect myself, go over the plan, start the recorder, breath deeply, and then go in. We’ll see…

http://gothamist.com/…

The city’s overall budget cuts are apparently hitting the NYPD right in the subway bag check area. MyFoxNY reports that with few police officers available, “Transportation Security Administration bag screeners from Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark Liberty airports will be replacing most NYPD cops in the subway that screen bags for explosives.” The TSA wouldn’t confirm the plan (but did say taking TSA screeners from airports and putting them underground wouldn’t effect air safety) and the NYPD says these are just talks. However, sources tell MyFoxNY it’s likely to happen—and it’ll work this way: “About 30 TSA screeners a day will be pulled from the three area airports Monday through Friday to inspect bags at various subway locations throughout the city. At each location they’ll be teamed up with one police officer instead of the two or three officers you currently see at inspection sites.” Naturally, the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association says this is a terrible idea and says budget crisis or no, the NYPD needs more cops.

I hope this happens before I leave and they increase the frequency of the searches. I’ve not had the chance to refuse a search in a long time even though it seems they are more often in the new South Ferry station than they used to be. It’ll be more fun to tell a cop and a TSA agent no than 2 or 3 cops.

http://www.nydailynews.com/…

The NYPD wants to cloak midtown with the same security blanket it rolled out for lower Manhattan: camera license plate readers, and radiation and bio scanners.

Those measures covering Manhattan south of Canal St. will slowly be applied to midtown, from 34th to 59th Sts., river to river, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told the City Council Public Safety Committee.

“We want to take that model, protecting the 1.7 square miles south of Canal and replicate it in midtown Manhattan,” Kelly said after the hearing Tuesday.

The NYPD wants $21 million in federal homeland security dollars to put toward the midtown project, estimated to cost $58 million.

Modeled after London’s “Ring of Steel,” the NYPD opened its coordination center last November, with cops monitoring feeds from 300 cameras and 30 mobile license plate readers in lower Manhattan.

The 24-hour center, based in a nondescript Broadway building, keeps tabs on high-profile terror targets such as the World Trade Center site and Wall Street.

Plans are underway to have some 3,000 cameras, public and privately owned, and as many as 96 fixed license-plate readers feeding into the center south of Canal St.

The NYPD is also looking to install permanent license plate scanners at each of the 20 crossings into Manhattan as part of an elaborate new safety scheme.

Police also want to install sensors to detect biological and radiological weapons.

The lower Manhattan plan costs an estimated $92 million. The department has already invested about $84 million to secure Manhattan south of Canal St., river to river.

It’s getting ridiculous in Manhattan. They recently opened the new 1, R, W station downtown at the South Ferry. Since then the NYPD has had a table set up to search people at least 50% of the time I’ve left work. Far more often than the old 1 station. I’ve yet to be stopped but mostly because I come in from behind them and they focus on the new entrance rather than the opened area coming from the R,W entry. I still plan on pressing my luck by informing the officer that since I’ve been denied entrance to the 1 I’ll take the R.

http://www.stclairrecord.com/

The city Belleville and a Belleville police officer are being sued by a man who claims he was wrongfully arrested and charged with falsely impersonating a police officer after wearing a T-shirt with the word “POLICE” written across the front and back.

Adam C. Weinstein, of Missouri, claims he was attending a pre-Christmas party on Dec. 23, 2006, at about 11:34 p.m. at Crehan’s Bar in Belleville, according to the complaint filed Dec. 22 in St. Clair County Circuit Court.

When Weinstein initially arrived at the party, he was wearing a green sweater with the black shirt bearing the word “POLICE” underneath the sweater. After getting hot at the bar, Weinstein removed his sweater, to reveal the “POLICE” shirt, the suit states.

Shortly afterwards, Weinstein claims he was told that some police officers wanted to talk to him outside.

Once he arrived outside, Weinstein was told to show officers his police identification, the suit states.

But Weinstein was a licensed Emergency Medical Technician and a licensed security officer, not a police officer, so he had no credentials, he claims.

Belleville police officer Jeff Vernatti placed Weinstein under arrest and placed handcuffs around his wrists, but “tightened them too tightly on Plaintiff,” according to the complaint.

After Weinstein asked if it was illegal to wear a T-shirt with the word “POLICE” on it, Vernatti told him to “shut the f*** up, you’re real f***ing stupid, you are a dumb-a** with no common sense, do you know how f***ing stupid you are?” the suit states.

Vernatti then twisted Weinstein’s wrists and quickly walked him across the parking lot, Weinstein claims.

Vernatti shoved Weinstein against the police cruiser with such force that his belt buckle left an impression on his abdomen, then pushed Weinstein into the back seat of the car, according to the complaint.

When Weinstein asked Vernatti to loosen his handcuffs, Vernatti instead tightened them and added a second pair onto his wrists, the suit states.

After writing a non-traffic complaint, Vernatti let Weinstein go, first telling him how lucky he was not to be charged with a felony and to be placed in jail, Weinstein claims.

But before letting Weinstein leave, Vernatti ordered him to take off his shirt in the cold weather, according to the complaint.

All the while, other Belleville officers stood by and did nothing, the suit states.

Eventually, Belleville’s prosecuting attorney dropped the case, the suit states.

Because of Vernatti’s actions, Weinstein suffered extreme emotional distress, fright, nervousness, indignity, humiliation, insult, loss of relationship and comfort and was forced to incur medical costs, he claims.

Vernatti falsely arrested; falsely detained; illegally, violently and improperly handcuffed and wrongly charged Weinstein with impersonating officers, Weinstein claims.

He also used excessive force, publicly embarrassed, harassed, verbally abused, physically abused, cause grievous and severe injuries to Weinstein, violated Weinstein’s protected civil rights and abused or misused their powers, according to the complaint.

Vernatti’s actions toward Weinstein were “extreme and outrageous,” the suit states.

The city of Belleville failed to train its police officers in matters that do not constitute an offense, failed to train it officers in matters that do not require individuals to be detained, failed to implement policies and procedures to prevent against untrained officers from detaining and charging innocent individuals and failed to train and supervise competent police officers, the suit states.

Weinstein claims his injuries were caused by someone who had final policymaking authority and that the city had a widespread practice of deliberate indifference to the prior improper conduct of Vernatti, that the city’s indifference is exemplified by its knowledge of previous allegations made by citizens of Vernatti’s behavior, that the city failed to investigate allegations and that the city failed to discipline Vernatti.

Belleville also failed to train other officers to stop Vernatti when he violated rights, should have known that Vernatti had been accused of excessive force on at least one prior occasion and failed to prevent Vernatti’s conduct on Dec. 23, 2006, according to the complaint.

In the five-count suit, Weinstein is seeking actual damages in excess of $250,000, punitive damages in excess of $200,000, plus attorney’s fees, costs and other relief the court deems just.

Howard A. Shalowitz of St. Louis will be representing him.

St. Clair County Circuit Court case number: 08-L-654.

All you people that purchased NYPD and NYFD gear after 9/11 best be turning them in. We don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea. Sports fans, you can’t be wearing your jerseys in public. You might be mistaken for a Cowboys player… or worse, an actual cowboy. Hey, music fans–watch what you wear too. Those Miami Sound Machine tees are mighty deceptive.

Next up: Plain White T-Shirt Act 2009.