http://ap.google.com/…

A judge has dismissed criminal charges against the bicyclist who was body-checked by a New York City policeman in a widely viewed YouTube video.

Christopher Long was charged with resisting arrest after the incident on July 25 during a Critical Mass ride through Times Square. The monthly bike rides are held around the world to draw attention to alternatives to motor vehicles.

The charges were dismissed in court on Friday.

Police said the Hoboken, N.J., cyclist was arrested because he was obstructing traffic and deliberately steered his bicycle into an officer.

After the video emerged showing the policeman knocking Long to the ground, the officer, Patrick Pogan, was stripped of his badge and gun and assigned to desk duty. The Police Department is investigating.

The video had been viewed some 1.5 million times on YouTube as of July 27.

Yay Youtube.

Back in February I posted about Operation Torch. The New York Times article said: “Officials said the operation would begin in March.” Well, as you’d expect from the government they have just now started their increased militarization of the city.

http://wcbstv.com/…

The NYPD is pulling out all the stops to beef up safety of the subways. On Thursday it launched a new anti-terror effort called “Operation Torch,” but the cost of the program is raising some eyebrows.

The NYPD’s new firepower consists of cops with Mp5 submachine guns, rifles, body armor and bomb-sniffing dogs.

Starting Thursday, five or six teams a day will patrol the major transit hubs in the city in the new program, all thanks to a 50 percent increase in a Homeland Security grant.

“Times Square, Grand Central, Penn Station … the locations you would expect, but not only those locations. The assignments will vary and will be following no discernible pattern,” NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly said.

Many straphangers were thrilled to see the city going all the way to protect its citizens.

“It’s a very good idea,” Patricia Knight Williams said. “It’s like a deterrent. It’s going to make me feel safer, much safer, yes it will. It’s a good idea.”

Is Patricia Knight Williams high, retarded or being sarcastic? I’m hoping the latter.

The city’s massive subway system, With 5 million riders a day, has long been considered a potential terror target ever since Sept. 11, 2001.

Similarly equipped NYPD units known as “Hercules” teams have been patrolling the ground on Wall Street, the Empire State Building and other city landmarks.

Everyone seems to like the idea of an added police presence, particularly to fight terrorism on subway platforms, but then when you mention the price tag — $151 million – then people aren’t so sure.

“I think it’s a waste of money,” Michael Rivers said. “If someone wants to put a bomb in the subway how do you stop it?”

“It’s a hard time for a lot of people. That’s a lot of money to spend,” Ellen Payne added.

“Everybody has their opinion,” Kelly said. “We think this is a reasonable expenditure of funds. We’re doing everything that we think is appropriate to prevent another attack.”

Of the $151 million in the federal grant, $30 million will be used for this underground anti-terrorist program for the next two years.

As I’ve pointed out several times… this will do absolutely nothing. Their coverage is too small, they don’t check every entrance. When I was stopped the other day to have my bag search at South Ferry and declined I just went to the Yellow line which had not a single cop in the station.

I’ll be sure to post photos of these roaming gangs as soon as I run into them.

I’m on the 1 train heading to Times Square when at Franklin a woman with a large Hillary button gets on the car and sits across from me. 1 or 2 stops later a guy sits next to me and after a minute pulls out the Mises Institutes Scholarly Edition of Ludwig von Mises Human Action. I start talking to him about it since 1) seeing a person reading Mises on a NYC subway car is fairly uncommon and 2) I’m also currently reading it but had picked up and was reading the latest John Stossel book as a break from HA. He says soming about Stossel and the Hillary supporter looks up with evil eyes and just stares at us. Ron Paul gets mentioned and she looks angry.Turns out he’s a long time libertarian but never bothered with the party. I invited him to come to a Manhattan LP meeting and to check out our website.

I should have invited the Hillary supporter too.

http://www.nytimes.com/…

In the first counterterrorism strategy of its kind in the nation, roving teams of New York City police officers armed with automatic rifles and accompanied by bomb-sniffing dogs will patrol the city’s subway system daily, beginning next month, officials said on Friday.

Under a tactical plan called Operation Torch, the officers will board trains and patrol platforms, focusing on sites like Pennsylvania Station, Herald Square, Columbus Circle, Rockefeller Center and Times Square in Manhattan, and Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn.

Officials said the operation would begin in March.

Financing for the program will be funneled to the Police Department and will come from a pool of up to $30 million taken from $153.2 million in new federal transit grants to the state.

Each team in the operation will comprise a bomb-sniffing dog and six officers: a dog handler and a sergeant and four officers from the Emergency Service Unit who will be outfitted in heavy, bullet-resistant vests and Kevlar helmets and will carry automatic weapons, either an M-4 rifle or an MP5 submachine gun.

I may need to step up my idea for handing out fliers about the police state and the 4th Amendment. As if this will work. As if they couldn’t get on the train at some other random stop like they could now? When will people start realizing we are living in a police state?