Sunday, December 7, 2014


News Clips For The Day


Guantanamo Bay closure effort gets large boost
By MARGARET BRENNAN CBS NEWS December 7, 2014

Early Sunday morning, six Guantanamo Bay detainees will walk out of the military prison to freedom to begin new lives in Uruguay. This is the largest single transfer of detainees out of the prison since President Obama pledged to close down the prison camp after he took office in 2009. It is also the first time that a South American country has agreed to resettle Guantanamo detainees.

The six detainees include four Syrians, a lone Palestinian and a single Tunisian national. None of the prisoners had ever been charged with a crime. Most had been held for more than a decade without trial, and have all been cleared for transfer for some time.

The detainees that the federal government said are being transferred are Ahmed Adnan Ahjam, Ali Hussain Shaabaan, Omar Mahmoud Faraj, Abdul Bin Mohammed Abis Ourgy, Mohammed Tahanmatan, and Jihad Diyab.

There are now 136 detainees remaining at Guantanamo Bay, according to a Department of Defense press release.

In a statement, Cliff Sloan, the U.S. Special Envoy for Guantanamo Closure, thanked the government of Uruguay for taking in the former prisoners.

"The support we are receiving from our friends and allies is critical to achieving our shared goal of closing Guantanamo, and this transfer is a major milestone in our efforts to close the facility," Sloan said.

Among those being transferred is Jihad Ahmed Mustafa Diyab, a Syrian who had been held for 12 years without a trial. He had undergone a hunger strike, and is now party to a federal lawsuit demanding the public disclosure of 28 classified videotapes showing forced cell extraction and forced feedings of some of the detainees. His lawyers contend that the military is using unnecessarily painful procedures in order to coerce them to end their protest.

Uruguay had already offered to resettle Diyabearlier this year but that transfer was halted due in part to domestic political issues. While Uruguayan President Jose Mujica had formally agreed to the transfer, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel let the paperwork sit on his desk from March until July. According to a US official, it took nearly four months before he finally signed off. That perceived "slow-walking" of releasing low-level detainees became a sore point between Pentagon and the White House. In May, National Security Adviser Susan Rice sent a three-page memo to Hagel ordering him to report on progress every two weeks.

By that time Hagel signed off, it had become politically difficult to accept these detainees because the Uruguayan presidential campaignwas in full swing. Mujica, who was not on the ballot, leaves office in the beginning of March next year, and he is honoring the pledge he made, in part due to his own personal history as a former guerilla and political prisoner in his own country.

As for these six Guantanamo detainees, the unstable political conditions in their native countries mean none of them are able to go home, although President Mujica's administration has pledged to find and reunite the prisoners with their families. Many of their family members are living in refugee camps because of the ongoing war in Syria.

Choosing where to resettle detainees cleared for release has been tasked to a small team of lawyers and diplomats at the U.S. State Department who have spent years courting, cajoling and convincing other countries to accept these detainees. That job is particularly difficult because the Obama administration is asking other governments to do what it cannot. Congress has prohibited the transfer of any Gitmo detainees to U.S. soil even if they have never been charged.

The Obama administration would like those prisoners who could face trial to do so in the U.S. federal courts and potentially serve time in supermax prisons on American soil. The administration says that it costs U.S. taxpayers around $3 million a year per prisoner to keep them at the Guantanamo Bay facility. In comparison, it costs tens of thousands of dollars to keep them in a supermax prison.




“This is the largest single transfer of detainees out of the prison since President Obama pledged to close down the prison camp after he took office in 2009. It is also the first time that a South American country has agreed to resettle Guantanamo detainees. The six detainees include four Syrians, a lone Palestinian and a single Tunisian national. None of the prisoners had ever been charged with a crime. Most had been held for more than a decade without trial, and have all been cleared for transfer for some time.... Uruguay had already offered to resettle Diyabearlier this year but that transfer was halted due in part to domestic political issues. While Uruguayan President Jose Mujica had formally agreed to the transfer, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel let the paperwork sit on his desk from March until July. According to a US official, it took nearly four months before he finally signed off. That perceived "slow-walking" of releasing low-level detainees became a sore point between Pentagon and the White House. In May, National Security Adviser Susan Rice sent a three-page memo to Hagel ordering him to report on progress every two weeks.... Choosing where to resettle detainees cleared for release has been tasked to a small team of lawyers and diplomats at the U.S. State Department who have spent years courting, cajoling and convincing other countries to accept these detainees. That job is particularly difficult because the Obama administration is asking other governments to do what it cannot. Congress has prohibited the transfer of any Gitmo detainees to U.S. soil even if they have never been charged.... The administration says that it costs U.S. taxpayers around $3 million a year per prisoner to keep them at the Guantanamo Bay facility. In comparison, it costs tens of thousands of dollars to keep them in a supermax prison.”

Not only is giving these prisoners a trial or their freedom the fair and right thing to do, it's a bargain as well. Obama has apparently been at work on this project quietly for a long time. The Gitmo prisoner population is now down to 136 from some 800, according to another article. Those who are criminals or otherwise dangerous will hopefully go to trial in the US and then to a high security US prison. I want to think that will keep the CIA or others from torturing them in an effort to extract further information from them. The years since 9/11 happened have been very stressful to me in the changes it has caused in our society. If the issue of unfair and unnecessarily aggressive policing will approach a just ending I will feel much better about our country. I wasn't one of those who wasn't “proud” of my country until the last couple of decades. Now I'm hoping for change to take us back to a peaceful place. I believe it's going to happen, too. Democracy is on the way back. I thank President Obama for setting the right tone in his governance, and standing behind societal improvement.





THEORY ON POLICING GENERATES ABUSE OF POWER – FOUR ARTICLES


Eric Garner case: Video of chokehold's aftermath raises new questions
By JERICKA DUNCAN CBS NEWS December 6, 2014, 10:01 PM

NEW YORK -- Much of the outrage surrounding the NYPD chokehold case focuses on the video of the takedown during Eric Garner's July 17 arrest.

But there's another tape showing what happened after Garner was already on the ground -- and it's leading to more troubling questions.

Garner said the words "I can't breathe" several times before he stopped talking. A second eyewitness video -- nearly eight minutes long -- shows what happened from that point on.

You can see police prop Garner up on his right side, which officers say they did to help him breathe.

"Guys, clear the sidewalk... EMS is coming down the sidewalk," an officer says on the tape.

What you don't see is any apparent urgency on the part of the police, even though Garner would die less than an hour later.

"Sir, EMS is here, okay?" an officer tells Garner. "Answer their questions, okay?" A bystander says, "He can't breathe."

It's more than four minutes into the video before an EMS worker arrives and checks Garner's wrist for a pulse. She then checks his neck.

"Sir, we're here to help, come on," the EMS worker tells him. "We're here to help you."

Garner says nothing.

An officer is heard saying, "He's breathing, he has a pulse." The EMS worker responds, "Yeah, yeah, yeah."

Nearly six minutes into the video, police and emergency responders roll Garner on his back.

Before Garner is put in the ambulance, the person shooting video asks why Garner never received CPR.

"'Cause he's breathing," an officer responds. "He's breathing?" the person says.

As Garner is taken away, the camera turns to Officer Daniel Pantaleo, who put the Staten Island father in a chokehold. A grand jury decided Wednesday not to charge him in Garner's death.

The video raises questions about whether the police and first responders tried hard enough to try and save Garner.

A medical examiner called Garner's death a homicide and said he died from the chokehold and "the compression of his chest and prone positioning during physical restraint by police."

An official from the police union disputes those findings and said officers were correct in turning Garner on his side and immediately calling an ambulance for help.

An email request to the NYPD regarding police emergency training went unanswered.

CBS News called the union president for EMTs and paramedics, Israel Miranda, who said that based on the video, more should have been done.

"There was a lack of initial intervention," Miranda said. "They were not aggressive. If they're not breathing, assist with their ventilation. This is something that is ingrained in your training."

The four EMS workers who responded to Garner are not with the New York City Fire Department's union. Two are back to work while the other two remain suspended.




But there's another tape showing what happened after Garner was already on the ground -- and it's leading to more troubling questions. Garner said the words "I can't breathe" several times before he stopped talking. A second eyewitness video -- nearly eight minutes long -- shows what happened from that point on. You can see police prop Garner up on his right side, which officers say they did to help him breathe. "Guys, clear the sidewalk... EMS is coming down the sidewalk," an officer says on the tape. What you don't see is any apparent urgency on the part of the police, even though Garner would die less than an hour later.... Before Garner is put in the ambulance, the person shooting video asks why Garner never received CPR. "'Cause he's breathing," an officer responds. "He's breathing?" the person says.... CBS News called the union president for EMTs and paramedics, Israel Miranda, who said that based on the video, more should have been done. "There was a lack of initial intervention," Miranda said. "They were not aggressive. If they're not breathing, assist with their ventilation. This is something that is ingrained in your training."

It is my understanding that the chokehold is banned by the NYPD, so why was it used here, and why has the officer not been punished? The second tape showing 8 minutes before the paramedics came shows that either the police waited too long before summoning them, or the paramedics should be liable for dereliction as well as the police due to their slow response. Miranda criticized the police for not administering CPR, even though they said that they thought he was actually breathing at the time. He was, however, not moving or responding when they spoke to him, so they should have been more cautious about the matter. They were so involved in the takedown itself that they didn't check on Garner's welfare, I think. Police need to be as concerned with a suspect's welfare as they are with the broken law, in this case illegally selling cigarettes on the street, and more so when he is not a threat to anyone.





http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2014/12/04/st_louis_county_police_tamir_rice_facebook_post_warns_parents_not_to_let.html?wpisrc=obnetwork

St. Louis County Police Facebook Post Cites Death of 12-Year-Old, Warns Parents About Toy Guns
By Ben Mathis-Lilley
DEC. 4 2014 

The tweet above was sent out by the St. Louis County Police Department's official account this morning. It links to a Facebook message that cites the shooting death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland and urges parents to tell their children not to play in public areas with replica or pellet guns, as Rice was doing when he was shot.

The message warns that children playing with toy guns may encounter police who use "lights and sirens and come to a screeching halt" and that parents should prepare them to throw their gun down and lie on the ground according to officers' instructions. While the post doesn't defend Cleveland officer Tim Loehmann for killing Rice, the decision to cite a dead child in the course of communicating with residents who may already believe that their local officers use dangerous and excessive levels of force might be said to be a questionable one. The St. Louis County Police brass seem to agree; the post appears to have been deleted and a spokesman told a Guardian reporter the department is "trying to figure out" who wrote it.




This Facebook entry was poorly stated, unwise and poorly timed, but it is true that parents in the modern world with our excess of fearfulness – again, since 9/11 – is something that should be communicated. I would like to see toy guns be taken off the market. Their removal would not seriously limit a young child's ability to pretend and have fun. There are still bicycles, skateboards, hoola hoops, toy soldiers, toy cars, balls, etc., etc. Besides, kids should not be turned loose on the streets for too long without a parent checking on what they are doing. That's how some kids start getting in trouble – unsupervised playtime. We ran the neighborhood when I was a kid, but there were no known criminals of any kind there, and we weren't “a gang.” I knew to be home by suppertime.





http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/nyc-congressman-says-outdated-broken-windows-policing-factor-eric-garner-death/

PBS Newshour
The Rundown

NYC Congressman says outdated ‘broken windows’ policing a factor in Eric Garner death
BY QUINN BOWMAN   December 4, 2014

U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries says New York City’s “broken windows” policy contributed to Eric Garner’s death.

Many have credited the targeting of minor offenses, like turnstile jumping and “squeegee men” in the 1990s, for New York City’s turnaround two decades ago from a city riddled with crime to one where it’s safe to walk the streets.

But in light of the death of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man who died after being put in a chokehold by a police officer, some officials are rethinking that approach, known as the “broken windows” policy.

“That philosophy may have made sense 20 years ago when crime was extremely high, but the windows in New York City are largely together, and have been repaired,” Congressman Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) told PBS NewsHour a day after a grand jury in Staten Island chose not to indict officer Daniel Pantaleo.

“And so there’s no reason to engage in the same aggressive approach that had taken place in the past.”

Pantaleo and other officers attempted to arrest Garner for allegedly selling illegal cigarettes on the street. Jeffries contends that their aggressive handling of the minor offense led to Garner’s death.

Researchers at the National Bureau of Economic Research found “that the ‘broken windows’ approach does not deter as much crime as some advocates argue, but it does have an effect, particularly on robbery and motor vehicle theft.”

The policy was instituted under Republican Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who has defended the grand jury’s decision and attacked current Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio, who was an aide under Mayor David Dinkins, who preceded Giuliani.

“One of the things the mayor and [civil rights activist Al] Sharpton and the others are doing, they are tearing down respect for a criminal justice system that goes back to England in the 11th century,” Giuliani said in an appearance on Fox News Thursday.

He added that de Blasio, with speeches like the one he delivered Wednesday in which he empathized with Garner and his family and drew a connection to his own son Dante who is biracial, “helps to create this atmosphere of protest and sometimes even violence. First of all, there was no racism in this case. If this man were a white man resisting arrest at the same size, the same thing would happen. If I recall correctly there was an African American sergeant on the scene observing, in charge of the entire situation, never did anything to stop it.”

“We’ve got to get at the broader problems,” the congressman said, “the broader disease, the broader cancer that is leading to these types of encounters.”




Researchers at the National Bureau of Economic Research found “that the ‘broken windows’ approach does not deter as much crime as some advocates argue, but it does have an effect, particularly on robbery and motor vehicle theft.” The policy was instituted under Republican Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who has defended the grand jury’s decision and attacked current Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio, who was an aide under Mayor David Dinkins, who preceded Giuliani.”

Giuliani claims that Al Sharpton and the mayor are “tearing down the respect” of the criminal justice system by sympathizing with Garner's family, and possibly even inviting violence and protest. I think it is the decades old use of unnecessary violence by police officers, and the fact that courts have backed them in this practice so that such officers receive no punishment that has diminished public “respect” for officers. One thing I think should be said is that the courts should not function as a blank check for anything that the police decide to do. When that happens, the “criminal justice system,” is indeed besmirched and degraded. And this “broken windows” theory is just an excuse for abuse based on an apparent state of poverty and undoubtedly skin color. It's the dirtiest and the most unjust of actions in a highly “classist” society. It is bullying, pure and simple. The following Wikipedia article says, “ This was seen by the authors, who worried that people would be arrested "for the 'crime' of being undesirable". According to Stewart, arguments for low-level police intervention, including the broken windows hypothesis, often act "as cover for racist behavior". The application of the broken windows theory in aggressive policing policies, such as William J. Bratton's zero-tolerance policy, has been shown to criminalize the poor and homeless. This is because the physical signs that characterize a neighborhood with the “disorder” that broken windows policing targets correlate with the socio-economic conditions of its inhabitants. Many of the acts that are considered legal, but “disorderly” are often targeted in public settings and are not targeted when conducted in private. Therefore, those without access to a private space are often criminalized.”



Broken windows theory
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


The broken windows theory is a criminological theory of the norm-setting and signaling effect of urban disorder and vandalism on additional crime and anti-social behavior. The theory states that maintaining and monitoring urban environments to prevent small crimes such as vandalism, public drinking and toll-jumping helps to create an atmosphere of order and lawfulness, thereby preventing more serious crimes from happening.

The theory was introduced in a 1982 article by social scientistsJames Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling.[1] Since then it has been subject to great debate both within the social sciences and the public sphere. The theory has been used as a motivation for several reforms in criminal policy, including the controversial mass use of "stop, question, and frisk" by the New York City Police Department.

Drawbacks in practice[edit]
A low-level intervention of police in neighborhoods has been considered problematic. Accordingly, Gary Stewart writes that "The central drawback of the approaches advanced by Wilson, Kelling, and Kennedy rests in their shared blindness to the potentially harmful impact of broad police discretion on minority communities."[37][page needed] This was seen by the authors, who worried that people would be arrested "for the 'crime' of being undesirable". According to Stewart, arguments for low-level police intervention, including the broken windows hypothesis, often act "as cover for racist behavior".[37][page needed]

The application of the broken windows theory in aggressive policing policies, such as William J. Bratton's zero-tolerance policy, has been shown to criminalize the poor and homeless. This is because the physical signs that characterize a neighborhood with the “disorder” that broken windows policing targets correlate with the socio-economic conditions of its inhabitants. Many of the acts that are considered legal, but “disorderly” are often targeted in public settings and are not targeted when conducted in private. Therefore, those without access to a private space are often criminalized. Critics such as Robert J. Sampson and Stephen Raudenbush of Harvard University see the application of the broken windows theory in policing as a war against the poor as opposed to a war against more serious crimes.[38][page needed]

In Dorothy Roberts' article, "Foreword: Race, Vagueness, and the Social Meaning of Order Maintenance and Policing," she focuses on problems of the application of the broken windows theory that lead to the criminalization of communities of color, who are typically disfranchised.[39] She underscores the dangers of vaguely written ordinances that allows for law enforcers to determine who engages in disorderly acts, which in turn produce a racially skewed outcome in crime statistics.[40]
According to Bruce D. Johnson, Andrew Golub, and James McCabe, the application of the broken windows theory in policing and policy-making can result in development projects that decrease physical disorder but promote undesiredgentrification. Often, when a city is “improved” in this way, the development of an area can cause the cost of living to rise higher than residents can afford, thus forcing low income people, often minorities, out of the area. As the space changes, middle- and upper class, often white, people begin to move into the area, resulting in the gentrification of urban, low income areas. The local residents are affected negatively by this application of the broken windows theory, ending up evicted from their homes as if their presence indirectly contributed to the area’s problem of “physical disorder”.[39]
In popular press[edit]
In the best-seller More Guns, Less Crime (University of Chicago Press, 2000), economist John Lott, Jr. examined the use of the broken windows approach as well as community- and problem-oriented policing programs in cities over 10,000 in population over two decades. He found that the impacts of these policing policies were not very consistent across different types of crime. Lott's book has been subject to criticism, though other groups support Lott's conclusions.
In the best-seller Freakonomics, economist Steven D. Levitt and co-author Stephen J. Dubner both confirm and cast doubt on the notion that the broken windows theory was responsible for New York's drop in crime, arguing "the reality that the pool of potential criminals had dramatically shrunk", an alternative that Levitt had attributed in the Quarterly Journal of Economics to the legalization of abortion with Roe v. Wade, a decrease in the number of delinquents in the population-at-large one generation later.[41]



http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2014/12/broken_windows_policing_doesn_t_work_it_also_may_have_killed_eric_garner.html

Broken Windows Policing Doesn’t Work
It also may have killed Eric Garner.
By Justin Peters
DEC. 3 2014 

Photograph – In the ’90s, NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton presided over a surge in petty-crime law enforcement on the theory that vigorously enforcing the small laws in some way dissuades or prevents people from breaking the big ones. There’s little evidence that theory is correct.

On July 17, 2014, an unarmed 43-year-old black man named Eric Garner was standing near the Staten Island Ferry dock when he was approached by several police officers. The cops suspected that Garner was selling untaxed cigarettes. A struggle ensued, and an officer named Daniel Pantaleo put Garner in a chokehold. Garner died, and the New York City medical examiner eventually ruled it a homicide. But on Wednesday afternoon, a Staten Island grand jury declined to indict Pantaleo.

Why was Garner approached at all? Because of the emphasis on “broken windows policing” under NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton. As Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s police commissioner in the 1990s, Bratton presided over a surge in petty-crime law enforcement, on the theory that vigorously enforcing the small laws in some way dissuades or prevents people from breaking the big ones. There’s little evidence that theory is correct. Nevertheless, mayor-elect Bill de Blasio brought Bratton back as New York’s police commissioner last December. Bratton’s return meant the return of broken windows policing. “If you take care of the little things, then you can prevent a lot of the big things,” Bratton said in March, spouting the broken windows gospel. It’s that philosophy as much as anything else is to blame for Eric Garner’s death.

Bratton was a popular figure during the Giuliani era because crime rates fell on his watch. While observers were quick to credit his policies for that decline, there’s no reason to think the drop in violent crime had anything to do with broken windows or Bratton’s vaunted Compstat, a computer program that tracks crime statistics citywide.
 
The drop in New York’s violent crime rate, then and now, is consistent with a broader nationwide trend. Rates of violent crime have steadily declined nationwide over the past two decades, and nobody is really sure why. The best argument I’ve seen suggests that violent crime began to fall around the same time that the crack boom started to wane in the early 1990s. The rates have been dropping across the country since then.

We do know that the declines in violent crime in New York have been comparable to declines in cities that didn’t use Compstat or broken windows. As criminologist Richard Rosenfeld put it in a 2002 paper, “homicide rates also have decreased sharply in cities that did not noticeably alter their policing policies, such as Los Angeles, or that instituted very different changes from those in New York, such as San Diego.” The takeaway: Crime just keeps going down everywhere. Nobody is sure why.

In New York, broken windows has replaced stop-and-frisk as the controversial police tactic du jour. During his 2012 campaign, de Blasio pledged to rein in the ineffective and racist stop-and-frisk policies of Michael Bloomberg, and he has followed through on that promise. Meanwhile, de Blasio’s Republican mayoral opponent, Joseph Lhota, made the supposed glories of stop-and-frisk the centerpiece of his own doomed campaign. Lhota blasted de Blasio’s “recklessly dangerous agenda on crime,” and predicted that abandoning stop-and-frisk would turn New York City into something like the hellscape depicted in The Warriors, with gangs and street punks running roughshod over police officers.

This hasn’t happened. In a recent press conference, de Blasio and Bratton announced that violent crime rates are poised for historic lows in 2014. The New York Times reports that robberies and grand larcenies have both declinedsince 2013. The city’s homicide count sits at 290 as of Dec. 1, which puts New York on pace to beat last year’s record low homicide count of 335. And all this in a year when the New York Police Department is poised to log fewer than 50,000 stop-and-frisk incidents—a figure nearly 10 times lower than it was at New York’s stopping-and-frisking peak. Take that, Joe Lhota!

But this shouldn’t be surprising. Under the Bloomberg administration, hundreds of thousands of people were detained by police each year via the department’s stop-and-frisk program. Close to 90 percent of those people were released without charges after the stopping officers found nothing illegal. Whatever effect stop-and-frisk may have had as a deterrent was likely offset by the fact that it taught innocent people to fear and avoid the police. Stopping people who are doing nothing wrong on the grounds that they look vaguely suspicious only serves to alienate cops from the communities they’re supposed to serve.

With the decline of stop-and-frisk and the return of broken windows, the NYPD has traded one dubious tactic for another. When Bratton was appointed in December 2013, de Blasio positioned him as the opposite of his predecessor as police commissioner, Ray Kelly, saying in a press conference that “public safety and respect for the public aren’t contradictory ideas.” Bratton, for his part, promised policies of “mutual respect and mutual trust,” and vowed that “I will get it right in this city once more”—implying, of course, that he had gotten it right the first time. Three months later, the New York Times reported that arrests of subway panhandlers had tripled since Bratton took over, and that there had been “a noticeable spike in arrests for low-level violations in public housing developments.”

This renewed emphasis on misdemeanor “quality of life” arrests has sparked renewed criticisms from community members who are tired of being hassled. These criticisms spiked after Garner’s death in July. Six members of New York’s congressional delegation sent Attorney General Eric Holder a letter noting that “Mr. Garner’s death has taken place in the context of a broken windows policing strategy that appears to target communities of color for the enforcement of minor violations and low-level offenses.”

Two weeks after Garner’s death, de Blasio held a press conference to address these criticisms and defend broken windows. “Breaking a law is breaking a law, and it has to be addressed,” said de Blasio.

That’s nonsense. The cornerstone of effective policing is discretion. If the cops enforced every single law on the books in every single precinct at all hours of the day, New York City would become a police state. Is that what de Blasio and Bratton want?

For mayors and police commissioners, being “tough on crime” means actively implementing some specific policy. But given that violent crime seems to be declining on its own regardless of what they do, there’s a case to be made that de Blasio and Bratton are only making things worse. Here’s a suggestion for a new policing policy for New York City: First, do no harm.

Justin Peters is a writer for Slate. He is working on a book about Aaron Swartz, copyright, and the rise of “free culture.” Email him at justintrevett@fastmail.fm.




“That’s nonsense. The cornerstone of effective policing is discretion. If the cops enforced every single law on the books in every single precinct at all hours of the day, New York City would become a police state. Is that what de Blasio and Bratton want? For mayors and police commissioners, being “tough on crime” means actively implementing some specific policy. But given that violent crime seems to be declining on its own regardless of what they do, there’s a case to be made that de Blasio and Bratton are only making things worse. Here’s a suggestion for a new policing policy for New York City: First, do no harm.”

I hold to the viewpoint that a police officer should be a friend to those who are not doing anything illegal or immoral, and part of a route toward justice for all, including criminals. The color of their skin, lack of social standing, or poverty shouldn't make a difference. That's why Lady Justice has that funny looking blindfold over her eyes.





Obama: Police killings "painful," but we're making progress
By JAKE MILLER CBS NEWS December 7, 2014, 10:02 AM

As demonstrators take to the street across the country to protest the recent killings of several unarmed black men and teenagers at the hands of police, President Obama urged people to take an historical perspective in an interview with BET Networks, saying, "As painful as these incidents are, we can't equate what's happening now with what was happening 50 years ago."

"We have made progress," he said in the interview on "106 & Park," which is set to air in full on Monday. "And if you talk to your parents, grandparents, uncles, they'll tell you that things are better. Not good in some cases, but better, and the reason it's important to realize that progress has been made, is that then gives us hope that we can make even more progress."

Mr. Obama has vowed to do everything he can to improve the bonds of trust between minority communities and law enforcement officials, which have been severely frayed in recent months.

"The president of the United States is deeply invested in making sure that this time is different," he said in the wake of heated protests in Ferguson, Missouri, after a grand jury declined to indict a cop who shot and killed unarmed black teenager Michael Brown. "When I hear the young people around this table talk about their experiences, it violates my belief in what America can be to hear young people feeling marginalized and distrustful, even after they've done everything right. That's not who we are."

The Justice Department is investigating the incident in Ferguson and another police killing in New York City for possible civil rights violations, and Mr. Obama has commissioned a review of a program that confers military-grade weapons and equipment on local police departments.

The president emphasized in the interview with BET that progress will come, but it won't be easy, and it won't be quick.

"This isn't going to be solved overnight, this is something that is deeply rooted in our society, it's deeply rooted in our history," he said. "We have to be consistent, because typically progress is in steps, it's in increments. You know, when you're dealing with something as deeply rooted as racism or bias, in any society, you've got to have vigilance, but you have to recognize that it's going to take some time, and you just have to be steady, so that you don't give up when we don't get all the way there."




"We have made progress," he said in the interview on "106 & Park," which is set to air in full on Monday. "And if you talk to your parents, grandparents, uncles, they'll tell you that things are better. Not good in some cases, but better, and the reason it's important to realize that progress has been made, is that then gives us hope that we can make even more progress."... "When I hear the young people around this table talk about their experiences, it violates my belief in what America can be to hear young people feeling marginalized and distrustful, even after they've done everything right. That's not who we are."... You know, when you're dealing with something as deeply rooted as racism or bias, in any society, you've got to have vigilance, but you have to recognize that it's going to take some time, and you just have to be steady, so that you don't give up when we don't get all the way there."

I have been encouraged by some of the public figures who are looking deeply into their own communities on this issue. I think policing will be much improved as a result of all this. I do wish it didn't need protest marches and even rioting to bring them to a point of addressing the matter. There is a wide divide between the poor and the rich and those who are “conservative” versus “liberal.” We are going through the process of deliberation and I believe a more fair-minded society will be the result. I'm definitely hopeful.