Saturday, May 4th, 2013 — Good Morning, Stay Safe
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NYPD Stop, Question and Frisk Search
Bloomberg and Kelly prefer airwaves to courtroom in stop-and-frisk trial
Mayor Michael Bloomberg and police commissioner Raymond Kelly expand public appearances in place of testifying in court
By Ryan Devereaux — Saturday, May 4th, 2013 ‘The Guardian’ / London, England
A landmark trial that has picked apart the New York police department's controversial stop-and-frisk policy enters its second month on Monday without a word of testimony from its highest-profile defenders. But that does not mean that mayor Michael Bloomberg and his long-serving police chief Raymond Kelly have gone unheard.
Perhaps sensing that they have nothing to lose, with the judge in the case delivering multiple rulings against them, Bloomberg and Kelly have taken the stand not at the courtroom in lower Manhattan but at press conferences and in rounds of media interviews.
While both have long supported stop-and-frisk, their public defense of the practice has been increasingly pointed as the trial has progressed. Speaking at police headquarters on Tuesday, Bloomberg declared the NYPD was "under attack" and mounted an impassioned 22-minute defense of the department, rejecting the central claims in the ongoing case. The following night, Kelly told ABC News the NYPD is run like a major business and said African Americans were not stopped as much as they might be.
Appearing on a local NY1 news show, Road to City Hall, last month, Kelly spent over half of his near 14-minute interview defending stop-and-frisk. And in a recent Wall Street Journal interview, Kelly suggested the judge in the case, Shira Scheindlin, might be biased in favor of the plaintiffs. "In my view, the judge is very much in their corner and has been all along throughout her career," he said.
It is true that Scheindlin has repeatedly ruled against the city. In 2003, in the precursor to this trial, she ordered the NYPD to maintain a constitutional policy against racial profiling. In the latest case, after rejecting numerous appeals from the city, Scheindlin granted it class-action status last year. In January Scheindlin issued a decision in a related case regarding police stops in private Bronx buildings in which she said the department's practices were "systematically" unconstitutional.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs in the latest case say they have attempted to call Kelly to testify. But the city reportedly said he was too busy and offered recently retired chief Joseph Esposito instead. Esposito testified last month. The mayor has not been called.
That does not mean the city has not attempted to have his words heard in court. When New York state senator Eric Adams testified that Kelly once told him stop-and-frisk is intended to "instill fear" in black and Latino men, an attorney for the city attempted to read from a 2011 affidavit from the commissioner in which he apparently rejected Adams' claims. Judge Scheindlin would not allow it. "If he'd like to come here, he's welcome in this courtroom," Scheindlin said. "If he's not going to be here we're not going to have his statement."
Though their statements will not be read into the record, Kelly and Bloomberg have actively spoken on the issues that are at stake in the trial. The two regularly point to the efficacy of stop-and-frisk, arguing that it has been instrumental to New York City's historic drop in murders. Scheindlin, meanwhile, has repeatedly stated that the ongoing trial does not seek to determine how effective the practice is, but instead how constitutional it is.
The CCR's legal director, Baher Azmy, said Kelly and Bloomberg are seeking to make arguments in public that would not have been admissible in court. "It appears by their agitation and defensiveness that they feel a little bit worried," he said. "I don't think they would be this testy if they were confident about the results."
Stop-and-frisk is the most talked-about law enforcement issue of New York City's intensifying mayoral race, and Kelly has said he would like to see the candidates offer more concrete examples of how to better fight crime in the city. "We need something of substance," he told NY1. "How do you save that young man, that 16- or 17-year-old who's on the corner in the Bronx tonight, from being shot?"
As Kelly spoke that evening, his hypothetical example became a reality when 17-year-old Alphonza Bryant was shot and killed standing in front of a Bronx apartment building, just blocks from where his father was murdered 14 years earlier. Addressing a crowd of senior officers at NYPD headquarters on Tuesday, Bloomberg devoted a large portion of his fiery speech to Bryant's death, arguing it did not matter to New York's civil liberties groups nor the city's largest newspaper.
"There was not even a mention of his murder in our paper of record, the New York Times," Bloomberg said. "All the news that's fit to print did not include the murder of a 17-year-old Alphonza Bryant. After his murder, there was no outrage from the Center for Constitutional Rights, or the NYCLU," he added.
The NYCLU – the New York Civil Liberties Union – responded with a barrage of tweets directed at the mayor and a statement from executive director Donna Lieberman. "It's a lot easier to trash the NYCLU than to acknowledge the widespread dissatisfaction the community feels with an NYPD that acts like it's above the law and accountable to no one," it read.
Eric E Sterling, president of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, and former counsel to the House of Representatives judiciary committee, said the fact that neither Bloomberg or Kelly are testifying is hardly a surprise. "It would draw enormous news attention to the lawsuit," he told the Guardian, adding that it would be viewed as a "tremendous political victory" for the plaintiffs, regardless of the ultimate outcome of the case.
"It's not an uncommon litigation strategy … in the case of a suit against some kind of an institution or bureaucracy, to influence public opinion by making statements about the litigation," Sterling said. For Bloomberg and Kelly, he added, "this is all about politics".
He added: "It's very much the court of public opinion in which they are concerned". Sterling believes the mayor and the commissioner have chosen to challenge the case in the media, in part, because their chances of succeeding in court are slim. "The case against the police is so damning. The evidence, I believe, is quite overwhelming that there is an illegal and unconstitutional pattern of New York City police behavior in these stop-and-frisk cases."
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Saturday, May 4th, 2013 ‘The New York Times’ Editorial:
The Mayor on Stop-and-Frisk
Mayor Michael Bloomberg trotted out shopworn, discredited arguments this week while defending the constitutionally suspect police program under which hundreds of thousands of innocent New Yorkers have been detained and questioned on the streets every year. His speech, at 1 Police Plaza, castigated civil rights lawyers who oppose what they say is the practice of stopping people based on race instead of reasonable suspicion; Democratic mayoral candidates who want to rein in the stop-and-frisk program; and the City Council, which is considering a perfectly reasonable bill that would create the position of Police Department inspector general, with broad powers to review department policies.
Mr. Bloomberg denied that police officers stop people based on race, adding that members of minority groups were more likely to be stopped because minorities committed most of the crimes. But court documents in the three federal lawsuits that are moving through the judicial system tell another story entirely.
The data in the case of Floyd v. City of New York, a class action being heard in federal court in Manhattan, show that in tens of thousands of cases, officers reported stopping people based on “furtive movement,” a meaningless term that cannot be legally used to justify a stop. Officers also reported that they had made stops in “high crime areas,” when, in fact, some of those areas were not. In many cases, officers said that they had stopped people based on a “suspicious bulge” — suggesting a gun — in their clothing. Yet, according to court documents, officers found only one gun for every 69 stops in which they cited a “bulge.” And guns were seized in only 0.15 percent of all stops.
In addition, only 5.4 percent of all stops resulted in an arrest, and about 6 percent led to a summons. This means that in nearly 90 percent of cases, the citizens who were stopped were doing nothing illegal. In some cases, prosecutors declined to automatically prosecute arrests made in connection with the program because they knew that the stops were illegal.
Mr. Bloomberg’s suggestion that the program has been responsible for historic drops in crime is also implausible. Crime has declined all over the country, including in places that have not used New York’s aggressively invasive techniques. Besides, if crime rates and street stops had a strong correlation, the murder rate would have gone up in 2012, when stops declined by about 20 percent. In fact, the murder rate fell in 2012 to an all-time low.
Mr. Bloomberg’s implication that the program’s critics are more interested in vexing City Hall than in keeping the streets clear of murderers was especially reprehensible. No one is opposed to using effective, constitutional means of fighting crime. The problem is that over the last decade the Police Department has shown utter contempt for Fourth Amendment guarantees of freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. And worse, these tactics have been used largely against young black and Hispanic men.
Mr. Bloomberg may never change his views. But his stubborn refusal to see the program’s dangers has not stopped three civil rights lawsuits from going forward in federal court and the City Council from trying to curb the use of tactics that have alienated minority communities from the police and made law-abiding citizens feel like criminals in their own neighborhoods.
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Some LGBT Community Members Say Stop-And-Frisk Puts Their Lives In Danger
By: Dean Meminger — Friday, May 3rd, 2013; 7:30 p.m. ‘NY 1 News’
People in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities say the NYPD's stop-and-frisk program can jeopardize their lives, saying the tactic can lead to the spread of deadly diseases. NY1's Dean Meminger filed the following report.
Johanna Valesquez is transgender, and said she was unlawfully stopped and frisked, and then arrested, for simply having condoms.
"They opened my purse without permission, they found two condoms, and they submitted that as evidence," Valesquez said through an interpreter. "They didn't give me any further explanation. When I went to court, I was charged with prostitution and offering services for $100, which is untrue."
Several groups rallied at City Hall Friday, saying that LGBT communities are being targeted by the New York City Police Department with stop-and-frisk.
They said they're outraged that the New York City Health Department gives out free condoms and community groups legally hand out clean syringes to help prevent the spread of HIV and hepatitis C, but that police are arresting people for prostitution or drug use simply if they have condoms or needles.
"Fifty percent of the people that we interviewed said they don't carry condoms because of this discriminatory practice," said Chris Bilal of Streetwise and Safe.
"New York is distributing some 35 million condoms," said Margaret Wurth of Human Rights Watch. "This city devotes enormous resources to this campaign, but then these police practices take condoms out of the hands of those who need them the most."
Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne said prostitution and sex trafficking won't be tolerated.
"Arrests for prostitution or promoting prostitution are based on probable cause, and never solely on the presence of condoms, but the presence of condoms can be a relevant piece of evidence that prosecutors use to prove the case," Browne said.
But one sex education worker said she was searched and picked up by police because she had several safe sex kits.
"So they just grabbed me up and took me to the precinct, start asking me questions," said Arianna Silva of Citywide Harm Reduction.
She said she was let go because officers realized she wasn't a sex worker.
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Attack Ad on Stop & Frisk Raises Up Raymond
Ray takes a hit from de Blastio
Commish in middle of mayoral melee
By DAVID SEIFMAN — Saturday, May 4th, 2013 ‘The New York Post’
The mayor’s race took a startling turn yesterday when Public Advocate Bill de Blasio inserted a TV clip of Police Commissioner Ray Kelly in an attack ad about stop-and-frisk.
Fuming at his unsolicited role, Kelly’s camp fired back with verbal guns blazing.
“Regrettably, race baiting hasn’t lost its appeal for a pol behind in the polls,” Paul Browne, Kelly’s chief spokesman, said in the most blistering assessment to date of a major mayoral contender by such a senior city official.
Kelly found himself dragged into the political war between de Blasio and chief rival Christine Quinn via a Web ad that suggested the City Council speaker isn’t as serious as she claims about reforming the NYPD’s controversial tactic.
Quinn is backing a bill that would install an inspector general over the Police Department. At the same time, she has been hitting the campaign trail promising to reappoint Kelly.
De Blasio’s ad, which is posted on his campaign Web site and promoted from his Twitter account, features Quinn at a National Action Network forum saying the next mayor “would be lucky if Police Commissioner Ray Kelly stayed.”
Kelly turns up soon afterwards in an excerpt from his appearance this week on ABC-TV’s “Nightline” defending stop-and-frisk as racially unbiased.
“Really, African-Americans are under-stopped in relation to the percentage of people being described as the perpetrators of violent crime,” the police commissioner is heard declaring.
Quinn’s spokesman, Mike Morey, blasted the ad as “desperate” and “misleading.”
De Blasio defended the ad.
“I have a lot of respect for the job Commissioner Kelly has done keeping our city safe, but the overuse of stop-and-frisk is a broken policy that has ripped apart police-community relations and put our officers and our neighborhoods at risk.”
Political consultant Hank Sheinkopf said de Blasio is taking a “big risk” by getting into a public tussle with the popular top cop.
“He’s got no choice,” said Sheinkopf. “He’s got to get past her [Quinn].”
Though she has been slipping lately, Quinn continues to lead every poll in the Democratic race.
Analysts expect former Comptroller Bill Thompson, the only African-American, to move up and grab either first or second place in the multi-candidate field.
With former Rep. Anthony Weiner preparing to jump into the contest, the analysts said de Blasio needs to take down Quinn for a shot at the runoff between the two top finishers.
“He’s playing runoff politics,” said Sheinkopf.
Meanwhile, Mayor Bloomberg — who has ripped the inspector-general bill at every opportunity — was lauding Quinn as a “very good speaker” whose departure from the council would send it careening to the left.
A day earlier, during his budget briefing, the mayor lauded Quinn as “a blessing.”
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Stop-frisks cut in half, say police
By Rocco Parascandola — Saturday, May 4th, 2013 ‘The New York Daily News’
The number of people stopped and questioned by cops in the first three months of the year dropped by more than half, compared with the same period last year, according to police statistics released Friday.
The NYPD said the 51% decrease reflects a reemphasis on training, with officers instructed on when someone can rightfully be stopped and questioned, and when that encounter can lead to a frisk.
‘Browne Poo’ Alert: Fatty McFibber Fabrication
Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne, the NYPD's top spokesman, said the drop had nothing to do with the attention paid to the issue during the ongoing stop and frisk federal trial.
The New York Civil Liberties Union, meanwhile, said the statistical plunge, coming at a time when shootings and murders are also down dramatically refutes the NYPD's long-standing claim that curtailing the number of stops would cause a crime wave.
The crime rate this year is down 2%, with murders down 30%, and 24% fewer people shot.
For the first three months of the year, police made 99,788 stops - down from 203,500 during the first three months of 2012.
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NYC PBA Launches Ad Campaign
Police union urges public to ‘support your officers, not attack them’
By Azi Paybarah— Friday, May 3rd, 2013; 4:33 p.m. ‘Capital New York’ / New York, NY
The union representing police officers is circulating an ad, which says, "It's time to support your police officers, not attack them."
The ad was circulated at 250 Broadway, where many city elected officials have their offices. The New York Police Department's policies, particularly its broad stop-and-frisk program, have come under heavy criticism from the Democratic mayoral candidates as the race to succeed Michael Bloomberg gets underway.
Earlier this week, Bloomberg attacked the NYPD's critics, singling out the New York Times for its coverage and editorials on public safety issues, accusing the paper of ignoring victims of gun violence while criticizing the efforts of the police department to prevent it.
The City Council is also poised to pass legislation that could open up the department to lawsuits in state court from victims of racial profiling. And two of the leading Democratic candidates favor a plan to create a new office of inspector general to monitor and oversee NYPD policies and procedures.
Today, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio released a video attacking his front-running rival, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, for saying she would keep try to keep Ray Kelly on as police commissioner if she's elected.
UPDATE: The ad ran in the Daily News, New York Post, Chief Leader and El Diario "so far," according to PBA spokesman Al O'Leary. "Our President, Pat Lynch, feels that opposition to some NYPD managerial policies are impacting our members' reputation and we wanted to remind the public that our members, cops, are the good guys," O'Leary said in an email.
He also noted the man in the ad is not a police officer "because an actual PO would run afoul of NYPD policy" and "there is no 27 Precinct."
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Former 40 Pct. Skell and PBA Delegate Jose Ramos Loses His Attorney
Tix-fix attorney bounced
By DOUGLAS MONTERO — Saturday, May 4th, 2013 ‘The New York Post’
The lead defendant in the Bronx ticket-fixing scandal lost his lawyer yesterday after prosecutors announced that her alleged misconduct with him in a lower Manhattan jail is currently under investigation.
Bronx prosecutor Omer Wiczyk said the unspecified misconduct occurred in the Tombs in November 2012, when attorney Dawn Florio was visiting disgraced NYPD cop Jose Ramos, 43, charged with conspiring to kill one of the witnesses in the 2012 scandal. Ramos was immediately assigned a new lawyer; a June 17 court date was set in his case.
As she left court, Florio said that she had only just heard about the investigation. The misconduct investigation is being conducted by the Manhattan DA’s Office, where a spokeswoman declined to comment.
Florio, a former Bronx prosecutor, had been fired in 2000 after officials alleged she had used her position to help an ex-con boyfriend in a burglary. She was arrested in 2005 for allegedly passing contraband, including 300 prescription pills, to another client at Manhattan Criminal Court. Those charges were eventually sealed.
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Former Intel Det. Leopold McLean
Heat on ‘cover-up’ cop
By CHRISTINA CARREGA — Saturday, May 4th, 2013 ‘The New York Post’
Two cops testified against a fellow NYPD officer yesterday who prosecutors said tried to “cover up” the attempted murder of his girlfriend’s ex-lover.
Leopold McLean, who served on Mayor Bloomberg’s security detail, faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted of shooting LePaul Gammons when he showed up at Assia Winfield’s home in November 2010 — violating an order of protection.
McLean, 48, allegedly called 911 to report a burglary to “cover up the shooting,” cleaned his gun, and didn’t tell any cops that he fired his weapon, Queens Assistant DA Attorney Carmencita Gutierrez said.
“I canvassed the back of the house, didn’t see anything. There wasn’t any broken glass or windows, no damage,” said Officer Nicholas Barone, who responded to the shots-fired and burglary call. McLean was guarding the mayor’s daughter when he received a call from Winfield that her uninvited “stalker” ex-beau was at her Jamaica home -- McLean rushed to her aide, said defense attorney Stephen Worth.
McLean has been placed on modified duty.
“He took an oath to serve and protect, but that night he wasn’t protecting anyone, he shot at his rival — his girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend,” Gutierrez said in her opening statement.
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NYPD $$ Lawyer Lotto $$ Bonanza / PSA # 9 P.O. Daren Ilardi RMP Operator
Family Of Japanese Student Killed By NYPD Car Sues City For $8 Million
By Rebecca Fishbein — Friday, May 3rd, 2013; 5:52 p.m. ‘The Gothamist’ / New York, NY
Nearly two and a half months after Japanese student Ryo Oyamada was killed by a cop car in Queens, the Oyamada family's attorney says the NYPD still refuses to release any information that might shed light on the 23-year-old's death; now, he and the Oyamadas are suing the city for $8 million, citing gross negligence on the part of the patrol car's driver, and they're demanding the NYPD disclose any surveillance tapes or other evidence they're withholding from the night of the crash.
Oyamada, who lived in Queensbridge at the time of his death, was struck by a patrol car in his neighborhood just after midnight on February 21st; though the NYPD's accident report maintained that the car—which the NYPD says was responding to an emergency call at the Queensbridge projects nearby—was traveling with its emergency lights "engaged", various witnesses reported that the car had neither its lights nor its siren on. Attorney Jeffrey Kim says he believes the NYPD has surveillance video that would confirm whether or not the car's lights were 0n, in addition to the speed of the car and whether or not Oyamada was jaywalking when he was hit—the accident report alleges that Oyamada was crossing in the middle of the street. But the NYPD has withheld all evidence from the family, and Kim says they will continue to withhold it unless he can obtain it through litigation.
"When I interviewed the Oyamadas, they were told by the police officer when they came to the precinct that there was surveillance video," Kim told us today. "If the other side has anything that could shed light on this, by federal [lawsuit] discovery, they'd have to disclose that." In March, local blog Queensbridge.us reported that an NYPD officer said the department "has NYCHA security video showing that RMP's lights were flashing when victim was struck."
The complaint, which names the city, the NYPD and patrol car driver Daren Ilardi as defendants, alleges Ilardi operated the vehicle in a "gross and negligent manner," and that Oyamada was a "lawful pedestrian" at the time of impact; surveillance video "would contribute substantially into finding out how and why the accident happened," Kim said. And though the case isn't necessarily a federal matter, Kim says the rules governing federal discovery are stricter than those in city court, and he wants to avoid running into the same problems faced by the family of cyclist Mathieu Lefevre, which battled over evidence disclosure with the NYPD for nearly a year.
Kim says he and an accident reconstruction expert will also examine the patrol car for further evidence later this month. He also noted that several key witnesses in the case were not cooperating with him. "I would ask anyone with firsthand knowledge of the accident to come forward and help," he said. A funeral for Oyamada was held in his native Japan last month, with over a hundred friends and family members in attendance.
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Flimflam Backfire: 2 Years ‘On the Job’ Ex P.O. Harry Dalian Reported Own Shield Stolen
Ex-N.Y.C. Cop Arrested After He Flashed 'Stolen' Badge
By T.E. McMorrow — Saturday, May 4th, 2013 ‘The East Hampton Star’ / East Hampton, NY
A gun-carrying former New York City police officer was arrested by East Hampton Village police Friday following an incident earlier in the week at John M. Marshall Elementary School during which he had allegedly identified himself as an active N.Y.P.D. officer and questioned staff and a village police officer stationed there about school security, police said.
However, the man’s attorney, Edward Burke Jr., following an early-evening arraignment in East Hampton Town court Friday in front of Justice Catherine Cahill characterized the circumstances leading to the arrest as “a great misunderstanding.”
The man, Harry Dalian, 36, of East Hampton, reportedly showed a badge, as well as a N.Y.P.D. identification card, identifying himself as an officer. The badge and ID in question had been reported stolen by Mr. Dalian himself, just before he retired for "personal reasons" from the N.Y.P.D. in 2006, according to press release sent out Thursday afternoon by the Village Police. Mr. Dalian began work as a New York City police office in 2004..
When Mr. Dalian was arrested he was said to be armed with a loaded 9mm automatic handgun, for which he had a permit.
The village police department has been coordinating its investigation with the Suffolk County Sheriff’s department, which immediately revoked Mr. Dalian’s New York State gun permit, as well as reportedly confiscating eight additional handguns belonging to him, according to both the police and Mr. Burke.
Mr. Dalian was charged with criminal possession of stolen property in the fifth degree, as well as criminal impersonation of a police officer, both class-A misdemeanors.
Mr. Burke told East Hampton Town Justice Cahill during arraignment proceedings Friday that Mr. Dalian has an 8-year-old daughter attending the school, and pointed out that the man’s wife and 2-year-old son were sitting in the front row of the courtroom. Sitting next to them was an older woman.
Mr. Dalian’s wife was visibly upset, and the older woman kept assuring her before the arraignment began that everything would be all right. At the same time, the toddler began singing, “Twinkle, twinkle, Little Star,” oblivious to what was going on around him.
Mr. Burke told Justice Cahill that Mr. Dilian had noticed that there was “an open or unlocked door at the school,” which precipitated his visit to the building to inquire about security.
Justice Cahill released Mr. Dalian without bail, but with a June 13 date to be back in court.
Handcuffs finally removed from Mr. Dalian’s wrists, he picked up his little boy and hugged him.
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Attorney Says Man Charged With Impersonating Police Officer At East Hampton Elementary School Was Concerned About Safety
By Virginia Garrison (27 East.Com) — Friday, May 3rd, 2013; 4:48 p.m. EDT
An East Hampton man, who falsely identified himself as a New York City Police officer at the John Marshall Elementary School in East Hampton on Wednesday, was arrested by East Hampton Village Police on Friday in Wainscott. Police said at the time of his arrest, he had a fully loaded 9-millimeter handgun.
Harry Dalian, 36, who had a permit for the gun found on Friday, had asked school Principal Gina Kraus and two police officers at the school on Wednesday about school security “and they felt a little uneasy about it,” according to East Hampton Village Police Chief Jerry Larsen.
Mr. Dalian had displayed an NYPD badge and identification at the school, but upon further investigation Village Police found that he was no longer with the force, having quit for personal reasons after working with the department from 2004 to 2006. He had reported his badge and his ID missing in 2006, Chief Larsen said.
The Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department has suspended Mr. Dalian’s gun permit and confiscated nine handguns he was allowed to possess with the permit, according to a press release issued by Village Police. Mr. Dalian is no longer allowed on the school property, and Village Police have recovered his NYPD identification.
In addition, they charged him with second-degree criminal impersonation, for impersonating a police officer, and criminal possession of stolen property, the badge and ID. Both charges are misdemeanors.
Chief Larsen said two police officers, Detective Sergeant Greg Brown and Detective Steven Sheades, just happened to be at the elementary school on Wednesday morning. Both were recently promoted, and Det. Sgt. Brown, who had been assigned to the schools in East Hampton Village after the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, was in the process of turning that assignment over to Det. Sheades.
Mr. Dalian was scheduled to be arraigned in East Hampton Town Justice Court late Friday afternoon.
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Report: NYPD Needs More Police Boats
Adding Evacuation Zones in Response to Hurricane
By DAVID M. HALBFINGER and ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS — Saturday, May 4th, 2013 ‘The New York Times’
The Bloomberg administration announced on Friday that it would double to six the number of evacuation zones along New York City’s coast and expand them to include an additional 640,000 residents, saying that the new map would provide more flexibility when major storms hit.
The changes to the city’s coastal storm plan were the most visible initiative to emerge from a report on the response to Hurricane Sandy prepared at Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s request.
The report repeatedly praises city agencies and their state and federal counterparts, and acknowledges few if any significant missteps as government officials scrambled to respond to and recover from the severity of Hurricane Sandy, which killed 43 city residents and damaged thousands of homes.
“Overall, the response was very strong,” said Caswell F. Holloway, the deputy mayor for operations, who oversaw the preparation of the report with Linda I. Gibbs, deputy mayor for health and human services. He said the point was to identify ways the city could do better, not to find fault.
“We were certainly not in a self-flagellation mode,” Mr. Holloway said.
The new evacuation zones will bring to nearly three million the number of New Yorkers living in these areas. The city has roughly eight million residents.
Mr. Holloway declined to provide details on the new map until it is finished in June, but a preliminary version was included in the report released on Friday.
He and Ms. Gibbs said the city had to work on making evacuation orders more persuasive to residents who resist calls to leave their homes.
The extra evacuation zones should help with that, Mr. Holloway said, by making it possible to “only dislocate the people who truly need to be dislocated, and ultimately give everybody even more confidence that the data they’re getting, they should be acting upon.”
Many lessons learned from Hurricane Sandy will be set down in new “playbooks” for city agencies that had to learn on the fly how to deal with a major storm’s aftermath: how to request waivers and extensions from federal school-lunch and food-stamp programs to serve a deluge of needy families; how to muster economic development programs to help battered businesses get back up to speed faster.
Others issues will be left to future task forces to interpret.
A number of smaller recommendations are already being acted on, like the purchase of more emergency lights, generators and small boats for firefighters.
The report also calls for new regulations for hospitals, nursing homes and adult homes during evacuations. It recommends the creation of a patient tracking system, better communication equipment and guidelines for the return of patients.
The report defends the city’s decision not to evacuate health centers before Hurricane Sandy, emphasizing that the risks of evacuation were high and had to be weighed against the risks of the storm, which no one expected to be so severe.
The city and the state helped evacuate approximately 6,300 patients from 37 health care centers without a fatality, according to the report.
But it does not address the harrowing details of many of those evacuations, which were widely reported after the storm.
Two hospitals voluntarily evacuated before the storm. But NYU Langone Medical Center, Bellevue and Coney Island hospitals were forced to evacuate as the floodwaters rose and power faltered or failed.
At NYU Langone and Bellevue, gravely ill patients, including babies, had to be carried down darkened flights of stairs. Two patients remained at Bellevue for days in the flickering gloom of backup power because they were too ill to be evacuated with the rest.
Many nursing and adult homes were flooded and lost power, stranding residents without enough food or clothing, or waiting in buses while there was a scramble to find places that would accept them. Some families could not immediately find relatives. Some homes did not reopen for months.
While the report acknowledges that many hospitals, nursing and adult homes are in coastal areas where the flooding was worst, it does not directly address that geographic problem as a planning issue for the future.
City officials said they planned to issue a future report on infrastructure planning.
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NYC to add 640K people to evacuation zones
By JENNIFER PELTZ (The Associated Press) — Friday, May 3rd, 2013; 6:45 p.m. EDT
NEW YORK - (AP) -- Hurricane evacuation areas would encompass 640,000 more city residents, and the number of zones would double, under plans disclosed Friday.
Details on the new zones won't be released until June, but the changes could mean neighborhoods around the city might newly be told to clear out ahead of future storms, even as the city grapples with findings that nearly two-thirds of people shrugged off orders to leave before Superstorm Sandy.
As officials reckon with a new understanding of flooding risks after Sandy, they aim to expand both the size and the number of zones so they can tailor evacuation orders better to the dynamics of a particular storm, Deputy Mayor Caswell Holloway said.
The idea: "Only dislocate the people who need to be dislocated and ultimately give people more confidence" that evacuation is necessary, he said at a briefing to release the city's self-analysis of its handling of Sandy.
More than 2.3 million people live in the city's three evacuation zones now. The roughly 375,000 residents of the most vulnerable area, called Zone A, were ordered to leave a day before Sandy walloped New York on Oct. 29.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave several televised briefings urging them to go, and the city sent out text-message alerts and dispatched police cars with bullhorns to some neighborhoods.
And yet a city-commissioned survey of 509 Zone A residents found 63 percent stayed home, according to the report released Friday.
Nearly three-quarters of them said they'd gotten the message that they were supposed to leave. But they didn't for a range of reasons, mainly that they thought the storm wasn't strong enough to imperil them or that their homes could withstand it. Some said they wanted to protect their property from damage or looters, or they didn't think the storm would hit.
The choice proved fateful for some New Yorkers. Sandy killed 43 people in the city, almost all of them in Zone A. Thousands of homes were destroyed or damaged, and an estimated 1 million residents lost power citywide.
Getting people to heed evacuation orders has bedeviled officials around the country for years. Often, one-third to half of residents defy mandatory evacuation orders, experts say.
Some governments have tried dire warnings about the dangers of staying behind, moral appeals not to endanger rescuers, and laws that threaten fines or jail time. In New York -- where a little more than half the survey respondents said they thought the city could have done more to encourage evacuation -- Friday's report calls for seeking to use digital billboards and making sure orders emphasize what's at stake.
"People need to believe, first of all, what you're telling them: that the situation is serious. ... But people need to believe, also, that if they leave, there's somewhere for them to go that's safe and what they leave behind will be safe. And we're going to continue to push those messages," Holloway said.
But some New Yorkers may not be disposed to listen, even after Sandy.
Robert Keith was sitting on the stairs inside his home in Broad Channel, an island near the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens, as Sandy's surge pushed in his door. He scooted up the steps as the water set his pool table afloat and climbed to about 5 feet. For days afterward, he slept in his car and showered at a volunteer fire department headquarters.
And yet, should another storm come, he'd stay again.
"I would say, mentally, 'Well, what the heck? I survived Sandy. How bad can this one be?'" he said by phone Friday.
The current evacuation zones are based mainly on storm surge risk projections, neighborhood geography and how accessible an area is by bridges and roads. The new zones come as federal flood map revisions are poised to double the number of homes and businesses in flood zones, and the evacuation maps also will take account of such factors as the direction in which a storm is traveling.
Beyond improving evacuation messages, the report makes dozens of other recommendations, such as buying more police boats, developing a system to track patients after hospital evacuations and lining up more generators and boilers. Other suggestions include getting more fuel trucks, deploying city staffers faster to work with community groups on relief operations and working with companies to extend cellphone towers' backup power.
Many recommendations involve crafting how-to plans for such needs as distributing food and water and checking on homebound people -- things the city did after Sandy, amid some criticism about not moving fast enough.
By making ready-to-go plans now, officials won't "have to think in an ad-hoc way and respond to those things," Deputy Mayor Linda Gibbs said.
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Traffic agent defamed by disgraced Councilman Dan Halloran wins $20,000 from city
Daniel Chu claimed Halloran, in a 2010 TV interview, alleged he broke traffic rules making a run to Dunkin’ Donuts. Chu said Halloran made 'maliciously false statements.'
By Jennifer Fermino — Saturday, May 4th, 2013 ‘The New York Daily News’
The former traffic agent who City Councilman Dan Halloran accused of speeding through stop signs on a Dunkin' Donuts Coffee Coolatta run has won $20,000 in his defamation suit against the city.
Daniel Chu claimed the stress of the public humiliation left him with Bell's palsy disease.
“My guess is the city settled because Halloran now has no credibility,” said Michael Berkley, Chu’s lawyer.
In court papers, Chu alleged Halloran orchestrated a retaliation campaign after he ticketed the Republican’s chief of staff in 2010.
As a public official, Halloran — who has since been indicted on corruption charges — had the platform to do it and blasted the lowly traffic agent in numerous TV and newspaper interviews.
He claimed Chu was on duty speeding and yakking on his cell phone en route to the chain coffee shop.
Halloran also said Chu unjustly ticketed him after he confronted him on his reckless driving.
Chu is “definitely happy to clear his name,” Berkley said.
The case was settled without any admission of wrongdoing from the city, officials said.
“The settlement brings this matter to a close, and we believe that it is in the best interest of all parties,” a city spokesman said.
Chu had initially asked for $6 million.
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New York State
New York Needs a Gun Offender Registry
By Ruben Diaz Jr. (Bronx Borough President) — Friday, May 3rd, 2013; 5:52 p.m. ‘The Huffington Post’ / New York, NY
(Op-Ed / Commentary)
The following op-ed is co-authored by City Council Member Peter F. Vallone of Queens, who serves as that body's chair of the Public Safety Committee
From Newtown, Conn., to Aurora, Colo. -- and all the way to the Bronx, Queens and the other boroughs of this great city -- gun violence is a plague on our communities.
During the past several months since the tragedy at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, leaders from across the city, state and nation have been offering ideas to combat gun violence and restrict access to military-style assault weapons. The majority of these ideas have focused on changing the laws regarding legal gun ownership. But we must be willing to take a different step -- one that will target and help combat the threat of illegal guns used by violent criminals to terrorize our neighborhoods. We must keep the spotlight of the law on these offenders, even after they are released by the court system.
That is why we have joined together to support the creation of a statewide gun offender registry, which would be an expansion of the one created in New York City in 2006 by Mayor Bloomberg, Speaker Quinn and Council Member Vallone -- the first ever of its kind. This measure would provide police across New York with one of the resources the NYPD and Commissioner Ray Kelly have used to bring murders in the City to the lowest recorded number in history.
The statewide registry would include similar reporting requirements to New York State's existing sex offender registry. It would keep the names of people convicted of crimes involving guns on the registry for at least 10 years, and require offenders to check in regularly with local police. Failure to perform any of the registration obligations would be considered a felony level crime.
New York City is the safest big city in America, in part because our registry allows the police to shine a light on gun offenders. Now, the State Legislature must follow in the City's footsteps by providing law enforcement with this common-sense crime-fighting tool that will help keep the public safe.
Furthermore, while it is currently used as a surveillance tool by law enforcement officials and other city agencies, it cannot be viewed by the public. We are now also working to update this law to allow people to access the registry online, giving them the ability to identify the gun offenders in their communities. Rather than publicly displaying the names of legal gun owners who have not broken the law -- as was recently done by The Journal News in Westchester County -- why not alert people to the potentially dangerous criminals walking among them?
We must work together towards a safer City and State, so that our residents can raise their families without constantly looking over their shoulders. We cannot continue to let gun offenders slip through the cracks or step back into the shadows and continue to infest our neighborhoods with crime. The eyes of the law, and the public, must remain fixed firmly upon them.
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U.S.A.
Another kind of gun control
Instead of doomed legislation, focus police and social services on 'hot' groups and places.
By David M. Kennedy [John Jay College of Criminal Justice] — Saturday, May 4th, 2013 ‘The Los Angeles Times’ / Los Angeles, CA
Supporters of a measure that would have expanded background checks for firearm purchases decried the bill's death in the Senate last month. But was the defeat really such a bad thing?
Had it passed, the new law would have been hailed as a historic breakthrough by "anti-gun" forces and a historic mistake by "pro-gun" forces. But on the ground, where American citizens are being shot and killed every day, nothing much would have changed.
That's the way things have gone for decades in the grinding American culture war over guns. Nearly 20 years ago, gun control advocates fought a bitter war to pass the Brady bill, the beginning of background checks for firearms. They predicted massive crime reductions, which did not come. An assault weapons ban followed, with the same predictions and same insignificant results. When the law expired, there were doomsday expectations of soaring body counts, which we didn't see. As the concealed-carry movement has swept the country, opponents have warned of public shootouts, while those in favor anticipated armed citizens stopping predators in the streets. Neither really happened.
The fact is that most of the recent debate entirely missed the point about the nature of most gun violence in America. The largest share — up to three-quarters of all homicides in many cities — is driven by gangs and drug crews. Most of the remainder is also concentrated among active criminals; ordinary citizens who own guns do not commit street robberies or shoot their neighbors and wives. Measures aimed at high-capacity magazines and military-style semiautomatic rifles, which could conceivably have helped address Newtown-style shootings, had been stripped from the bill that died in the Senate.
Even if those provisions had been passed, the guns involved in the vast majority of crimes are everyday handguns. Background checks and increased attention to gun trafficking would have made some small difference in keeping guns out of the hands of criminals. But the neighborhoods where this violence is concentrated, most of which are poor and minority, need real help, and they would not have gotten it from the Senate bill.
The most powerful interventions aimed at day-to-day gun violence lie elsewhere. In the absence of any movement in the larger gun debate, mayors, police chiefs, prosecutors and academics have been moving on their own — and have made real progress. The way forward lies in two directions.
One is to focus on "hot" groups and individuals. Gun violence turns out to be driven by a fantastically small number of people: about 5% of the young men in the most dangerous neighborhoods. It is possible to identify them, put together a partnership of law enforcement, community figures and social service providers, and have a face-to-face engagement in which the authorities say, "We know who you are, we know what you're doing, we'd like to help you, but your violence has to stop, and there will be serious legal consequences if it doesn't."
The original version of this approach, Operation Ceasefire in Boston, cut youth homicide by two-thirds and all homicide by half. A version aimed at parolees with violent criminal records returning to particularly hot Chicago neighborhoods cut homicide by nearly 40%. Boston's strategy has since been put in place in many cities (and in the LAPD's Mission Division in the north San Fernando Valley, with very promising results); Chicago's approach is now being replicated in New York state, including in three New York City neighborhoods. Research on the basic approach shows consistently positive outcomes.
The second strategy involves focusing on "hot" places. Even in high-crime communities, gun violence is concentrated geographically. It is particular blocks and corners, not whole neighborhoods, that are at highest risk. Rutgers University criminologist Anthony Braga has found that such places often stay hot for decades. Focused police attention on those places pays demonstrable dividends. Mere presence works; more sophisticated problem-solving efforts work better.
These approaches can work quickly, and they sidestep the culture war on guns because they require no legislative action. Most important, they bring relief to the beleaguered communities that need it the most.
If discussion about the approaches have been conspicuously absent from the national debate, that is not true at the state and local levels. New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, for example, is implementing the Boston strategy as part of his "NOLA for Life" antiviolence initiative. Mayor Rahm Emanuel and police Supt. Garry McCarthy have made them the centerpiece of Chicago's violence prevention strategy, and they already see results. After making headlines last year for its extreme violence, Chicago is seeing dramatic declines.
Cities need help from the federal government, however. A relatively small investment nationally would provide what they need to understand, implement and sustain these approaches across the nation.
Not long ago, violent crime was a clear federal priority. Efforts included the Clinton administration's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, or COPS, and the George W. Bush administration's Project Safe Neighborhoods. Earlier versions of both have been rightly criticized for a lack of focus: the COPS office for essentially being a jobs program for police, and Project Safe Neighborhoods for allowing federal prosecutors to do pretty much whatever they wanted as long as they said it was about gun crime. Both programs are shadows of their former selves, but they could be used to bring the federal government back into a game that it should never have left.
Washington could use vehicles such as the Community Oriented Policing office and Project Safe Neighborhoods to say to cities: These things work, and we will help you implement them. In the vacuum left by the failure of the Senate to act, it not only could but should.
David M. Kennedy is the director of the Center for Crime Prevention and Control at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. His most recent book is "Don't Shoot: One Man, a Street Fellowship, and the End of Violence in Inner-City America."
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Homeland Security
Terrorism database bloated with names
The government's catch-all list for terrorism suspects has 875,000 records.
By KEN DILANIAN — Saturday, May 4th, 2013 ‘The Los Angeles Times’ / Los Angeles, CA
When a Russian intelligence service told the CIA that Tamerlan Tsarnaev had become an Islamic radical looking to join underground groups, the agency put his name in the government's catch-all database for terrorism suspects.
The Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment list, known as TIDE, was the government's attempt after the Sept. 11 attacks to consolidate a hodgepodge of watch lists, and ensure that every law enforcement agency would be alerted when it came into contact with a possible terrorist.
But TIDE has ballooned to 875,000 records, and critics say it is so all-encompassing that its value has been diminished. The database includes the names of young children of suspected terrorists and of people who have been cleared of suspected links to terrorism, officials say. A single credible tip raising "reasonable suspicion" is enough to add someone to the list.
TIDE is not a watch list -- it is a highly classified intelligence database, a master list that feeds information at various secrecy levels to agencies that maintain their own watch lists.
Its biggest customer is the FBI, which runs the Terrorist Screening Database, also known as the consolidated watch list, which has hundreds of thousands of names. That database in turn feeds the "selectee list," whose members are pulled aside for searches at airports, and the self-explanatory no-fly list of just a few thousand members. The FBI database also feeds the State Department's watch list, which is designed to ensure that suspected terrorists don't get U.S. visas.
Just being in TIDE or on the broad terrorism watch lists is not enough to justify special attention by law enforcement, officials say, and Tsarnaev, the Boston bombing suspect who was killed April 19 in a shootout with police, is a case in point. The database is so large and the records can be so vague that there often is little a law enforcement agency is willing or able to do in response to a TIDE match.
"To actually look at and get deeper into anybody on these lists, you have to get more information," said Anthony D'Angelo, a former FBI agent who ran the Joint Terrorism Task Force in Chicago from 2004 to 2007.
"Would you buy a Ford?" an unnamed Department of Homeland Security intelligence officer was quoted as telling Senate investigators last fall in a Senate report that criticized TIDE. "Ford Motor Co. has a TIDE record."
U.S. officials declined to address that claim on the record. They acknowledge that TIDE includes misinformation, but they say the database enables the kind of data sharing that officials wish took place in the months leading up to September 2001. As many as 60 CIA officers were aware of intelligence reports in 2000 that two al-Qaida figures who would become Sept. 11 hijackers, Nawaf al Hamzi and Khalid al Mihdhar, may have been in the United States -- but no one notified the FBI.
"Is there information in TIDE which is inaccurate? Yeah, that's why it's called intelligence and not facts," said Michael Leiter, former head of the National Counterterrorism Center. "But think about the idea that the CIA gets information that then is accessible to a cop on the street when he pulls somebody over. Nobody else in the world has anything remotely like that."
The database includes terrorism financiers and supporters, and those believed to be casing potential targets, said a U.S. intelligence official who spoke on condition that he not be named. It includes multiple duplicate records, a second official said.
When Tsarnaev flew in January 2012 for a six-month trip to the Dagestan region of Russia, his entry in TIDE did not register with U.S. customs officials because two variants of his name and the date of birth typed into the system were incorrect, a U.S. intelligence official said. That wrong information was also transmitted to the FBI's main terrorism watch list, the official said.
Tsarnaev had been interviewed by the FBI based on the same tip from the Russians, however, and his name had been entered correctly into yet another list used by customs officials to track the movements of persons of interest. That list includes about 22 million border crossing records, a counter-terrorism official said.
But since the FBI found no evidence that Tsarnaev was a threat, customs officials did not pull him aside for special questioning when he re-entered the country in July.
Tsarnaev returned to Cambridge, Mass., where authorities allege he and his younger brother, Dzhokhar, planned and carried out the Boston Marathon bombings.
Even if the TIDE entry on Tamerlan Tsarnaev had also popped up, the U.S. intelligence official said, "he's not a selectee, he's not been deemed a threat. I don't know really if they would have given him a second look."
A U.S. counter-terrorism official said Thursday that Russia's intelligence service believes that while Tsarnaev was in Dagestan he met with militants.
"It looks like there was some interaction," the official said. "It doesn't seem like it was involving logistics or planning." The militants were not working with Tsarnaev, the official added, "because they were focused primarily on the traditional, Russian enemy. There is no evidence of pre-operational planning or training or even that this was a source of his radicalization."
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U.S. Customs ordered to verify all int'l student visas
By Alicia A. Caldwell (The Associated Press) — Friday, May 3rd, 2013; 2:43 p.m. EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Homeland Security Department ordered border agents "effective immediately" to verify that every international student who arrives in the U.S. has a valid student visa, according to an internal memorandum obtained Friday by the Associated Press. The new procedure is the government's first security change directly related to the Boston bombings.
The order from a senior official at U.S. Customs and Border Protection, David J. Murphy, was circulated Thursday and came one day after the Obama administration acknowledged that a student from Kazakhstan accused of hiding evidence for one of the Boston bombing suspects was allowed to return to the U.S. in January without a valid student visa.
The student visa for Azamat Tazhayakov had been terminated when he arrived in New York on Jan. 20. But the border agent in the airport did not have access to the information about it in the Homeland Security Department's Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, called SEVIS.
Tazhayakov was a friend and classmate of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Tazhayakov left the U.S. in December and returned Jan. 20. But in early January, his student-visa status was terminated because he was academically dismissed from the university.
Tazhayakov and a second Kazakh student were arrested this week on federal charges of obstruction of justice. They were accused of helping to get rid of a backpack containing fireworks linked to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. A third student was also arrested and accused of lying to authorities.
A spokesman for the department, Peter Boogaard, said earlier this week that the government was working to fix the problem, which allowed Tazhayakov to be admitted into the country when he returned to the U.S.
Under existing procedures, border agents could verify a student's status in SEVIS only when the person was referred to a second officer for additional inspection or questioning. Tazhayakov was not sent to a second officer when he arrived. Under the new procedures, all border agents were expected to be able to access SEVIS by next week.
The government for years has recognized as a problem the inability of border agents at primary inspection stations to directly review student-visa information. The Homeland Security Department was working before the bombings to resolve the problem, but the new memo outlined interim procedures until the situation was corrected.
Under the new procedures, border agents will verify a student's visa status before the person arrives in the U.S. using information provided in flight manifests. If that information is unavailable, border agents will check the visa status manually with the agency's national targeting data center.
The Obama administration announced an internal review earlier this week of how U.S. intelligence agencies shared sensitive information before the bombings and whether the government could have prevented the attack. Republicans in Congress have promised oversight hearings, which begin Thursday next week.
Sen. Charles Grassley, a Republican, asked Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on Thursday for details from the student visa applications of Tazhayakov and Dias Kadyrbayev, the Kazakhstan students implicated in helping Tsarnaev after the bombings, including information about how Tazhayakov re-entered the United States.
Lawmakers and others have long been concerned about terrorists exploiting the student visa system to travel to the United States. A 20-year-old college student from Saudi Arabia was arrested in Texas in 2011 on federal charges of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction. Authorities accused him of plotting to blow up dams, nuclear plants or the Dallas home of former president George W. Bush. He was later convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
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Foreign Students to Face New Checks at U.S. Borders
By JULIA PRESTON — Saturday, May 4th, 2013 ‘The New York Times’
The Department of Homeland Security has ordered new security checks for all foreign students entering the United States, according to officials familiar with instructions issued Friday to customs inspectors.
The new check was added after the authorities discovered that a foreign friend of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings, had left the United States and returned in January using a student visa that should have been canceled because he was no longer enrolled at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.
The friend, Azamat Tazhayakov, is one of two students from Kazakhstan who were arrested Wednesday, charged with obstructing justice and accused of covering up evidence of Mr. Tsarnaev’s role in the bombings.
Aside from standard verification of their travel documents, arriving students now will also be checked through a database known as the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, officials said. The system contains information on schools with foreign students and on the students’ enrollment status.
According to Homeland Security Department officials, Mr. Tazhayakov left the United States in December and returned on Jan. 20, presenting a student visa with an expiration date of Aug. 30 of this year and a letter of enrollment from the University of Massachusetts. However, officials later discovered that the university had reported to the department that Mr. Tazhayakov’s enrollment had ended on Jan. 4.
Students generally are allowed a 30-day grace period to re-establish enrollment before they are required to leave, the officials said. But the leeway applies only to students remaining in the country; those who fail to maintain enrollment are not allowed to leave and re-enter. Although his visa had not expired, officials acknowledged, Mr. Tazhayakov should not have been allowed to return.
A lapse occurred because Customs and Border Protection inspectors did not have the latest information on Mr. Tazhayakov, officials said. The new entry checks, which were first reported by The Associated Press, would give airport customs officers the most recent information about students’ visa and enrollment status. The Homeland Security Department has been working to improve the student checks system, officials there said.
They noted that when Mr. Tazhayakov passed customs, their databases contained “no derogatory information” suggesting he posed a national security threat. He soon re-enrolled at the university.
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Some Early Lessons from the Boston Marathon Bombing Investigation
By Irving Wladawsky-Berger — Saturday, May 4th, 2013 ‘The Wall Street Journal’ / New York, NY
On April 22, CIO Journal deputy editor Steve Rosenbush published a column on the Boston Marathon bombing investigation. His column looked at the way a number of disparate elements quickly came together to address the very complex problem at hand: identify and find those responsible for the bombing as quickly as possible.
I’ve worked closely with Steve since last April when CIO Journal started posting my blogs. We discussed the Boston investigation as he was writing his column and he quoted some of my comments. Since then, I’ve continued to think about what might be some of the key lessons we have learned so far about the investigation and the way it was conducted. Let me share a few of my personal first impressions.
Professionalism and Preparedness. In the column, Rosenbush pointed out that: “As soon as news of the Boston Marathon bombings broke around 2:50 p.m. on Monday, April 15, myriad layers of the U.S.’s problem-solving stack came into play.” Particularly noteworthy was the initial response of law enforcement units, emergency medical crews, hospitals, and various government agencies. These first responders identified victims, treated injuries, quickly transported those seriously injured to nearby hospitals, cleared the area, secured the crime scene and launched the investigation.
I was impressed by the professionalism exhibited by these various first responders in such a complex, chaotic situation. These people and their agencies were very well prepared. They clearly did not know that this particularly bombing would take place, but their professional reactions showed that they had anticipated and planned for a variety of such emergency situations, had plans in place for handling them, and had likely practiced these plans in various ways.
Their well executed response was no accident. They were ready. The hallmark of professionalism, whether in sports teams, business or first responders is that they are ready to handle just about any situation that comes their way. And this can only happen with a team of well prepared, talented individuals. Practice does indeed make perfect.
Governance and Teamwork: This professionalism extended beyond the initial response to the bombing investigation. Multiple federal, state and local law enforcement agencies worked closely together to identify and apprehend the suspects. “Everyone was in agreement that there had been an attack, that the victims needed to be helped, and the perpetrators brought to justice,.” wrote Rosenbush in his CIO Journal column. “While those goals might seem obvious, there are plenty of places in the world - pick the failed state of your choice - where that consensus isn’t possible and terror attacks aren’t so efficiently addressed.”
Whether in government or business, it is often quite difficult to get everyone pulling in the same direction to solve a very complex problem, even in a crisis situation where time is of the essence. Doing so requires effective governance and the close cooperation of all those involved. This should be simpler in business, since in principle everyone is part of the same organization that eventually reports to the CEO. But, as we have seen over and over again, many companies have dysfunctional organizations that are not able to come together and address complex problems even when their very survival is at stake.
Such good governance and cooperation is much harder to find in government where organizational structures are typically more distributed and it is often not clear who is ultimately in charge. Which makes the law enforcement collaboration exhibited in the Boston bombing investigation all the more impressive. Given that the bombing was treated as a terrorist attack, the FBI led the investigation, assisted by the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) and a number of other federal agencies. The Boston police department worked closely with those of Cambridge, Watertown and other nearby communities. Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick and the state police were decisive in making decisions to shut down Boston and nearby municipalities, including public transportation, as they searched for the suspects. We assume that all these decisions were made in close consultations with the various law enforcement agencies involved.
I was particularly impressed with the press conference that took place on April 19 at 9:30 pm following the arrest of bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in Watertown. Given how fast events had been unfolding that evening, the 22 minute press conference, which took place about one hour after the arrest, must have been hastily pulled together. Yet, it was a well orchestrated, positive event celebrating not only the end of the manhunt after a long, tense day, but the close teamwork that led to the successful resolution of this phase of the case.
Ten different speakers, representing the different agencies involved, took the podium and thanked everyone for their hard work and cooperation: governor Patrick and Boston mayor Thomas Menino, the special agents in charge of the investigation for the FBI and the ATF, the US Attorney and Suffolk County (Boston area) District Attorney, the police chiefs of Boston and Watertown, and the chiefs of the state and the transit police. This press conference spoke legions to me about the professionalism and teamwork underlying the investigation.
Social Media and News Outlets: The response to the Boston bombing by emergency responders and law enforcement is evidence that, over the last dozen years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the US has made much progress in its ability to handle catastrophic events. However, finding the proper role for social media in such events is still a work in progress.
Social media played an important role in disseminating information about the bombing as soon as it happened. And, once the FBI identified and released pictures and videos of the two suspects on April 18 and made a direct appeal to the public for assistance in finding them, social media was very helpful in distributing the pictures and video as well as the FBI’s appeal for help.
However, much more problematic were the actions of some in social media, who took it upon themselves to try to solve the case on their own by analyzing photos online of people carrying backpacks who they felt might be potential terrorists. They started spreading rumors, which turned out to be baseless. This rush to judgment was not only unfair to those improperly identified, but ended up disrupting the official investigation, which had to quickly dispel the false rumors and clear people being unjustly accused before any damage was done.
“The craving for information leads to behaviors that are alternately rewarded and punished,” wrote author and journalist James Gleick in New York Magazine. “If instantaneity is what we want, television cannot compete with cyberspace. Nor does the hive mind wait for officialdom. While the FBI watched and tagged and coded thousands of images from surveillance cameras and cell phones, users on Reddit and 4chan went to work, too, marking up photos with yellow arrows and red circles: “1: ALONE 2: BROWN 3: Black backpack 4: Not watching.”
“Virtually everything these sleuths discovered was wrong. Their best customer was the New York Post, which fronted a giant photo of two “Bag Men” - who, of course, turned out to be a high-school kid and his friend, guilty of nothing but brown skin. If the watchword Wednesday was crowd-source, by Thursday it was witch-hunt. Total Noise.”
Social media and crowd sourcing can clearly play major roles in helping the authorities in such investigations. But, the key phrase here is helping the authorities, rather than going out on its own. Much as we may sometimes feel that the wisdom of crowds trumps expertise and process, what works so well for Wikipedia does not carry over to endeavors like terrorist and criminal investigations.
Old media had its own missteps. The worst one by far was The New York Post’s April 18 front page photo under the headline “BAG MEN: Feds seek these two pictured at Boston Marathon.” The two men pictured were completely innocent with no connection whatsoever to the bombings. Other news outlets were also taken to task for reporting what turned out to be false rumors, causing the FBI at one point to criticize the news media for their mistaken, unverified reporting.
Over the next several months, new facts will emerge and in-depth books will be written that might cast the Boston Marathon bombing investigation in a different light. But, at this early stage, I believe that the key lesson we have learned is the reaffirmation that we can take a punch and keep going. We need to be as vigilant as humanly possible, but terrorist and criminal acts will continue to strike us from time to time. In all such cases, the knowledge that we are a resilient society that can pick itself up and keep going while remaining free and open is the most important lesson of all.
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Mike Bosak
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