I’m just gonna leave this right here.

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New York (CNN) — New York police on Sunday touted the impact of their much-criticized “stop, question and frisk” policy, claiming it has contributed to a spike in the number of firearms confiscated and coincided with what is shaping up to be a historically low murder rate.

Comparing numbers from the first three months of 2012 to the same period last year, the number of such stops increased 10% while the number of illicit guns taken away went up 31%, according to a New York Police Department statement from Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne.

Meanwhile, New York’s murder rate has plunged 21% year-to-date as of last Friday — meaning, if the current trend continues, the yearly number of murders in the city would be the lowest since such statistics first were recorded, as such, in 1963.

“New York City continues to be the safest big city in America, and one of the safest of any size, with significantly less crime per capita … than even small cities,” the department said.

Police cited Operation Impact and the “stop and frisk” policy as key reasons for the improving crime statistics. But the policy has been criticized sharply by some as grounds for racial profiling.

Donna Lieberman — executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, which has described the practice as “unlawful and racially biased” — blasted the latest release of data, accusing the police department of trying to “massage the numbers to make this look like an effective and worthwhile program.”

“What (this policy) does is terrorize moms of color about the well-being of their sons, who have to navigate how to survive unwarranted intrusion into their activities by a police department for doing absolutely nothing wrong,” she said Sunday in a statement.

Added Darius Chaney, senior staff attorney for the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, “It is mind-boggling that, after years of public outcry and in the face of strong evidence that stop-and-frisk violates people’s rights and does not make them safer, the NYPD has doubled down on this discriminatory and ineffective practice.”

Another critic, City Council member Jumaane Williams, earlier this year questioned how the policy affects the police department’s relations with minorities in the city.

“Communities are losing trust with the police, which is one of the biggest crime-fighting tools that we have,” Williams said.

Minorities are far more likely than whites to be questioned under New York’s program, according to police department statistics. Of those stopped and frisked — 93% of whom were males — 54% were African-American, 33% were Hispanic, 9% were white and 3% were Asian.

Yet the police department, including Commissioner Ray Kelly, has argued that the policy ends up disproportionately protecting those in minority communities. African-Americans and Hispanics made up 96% of all New York shooting victims and 90% of murder victims last year, police said. Therefore, a drop in such shootings citywide would logically equate to fewer minorities’ being killed.

New York police pointed out there were 124 murders this year in the city through April 29, compared with 158 in Chicago — which, with about 2.7 million people, has less than one-third of New York’s population.

Those figures couldn’t be clearly matched on the city of Chicago’s website. Official crime data from Chicago did note 120 homicides in that city through April 20, while the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye website recorded 169 homicides as of May 9.

“The continuing murder decline in New York is vindication of the NYPD’s policy of engagement, which includes Operation Impact, police stop and questioning and use of the Real Time Crime Center to get timely information into detectives’ hands as quickly as possible,” New York police said in their statement Sunday.

Civil liberties advocate Lieberman acknowledged progress regarding crime, but disputed the idea that this can be credited to “stop, question and frisk” — or that such trends aren’t evident elsewhere without such policies.

“Crime has gone down and stop-and-frisk has gone up, but that doesn’t meant that stop-and-frisk is (the) reason for reduction in crime. It’s gone down in almost every city in the last decade,” she said. “It’s time for (Mayor Mike Bloomberg) and Police Commissioner Kelly to treat people of color as if they were their own families.”

While 31% more firearms were recovered in the first quarter of 2012 compared to the same stretch one year prior, only 13% more weapons total were confiscated, according to police statistics. That is because most such seized weapons are knives, at about seven times the rate for guns.

The vast majority of those stopped, questioned and frisked walk free without punishment. According to data from 2012’s first three months, 5% of those ended up being arrested and another 5% were served summons. Both rates are slightly below those from the previous year.

Well that’s fair.  I’m sure her race had nothing to do with it.  

survivingidaho:

1. Law enforcement agencies across the nation actively seek out those with bullyish, or “assertive”, attitudes when recruiting new officers. They then stoke these attitudes and give them a sense of entitlement that they do not deserve. Police are no longer required to earn the respect of the people nor do they work for the people. The general populace is expected to respect the badge and blindly obey any orders issued by an officer of the law. This is not right.

2. The majority of cops are corrupt. I know that this is an extremely bold statement but I do have logic to back it up. While most police officers are not so corrupt that they will take bribes or commit crime while using their uniform as cover it is commonly accepted among law enforcement that you do not issue other police officers or their family members citations. In situations where it is impossible not to give a ticket, i.e. DUI, traffic accidents, etc., cops are issued the most minor ticket possible. They then receive the most minor punishment possible. This is corruption. Even if a cop is clean they cannot miss the corruption around them. Therefore they are corrupt by association. This is not right. “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing”- Edward Burke

3. The police no longer “protect and serve”. As demonstrated most recently by the occupy protests and the subsequent rape of constitutional rights carried out by the boys in blue, police officers now exist to protect the American elite from the mob.That is not right.

4. The police have become tools of the government to collect unofficial taxes to help keep the war machine and welfare state afloat. Over the last few decades fines for minor infractions have increased astronomically. Also, every day more ridiculous laws are put into place for the sole purpose of generating cash. Even the most law abiding citizen is guaranteed to break at least one law a day and not even know it. The bloated American police force now spends most of its time issuing seat belt, traffic, and minor drug tickets instead of working on real crime. This is not right.

5. The police are racist. The recent uncovering of the NYPD’s program to survey the Muslim (I know that “Muslim” isn’t a race but the majoity of Islamists in America are minorities) community and the treatment of blacks and Hispanics throughout our history is so disgustingly bigoted that it makes me sick. In 2003 the Bureau of Justice Statistics released a report stating that 32% (~1/3) of African Americans born in the new century will do time in jail or prison. Their analysis is based on Justice Department data for the second half of the 20th century. While many other factors contribute to this statistic the fact that racist cops are part of it cannot be denied. How often are young white males from Manhattan subjected to the NYPD’s “stop and frisk” policy? This is not right.

“Good.  He should have followed the law.”

“But why does the law exist to begin with?”

:::crickets::::

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LOCKPORT, N.Y. (WIVB) - A judge in the Town of Lockport has sentenced a local businessman to jail for violating the local ordinance on electronic displays.

In Lockport, the law dictates electronic signs can’t change more than once every ten minutes. In 2009, business owner David Mongielo was first found in violation.

“The law reads that the format or the message may only change once every ten minutes, so the program is the format, and the video is the format, so that alone means it’s legal,” contended Mongielo.

He had to pay a fine of $700, and if he violated the law within a year, he would have to serve 15 days in jail. Days before the year was up, Mongielo’s sign illuminated an upcoming fundraiser for Niagara County Sheriff’s deputy Allen Gerhardt, who lost both legs in an auto accident.

Mongielo argued, “Displaying a fundraising event, happy birthday message, anything non-commercial, it’s my constitutional right; they can’t regulate it.”

More from WIVB.com: 

Ex employee makes bold statement on Taco Bell sign

Daredevil to walk across Niagara Falls

Mug shot photo gallery

He was found in violation again and Tuesday night learned his sentence.

“It’s shocking; it’s disturbing,” he said. “I am a patriot and the dysfunction of America, it can show we don’t have any freedoms locally.”

Mongielo will have to pay a $250 fine and will have to serve a 15-day bail sentence beginning May 17th for breaking the original one-year requirement.

His attorney, Frank Housh, said, “There’s so much wrong with this prosecution - sign ordinance.”

The prosecutor in the case didn’t want to comment. Mongielo and his attorney say they plan to appeal.

“Oh, this is probably just an isolated incident.”

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A federal discrimination lawsuit brought against the NYPD by one of its own has further exposed the extent of blatant, sanctioned racism within the department.

The discrimination lawsuit was filed by minority officers that believe they were passed over for promotions because of race.

According to the testimony of three officers,high ranking officials regularly used the n-word to address suspects, and instructed officers to treat black people like animals and “shoot to kill” if necessary.

From The NY Daily News via. Loop 21:

“Capt. Coan would tell the field team … ‘They are f—–g animals. You make sure if you have to shoot, you shoot them in the head. That way there’s one story,’ ” said the retired detective.

The ex-cop, identified only as Undercover 7988, said Coan’s racist rant came before every search warrant executed in Brooklyn’s Brownsville, Bedford-Stuyvesant and East New York from 2008 to 2010.

‘They didn’t care if it was kids in there, they didn’t care if it was women in there, naked women,’ the detective said. ‘… They treated them as if they had no rights whatsoever. It was disgusting.’

Another officer who testified claims that in 2005, he walked into an apartment where he heard Davin telling officers, ‘If you have to shoot a n—-r, do what you gotta do.’”