Kids and Cops Behaving Poorly

I will admit to my inherent bias in favor of law enforcement officers, at least in America. This is not to say that I automatically accept the word of a cop, and certainly not to say that cops can do no wrong. But the cop who is out on the street making the arrest usually does not have the luxury of acting out a cleanly scripted routine resembling anything from Emily Post's Book of Etiquette. Moreover, cops, like everyone else, have their own biases and character flaws.

The jobs which the cops must do are not always the cleanest.

The story of a run-in between cops and teenagers last June is now gaining traction in the press. The kids were coming off a party in Manhattan's East Village at about 1 AM, and, if the reported facts of the story are anything near correct, one or more of the teenagers yelled at some plainclothes officers, who took the occasion to make the arrest. One of the kids kept his cool and attempted to calm down the others, except that he did so in their native language, which seemed to upset one or more of the arresting officers.

Up until this point, I'm with the cops. There seems to have been some ethanol and cannabis usage involved on the part of the kids, not at all unusual for parties in places such as the East Village.

One of the cops made some anti-semitic remarks to the kids. While this does not particularly add any luster to his profession, it must be remembered that he is not out there to be an Albert Schweitzer or a Mother Theresa or any other proponent of the universal brotherhood of mankind, but rather, is out there to detect and apprehend wrongdoers. So, while I do not hold this particular cop in personal high esteem, I'm still able to defend his on-the-job performance at this point.

Oh, yes, the audio portion of the incident was recorded by the kids on a cellphone. Cops everywhere should welcome this technological memorialization of the record, because, presuming that the cops were acting legally and professionally, such recordings can be invaluable in deconstructing the whinings of spoiled brats who scream "police brutality!" in their lawsuits. Even after hearing the recording, I'm still able to defend the cops.

Or at least I was until it was asserted that there were TWO cell phone recordings, but that the arresting officers erased one of them. Which is probably why all charges have been dropped -- not because Mamma's Golden Boys & Girls were given a bad rap by the cruel and heartless bigoted policemen, but because the spoliation of the evidence by the cops would not have played well at the trial.

Bad Cops! Bad Boys & Girls! And a good meal ticket for the ABC News producers who made hay of the story.


The Festival of Sukkoth is almost upon us, so I've got to log off. Chag Sameach to everyone!!

License Tag gets Tagged

As reported here and here, Avrohom Eliezer Friedman's stolen car was returned to him as a result of a curious Florida police officer, whose interest was piqued when he saw "GMAIL" on the car's license tag. The officer, whose name has not yet come to my attention, punched in the tag alphametrics, found that the car was stolen, and made the arrest. The car was returned to Avrohom, and the car thief presumably was taken into custody.

Nice work, Florida Cop!!!

But look at the license tag in the pictures. It is a Florida Specialty License Plate. Not just any Florida Specialty License Plate, but a Florida Police Benevolent Association license plate, complete with the Florida PBA logo.

I am not, have never been, and have no plans to be in the car stealing business. Nevertheless, it would seem to me that when one is not in compliance with the law, the last thing one should strive to be is interesting to a law enforcement officer. Simple common sense must inescapably conclude that a car with PBA tags is inherently interesting to a law enforcement officer. Therefore, if I were in the car stealing business, I would make it a point to NOT steal cars with PBA tags on them.

My friends and acquaintances in the law enforcement field tell me that many a perp has been collared because some bored cop got curious and checked something out.

Padlocking Unauthorized Immigration Law Practices

Whatever else might be said about New York Attorney General and gubernatorial wannabe Andrew Cuomo, he is doing a few things correctly, and on that score I applaud him.

Specifically, he has been on the rampage against various business entities that have been illegally providing legal services to aliens regarding their immigration status. Not oblivious to the need to give his name some positive spin, he has posted a news release on his official website to boast of his accomplishments. My partisan political sentiments in the upcoming gubernatorial election notwithstanding, I applaud this. Under the circumstances, I even applaud his posting of the Spanish version of the news release.

One of the 7 entrepreneurs that got pinched in Cuomo's latest outing was Oficina Legal Para Hispanos, P.C., owned by one Geoffrey S. Stewart, Esq. The settlement agreement (styled as an "Assurance of Discontinuance") between the AG's Office and OLPH/Stewart contains some interesting findings and terms. Specifically, Stewart was employing people not licensed to practice law to provide legal services to the "immigrants" (the correct terminology, in most cases, should be "illegal aliens").

The settlement terms include, but are not limited to: (A) Oficina Legal Para Hispanos, P.C will be dissolved, (B) Stewart will permanently cease and desist from practicing immigration law or providing "immigration-related services," and (C) OLPH and/or Stewart shall pay the AG's office $30,000 for their trouble (via wire transfer or certified check -- no personal checks accepted).

Giving credit where credit is due, I thank our AG.

[Geoffrey Stewart happens to be the son of another attorney (ex-attorney) who has gotten into trouble for the "legal services" she provided to aliens. His mom is Lynne Stewart.].

From Washington

I’ve felt a little bit out of touch with reality for the past 2 days, but that’s all attributable to the fact that I am in Washington, DC, where that seems to be the norm.

No matter how dismal or boring the matter that brings me to Washington may be, I have always enjoyed the city, and this time is no exception. I have begun to run again, having been sidelined for the better part of a month with tendinitis in the knee. I’m still not pushing myself 100%, but this morning was able to run from the Capitol to the WWII Memorial. It was a dry mouth that made me decide to turn around after paying my respects to the WWII Memorial (my first visit since its completion), and not exhaustion or my knee.

En route back I essentially ran a block and then walked a block, alternating accordingly until stopping at a convenience store to get some OJ and H2O. Before I hit the convenience store, I stopped at the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial and paid respect to all of the fallen law enforcement officers mentioned previously in this Blog, and all of the others listed there as well. I hope and pray that the number of names added in future years will be minimal (unfortunately, it is unrealistic to hope for zero).

And I deliberately avoided those two side-by-side whorehouses at, respectively, 1500 and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It would be such a pity to spoil an otherwise scenic and enjoyable run.

Yesterday, I was able to run up the inoperative escalator at the DuPont Circle Metro Station.

And so, the business that brought me to Washington has been on the northern side of neutral, and my enjoyment of the city has, as usual, been very, very positive. Tomorrow I shall return home. I hope that the plane ride home will afford me more room than the trip down here, where the fatso woman in the next seat gave me less wiggle room than I paid for.

Keystone Cops are Out of Ammunition

My holiday is now Chanukah. To all who are celebrating it, I wish a Happy Chanukah. And to all of my friends who are now celebrating Christmas, you all have a merry one!


I have long questioned the wisdom of the various gun buy-back programs which are periodically conducted by prosecutors and law enforcement authorities. The entrepreneurial types among the gangs can finance their operations and lifestyles by stealing guns, and then selling them to the DA for $200 a piece, no questions asked.

Nassau County (NY) DA Kathleen Rice claimed that her recent anonymous weapons buy-back was a success.

The eastern boundary of Nassau County, NY, dividing it from Suffolk County, was once (with slight variations) the international boundary between the Dutch New Netherlands and the British New England. Kathleen Rice's successful program in Nassau County can be compared and contrasted with the gun buy-back program across the border in Suffolk County.

The first five paragraphs of the article "Gun-Buyback Glitch" by Ann Givens in Newsday, 24 December 2008, p. A8 [Denoted in Newsday's Internet edition here as "Suffolk Runs out of Cash for Gun Buybacks"] say it all:


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Mark DeAngelis heard that Suffolk County was giving people $200 gift cards to turn in illegal handguns last weekend, so he looked behind a rafter in a warehouse he rents and found a revolver he stashed there 20 years ago, he said.

He called Suffolk's Third Precinct in Bay Shore, confirmed that they were still doing the program and then drove there and turned over the gun, he said.

But after he handed the gun to the officer, he said he got bad news: There was no money left.

"He basically said, 'You just gave me an illegal handgun. We're out of money. Do you have a problem with that?' " said DeAngelis, 43, of Patchogue, who said he bought the gun to get it out of the hands of a man he considered dangerous.

"He said he would give me a receipt if I went in the back and showed him some ID," DeAngelis said. "I just walked out. I thought the whole point was that the program was supposed to be anonymous."
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As explained by Lt. Bob Donohue of the SCPD Community Outreach Bureau, the bottom line is "If they hand us an illegal handgun and we have no money, we can't give back the gun."

And so, Suffolk County's anonymous illegal gun buy-back program is neither a buy-back program, nor anonymous. And the bait-and-switch tactics conceivably might not even be legal!

Accordingly, Suffolk County residents who wish to voluntarily relinquish their firearms are best advised to cross what formerly was the international border, and sell their guns to Nassau County.