Don’t Fire Ray Kelly For Turning The New York City Police Department Into A Shadow CIA, Fire Him For Being So Bad At It

I don’t know which is worse, that the NYPD kept secret files on businesses solely based on their religious affiliation or that they did such a shitty job doing it:

The owners of most of the establishments listed in the “Syrian Locations of Concern Report” told The Daily News Friday they are neither Syrian nor Muslim.

“I think it’s pretty comical that my store would be in this report,” said David Idy, owner of Kings Row, a clothing store on Avenue U in Brooklyn. “I happen to be a Sephardic Jew. My family is from Egypt, but I was actually raised in Bensonhurst and consider myself an American.”

Cops also listed a Bronx barber shop called “Dino’s European Hair Style,” noting that its owner is Albanian and its close proximity to the North Bronx Muslim Center.

Shop owner Sammy Eirovic said, “I’m not Albanian, I’m Montenegran.”

“Honestly, I’m really surprised anybody would be spying on me,” he said. “We just cut hair.”

“This Culture Has Got To Change”

The issues raised in the Voice series that showed the NYPD was cooking the books actually were investigated by the NYPD, except the findings were kept secret:

The implications of the report are obvious: If the 81st Precinct was a typical station house, then crime manipulation is more widespread than city officials have admitted.

John Eterno, a criminologist at Molloy College and a former NYPD captain, says that what was happening in the 81st Precinct is no isolated case. “The pressures on commanders are enormous, to make sure the crime numbers look good,” Eterno says. “This is a culture. This is happening in every precinct, every transit district, and every police housing service area. This culture has got to change.”

As for [the 81st Precinct Commander], he’s no rogue commander, says Eterno, who has published a book about crime reporting with John Jay College professor Eli Silverman. “[The commander] is no different from any other commander,” he says. “This is just a microcosm of what is happening in the entire police department.”

This Particular Corner Of The Social Contract Is So Thin That You Might Just Accidentally Tear It: All We Ask Is That You Try To Stay Sober While On Duty, But If You Do Happen To Drink, Please Stay Far, Far Away From Lightpoles And Telephone Trees

NYPD cops really need something better to do:

A police officer was arrested early Tuesday morning on charges of drunken driving after he crashed his patrol car into a pole while on duty, eight blocks from his station house in Brooklyn, law enforcement officials said.

But That’s Impossible, Especially When There Is No Such Thing As A Quota

A police officer files a suit over a practice that clearly doesn’t exist:

In a civil-rights suit filed this morning, veteran cop Craig Matthews says the quota system at the 42nd Precinct “has pitted police officers against each other, straining professional relationships and diverting resources away from law enforcement activities.”

Now things might be different if he called it a “productivity goal” . . .

Rats Getting More Brazen

It’s not so much the fact that a rat chomped on a woman’s foot but rather that the rodent did it at 9:30 in the morning. Late at night is one thing, but really now:

The attack happened Monday at about 9:30 a.m. at the Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall subway stop in Lower Manhattan, MyFoxNY.com reported Thursday.

The woman was waiting for the J train when the rat appeared below her and took a chomp out of one of her feet, which was exposed by her designer shoes.

EMS workers said they rushed the woman to New York Downtown Hospital. Her name and condition were not released by the MTA.