New York Is Not Safer, Just Cheaper On eBay

The Observer quipped that New York was like The Wire the other day when they linked to the Times’ story about how the City intends to tear down some mid-rise housing project buildings in Brooklyn. But it even goes beyond that:

More than a hundred retired New York Police Department captains and higher-ranking officers said in a survey that the intense pressure to produce annual crime reductions led some supervisors and precinct commanders to manipulate crime statistics, according to two criminologists studying the department.

. . .

In interviews with the criminologists, other retired senior officers cited examples of what the researchers believe was a periodic practice among some precinct commanders and supervisors: checking eBay, other Web sites, catalogs or other sources to find prices for items that had been reported stolen that were lower than the value provided by the crime victim. They would then use the lower values to reduce reported grand larcenies — felony thefts valued at more than $1,000, which are recorded as index crimes under CompStat — to misdemeanors, which are not, the researchers said.

Meanwhile, the Daily News publishes a firsthand account of another way to fudge the numbers on New Year’s Eve:

People who came into the stationhouse couldn’t believe the precinct captain was there to greet them and take their crime report. The supervisors and cops looked at me like I was nuts, or more accurately, just pathetic. But there was no way I was going to be the only captain in Brooklyn South who couldn’t beat last year’s figures.

. . .

So what did I do that night? Did I fudge crime stats? Did I send crime victims on their way with no satisfaction? Absolutely not! I just . . . delayed.

I might have taken the complaints, but nothing was getting logged in the computer — and therefore would not “officially” count in Compstat — until after midnight. Until 1998.

The complainants were happy. They got personal service from the captain. The 124 room civilian personnel were happy. They got to relax that night because nothing was going into that computer until I said so. More importantly, the borough commander and, ultimately, the police commissioner, were happy because Bensonhurst came in one so-called “index” crime below the year before. CRIME WAS DOWN IN ALL OF BROOKLYN SOUTH!

Well, not really, because seven index crimes measured in Compstat were reported by victims from 2 p.m. to midnight, but since I prepared and reviewed the hand-written “scratch” copies, only five crimes could possibly be entered into the computer program by midnight. The other two were typed in sometime in the early hours of 1998 – a new year!

Did that make me corrupt or unethical? Maybe. Who cares now? All I know is I didn’t get any nasty calls or threats from “downtown” on Jan. 2.

Ex-Cons Just Love Arts & Crafts Projects

Oh well that makes it better:

It was not clear what was more surprising initially to city officials: that one of the Department of Correction’s chaplains was accused of taking scissors and metal blades into a jail, or that the same chaplain had been convicted of murder.

Earlier: I’m Sure There’s A Perfectly Reasonable Explanation For This.

Dick Wolf Figures Out One More Episode For Next Season

Time was, a murder in East Harlem was just that. No longer:

Manhattan prosecutors are giving credence to the bizarre-sounding “assisted suicide” defense of an ex-con charged with brutally stabbing Long Island motivational speaker Jeffrey Locker — found dead and robbed in his car in East Harlem last summer.

. . .

“This is like a TV movie. You just don’t see this kind of thing happen. The sad thing is, he can’t do it himself. He goes to Harlem and he hires some beleaguered guy from the street, a down and out guy who’s a total stranger.”

The Governor/Mayor’s Plan To Go After Sugar Hits A Snag

Apparently the cops need stuff to do:

Two Bronx men were locked up and left to rot in a filthy jail cell for nearly a week after a pair of bumbling cops mistook their candy for a bag of crack.

The “drugs” were finally tested five days later and determined to be popular Coco (coconut) Candy. The charges were dropped — but there were no apologies from the NYPD.

“Sweet happens,” a police source glibly said of the boondoggle.

. . .

The trouble began the night of Jan. 15, as José Pena, a 48-year-old plumber, and his longtime pal and colleague Cesar Rodriguez, 33, were headed to a party, and decided to stop at a bodega on 181st Street and the Grand Concourse.

When they came out, cops were waiting and asked to search their Ford minivan. “I said ‘Go search.’ I even opened the door,” Rodriguez told The Post.

An officer rummaged around, came out holding a “Hello Kitty” sandwich bag, and shouted “Bingo!” the men said.

“It’s only candy!” Rodriguez said, as the cops handcuffed him and Pena, and several other police cars rushed to the scene.

Rodriguez said he buys a 50-cent bag of Coco Candy, a hard coconut-based treat, almost every day. Because it easily crumbles, he puts it in a sandwich bag.

“I didn’t know having candy was a crime,” he said.

Forget All Those Free Bikes, Here’s A Way To Readapt Governors Island!

Use it as the venue to try KSM:

At a news conference Thursday morning, Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said that the Police Department was studying the feasibility of staging the trial of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed on Governors Island instead of at the federal courthouse in Manhattan. But by evening, the possibility of such a change seemed highly unlikely, with Mr. Kelly saying in a televised interview that federal officials believed a change in venue would cause serious problems.

Location Scout: Governors Island.