Interesting site reporting police misconduct.

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Interesting site reporting police misconduct.

http://www.injusticeeverywhere.com/

Of local interest:

Neptune Beach FL cop who helped that city develop anti-gambling regulations was arrested for his alleged role in a gambling ring.

Watching the watchers!

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I post this, then casually click over to the NYT site and this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/29/nyregion/officers-unleash-anger-at-ticket-fixing-arraignments-in-the-bronx.html?_r=1&hp

A three-year investigation into the police’s habit of fixing traffic and parking tickets in the Bronx ended in the unsealing of indictments on Friday and a stunning display of vitriol by hundreds of off-duty officers, who converged on the courthouse to applaud their accused colleagues and denounce their prosecution.

As 16 police officers were arraigned at State Supreme Court in the Bronx, incensed colleagues organized by their union cursed and taunted prosecutors and investigators, chanting, “Down with the D.A.” and “Ray Kelly, hypocrite.”

As the defendants emerged from their morning court appearance, a swarm of officers formed a cordon in the hallway and clapped as they picked their way to the elevators. Members of the news media were kept behind metal barricades at the ends of the hallway by court officers, and the assembled police officers blocked cameras from filming their colleagues.

The unsealed indictments contained more than 1,600 criminal counts, the bulk of them misdemeanors having to do with making tickets disappear â€" in common parlance â€" as favors for friends, relatives and others with clout. But they also outlined more serious crimes, relating both to ticket-fixing and drugs, grand larceny and unrelated corruption. Four of the officers were charged with helping a man get away with assault.

Jose R. Ramos, an officer in the 40th Precinct whose suspicious behavior spawned the protracted investigation, was accused of two dozen crimes, including attempted robbery, attempted grand larceny, transporting what he thought was heroin for drug dealers and revealing the identity of a confidential informant. Prosecutors said Officer Ramos once offered an undercover officer posing as a drug trafficker the use of his police car to move heroin through Manhattan.

The case, troubling to many New Yorkers because of its implication that the police officers believed they deserved special treatment, is expected to have long tentacles. Scores of other officers accused of fixing tickets could face departmental charges. Some officers have already retired. Moreover, the indictments may jeopardize thousands of cases in which implicated officers are important witnesses and may be seen as untrustworthy by famously dubious Bronx juries.

The contentious scene in the Bronx concluded a week of deep embarrassment for the New York Police Department and Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, who at a news conference acknowledged the difficulty of having “to announce for the second time this week that police officers have been arrested for misconduct.”

Federal agents earlier in the week arrested eight current and former officers on accusations that they had brought illegal firearms, slot machines and black-market cigarettes into New York City. Recently, other officers have been charged in federal court with making false arrests, and there was testimony in a trial in Brooklyn that narcotics detectives planted drugs on innocent civilians.

Of the 16 officers arraigned Friday, ranking as high as lieutenant, 11 were charged with crimes related to fixing tickets. All of them pleaded not guilty, and all but two were released without bail. Officer Ramos was held on $500,000 cash bail. Jennara Cobb, a lieutenant in the Internal Affairs Bureau, was released after posting a $20,000 bail bond. She was accused of leaking information about the investigation to other officers.

Five civilians were also arrested in the case. Among them were Officer Ramos’s wife and a tow truck operator, both charged with participating with Officer Ramos in an insurance scam.

The outpouring of angry officers at the courthouse had faint echoes of a 1992 march by off-duty officers on City Hall to protest Mayor David N. Dinkins’s call for more independent review of the police. And it raises unsettling questions about the current mind-set of the police force.