Thursday, March 28, 2013

Stop and Frisk Will Win in New York City Court - Yahoo! Voices - voices.yahoo.com

Stop and Frisk Will Win in New York City Court - Yahoo! Voices - voices.yahoo.com

Imagine that you were a New York City cop, obliged to follow the New York City Police Department's updated stop and frisk policy. The Gothamist explains the additional documentation a New York City cop has to provide when conducting a "stop and frisk," discovered only because the memo turned up in court yesterday.

Along with a check sheet, the cop now has to provide a CYA narrative, reports Gothamist.
If it were me, I couldn't do it. I would soon find myself in the same tough spot as that of Officer Pedro Serrano of the 40th District of the South Bronx. According to the New York Post, Serrano appears to be rebelling against a policy that puts cops between a rock and a hard place.

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Federal Death Penalty and Clay N.Y. Murder, Child Rape Conviction a Perfect Fit - Yahoo! Voices - voices.yahoo.com

Federal Death Penalty and Clay N.Y. Murder, Child Rape Conviction a Perfect Fit - Yahoo! Voices - voices.yahoo.com

Any clear thinking person reading Renz' criminal complaint on federal child pornography charges would conclude he was a loaded gun pointed at society's head. Yet he was bailed out--with naive preconditions. The laxity of electronic monitoring meant that Renz could slip off his "bracelet" to kill and rape at 9:00 p.m. without authorities being informed until 11:30 p.m.

Like the infamous Petit murder-rape in Connecticut, a conviction for these crimes would argue for a death penalty New York does not have. The last person administered capital punishment in New York was executed in 1963.

New York SAFE Act Gets a Mental Health Assessment - Yahoo! Voices - voices.yahoo.com

New York SAFE Act Gets a Mental Health Assessment - Yahoo! Voices - voices.yahoo.com

Lawmakers perhaps considered cases like that of Seung Hui Cho, who shot to death 32 people in a 2007 mass shooting at Virginia Tech. Cho had been judged mentally ill in a court procedure two years earlier, according to the Washington Post.

Yet Cho passed required background checks to obtain guns, according to CNN, because his mental health records were kept out of the gun check database. With the SAFE Act, New York state legislators made a half-hearted attempt to remedy that by obligating mental health professionals to report dangerously mentally ill patients to authorities.

Such persons would then be entered into a national gun database.
The defiant reaction of the mental health community was summed up in a Syracuse Post-Standard story quoting Dr. James Knoll, director of forensic psychiatry at New York's Upstate Medical University.

"We're being transformed into agents of the state and agents of government control," Knoll said.

Friday, March 15, 2013

Factbox: Man Who Allegedly Killed Librarian, Raped Child Was Released from Jail in January - Yahoo! News

Factbox: Man Who Allegedly Killed Librarian, Raped Child Was Released from Jail in January - Yahoo! News

On Thursday evening, Lori Bresnahan was heading toward the parking lot of the Great Northern Mall with a 10-year-old girl who had just finished a gymnastics class. The two never arrived home. Bresnahan was found stabbed to death in her car parked on isolated Verplank Road. The 10-year-old had been raped. The facts of the murder-rape have left Clay and nearby communities boiling with anger:

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Questions Hang Like a Mist at Scene of New York Rampage Shooting - Yahoo! Voices - voices.yahoo.com

Questions Hang Like a Mist at Scene of New York Rampage Shooting - Yahoo! Voices - voices.yahoo.com

It wasn't the kind of ending you wanted to see, but then again it wasn't the kind of beginning you wanted to see, either. Sixty-four-year-old Kurt R. Meyers shot to death four innocent people in two quiet towns along the Mohawk River in upstate New York.
From there on, you knew it was going to be ugly, and it was. Since the rampage shooting spree began yesterday at mid-morning, Meyers was holed up in a vacant building on North Main Street in the small town of Herkimer.

(CLICK ON THE HEADLINE TO READ MORE & TO COMMENT)  Could the police have apprehended Kurt Meyers?  Or did the scenario not fit Cuomo's SAFE Act. scenario?)  You decide!

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Factbox: Four Dead in Mass Shootings in Quiet Upstate New York Towns of Herkimer, Mohawk - Yahoo! News

Factbox: Four Dead in Mass Shootings in Quiet Upstate New York Towns of Herkimer, Mohawk - Yahoo! News

A 64-year-old man is being sought in the slaying of four people and the wounding of two others in a normally somnolent upstate Herkimer County, N.Y. The shootings, believed to have been carried out with a long rifle, took place in the tiny villages of Herkimer and Mohawk, according to the Associated Press. The situation right now is fluid and developing, but police have cordoned off part of the town where the shooting suspect may be cornered. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has a press conference scheduled for this afternoon but this has twice been delayed. The facts so far:

* The shootings began at mid-morning when a man armed with a long gun killed two people and injured two at John's Barber Shop in Mohawk then apparently drove to Gaffney's Fast Lube in nearby Herkimer where the second shootings and two deaths occurred.

(CLICK ON THE HEADLINE TO READ MORE)

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Factbox: The Steubenville, Ohio, Rape Trial of Trent Mays and Ma’lik Richmond - Yahoo! News

Factbox: The Steubenville, Ohio, Rape Trial of Trent Mays and Ma’lik Richmond - Yahoo! News

Adults who work with volatile teens know how quickly events involving them can move from merely fast to wildly out of control. An ABC News story recounts events last week when a group of eight adolescents piled into a stolen vehicle, hurtled along a freeway, and launched themselves upside down into a pond. A tragedy of another type occurred in August in Steubenville, Ohio, when police arrested two teen members of the town's football team for the rape of an allegedly intoxicated 16-year-old girl.

Friday, March 8, 2013

Factbox: First Trial of 9-11 Linked Al Qaida Operative in New York Criminal Court - Yahoo! News

Factbox: First Trial of 9-11 Linked Al Qaida Operative in New York Criminal Court - Yahoo! News


Factbox: First Trial of 9-11 Linked Al Qaida Operative in New York Criminal Court - Yahoo! News

Factbox: First Trial of 9-11 Linked Al Qaida Operative in New York Criminal Court - Yahoo! News

The Obama administration, rebuffed in previous attempts to put al Qaida terrorists on trial in New York criminal courts, is trying again. The son-in-law of Osama Bin Laden, Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, is in U.S. custody and will be prosecuted under the rules of criminal law in the Southern District of New York. Where previous attempts to try terrorists in criminal court were opposed by Democrats like Chuck Schumer, the senator recently "said it's fine with him if Abu Ghaith is put on trial in New York," according to NBC News.

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Rand Paul Filibuster Dog & Pony Show or Talk Radio Script


Who are these losers on Twitter who were today and yesterday so proud of Senator Rand Paul’s 13 hour filibuster  yesterday?  Are they delusional?  

The occasion for the prolonged Show and Tell was the senate confirmation hearings for CIA director John Brennan.  Even Senator Paul agrees that Brennan will be confirmed, and that he couldn’t do anything to stop it.

What I like about Senator Rand Paul is that he’s a “regular guy,” the kind of guy who might change his own flat tire when he’s not out on the range trying out his new Remington.  But after making a grand show of his opposition to  Chuck Hagel, President Obama’s nominee for Secretary of Defense, Rand reversed himself and voted for Hagel. 

Yesterday, he used the occasion of Brennan’s nomination to take the stage as leader of the Libertarian  so-far-right-they’re-left cheering section.   That enhanced his profile, but it also sucked up much needed oxygen on issues that really need answers.

But the worst thing about Rand Paul’s filibuster was he voted for the incompetent Hagel and spent a tremendous amount of energy opposing the competent Brennan.  Brennan escaped the grilling by Congress without revealing significant details about Benghazi, true, but supplanting the black hole of Benghazi, something that did happen, with a hypothetical drone scenario which didn’t happen, is just the sort of thing that marginalizes.

Besides, doesn’t it worry the tight sneakers “principled” crowd that Rand Paul’s filibuster was praised by uber-lib Jon Stewart,  Left Wing-Ding Van Jones, and actor John Cusack?  Ask Andrea Tantaros , if you don’t believe me, or check her Twitter TL.   And doesn’t it clue anyone in that Ron Wyden joined with Rand Paul to open up the filibuster? 

It should, but then again, these people I’m talking about are intellectually numb, monomaniac, and born to lose.

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Cuomo SAFE Act Doesn’t Shoot Straight - Yahoo! Voices - voices.yahoo.com

Cuomo SAFE Act Doesn’t Shoot Straight - Yahoo! Voices - voices.yahoo.com

With his new gun control law, Cuomo seems to have "jumped the shark." That term seems to apply as it is defined in the Urban Dictionary as the point "when something that was once great has reached a point where it will now decline in quality and popularity."

Post-Standard reporter Tim Knauss writes of blowback coming from the 31 New York counties which have passed resolutions calling for repeal of the SAFE Act. If half the counties in a state think their governor has gone too far, he has probably gone too far.
New York already had a 10-round gun magazine limit in place when Cuomo pushed through a seven-round limit. Only a few pistol manufacturers make a seven-round magazine, so passing a law requiring them amounts to a de facto total ban on most firearms.

Under pre-SAFE Act law, New York State residents cannot possess handguns even in their homes without $55.75, fingerprinting, four character references, safety courses, police interviews, and months of delay. The purchase of pistol ammunition also requires a state-issued pistol permit.