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LEAP Points Out The Dangers Of Prohibition
George Wallace and Michelle Pirraglia
06 Dec 2006 12:00 am
It’s not just the long pony tail that Christ, a retired police captain, sports these days. It’s his “10-story elevator” tale.
“It goes like this,” said Christ, one of several spokespeople in New York State for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. “Say I’m on an elevator in a 10-story building. I tell people on the elevator I’m in town to talk about drug legalization. The people say, ‘What?’ I tell them everybody agrees with me. And they say, ‘Well I don’t!’
“But then I tell them the sad truth — that there are drugs out there that have so much potential to do harm that they must be regulated and controlled ... but when you choose a policy of prohibition, you turn control over to gangsters in the street.”
It’s just the kind of scenario that Christ encounters all over the state when he speaks on behalf of LEAP, whether it is in Buffalo, Syracuse or Great Neck, where he appeared a year ago at a rotary and senior center.
This time around it is a Libertarian group he’ll be talking to, in Suffolk County. Christ will be present at the “Libertarian Meet-Up” for the Society of Individual Liberty of Suffolk County on Monday, December 11, from 7 to 9 p.m. The meeting will be held at the John Harvard Brew House, Route 347 in Lake Grove.
Founded on March 16, 2002, LEAP is made up of current and former members of the law enforcement and criminal justice communities who follow the dictum of Albert Einstein when he said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.”
A national organization, LEAP speaks out about the failures of existing drug policies. “Those policies have failed, and continue to fail, to effectively address the problems of drug abuse, especially the problems of juvenile drug use, the problems of addiction, and the problems of crime caused by the existence of a criminal black market in drugs,” said national representatives of the organization.
Race a complicated issue in NYC shooting
DEEPTI HAJELA
02 Dec 2006 3:17 pm
The similarities are striking: A young black man dies in a hail of police bullets, and when the chaos clears it turns out he was unarmed.
When 23-year-old Sean Bell was killed last weekend by officers who fired 50 shots, it brought to mind other police shootings, including another 23-year-old — Amadou Diallo, a West African immigrant shot to death by four white police officers in 1999 in the entrance to his apartment building. Diallo was struck by 19 of the 41 bullets fired at him.
Other killings of black men by police in New York also have provoked controversy, but there was a difference this time — while Bell and his two companions were black, the five officers were black and Hispanic as well as white.
But advocates and legal experts say that doesn't mean the shooting wasn't affected by race; it just makes it more difficult to talk about in a society that thinks of race literally in black and white terms.
"It doesn't matter what color cop it is," said Michael Meyers, the executive director of the New York Civil Rights Coalition. "The overwhelming number of victims of questionable police shootings have been young black men."
"There's a perception that black male youth are more dangerous, more violent and more likely to be armed than their white counterparts," said activist lawyer Ron Kuby. "That concern about young black men permeates the police department and results in police shooting black youth under circumstances where they would not shoot white people."
Bell was buried Saturday. After his burial, the New Black Panther Party organized a "March of Outrage" that wound its way from the strip club where he was shot to a police precinct.
While race plays a role, it's not the only issue that needs to be looked at, Kuby and other legal experts said. Police need to have serious conversations about violence and force, and also get better training in ways to deal with tense situations, experts say.
Family demands answers after police shoot groom
Associated Press
26 Nov 2006 5:09 pm
A crowd angrily called on police Sunday to explain why authorities fatally shot a 23-year-old man on the day of his wedding, and some called for the ouster of the city's police commissioner.
At a vigil and rally, family members and friends chanted and prayed. Community leaders said they wanted to know why officers fired as many as 50 rounds at an unarmed group Saturday as they left Sean Bell's bachelor party in a car.
"We cannot allow this to continue to happen," said black community leader, the Rev. Al Sharpton, who has been speaking for Bell's family since the shooting. "We've got to understand that all of us were in that car."
The civil rights advocate led the crowd in chants of "No justice, no peace." At times some in the crowd yelled that Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly should be ousted. "Kelly must go!" people shouted.
The shootings occurred outside the Kalua Cabaret, a strip club where the bachelor party was held. The surviving victims were Joseph Guzman, 31, who was shot at least 11 times, and Trent Benefield, 23, who was hit three times. Both men are at Mary Immaculate Hospital, where Guzman was in critical condition and Benefield was stable.
Relatives of all three men -- many of them stoic, and some crying -- attended Sunday's vigil but none spoke publicly.
During a press conference Saturday, Kelly said the department was still piecing together what happened and that it was too early to say whether the shooting was justified.
Kelly said the incident stemmed from an undercover operation inside the strip club in the Jamaica section of the borough of Queens. Seven officers in plain clothes were investigating the Kalua Cabaret; five of them were involved in the shooting.
NY lawmakers face major disagreement on civil commitment bill
MARK JOHNSON
22 Nov 2006 3:04 pm
Legislators will have to work through some major sticking points if they want to pass a bill allowing for the "civil commitment" of dangerous sex offenders who have already served their prison terms, officials said Wednesday.
Still, lawmakers who took part in negotiations on the issue in the past legislative session said an agreement that would allow confining convicted sex offenders in psychiatric facilities was possible by the end of the year.
"We're going to try," said state Sen. Dale Volker, an Erie County Republican and head of his chamber's Codes Committee. "Quite obviously, what we have to do is pass a law setting up civil confinement."
The primary disagreement isn't over the practice of civil commitment, but how strictly it would be applied, lawmakers said.
Gov. George Pataki said Tuesday he will call a special session of the state Legislature to address the issue before his term is up at the end of December. His decision came after New York's highest court ruled Tuesday that the state, acting under an order from Pataki, wrongly confined convicted sex offenders in psychiatric facilities after their prison sentences ended.
The Court of Appeals reversed a midlevel court decision allowing 12 men to be held as psychiatric patients without hearings. Since September 2005, 787 inmates have been screened and 112 have been confined. They will now get hearings to determine if they should still be held.
Children handcuffed in police drug raid
MIKE GOODWIN
20 Sep 2006 12:00 am
A police strike team raided a woman's Prospect Street apartment and handcuffed her children and killed her dog early Tuesday in a $60 pot bust.
"I heard a big boom. My first reaction was to jump out of bed. We were trying to find where our kids were at and all of a sudden we had guns in our faces," said 40-year-old Anita Woodyear, who rents the second-floor flat.
During the ensuing chaos, police handcuffed two of the woman's children, Elijah Bradley, 11, and 12-year-old Victoria Perez, and shot at her dog in the kitchen before killing it in the bathroom, Woodyear said.
"That seems like an awful lot of firepower for marijuana," said Fred Clark of the Schenectady chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "That's like spending $125,000 for $5."
Woodyear said she suspected police had intended to search a neighboring home, but had the wrong address on the search warrant. Neighbors said they suspect illicit drugs are dealt at other homes on the block.
"No apology, no 'sorry about your dog,'" she said.
"The moral of the story is: If you don't want officers barging into your house with their guns drawn, don't let drug dealers stay with you and deal drugs out of your apartment," [Police Lt. Peter] Frisoni said.
Woodyear said she is appalled about the way her children were treated -- and said her 12-year-old daughter was hit with pepper spray.
The dog, a pit bull terrier named Precious, urinated on the floor in fear and tried to run from the police before it was killed, Woodyear said.
Pair of attacks, robbery keep police busy
ANNE MILLER
20 Sep 2006 12:00 am
Three serious crimes in an hour and 15 minutes had detectives scouring the city for more than a dozen people Tuesday night.
A 15-year-old was stabbed in the back during a brawl involving dozens of people at 7:15 p.m. in front of 783 Albany St., said police spokesman Lt. Peter Frisoni.
At 7:45 p.m., two men, one of them armed with a knife, demanded money from a cashier at a Family Dollar store at the intersection of Van Vranken Avenue and Seneca Court. The employee handed them an unknown amount of cash and the men fled east on foot, Frisoni said.
At 8:30 p.m., officers responding to a call found a woman slashed and cut on the floor of a building at 966 Albany St. The woman was taken to Ellis Hospital and her injuries do not appear to be life-threatening, Frisoni said.
Should drugs be legalized?
MARK SOMMER
17 Sep 2006 12:00 am
When County Executive Joel A. Giambra floated the idea of legalizing outlawed drugs, critics responded as if he was on one.
But Giambra is hardly alone. The idea of using the government to regulate and control banned substances in order to put the illegal drug trade out of business has gained ground in recent years, with support coming from surprising quarters: law enforcement officials.
Their involvement is an example of how calls to revamp the nation's drug policies are no longer solely the province of the left, which has historically favored legalization. Conservatives such as William F. Buckley Jr. and former Reagan-era Secretary of State George Schultz support liberalized drug policies. So, too, does Walter Cronkite, known in his heyday as "the most trusted man in America."
Giambra and other advocates of a new approach say the "war on drugs" instituted in 1971 by President Richard Nixon - who called illegal drug use "America's public enemy No. 1" - has been an unmitigated failure.
"There are more drugs on the street than ever after 35 years of the war, and they're more potent, more available and cheaper," Giambra said. "If outcome determines success or failure, then we've failed. Do you continue a failed policy, or try something different?"
Giambra and members of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) - a 5,000-member organization founded in 2001 that includes 500 former members of law enforcement - say legalizing drugs would result in far less violent street crime, fewer prisoners, better access to addicts and enormous cost savings for drug treatment and education.
Former Army police sergeant sentenced in Queens child-sex case
13 Sep 2006 8:34 pm
A former Army police sergeant who admitted planning to sexually abuse someone he met over the Internet and thought was a 12-year-old girl was sentenced Wednesday to jail.
Nelson Pardo Jr., 41, of Highland Falls, was sentenced to six months in jail and five years' probation, prosecutors said. Queens Supreme Court Justice Ronald D. Hollie also ordered Pardo to register as a sex offender.
In April, Pardo, who was an Army police sergeant at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point when he was arrested, pleaded guilty to 10 counts of attempted dissemination of indecent material to minors, attempted sexual abuse and attempted endangering the welfare of a child, prosecutors said.
"The defendant has admitted to being a sexual predator who lurked behind a computer monitor and trolled the Internet to prey upon underage and vulnerable victims," District Attorney Richard A. Brown said. "This case should serve as a wake-up call to parents that they need to closely monitor their children's Internet access and activities."
Background checks praised
Kenneth C. Crowe II
10 sEP 2006 12:00 am
A year after Wilton instituted background checks for potential employees and volunteers, the town has found no problems with its applicants.
The policy was created out of concern that convicted sex offenders and child molesters could find jobs in its recreation programs.
"Nobody applied that's a convicted sex offender," Supervisor Arthur Johnson said.
At a cost of $40 to $50 to run each background check, Johnson said the small investment per investigation is worth the peace of mind it brings to parents.
"It's a sense of protection that when you're dealing with children, you're not putting them in danger from a molester or some sort of predator," Johnson said.
Judge: Potential jurors could be in for 'a long and disturbing ride'
ANN GIVENS
05 Sep 2006 1:31 pm
Acting State Supreme Court Justice Alan Honorof told potential jurors in the Martin Heidgen trial yesterday that they were being considered for what might be a long and disturbing case and, if they didn't feel that they could handle it, they could leave -- no questions asked.
Heidgen, 25, of Valley Stream, is charged with second-degree murder in a brutal and highly publicized crash on July 2, 2005. Prosecutors say Heidgen drove the wrong way on the Meadowbrook Parkway in a drunken stupor, slamming into a limousine that was returning from a wedding. Killed in the crash were Katie Flynn, 7, of Lido Beach, who was with her family on her way home from serving as a flower girl in her aunt's wedding, and limousine driver Stanley Rabinowitz, 59, of Farmingdale.
Honorof said the trial is likely to last about five weeks, and that the jury might be sequestered during its deliberations. He also said testimony would include descriptions of gruesome injuries, including those of Katie, who was decapitated.
Many jurors gasped. Most walked out of the courtroom.
Tougher Internet sanctions asked
STEPHEN T. WATSON
02 Sep 2006 12:00 am
A middle-aged man meets a 13-year-old Cheektowaga girl in an online chat room and later drives across the country to meet her for sex.
A 10-year-old girl shows pornographic pictures on a computer to a 5-year-old neighbor.
High-school teachers use e-mail to build a rapport with students that can lead to inappropriate online conversation and in-person sexual contact.
Top law-enforcement representatives, government officials and online safety advocates offered these and other disturbing examples Friday to support their push for stricter legislation to protect children.
"The Internet can be a wonderful place for our kids. . . . It can also be a dangerous place," Ed Suk, New York executive director for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said at a hearing held by area Assembly Republicans in the Mahoney State Office Building.
The speakers called for tougher penalties for child predators, changes to the law that would make it easier to investigate and prosecute online crimes against children and better education for parents and children on the dangers of the Internet.
Prosecutor Rosanne E. Johnson said Internet sex crimes are a growing concern, and her office is seeing more cases involving teachers or others trusted to supervise children.
"That is most frightening to me, as a parent and a prosecutor, because we view our schools as safe havens," said Johnson, an assistant Erie County district attorney and chief of the office's Sexual Assault Bureau.
There should be greater scrutiny of teachers and others who work with children to find any history of inappropriate behavior before they are hired, said Lt. David Mann of the Buffalo Police Sex Offense Section.
And schools need to do a better job educating young people on the dangers of the Internet and they need to more quickly report suspicious contact between faculty and students, the officials said.
