Subject: NYPD for Hire
Once the NYPD has offered itself for hire, it is no longer a question of whether it is prostituting itself, but rather, a question of how much to charge.
Carl Jarvis
----- Original Message -----From: Miriam VieniSent: Saturday, December 22, 2012 6:55 PMSubject: NYPD for Hire
Wolf writes: "A nontransparent program called 'Paid Detail Unit' has been
set up so that private corporations are actually employing NYPD officers,
who are in uniform and armed."
Portrait, author and activist Naomi Wolf, 10/19/11. (photo: Guardian UK)
NYPD for Hire
By Naomi Wolf, The Guardian
18 December 12
No one begrudges an officer doing security work in his own time, but the
Paid Detail Unit creates worrying conflicts of interest
I was surprised two weeks ago to walk into my local TD Bank, on Greenwich
Avenue in the West Village, New York to find that the security officer who
was usually standing by, on alert, had been replaced by a uniformed, armed,
radio-carrying New York Police Department officer, Officer Battle. I
confirmed from him that he was, in fact, an NYPD officer - and was working
part-time for TD bank.
Of course, this raised red flags for me. After the violent crackdown on
Occupy Wall Street in November of 2011, when that group was having some of
its most significant successes in protests and actions that challenged
private banks and Wall Street institutions, many wondered what had motivated
the unexpected aggression against protesters by local police officers
tasked, at least overtly by municipal law, with upholding their first
amendment rights.
The NYPD became, at the time, coordinated in its crackdown once Occupy had
started to target banks. Was there a relationship behind the scenes of which
we were unaware?
Chase bank had made a gift of $4.6m to the Police Foundation - boasting on
its website that this "was the largest" in that group's history, and hoping
that the money would allow the NYPD to "strengthen security". This police
fund, as well as some details of a Rudi Giuliani-initiated program by which
police officers had been hired by corporations, created a brief stir online.
But were Chase, TD, Bank of America and others, which had been targeted by
activists, actually now employing our police forces directly?
The answer is yes. A nontransparent program called "Paid Detail Unit" has
been set up so that private corporations are actually employing NYPD
officers, who are in uniform and armed. The difference is that when these
"public servants" are on the payroll of the banks, they are no longer
serving you and the impartial rule of law in your city - despite what their
uniform and badge imply. Neither New York Councilwoman Christine Quinn's
press office nor an NYPD's spokesman responded to my queries regarding this
program.
I went to a second TD Bank, on Third Avenue in Manhattan. There was NYPD
Officer Kearse, also armed and in uniform. I asked him who paid him to watch
the bank: he confirmed that the Paid Detail Unit did so. The bank pays fees
directly to the NYPD, and the NYPD then pays him, after taking a cut. Kearse
works at the bank 6.5 hours per shift, twice a month. That's not much, he
said, compared to many NYPD officers "who do lots more".
"What would you do if there were protesters in this bank branch?" I asked.
"I'd remove them," he said.
"What if there were a conflict of interest between what the bank wanted him
to do and what the rule of law was for citizens?" I asked.
He did not reply.
I asked a manager at the branch what the role of the NYPD officer was in the
bank. She said, "All I know is he is there to watch us." She called a more
senior manager to answer the rest of my questions, Patrick O'Toole:
"They are New York City police officers off-duty, paid by the Paid Detail
Unit," he said. This is a program "that various corporations are able to use
to obtain off-duty police officers for whatever purpose they need them. The
bank supplies every branch in New York City with an off-duty police
officer."
In the event of a protest, I asked, whom would the officer be working for?
The bank, or the city and the citizens of New York? "I wouldn't know," he
said, and referred me to TD Bank corporate security. "He's working under us
when he's here: we pay Paid Detail and the NYPD writes the checks."
Crooksandliars.com shone rare light on the size of this program. According
to that report, the city gets a 10% administrative fee, which, in 2011,
amounted to $1.18m - meaning that PDU wages netted NYPD officers a total of
$11.8m, an amount which had doubled since 2002.
But who indemnifies these cops working for banks from lawsuits that might
arise from possible illegal actions against citizens while working this kind
of job? Not the banks, it turns out, but you the taxpayer. In other words,
you pay the bill to protect that officer from lawsuits incurred if he breaks
the law in protecting the bank.
This is a trend confirmed to be taking place in cities across the country.
San Francisco has the San Francisco patrol special police, a private police
unit that is indistinguishable from municipal units. Citizen reporters in my
social media community confirmed that nonprofit organizations in Houston
hire Houston police; a Portland citizen reporter confirmed that he saw
Portland cops hired by local banks in that city, as well; and Autumn Smith,
a Michigan citizen journalist, has written about seeing Michigan police in
uniform to protect Best Buy and other corporations, so they can save on
hiring private security with officers on the taxpayer's payroll.
At the same time, privatisation is also moving apace, as Wall Street Journal
reports that several municipalities, including Oakland, California and
Chicago, have bypassed local police and are hiring private security forces
to take over many of the police departments' traditional functions.
Of course, many would think that the chance to let hardworking, underpaid
cops make more money by moonlighting for private business is no big deal -
or, since the NYPD gets a cut of these officers' hours of serving private
industry, a win-win for the municipal budget in Manhattan. Indeed,
moonlighting, out of uniform as a private citizen, is fair enough. But in
uniform, armed, with the backup of the whole NYPD? That is another story.
The conflicts of interest potential in this arrangement soon become clear.
Whom is that cop serving if there is a dispute between a New York City (or
Houston or Portland) citizen and the bank or corporation that hires cops,
and on which those cops' own mortgages and kids' college fees are now
dependent? I had the bizarre experience of witnessing an NYPD investigation
at Chase stop cold, as an NYPD detective told me that "Chase's investigators
said there was no problem."
What if is it is the bank that is committing a crime against the citizen:
will NYPD investigate impartially? What if the bank instructs the NYPD
officer to commit a crime - make a wrongful arrest, say - against a New York
citizen during a lawful protest? Will the officer decline to do so, bucking
his bosses? Indeed, does the off-duty cop in the bank have police powers or
just private security powers? What powers of arrest does he or she have?
And if bankers or the senior heads of corporations that hire the cops
themselves commit crimes in other areas, will those crimes be fully
investigated. Or will those executives, now police employers as well, have
what Russians call "protektsia"?
Those are all questions that NYPD spokespeople should be willing to answer,
but won't.
And then, there are the fiduciary questions. Your tax dollars trained that
officer; dressed him in uniform; equipped him with weapons and technology.
Should all of that expensive public benefit be farmed out to private
corporations, along with the intimidating prestige of the brand of a real
NYPD or Houston or Portland police officer?
Finally, the wrench that this program throws into impartial adjudication of
the rule of law is obvious. The NYPD won't answer questions about how much
revenue it generates from PDU. But given that it is a significant portion of
the paychecks of your local cops on the beat, then how can brave advocates
for banks' paying the price for crime, such as New York Attorney General
Eric Schneidermann, work effectively to hold banks accountable while the
city law enforcement officers under the DA are employees of those same
banks? The branches of municipal government are now at cross-purposes when
it comes to who has access to law enforcement and who is indemnified from
prosecution or investigation.
An independent, uncorrupted municipal police force should be our thin blue
line: defenders against crime, protectors of public safety, guarantors of
citizens' rights. If these officers of the law become or have already become
a private militia for hire, to whom can we turn on the frontline of justice?
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Portrait, author and activist Naomi Wolf, 10/19/11. (photo: Guardian UK)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/17/nypd-for-hire-cops-moonl
ighting-bankshttp://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/17/nypd-for-hi
re-cops-moonlighting-banks
NYPD for Hire
By Naomi Wolf, The Guardian
18 December 12
o one begrudges an officer doing security work in his own time, but the Paid
Detail Unit creates worrying conflicts of interest
I was surprised two weeks ago to walk into my local TD Bank, on Greenwich
Avenue in the West Village, New York to find that the security officer who
was usually standing by, on alert, had been replaced by a uniformed, armed,
radio-carrying New York Police Department officer, Officer Battle. I
confirmed from him that he was, in fact, an NYPD officer - and was working
part-time for TD bank.
Of course, this raised red flags for me. After the violent crackdown on
Occupy Wall Street in November of 2011, when that group was having some of
its most significant successes in protests and actions that challenged
private banks and Wall Street institutions, many wondered what had motivated
the unexpected aggression against protesters by local police officers
tasked, at least overtly by municipal law, with upholding their first
amendment rights.
The NYPD became, at the time, coordinated in its crackdown once Occupy had
started to target banks. Was there a relationship behind the scenes of which
we were unaware?
Chase bank had made a gift of $4.6m to the Police Foundation - boasting on
its website that this "was the largest" in that group's history, and hoping
that the money would allow the NYPD to "strengthen security". This police
fund, as well as some details of a Rudi Giuliani-initiated program by which
police officers had been hired by corporations, created a brief stir online.
But were Chase, TD, Bank of America and others, which had been targeted by
activists, actually now employing our police forces directly?
The answer is yes. A nontransparent program called "Paid Detail Unit" has
been set up so that private corporations are actually employing NYPD
officers, who are in uniform and armed. The difference is that when these
"public servants" are on the payroll of the banks, they are no longer
serving you and the impartial rule of law in your city - despite what their
uniform and badge imply. Neither New York Councilwoman Christine Quinn's
press office nor an NYPD's spokesman responded to my queries regarding this
program.
I went to a second TD Bank, on Third Avenue in Manhattan. There was NYPD
Officer Kearse, also armed and in uniform. I asked him who paid him to watch
the bank: he confirmed that the Paid Detail Unit did so. The bank pays fees
directly to the NYPD, and the NYPD then pays him, after taking a cut. Kearse
works at the bank 6.5 hours per shift, twice a month. That's not much, he
said, compared to many NYPD officers "who do lots more".
"What would you do if there were protesters in this bank branch?" I asked.
"I'd remove them," he said.
"What if there were a conflict of interest between what the bank wanted him
to do and what the rule of law was for citizens?" I asked.
He did not reply.
I asked a manager at the branch what the role of the NYPD officer was in the
bank. She said, "All I know is he is there to watch us." She called a more
senior manager to answer the rest of my questions, Patrick O'Toole:
"They are New York City police officers off-duty, paid by the Paid Detail
Unit," he said. This is a program "that various corporations are able to use
to obtain off-duty police officers for whatever purpose they need them. The
bank supplies every branch in New York City with an off-duty police
officer."
In the event of a protest, I asked, whom would the officer be working for?
The bank, or the city and the citizens of New York? "I wouldn't know," he
said, and referred me to TD Bank corporate security. "He's working under us
when he's here: we pay Paid Detail and the NYPD writes the checks."
Crooksandliars.com shone rare light on the size of this program. According
to that report, the city gets a 10% administrative fee, which, in 2011,
amounted to $1.18m - meaning that PDU wages netted NYPD officers a total of
$11.8m, an amount which had doubled since 2002.
But who indemnifies these cops working for banks from lawsuits that might
arise from possible illegal actions against citizens while working this kind
of job? Not the banks, it turns out, but you the taxpayer. In other words,
you pay the bill to protect that officer from lawsuits incurred if he breaks
the law in protecting the bank.
This is a trend confirmed to be taking place in cities across the country.
San Francisco has the San Francisco patrol special police, a private police
unit that is indistinguishable from municipal units. Citizen reporters in my
social media community confirmed that nonprofit organizations in Houston
hire Houston police; a Portland citizen reporter confirmed that he saw
Portland cops hired by local banks in that city, as well; and Autumn Smith,
a Michigan citizen journalist, has written about seeing Michigan police in
uniform to protect Best Buy and other corporations, so they can save on
hiring private security with officers on the taxpayer's payroll.
At the same time, privatisation is also moving apace, as Wall Street Journal
reports that several municipalities, including Oakland, California and
Chicago, have bypassed local police and are hiring private security forces
to take over many of the police departments' traditional functions.
Of course, many would think that the chance to let hardworking, underpaid
cops make more money by moonlighting for private business is no big deal -
or, since the NYPD gets a cut of these officers' hours of serving private
industry, a win-win for the municipal budget in Manhattan. Indeed,
moonlighting, out of uniform as a private citizen, is fair enough. But in
uniform, armed, with the backup of the whole NYPD? That is another story.
The conflicts of interest potential in this arrangement soon become clear.
Whom is that cop serving if there is a dispute between a New York City (or
Houston or Portland) citizen and the bank or corporation that hires cops,
and on which those cops' own mortgages and kids' college fees are now
dependent? I had the bizarre experience of witnessing an NYPD investigation
at Chase stop cold, as an NYPD detective told me that "Chase's investigators
said there was no problem."
What if is it is the bank that is committing a crime against the citizen:
will NYPD investigate impartially? What if the bank instructs the NYPD
officer to commit a crime - make a wrongful arrest, say - against a New York
citizen during a lawful protest? Will the officer decline to do so, bucking
his bosses? Indeed, does the off-duty cop in the bank have police powers or
just private security powers? What powers of arrest does he or she have?
And if bankers or the senior heads of corporations that hire the cops
themselves commit crimes in other areas, will those crimes be fully
investigated. Or will those executives, now police employers as well, have
what Russians call "protektsia"?
Those are all questions that NYPD spokespeople should be willing to answer,
but won't.
And then, there are the fiduciary questions. Your tax dollars trained that
officer; dressed him in uniform; equipped him with weapons and technology.
Should all of that expensive public benefit be farmed out to private
corporations, along with the intimidating prestige of the brand of a real
NYPD or Houston or Portland police officer?
Finally, the wrench that this program throws into impartial adjudication of
the rule of law is obvious. The NYPD won't answer questions about how much
revenue it generates from PDU. But given that it is a significant portion of
the paychecks of your local cops on the beat, then how can brave advocates
for banks' paying the price for crime, such as New York Attorney General
Eric Schneidermann, work effectively to hold banks accountable while the
city law enforcement officers under the DA are employees of those same
banks? The branches of municipal government are now at cross-purposes when
it comes to who has access to law enforcement and who is indemnified from
prosecution or investigation.
An independent, uncorrupted municipal police force should be our thin blue
line: defenders against crime, protectors of public safety, guarantors of
citizens' rights. If these officers of the law become or have already become
a private militia for hire, to whom can we turn on the frontline of justice?
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