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| NEWS > 23 January 2008 |
Other related articles:
Another SA Police Officer Arre
He's a police officer accused of sexually assaulting a woman in custody while he was in uniform and early this morning he turned himself in. Two others officers were arrested Thursday.
We're told Officer Raymond Ramos walked into the central police station and told officers, “I'm the one you are looking for.” They arrested him right there on the scene.
Ramos, 28, was searched by officers at the substation and taken into custody. From there, he went before a judge where he faces three charges: official oppression, violation of civil rights and sexual assault.
Ramos - ... Read more
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 Article sourced from
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New York Times - United States
23 January 2008
This article appeared in the above title/site.
To view it in its entirity click this link.
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NYPD
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Drugs-for-Information Scandal
In the world of urban policing, few relationships are as fraught with peril as those between narcotics officers and confidential informants. These informants — C.I.’s in police parlance — are often small-time criminals who are paid or get criminal charges dropped in return for information about other, theoretically more dangerous criminals.
Now four police officers in Brooklyn are under arrest in a case that involves paying informants not with cash or leniency but with the very drugs they craved, taken from the dealers who were arrested after the informants pointed them out. Two of the officers were charged in an internal sting last week after another was caught on a department audio tape bragging about the practice in September, officials said.
Prosecutors have moved to dismiss more than 80 criminal cases because the officers caught in the scandal were considered critical to successful prosecutions, law enforcement officials said, and the office of the Brooklyn district attorney is analyzing about 100 more potentially tainted cases.
Three additional officers have been suspended without pay and stripped of their guns and badges; two others have been placed on modified assignment — they lose their guns and badges but still receive paychecks — and about a dozen more have been switched to desk duty. They will be barred from taking enforcement action, like making drug arrests, until the scope of the wrongdoing is determined, officials said.
Four high-level supervisors have been transferred, and a new commander — Deputy Chief Joseph J. Reznick — has been brought in to supervise the department’s Narcotics Division.
The concept of using drugs to compensate confidential informants — mainly people familiar with street culture and criminal habits — is not new. Raymond J. Abruzzi, once chief of Brooklyn detectives, who retired in 1996, said it was illegal but commonplace 30 years ago, “mainly because the department did not have a lot of money to pay the informants.”
But the continuing corruption investigation offers a striking example of officers who appeared to have gone too far to make arrests, in a way that is now aggressively condemned. One law enforcement official even called it “noble-cause corruption.”
“What it looks like to me is that these guys took a shortcut and shortcuts will get you in trouble and shortcuts will get you in jail,” Mr. Abruzzi said.
“For them to become, in essence, crack dealers, shame on them,” Mr. Abruzzi said. “The question is: `Were they lazy? Was it an accepted practice in the unit? And, if so, why would it become accepted?’ Either way it is wrong; it is against the law and it is against our rules and no matter how you slice it, it is corruption.”
The officers caught in the scandal are part of two 10-person “modules” or teams of officers assigned to the Brooklyn South narcotics bureau, which is staffed by 260 officers who work under the umbrella of the Police Department’s 1,400-member Narcotics Division.
The arrests were first reported on Tuesday in The Daily News.
Several officials said it appeared to be a case of a handful of wayward officers in one command — as opposed to systemic activity enmeshed in the culture of the department’s antinarcotics efforts — though others may be involved. One official said one or two more officers may ultimately face criminal charges and others might face suspension.
“Additional suspensions may occur as the investigation proceeds,” said Paul J. Browne, the department’s chief spokesman. He said there had been “some cooperation from officers assigned to Brooklyn South in the case,” but he declined to elaborate.
At the same time, the case raises questions about supervision of narcotics officers. Two of those arrested — Sgt. Michael Arenella, 31, and Officer Jerry Bowens, 31 — worked on the midnight shift. The lack of supervision for officers working in the middle of the night, who are often the least experienced in the department, has been in the past a chief reason that sloppy, even criminal behavior has taken hold.
The two others charged — Detective Sean Johnstone, 34, and Officer Julio Alvarez, 30 — worked in a unit that covered both days and nights, officials said.
In a statement, Charles J. Hynes, the Brooklyn district attorney, said, “I have full confidence in the ability and integrity of the Internal Affairs Bureau of the N.Y.P.D., and we are working closely with them.”
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