"More officers to hit streets in plainclothes" by Maria Cramer, Globe Staff | February 27, 2009
The commanders told Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis they needed plainclothes officers for surveillance work to respond to robberies, low-level drug dealing, and other crimes, Davis's spokeswoman, Elaine Driscoll said.
But concealed behind the tactical decision were some hard feelings, distrust, and resentment within the ranks of the department. Law enforcement officials with knowledge of the policy change said many captains had complained that people on the street were less willing to cooperate with an officer in uniform than an officer dressed in street clothes....
Officials later considered the possibility that cold weather was keeping criminals inside and could have been a factor in the drop in arrests in some districts....
Cold weather? What with global warming being shoved up our butts?
***********************
James Alan Fox, a professor of criminal justice at Northeastern University:
"What makes an impression on [people] is more cops, seeing them on foot, seeing them on bicycles, seeing them in the neighborhood. When we feel unsafe, we become prisoners of our own fear. We tend to stay indoors more. We're more suspicious of people. When we're afraid, it deteriorates a sense of community."
Then PLEASE EXPLAIN the GOVERNMENT that CARES SO MUCH ABOUT US LYING TO US all the time and KEEPING US FEARFUL of a NON-EXISTENT ENEMY!!!!!
Anticrime officers historically have taken advantage of their informal clothing and unmarked cars to watch for criminal activity as it is happening and surreptitiously gather information from known criminals on the street....
--more--"
DEDHAM - Friends and supporters embraced Manuel J. Cachopa inside Norfolk Superior Court yesterday after learning that Stoughton's former police chief would not be sent to jail.
The 57-year-old former chief, who was convicted last month of being an accessory to attempted extortion, had faced up to seven years in prison.
No jail time, huh?
Dressed in a black suit and red patterned tie, Cachopa walked out of the crowded courtroom yesterday morning a relatively free man. He will spend the next three years on probation and must complete 1,000 hours of community service. Norfolk Superior Court Judge Janet Sanders also ordered Cachopa to undergo a mental health evaluation and, if deemed necessary, to go to counseling.
Yesterday's sentencing hearing closed another chapter for Cachopa, his hometown of Stoughton, and its embattled Police Department, which has been without a permanent police chief for almost four years.
In March 2005, a grand jury indicted Cachopa on charges that he tried to cover up and stymie an investigation of allegations of misconduct made against a fellow officer, Sergeant David M. Cohen. Cohen is serving a two-year sentence for attempted extortion, intimidating a witness, and filing a false police report.
The charges dated back to 2002, when Cohen, who also worked as a lawyer, allegedly abused his police authority while attempting to collect a debt from a local businessman named Timothy Hills. Prosecutors accused Cohen of leaving threatening messages on Hills's answering machine and, at one point, placing Hills in handcuffs in an attempt to get $10,000 that was owed to one of Cohen's clients.
When Cachopa became aware of that alleged misconduct, prosecutors said, Cachopa launched an internal investigation and tried to get Hills to drop his complaint against Cohen. Cachopa's trial began last month and on Jan. 23, a Norfolk Superior Court jury found him guilty of being an accessory after the fact to Cohen's attempted extortion. Cachopa is appealing the decision.
"He's been devastated since the verdict," said Cachopa's lawyer, Robert A. George of Boston. "He barely leaves his house. He's almost unable to function. "This is a man who, if there is a rock bottom, has reached the rock bottom," said George, who added that Cachopa has lost his job and his pension.
I'm sorry, but no pity here for corrupt cops.
On Feb. 13, town officials dismissed Cachopa, who had been on paid administrative leave since 2005.
That's a NICE, LONG VACATION, isn't it?
George Jabour, special prosecutor for the Norfolk district attorney's office, had sought a tougher sentence. At yesterday's hearing Jabour asked the judge to impose a sentence that included "some incarceration."
Cachopa "tried to corrupt an investigation into a serious allegation," said Jabour. "He was the chief of police . . . and he failed miserably in his performance." Jabour said Cachopa's behavior and "attempt to derail the investigation . . . strike at the very heart of an institution we cherish and expect to be free of corruption."
Sanders said the court had received "scores of letters" from Cachopa's supporters.
After announcing Cachopa's sentence, Sanders encouraged the town of Stoughton to come together as a community.
"The healing needs to begin," he said.
--more--"Can't we all get along (and not sent to jail)?
"Court upholds firing of trooper with Klan tie" by Associated Press | February 28, 2009
OMAHA - The Nebraska Supreme Court yesterday upheld the firing of a State Patrol trooper for his ties to the Ku Klux Klan. Justice John Gerrard wrote that Robert Henderson voluntarily associated with an organization that uses violence and terror to oppose the state's founding principles of equality and tolerance.
I don't know about the state's founding principles; however, it's always authorities that are running the hate groups. Why is that?
Henderson, a trooper for 18 years, was dismissed in 2006 after the patrol discovered he had joined a racist group. He told an investigator he joined the Knights Party - which has described itself as the most active Klan organization in the United States - in June 2004....
Justice Kenneth Stephan wrote in a dissenting opinion that the courts overstepped their bounds by overturning the arbitrator's decision. Stephan said Henderson had kept his beliefs well-hidden while on the job, and there was no evidence they interfered with his impartial enforcement of the law.
But Gerrard noted that the state's admission to the Union in 1867 was dependent on a "fundamental public policy" that Nebraska would adhere to the principle that "laws should be enforced without regard to race."
--more--"
"Cities cutting police work; Tight budgets allow for only the basics Outreach efforts, special units slashed" by Eric Moskowitz and Maria Cramer, Globe Staff | March 5, 2009
Deep budget cuts are forcing urban police departments to wipe out gang units, trim detectives from investigation teams, pull back on community outreach, and eliminate specialized patrols, as cities pare back to the most basic form of police work: putting uniformed officers in cruisers for patrol and 911 response.
I'm glad the tyranny is getting rolled back. It also explains the absence of state cruisers on the highways around here lately.
The trend continued in Boston yesterday.... The law-enforcement budget cuts will be most acute in the state's working-class and formerly industrial cities, communities such as New Bedford, Fall River, and Brockton, which rely most heavily on state aid to provide basic services. Facing an ever-growing budget deficit this fiscal year and next, Governor Deval Patrick has slashed local aid and called for eliminating a grant program that funds extra officers, programs, and equipment to enhance community policing....
Meanwhile, tax dough goes to corporate and special interests.
Law-enforcement budget cuts would not affect police details at utility and road construction sites, an expensive practice that Patrick has sought to rein in, but which remains in place through local ordinances. Although taxpayers do not fund those overtime details directly, they pay for it in other ways, such as costs passed on through utility rates. Police have lobbied for keeping the details to enhance their visibility in the streets without straining municipal budgets....
Yeah, a couple cops making some overtime is bankrupting the state.
Does the Globe ever have a hard-on for that or what?
Truthfully, I want the cop there because HE is PROTECTING PUBLIC SAFETY and will GARNER RESPECT from MOTORISTS!! Some guy in a reflecting vest ain't!!!!
As for COSTS TO US, tell it to the FART-MISTING CULTISTS!!!!!
Layoffs are expected across the state this spring and summer, as larger and needier communities come to terms with the economic crisis.... The federal stimulus package, union concessions, and tax increases could dampen statewide law-enforcement cuts, but significant service reductions seem unavoidable.
What, after we kept the income tax?
Other police work will necessarily suffer. That may mean slower investigations, with fewer detectives available.
Yeah, I guess the Boston's finest have better things to do, too:
"Earlier this month, police wrapped up a 30-day sting involving plainclothes officers mimicking tourists and other pedestrians. Once they were panhandled, they essentially became victims guaranteed to show up for a trial"
Related: The Boston Globe's Good Cop
The Boston Globe's Bad Cop
Waiting time could stretch for nonemergency calls, everything from car accidents without injuries to break-ins and robberies in which a perpetrator has already fled, officials and law-enforcement specialists said.
And departments could recede from community policing initiatives that many officials and residents have celebrated and endorsed in the last two decades, the relationship-building work with residents, business owners, and public-school students to boost neighborhoods and crack down on small crimes as a means to prevent larger ones....
Yeah, but GOVERNMENT is looking out and PROTECTING YOU!!
I'd KEEP THAT SHOTGUN HANDY if I were you, 'murkn!
"Stiff penalty sought for firing on police; Bill mandates 10-year sentence" by Milton J. Valencia, Globe Staff | March 10, 2009
So the EXTORTIONIST gets NO JAIL, but an ALLEGED SHOT could mean TEN YEARS!!!
Saying more criminals have become so brazen they will shoot at police officers, Plymouth's district attorney and state representative joined forces yesterday to introduce legislation that would establish a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison for anyone who fires a weapon at an officer in the line of duty.
State legislators and local police chiefs from throughout Southeastern Massachusetts supported the move by Plymouth District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz, who partnered with state Representative Vinny deMacedo, a Republican from Plymouth, in drafting the legislation.
"Police have a very difficult job now more than ever, and we need to protect them more so they can protect us," Cruz said.
Tell that to DAVE WOODMAN'S PARENTS and the VICTIMS of the 56% of MURDERS YOU GUYS DON'T SOLVE, huh -- as you are scoping out bars!!!!
The proposal has the support of other legislators and district attorneys throughout Massachusetts, Cruz said. "A lot of these criminals don't care," he added, "and we can't allow people to have guns and point them at police officers so they can get away."
That's the MASSACHUSETTS MENTALITY if I've ever seen it, heil Patrick.
DeMacedo said more than two dozen legislators have already signed on as sponsors of the bill, and he foresees more support. "We have police to protect us, and we need to give them as many tools as possible to show they're being as protected as can be," he said.
That's a MYTH!! The police don't PREVENT or PROTECT ANYTHING! They REACT to what has ALREADY BEEN DONE!!!!
The measure comes after Brockton police felt "insulted" by what they called lenient sentences for two Boston men who led officers on a high-speed chase from Brockton into Quincy last year after shooting a woman in the foot. One of the men then fired at officers from the front passenger seat of the car while the driver fled.
Join the public; you get used to it.
The car ended up crashing, but even after the arrest the men started to joke in their native Cape Verdean Creole - not knowing that officers also spoke the language - about how they led police on a massive chase and even fired at them, Brockton Police Chief William Conlon said yesterday. "There was no remorse on their part," he added.
Oh, so they were ILLEGALS, huh?
(Globe won't tell you that; hey, what's one more omission, 'eh?)
Cruz's office had recommended a sentence of more than 20 years on all counts for the driver and the man who fired the shots. But in a plea arrangement, Superior Court Judge Carol S. Ball sentenced the shooter, later identified as Antonio DaPina, to four to five years in prison. The driver, Salamao Teixeira, 31, was sentenced to two to three years.
Conlon said that the law would give judges no discretion in such cases. "We need judges to take this seriously," the chief said. "We're the last line between a civilized society and lawlessness, and if courts don't seek to protect those who protect others, chaos will result."
Yes, the THIN BLUE LINE!!!!
Conlon said yesterday that the proposed law is a way to support police who are working under the strain of cuts in jobs and units, while criminals are growing more brazen.
When is someone going to care about YOU?
"The thin blue line is only going to become thinner in the economic crisis we find ourselves in, and we can't afford to have any of our officers at any time used as target practice," the chief said.
--more--"