Thursday, January 1, 2009
The Advocate
Richard Blassberg
Something’s Fundamentally Reckless And
Indifferent In Mayor Amicone’s Calculations
Sunday, December 21st, more than 100 Yonkers residents from the neighborhood surrounding Fire Station 12 on Fortfield Avenue, joined
firefighters to protest Mayor Philip Amicone’s wrongheaded decision to remove Tower Ladder 75 from their firehouse.
In a press release one day earlier, Union President Hugh Fox, Jr. had warned, “The removal of this lifesaving apparatus from the
Fortfield Avenue Firehouse will result in unacceptably increased Fire Department response times for a large section of the City.”
Fox stressed, “In the Fire service, increased response times mean an increase in the likelihood of death, injury and property damage.” In other words, Amicone is increasing the risk of death and/or serious injury to Yonkers families by the foolhardy removal of an essential ladder company supposedly to save money, while, at the same time, giving extraordinary pay raises to 180 of his cronies; raises as high as $20,000 and $30,000 to ‘buddies’ already earning six-figure salaries.
Those who came out Sunday, many carrying signs which read, “Fire Kills: Don’t Cut Yonkers Fire Department,” braved a cold rain and damp, icy conditions to voice their fears and concerns over the latest of the Mayor’s thoughtless miscalculations. Union head Fox told The Guardian, “A fire that burns for more than three minutes gets out of control and can cause loss of life and property.”
Sounding angry and frustrated, he said, “The Mayor says it’s a Union problem. We don’t think so. We believe it’s an administrative problem.” Fox explained, “We worked with him. We took split raises. We negotiated in good faith. Meantime, he gives out raises to 180. That speaks for itself.”
The Union has taken the official position, “The Mayor’s decision to remove Ladder 75 from the Fortfield Avenue Firehouse is a reckless
and ill-thought decision that will jeopardize public safety and result in the unnecessary loss of life.”
We believe that Hugh Fox and his Union members are so very right in their assessment of Amicone’s Draconian approach to the City’s
fire safety. Referring to the Mayor’s, “wildly swinging an axe at the Fire Department’s budget,” the Union asks, “How many lives will be put at risk as a result?”
Sad to say, Amicone’s willingness to risk the safety and well-being of Yonkers citizens with respect to fire emergency is all too consistent
with his approach to systemic Yonkers police brutality; his “public-be-damned” attitude.
The firefighters know only too well that their Union representatives, under President Fox, met with Amicone and members of his staff
over a five-week period in an effort to avoid any significant cuts which would severely limit their ability to fight fires and provide other emergency services. The Union, “provided Mayor Amicone with an alternative plan” which they say, “would have assisted the City of Yonkers in weathering the current economic crisis.” The Union offered to make, “significant financial sacrifices and outlined a number of cost-cutting steps” which could have been taken.
Apparently the Mayor and his advisors believe they know better than the professionals who fight fires every day. They are willing to
play Russian Roulette with the lives of Yonkers families. Clearly, there is something unprincipled and dangerous in the thought processes of a mayor who would remove essential fire protection from hundreds of thousands of City residents in order to give huge pay raises to his cronies. If even one life is lost because of increased response times, will Amicone & Co. be held accountable?
People from all over Yonkers must reject Philip Amicone’s analysis, must call the Mayor’s Office, and their City Council representative,
and make their safety, and their children’s safety, their #1 concern.
Showing posts with label City of Yonkers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label City of Yonkers. Show all posts
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Westchester Guardian/The Advocate.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
The Advocate
Richard Blassberg
Mayor Amicone Fails To Attend Yonkers Events
Reflecting Community’s Concerns And Priorities
A Workshop On Undoing Racism
Saturday, Oct. 18th
Saturday morning, October 18th, The People’s Institute For Survival And Beyond, under the capable, tutorial leadership of founders David Billings and Ron Chisom, conducted a workshop designed to uncover “solutions to address the impact of institutional/structural racism on our local communities.”
Founders and keynote speakers, Billings and Chisom, opened the session at the Riverfront Library, which was attended by some 100 community activists, educators, and local political figures including Yonkers City Council President Chuck Lesnick, and State Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins. As advertised, the keynoters offered “An Analysis Of The History Of Racism In The United States,” distinguishing between personal prejudice, discrimination, and institutional racism.
Following the initial presentation of more than an hour, and a break for lunch, it was decided that four separate workshops intended to deal with Criminal Justice, Education, Housing, and Immigration Issues as related to institutional racism that were originally scheduled to be presented simultaneously before individual smaller groups dependent upon attendees’ preferred area of interest, would instead be presented in consecutive order before the entire group.
Attorney Mayo Bartlett discusses implications of institutional racism in the Criminal Justice System Attorney Mayo Bartlett, of Young & Bartlett, White Plains, engaged in criminal defense and civil rights law, a former assistant DA in the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office, gave a very revealing account of two cases that he happened to be assigned at the same time involving two young male, one from Mount Vernon, who was Black, and another from Bronxville,who was Caucasion.
Each was eligible for Youthful Offender treatment under the law,and neither had a prior record.Each had committed the same offense under strikingly similar circumstances.In the case of the Black youth, no application had been made to seal the file and/or adjudicate the matter in chambers, ordinarily intended to preserve confidentiality.
The District Attorney’s Office was offeringa felony plea plus five years of probation to the youth from Mount Vernon, but a misdemeanor plea, and three years’ probation, to the Bronxville youth. Bartlett explained that he went to his superior expressing his concerns about the different treatment the youngsters were getting, and that his superior then turned around and made them both plead to felonies, with five years’ probation. Bartlett said, “In order not to have institutional racism, we must apply the Law equally in every community of the County.
Heartbroken Loved Ones Of
Young Men Senselessly Murdered
Mourn And Celebrate Their Lives
Sunday, Oct. 19th
Sunday afternoon, October 19th, a memorial service was held at the YWCA in downtown Yonkers, that was a gathering of family and friends of young males who had been killed in the City over the last couple of years. The lives of four such individuals, their stories, and photos,
were presented as family members and clergy spoke out against violence.
The program was entitled, Week Without Violence. It was a “day of remembrance,” an interdenominational candlelight service. The four decedents remembered were: Tyrone Stephan Bergmann, Charles Anthony Taylor, Martin Antonio Perez, and Oumar Zongo, and,
as the program stated, “Other Community Residents Who Recently Lost Their Lives To Needless And Senseless Acts of Violence.”
Speakers included Yejide Okunrivido, Esq., Yonkers YWCA President, State Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins, City Council President
Chuck Lesnick, Rabbi Gerard Cohen, Father Joseph Espaillat, of St. Peter’s Church, Minister Adrian Holmes of Resurrection Deliverance Church, Pastor E. Vanderpuije of The Divine Revelation Fellowship, and Imam Issa, Misjid Al-Houda, each delivering an obituary and words of comfort for the loved ones of the deceased victims.
Virginia Perez, the sister of Martin Antonio Perez, who is attempting to organize a Neighborhood Watch Program, delivered a particularly impassioned statement.
As the obituaries were presented, images of those who had died by senseless violence were projected on a screen beside the nearly 100 persons in attendance, evoking frequent emotional responses.
The Advocate
Richard Blassberg
Mayor Amicone Fails To Attend Yonkers Events
Reflecting Community’s Concerns And Priorities
A Workshop On Undoing Racism
Saturday, Oct. 18th
Saturday morning, October 18th, The People’s Institute For Survival And Beyond, under the capable, tutorial leadership of founders David Billings and Ron Chisom, conducted a workshop designed to uncover “solutions to address the impact of institutional/structural racism on our local communities.”
Founders and keynote speakers, Billings and Chisom, opened the session at the Riverfront Library, which was attended by some 100 community activists, educators, and local political figures including Yonkers City Council President Chuck Lesnick, and State Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins. As advertised, the keynoters offered “An Analysis Of The History Of Racism In The United States,” distinguishing between personal prejudice, discrimination, and institutional racism.
Following the initial presentation of more than an hour, and a break for lunch, it was decided that four separate workshops intended to deal with Criminal Justice, Education, Housing, and Immigration Issues as related to institutional racism that were originally scheduled to be presented simultaneously before individual smaller groups dependent upon attendees’ preferred area of interest, would instead be presented in consecutive order before the entire group.
Attorney Mayo Bartlett discusses implications of institutional racism in the Criminal Justice System Attorney Mayo Bartlett, of Young & Bartlett, White Plains, engaged in criminal defense and civil rights law, a former assistant DA in the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office, gave a very revealing account of two cases that he happened to be assigned at the same time involving two young male, one from Mount Vernon, who was Black, and another from Bronxville,who was Caucasion.
Each was eligible for Youthful Offender treatment under the law,and neither had a prior record.Each had committed the same offense under strikingly similar circumstances.In the case of the Black youth, no application had been made to seal the file and/or adjudicate the matter in chambers, ordinarily intended to preserve confidentiality.
The District Attorney’s Office was offeringa felony plea plus five years of probation to the youth from Mount Vernon, but a misdemeanor plea, and three years’ probation, to the Bronxville youth. Bartlett explained that he went to his superior expressing his concerns about the different treatment the youngsters were getting, and that his superior then turned around and made them both plead to felonies, with five years’ probation. Bartlett said, “In order not to have institutional racism, we must apply the Law equally in every community of the County.
Heartbroken Loved Ones Of
Young Men Senselessly Murdered
Mourn And Celebrate Their Lives
Sunday, Oct. 19th
Sunday afternoon, October 19th, a memorial service was held at the YWCA in downtown Yonkers, that was a gathering of family and friends of young males who had been killed in the City over the last couple of years. The lives of four such individuals, their stories, and photos,
were presented as family members and clergy spoke out against violence.
The program was entitled, Week Without Violence. It was a “day of remembrance,” an interdenominational candlelight service. The four decedents remembered were: Tyrone Stephan Bergmann, Charles Anthony Taylor, Martin Antonio Perez, and Oumar Zongo, and,
as the program stated, “Other Community Residents Who Recently Lost Their Lives To Needless And Senseless Acts of Violence.”
Speakers included Yejide Okunrivido, Esq., Yonkers YWCA President, State Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins, City Council President
Chuck Lesnick, Rabbi Gerard Cohen, Father Joseph Espaillat, of St. Peter’s Church, Minister Adrian Holmes of Resurrection Deliverance Church, Pastor E. Vanderpuije of The Divine Revelation Fellowship, and Imam Issa, Misjid Al-Houda, each delivering an obituary and words of comfort for the loved ones of the deceased victims.
Virginia Perez, the sister of Martin Antonio Perez, who is attempting to organize a Neighborhood Watch Program, delivered a particularly impassioned statement.
As the obituaries were presented, images of those who had died by senseless violence were projected on a screen beside the nearly 100 persons in attendance, evoking frequent emotional responses.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Westchester Guardian/The Advocate.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
The Advocate
Richard Blassberg
“Where Law Ends, Tyranny Begins”
– William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, 1708-1778
Whatever Has Become Of Decency In Yonkers?
For several months now, the People of Westchester and the surrounding area, have been repeatedly exposed to the videotape of Yonkers Police Officer Wayne Simoes bodyslamming Irma Marquez at La Fonda Restaurant, March 3, 2007. The horror of the act by an individual sworn to protect the very person he nearly killed with his unbridled violent action, is worrisome enough. However, we must all recognize the deeper
significance of that tape, particularly in light of what the other police officers who were present told FBI Special Agent Norris.
Those officers who were present in the restaurant, and who are plainly seen on the videotape, told Norris that Simoes’ act was an “unreasonable
and excessive use of force.” Given that consensus, that evaluation of Simoes’ assault on an innocent, unarmed woman, what must any intelligent
observer of that tape conclude with respect to the mindset and the actions of those officers? How can anyone conclude anything other than the fact that each and every officer present was accustomed to seeing that kind of horrific violence; violence without provocation; violence from
fellow of-ficers that was clearly criminal and lifethreatening.
How can one conclude anything other than the fact that they were so used to it that even as close-up as they were, they simply went about
what they were doing without any immediate, appropriate reaction?
We are talking about brutality against women, here, extremely violent acts without any legitimate purpose or prompt; life-threatening brutality to which the response, not only of fellow officers on the scene, but of every superior of-ficer right up through the Police Commissioner, and the Mayor himself, was, “So what?”
But for the public exposure of the videotape, there would be no consequences for Officer Simoes. As it stands, he was routinely cleared of any wrongdoing by Police Department investigation. We must ask, “Did departmental investigators interview the same cops the FBI did?” The simple facts are these:
• An innocent woman was nearly murdered by a Yonkers police officer in the presence of several fellow Yonkers police officers;
• The Police Department, upon review, found no problem with the rogue, violent, cop’s actions, and permitted him to continue carrying a gun and wearing a badge; but no name tag. In point of fact, not one uniformed Yonkers Police Officer wears a name tag!
• Neither Police Commissioner Hartnett, nor Mayor Amicone, were troubled by the “unreasonable, sick, conduct until it was publicly exposed, and therefore continued to condone and thereby encourage, more of same;
• We can instantly name two other cases of severe violence by two other Yonkers cops in the presence of other Yonkers police offi-cers, against women. For example: Mary Bostwick by Yonkers Police Officer Gratzon, and Sherry Bobrowsky, by Yonkers Police Officer Renzi.
Eight years ago, emerging from law school, and working for a solo practitioner, not in Yonkers, but in White Plains, we, alone, in one year, handled three cases of Yonkers police brutality. The District Attorney, then, was Jeanine Pirro.
The District Attorney, now, is Janet DiFiore. Neither prosecuted violent Yonkers police of-ficers. However, DA DiFiore has routinely taken the protection of the Yonkers Police Department’s rogue cops one step further by actively, and aggressively, prosecuting their brutalized victims with
trumped-up charges. With a history of protection and encouragement, from the top down; the DA, the Mayor and the Police Commissioner,
and Precinct Captains, is it any wonder we are facing a routinely violent Yonkers Police Department?
The horrific beating of Rui Florim by six plainclothed Yonkers police officers, acting in concert, out of their jurisdiction, in the Town of Greenburgh, is the ultimate example of the un-lawful lengths to which Yonkers Police believe they can, and in fact, do go. And, in point of fact,
Janet DiFiore continues to prosecute Mr. Florim despite the fact that the details of the unlawful actions of those police officers have been brought to her attention.
We, at The Westchester Guardian, know that it is not merely a lack of decency that accounts for the criminal conduct of Yonkers City
Government, and the Yonkers Police Department, in particular. We are dealing with tyranny. And, as William Pitt observed more than 200 years ago, “Where law ends, tyranny begins.”
Apparently it isn’t enough that the City of Yonkers, and its Police Department, are under a permanent federal injunction not to destroy The Guardian’s distribution boxes, or interfere with our First Amendment freedoms in any way, having previously illegally confiscated, damaged, and
destroyed more than three dozen boxes. Now, because they cannot tolerate the dissemination of the ugly truth about their brutality, they have taken to bashing and wrecking our boxes, on the spot, late at night.
However, they have been caught in the act by decent citizens who do not want to be deprived of the opportunity to read The Guardian and who, furthermore, understand that they are supposed to be living in the United States of America, even though they are in Yonkers, and that they are still protected by those Constitutional guarantees such as Free Speech, Freedom Of The Press, and the Right of Association.
The Advocate
Richard Blassberg
“Where Law Ends, Tyranny Begins”
– William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, 1708-1778
Whatever Has Become Of Decency In Yonkers?
For several months now, the People of Westchester and the surrounding area, have been repeatedly exposed to the videotape of Yonkers Police Officer Wayne Simoes bodyslamming Irma Marquez at La Fonda Restaurant, March 3, 2007. The horror of the act by an individual sworn to protect the very person he nearly killed with his unbridled violent action, is worrisome enough. However, we must all recognize the deeper
significance of that tape, particularly in light of what the other police officers who were present told FBI Special Agent Norris.
Those officers who were present in the restaurant, and who are plainly seen on the videotape, told Norris that Simoes’ act was an “unreasonable
and excessive use of force.” Given that consensus, that evaluation of Simoes’ assault on an innocent, unarmed woman, what must any intelligent
observer of that tape conclude with respect to the mindset and the actions of those officers? How can anyone conclude anything other than the fact that each and every officer present was accustomed to seeing that kind of horrific violence; violence without provocation; violence from
fellow of-ficers that was clearly criminal and lifethreatening.
How can one conclude anything other than the fact that they were so used to it that even as close-up as they were, they simply went about
what they were doing without any immediate, appropriate reaction?
We are talking about brutality against women, here, extremely violent acts without any legitimate purpose or prompt; life-threatening brutality to which the response, not only of fellow officers on the scene, but of every superior of-ficer right up through the Police Commissioner, and the Mayor himself, was, “So what?”
But for the public exposure of the videotape, there would be no consequences for Officer Simoes. As it stands, he was routinely cleared of any wrongdoing by Police Department investigation. We must ask, “Did departmental investigators interview the same cops the FBI did?” The simple facts are these:
• An innocent woman was nearly murdered by a Yonkers police officer in the presence of several fellow Yonkers police officers;
• The Police Department, upon review, found no problem with the rogue, violent, cop’s actions, and permitted him to continue carrying a gun and wearing a badge; but no name tag. In point of fact, not one uniformed Yonkers Police Officer wears a name tag!
• Neither Police Commissioner Hartnett, nor Mayor Amicone, were troubled by the “unreasonable, sick, conduct until it was publicly exposed, and therefore continued to condone and thereby encourage, more of same;
• We can instantly name two other cases of severe violence by two other Yonkers cops in the presence of other Yonkers police offi-cers, against women. For example: Mary Bostwick by Yonkers Police Officer Gratzon, and Sherry Bobrowsky, by Yonkers Police Officer Renzi.
Eight years ago, emerging from law school, and working for a solo practitioner, not in Yonkers, but in White Plains, we, alone, in one year, handled three cases of Yonkers police brutality. The District Attorney, then, was Jeanine Pirro.
The District Attorney, now, is Janet DiFiore. Neither prosecuted violent Yonkers police of-ficers. However, DA DiFiore has routinely taken the protection of the Yonkers Police Department’s rogue cops one step further by actively, and aggressively, prosecuting their brutalized victims with
trumped-up charges. With a history of protection and encouragement, from the top down; the DA, the Mayor and the Police Commissioner,
and Precinct Captains, is it any wonder we are facing a routinely violent Yonkers Police Department?
The horrific beating of Rui Florim by six plainclothed Yonkers police officers, acting in concert, out of their jurisdiction, in the Town of Greenburgh, is the ultimate example of the un-lawful lengths to which Yonkers Police believe they can, and in fact, do go. And, in point of fact,
Janet DiFiore continues to prosecute Mr. Florim despite the fact that the details of the unlawful actions of those police officers have been brought to her attention.
We, at The Westchester Guardian, know that it is not merely a lack of decency that accounts for the criminal conduct of Yonkers City
Government, and the Yonkers Police Department, in particular. We are dealing with tyranny. And, as William Pitt observed more than 200 years ago, “Where law ends, tyranny begins.”
Apparently it isn’t enough that the City of Yonkers, and its Police Department, are under a permanent federal injunction not to destroy The Guardian’s distribution boxes, or interfere with our First Amendment freedoms in any way, having previously illegally confiscated, damaged, and
destroyed more than three dozen boxes. Now, because they cannot tolerate the dissemination of the ugly truth about their brutality, they have taken to bashing and wrecking our boxes, on the spot, late at night.
However, they have been caught in the act by decent citizens who do not want to be deprived of the opportunity to read The Guardian and who, furthermore, understand that they are supposed to be living in the United States of America, even though they are in Yonkers, and that they are still protected by those Constitutional guarantees such as Free Speech, Freedom Of The Press, and the Right of Association.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Westchester Guardian/Janet Difiore.
Jeff Deskovic
The Irma Marquez Case:
What Should Have Happened
As has been public knowledge for quite some time now, there is a serious problem with police brutality in Yonkers. The Guardian, nearly two years ago, in September of 2006 virtually opened Pandora’s Box with an article about a “Mother, 72, Daughter 49,” the Bostwicks, one of whom was roughed up, and the other brutalized and charged with bogus offenses by Yonkers Police. The police were responding to their call because a teenager who had been beaten up and bloodied by a neighbor of theirs came pleading for help to their door.
Within a week of the appearance of their story, the local chapter of the NAACP, chaired by President Karen Edmonson, held a seminar at the Riverfront Library, which was attended by approximately 125 people, at which 25 to 30 people came forward to describe their personal experiences and that of their families with Yonkers Police brutality. Their information was recorded by law students from Pace Law School under the direction of Randolph McLaughlin and Debra Cohen.
About a year later, at a similar public forum in Sept. 2007, Mayor Amicone was booed and chased out of the auditorium for trying to suggest that there was no problem. I will explore what happened to another Yonkers Police brutality vic-tim, Irma Marquez, and discuss what
should have happened as well as discussing community relations between the public and the police department, which was discussed at a recent public forum held in Mount Vernon at the Grace Baptist Church.
In March 2007, Irma Marquez’ niece was hit with a bottle and knocked unconscious at La Fonda restaurant in Yonkers. EMTs were called, and Marquez, a middle-aged home health aide, who was present, was also trying to tend to her niece, bending over her while the EMTs were working. An officer took Marquez by the arm and backed her up, and she accidentally stepped on the foot of another officer in the process.
At that point Yonkers police officer Wayne Simoes approached and shoved Marquez’ shoulder. Marquez apparently objected to being shoved, and Simoes grabbed her by the waist, lifted her in the air and slammed her face-first into the tile floor, handcuffing her as she lay unconscious.
She suffered a broken jaw and extensive bruising and had to be hospitalized for four days. The whole incident was captured on a concealed
security video camera. Marquez was nonetheless arrested and charged with Obstruction Of Governmental Administration, and an internal
inquiry cleared Simoes of any wrongdoing. After Marquez’s attorney, Gary Certain, viewed the tape, he asked for the charges to be dropped.
Assistant DA Paul Scharf, bureau chief of the local courts and grand jury, responded that he had reviewed the tape with Assistant District
Attorney Mark Garretto, Bureau Chief in Yonkers, and they had decided to follow through on the case against Marquez.
Attorney Certain said he then sent a letter to DiFiore with details of the video and pictures of Marquez’s injuries. She called him and indicated the case would be re-examined. However, he never heard back from her until early May, when her Office said it was proceeding to trial. At some point prior to the jury verdict, the Justice Department informed the City of Yonkers that it was investigating the case. Upon learning that, Yonkers Mayor Phil Amicone held a news conference to praise the department, saying its officers “do their jobs the right way in full accordance with the law.” Marquez was acquitted following a jury trial, and proceeded to file an $11.3 million dollar lawsuit against the police department.
After the trial, Westchester District Attorney Janet DiFiore launched an internal inquiry into how her own office handled the matter. She suggested on Friday, June 27, in a terse written statement that the case was ‘mishandled’. She stated, “Personnel have been disciplined,
operational changes are being made, and enhanced training is being put in place.” Her office declined further comment and wouldn’t say who
was disciplined. However, Mark Garretto, who had been the bureau chief in Yonkers since DiFiore became district attorney in 2006, was reassigned to the Motions And Appeals Bureau. DiFiore’s spokesman, Lucien Chalfen, remained tight-lipped, not willing to say whether
Garretto’s transfer was related to the Marquez case.
On June 27th the FBI arrested Simoes and accused him of violating Marquez’ civil rights. FBI Agent Kristina Norris wrote in a criminal complaint against Simoes filed in U.S. District Court in White Plains that when agents asked police officers about the images from a surveillance videotape that showed Officer Wayne Simoes brutally slamming Irma Marquez facedown to the ground, “Several officers
stated that, based on their training and experience, Simoes’ use of force against Marquez was unreasonable and excessive,” Simoes surrendered to federal authorities at 9 a.m. in White Plains and made a brief court appearance two hours later. He was released on $300,000 bond.
Yonkers Police said in a statement that Commissioner Edmund Hartnett has told the department’s Internal Affairs Division to reopen its investigation. Additionally, Yonkers police released a statement that said Simoes had been placed on modified duty. Here is what should have happened: Firstly, the police officers who were on the scene should have arrested Simoes’ right there on the spot for assault. The fact that a perpetrator draws his paycheck from a law enforcement position does not excuse him. If anything, the fact that he is in a position of public trust and equipped with a gun and a baton, and other equipment, and has the ability to call others for help, and yet nonetheless abuses it, makes it an aggravating circumstance, Aggravated Assault.
When the other officers failed to arrest him, the supervisor should have arrested him, while suspending those officers who were present and did nothing. When that failed, each person up the line in authority should have made the arrest while suspending those under him/her who failed to do so. When the matter ultimately got to the level of the District Attorney’s Office, Assistant District Attorneys Mark Garretto and Paul Scharf should have charged Simoes with assault, while also dismissing the charges against Marquez.
After all, the incident was caught on tape and therefore there was no question as to what happened. When that failed, District Attorney DiFiore should have had Simoes arrested and had the charges dismissed against Marquez. A District Attorney is, I believe, ultimately responsible for everything that goes on in the office. In point of fact, they are there to oversee and supervise everything. While I can see
how it could get difficult to stay on top of every single thing, at all times, while letting nothing escape one’s notice, Attorney Certain stated that he sent a letter to DiFiore with details of the video and pictures of Marquez’s injuries, and upon receipt of which she called him
and indicated the case would be re-examined.
Therefore, she knew precisely what was going on. As I said earlier, when the officers who were present saw Simoes bodyslam Marquez, they should have immediately arrested them. If an ordinary citizen did that to somebody in the presence of police officers, they would
be arrested on the spot. We also see in the Marquez case that the blue wall of silence is very much still alive. Every single one of those officers who maintained that code of silence should be suspended. Lest anyone think that I am anti-cop or overreacting, we are talking about a
crime that was initially covered up, and likely still would be but for release of the videotape.
The covering up that typically goes on when the system covers up for the system, no matter what the facts are, manifested itself in the initial police internal investigation clearing Simoes. Mayor Amicone, making his public statement defending and praising the police when word got out that the Justice Department was investigating Simoes, and the District Attorney’s office not dropping the charges against Marquez and arresting him, represent a repititious conspiracy and scenario in blatant violation of the victim’s civil rights.
That Marquez had to be subjected to the trauma, expense, uncertainty, and risk of being wrongfully convicted that a trial brings for someone that the tape shows was innocent of, is shameful and unlawful. Anyone who believes that the reinvestigation by the Yonkers Police Department would have happened had the FBI not arrested Simoes, is naïve. In support of that thesis, I would like to point out that the tape and photos were around during the first go around. I am convinced that Simoes received preferential treatment from the court system once he was arrested, that only the connected, powerful, political, wealthy, and some law enforcement personnel are accorded: being released
on bail the same day that he was arrested. This two tiered system of justice-one for the poor and common folk, and the other for those on the upper end of the socio economic status, has got to stop if the law is to have any moral authority. I believe that the District Attorney’s Office should have released the names of those employees who were disciplined. Why should it be a private thing? I believe in transparency in government, and that the public has a right to know what is going on, and why. When someone has been transferred or disciplined for wrongdoing, the public should know so that we can have confidence that the same individual will not be able to repeat his or her actions,
and that it will not be tolerated by any other staff member. It would show that everything is above board, nothing is going on behind the scenes, nothing being swept under the rug, and no us v. them mentality. As a citizen of Westchester, I, along with the public, would like to know, without having to draw an inference; but instead being explicitly told, how the people who were disciplined were actually disciplined.
Why is it when ordinary citizens are arrested it is announced to the public; their names and what the charges are, and what the punishment ends up being. Whenever tragedy or misfortunate comes, I believe that we have a moral responsibility to victims to do what we can to see to it that they do not suffer for no reason. We, instead, must learn the lessons of the incident and do what we can to prevent any reccurrence.
The maxim that “Those who fail to learn from the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them in the future,” is true. Accordingly, I have some concrete ideas involving morality and legislation that would, if followed, prevent future cases such as Irma Marquez.
I would call upon the honest, law abiding police officers of Yonkers to take back the police force from the band of rogue cops who are engaging in police brutality, the breaking of the laws, and general corruption. There should be no feelings of solidarity between honest
cops and dishonest ones. Instead, true officer solidarity should come from the observable actions of honest, law-abiding police work that stays within the limits of the law, involves no brutality, cuts no corners, does not violate the rights of any civilians, whether suspects or not; takes no bribes, and engages in no corruption. The maintaining of good relations should be dependent upon the maintaining of those rules.
Prosecutors should pay special attention whenever there are allegations by defendants that they’ve been roughed up by police. In every instance where that has proven to be the case, charges against accused should be dismissed. To do less than that is to allow rogue law
enforcement officers to hijack the legal system and use it to their own ends as a means of covering up their own brutality. It is not unusual for such officers to falsely charge people with “resisting arrest” in order to try to justify their previous unlawful use of force. It also serves
to further punish a defendant who they have previously brutalized. We must enact laws which encourage law enforcement personnel who witness other officers committing crimes, to step forward and press charges; with the failure to do so being grounds not only for dismissal, but also to be charged with the crime of aiding and abetting and acting in concert. The same should apply to any supervisors who witness, or in any way learn of the occurrence of such activity and yet take no action to investigate and arrest where the evidence is secured.
In reality, those who turn their heads are, in fact, assisting the culture to form in which brutality is acceptable. In my book, that is aiding and
abetting. The legislation should be not just on a state level, but also on the federal level, authorizing the FBI and U.S. Attorney to step in whenever state law makers fail to do so. Each time an of-ficer gets away with police brutality, it threatens the safety of us all while setting
the stage for acceptability to set in, thus causing it to happen again. Until such time as legislation is passed to that effect, departments should adopt internal policies requiring officers and supervisors to take action when they witness or otherwise learn of police brutality.
Legislation is absolutely necessary which would establish an independent prosecutor to handle any and all cases involving the police. Police and prosecutors work together, and it is only natural that a certain amount of familiarity or cordiality develops between them, and such personal interaction can often factor into the thought processes with regard to whether to prosecute or not. Someone who has no personal familiarity with the people involved in a case, and can instead look at the facts of a case objectively with no personal consideration; in short, an independent prosecutor is what is needed. An independent prosecutor is not bound by the constraints imposed by the relationship
between district attorneys and police. Additionally, one cannot overemphasize the importance of Civilian Complaint Review Boards. However, such Boards cannot be effective unless they have subpoena power, and the power to suspend and bestow penalties.
The Irma Marquez Case:
What Should Have Happened
As has been public knowledge for quite some time now, there is a serious problem with police brutality in Yonkers. The Guardian, nearly two years ago, in September of 2006 virtually opened Pandora’s Box with an article about a “Mother, 72, Daughter 49,” the Bostwicks, one of whom was roughed up, and the other brutalized and charged with bogus offenses by Yonkers Police. The police were responding to their call because a teenager who had been beaten up and bloodied by a neighbor of theirs came pleading for help to their door.
Within a week of the appearance of their story, the local chapter of the NAACP, chaired by President Karen Edmonson, held a seminar at the Riverfront Library, which was attended by approximately 125 people, at which 25 to 30 people came forward to describe their personal experiences and that of their families with Yonkers Police brutality. Their information was recorded by law students from Pace Law School under the direction of Randolph McLaughlin and Debra Cohen.
About a year later, at a similar public forum in Sept. 2007, Mayor Amicone was booed and chased out of the auditorium for trying to suggest that there was no problem. I will explore what happened to another Yonkers Police brutality vic-tim, Irma Marquez, and discuss what
should have happened as well as discussing community relations between the public and the police department, which was discussed at a recent public forum held in Mount Vernon at the Grace Baptist Church.
In March 2007, Irma Marquez’ niece was hit with a bottle and knocked unconscious at La Fonda restaurant in Yonkers. EMTs were called, and Marquez, a middle-aged home health aide, who was present, was also trying to tend to her niece, bending over her while the EMTs were working. An officer took Marquez by the arm and backed her up, and she accidentally stepped on the foot of another officer in the process.
At that point Yonkers police officer Wayne Simoes approached and shoved Marquez’ shoulder. Marquez apparently objected to being shoved, and Simoes grabbed her by the waist, lifted her in the air and slammed her face-first into the tile floor, handcuffing her as she lay unconscious.
She suffered a broken jaw and extensive bruising and had to be hospitalized for four days. The whole incident was captured on a concealed
security video camera. Marquez was nonetheless arrested and charged with Obstruction Of Governmental Administration, and an internal
inquiry cleared Simoes of any wrongdoing. After Marquez’s attorney, Gary Certain, viewed the tape, he asked for the charges to be dropped.
Assistant DA Paul Scharf, bureau chief of the local courts and grand jury, responded that he had reviewed the tape with Assistant District
Attorney Mark Garretto, Bureau Chief in Yonkers, and they had decided to follow through on the case against Marquez.
Attorney Certain said he then sent a letter to DiFiore with details of the video and pictures of Marquez’s injuries. She called him and indicated the case would be re-examined. However, he never heard back from her until early May, when her Office said it was proceeding to trial. At some point prior to the jury verdict, the Justice Department informed the City of Yonkers that it was investigating the case. Upon learning that, Yonkers Mayor Phil Amicone held a news conference to praise the department, saying its officers “do their jobs the right way in full accordance with the law.” Marquez was acquitted following a jury trial, and proceeded to file an $11.3 million dollar lawsuit against the police department.
After the trial, Westchester District Attorney Janet DiFiore launched an internal inquiry into how her own office handled the matter. She suggested on Friday, June 27, in a terse written statement that the case was ‘mishandled’. She stated, “Personnel have been disciplined,
operational changes are being made, and enhanced training is being put in place.” Her office declined further comment and wouldn’t say who
was disciplined. However, Mark Garretto, who had been the bureau chief in Yonkers since DiFiore became district attorney in 2006, was reassigned to the Motions And Appeals Bureau. DiFiore’s spokesman, Lucien Chalfen, remained tight-lipped, not willing to say whether
Garretto’s transfer was related to the Marquez case.
On June 27th the FBI arrested Simoes and accused him of violating Marquez’ civil rights. FBI Agent Kristina Norris wrote in a criminal complaint against Simoes filed in U.S. District Court in White Plains that when agents asked police officers about the images from a surveillance videotape that showed Officer Wayne Simoes brutally slamming Irma Marquez facedown to the ground, “Several officers
stated that, based on their training and experience, Simoes’ use of force against Marquez was unreasonable and excessive,” Simoes surrendered to federal authorities at 9 a.m. in White Plains and made a brief court appearance two hours later. He was released on $300,000 bond.
Yonkers Police said in a statement that Commissioner Edmund Hartnett has told the department’s Internal Affairs Division to reopen its investigation. Additionally, Yonkers police released a statement that said Simoes had been placed on modified duty. Here is what should have happened: Firstly, the police officers who were on the scene should have arrested Simoes’ right there on the spot for assault. The fact that a perpetrator draws his paycheck from a law enforcement position does not excuse him. If anything, the fact that he is in a position of public trust and equipped with a gun and a baton, and other equipment, and has the ability to call others for help, and yet nonetheless abuses it, makes it an aggravating circumstance, Aggravated Assault.
When the other officers failed to arrest him, the supervisor should have arrested him, while suspending those officers who were present and did nothing. When that failed, each person up the line in authority should have made the arrest while suspending those under him/her who failed to do so. When the matter ultimately got to the level of the District Attorney’s Office, Assistant District Attorneys Mark Garretto and Paul Scharf should have charged Simoes with assault, while also dismissing the charges against Marquez.
After all, the incident was caught on tape and therefore there was no question as to what happened. When that failed, District Attorney DiFiore should have had Simoes arrested and had the charges dismissed against Marquez. A District Attorney is, I believe, ultimately responsible for everything that goes on in the office. In point of fact, they are there to oversee and supervise everything. While I can see
how it could get difficult to stay on top of every single thing, at all times, while letting nothing escape one’s notice, Attorney Certain stated that he sent a letter to DiFiore with details of the video and pictures of Marquez’s injuries, and upon receipt of which she called him
and indicated the case would be re-examined.
Therefore, she knew precisely what was going on. As I said earlier, when the officers who were present saw Simoes bodyslam Marquez, they should have immediately arrested them. If an ordinary citizen did that to somebody in the presence of police officers, they would
be arrested on the spot. We also see in the Marquez case that the blue wall of silence is very much still alive. Every single one of those officers who maintained that code of silence should be suspended. Lest anyone think that I am anti-cop or overreacting, we are talking about a
crime that was initially covered up, and likely still would be but for release of the videotape.
The covering up that typically goes on when the system covers up for the system, no matter what the facts are, manifested itself in the initial police internal investigation clearing Simoes. Mayor Amicone, making his public statement defending and praising the police when word got out that the Justice Department was investigating Simoes, and the District Attorney’s office not dropping the charges against Marquez and arresting him, represent a repititious conspiracy and scenario in blatant violation of the victim’s civil rights.
That Marquez had to be subjected to the trauma, expense, uncertainty, and risk of being wrongfully convicted that a trial brings for someone that the tape shows was innocent of, is shameful and unlawful. Anyone who believes that the reinvestigation by the Yonkers Police Department would have happened had the FBI not arrested Simoes, is naïve. In support of that thesis, I would like to point out that the tape and photos were around during the first go around. I am convinced that Simoes received preferential treatment from the court system once he was arrested, that only the connected, powerful, political, wealthy, and some law enforcement personnel are accorded: being released
on bail the same day that he was arrested. This two tiered system of justice-one for the poor and common folk, and the other for those on the upper end of the socio economic status, has got to stop if the law is to have any moral authority. I believe that the District Attorney’s Office should have released the names of those employees who were disciplined. Why should it be a private thing? I believe in transparency in government, and that the public has a right to know what is going on, and why. When someone has been transferred or disciplined for wrongdoing, the public should know so that we can have confidence that the same individual will not be able to repeat his or her actions,
and that it will not be tolerated by any other staff member. It would show that everything is above board, nothing is going on behind the scenes, nothing being swept under the rug, and no us v. them mentality. As a citizen of Westchester, I, along with the public, would like to know, without having to draw an inference; but instead being explicitly told, how the people who were disciplined were actually disciplined.
Why is it when ordinary citizens are arrested it is announced to the public; their names and what the charges are, and what the punishment ends up being. Whenever tragedy or misfortunate comes, I believe that we have a moral responsibility to victims to do what we can to see to it that they do not suffer for no reason. We, instead, must learn the lessons of the incident and do what we can to prevent any reccurrence.
The maxim that “Those who fail to learn from the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them in the future,” is true. Accordingly, I have some concrete ideas involving morality and legislation that would, if followed, prevent future cases such as Irma Marquez.
I would call upon the honest, law abiding police officers of Yonkers to take back the police force from the band of rogue cops who are engaging in police brutality, the breaking of the laws, and general corruption. There should be no feelings of solidarity between honest
cops and dishonest ones. Instead, true officer solidarity should come from the observable actions of honest, law-abiding police work that stays within the limits of the law, involves no brutality, cuts no corners, does not violate the rights of any civilians, whether suspects or not; takes no bribes, and engages in no corruption. The maintaining of good relations should be dependent upon the maintaining of those rules.
Prosecutors should pay special attention whenever there are allegations by defendants that they’ve been roughed up by police. In every instance where that has proven to be the case, charges against accused should be dismissed. To do less than that is to allow rogue law
enforcement officers to hijack the legal system and use it to their own ends as a means of covering up their own brutality. It is not unusual for such officers to falsely charge people with “resisting arrest” in order to try to justify their previous unlawful use of force. It also serves
to further punish a defendant who they have previously brutalized. We must enact laws which encourage law enforcement personnel who witness other officers committing crimes, to step forward and press charges; with the failure to do so being grounds not only for dismissal, but also to be charged with the crime of aiding and abetting and acting in concert. The same should apply to any supervisors who witness, or in any way learn of the occurrence of such activity and yet take no action to investigate and arrest where the evidence is secured.
In reality, those who turn their heads are, in fact, assisting the culture to form in which brutality is acceptable. In my book, that is aiding and
abetting. The legislation should be not just on a state level, but also on the federal level, authorizing the FBI and U.S. Attorney to step in whenever state law makers fail to do so. Each time an of-ficer gets away with police brutality, it threatens the safety of us all while setting
the stage for acceptability to set in, thus causing it to happen again. Until such time as legislation is passed to that effect, departments should adopt internal policies requiring officers and supervisors to take action when they witness or otherwise learn of police brutality.
Legislation is absolutely necessary which would establish an independent prosecutor to handle any and all cases involving the police. Police and prosecutors work together, and it is only natural that a certain amount of familiarity or cordiality develops between them, and such personal interaction can often factor into the thought processes with regard to whether to prosecute or not. Someone who has no personal familiarity with the people involved in a case, and can instead look at the facts of a case objectively with no personal consideration; in short, an independent prosecutor is what is needed. An independent prosecutor is not bound by the constraints imposed by the relationship
between district attorneys and police. Additionally, one cannot overemphasize the importance of Civilian Complaint Review Boards. However, such Boards cannot be effective unless they have subpoena power, and the power to suspend and bestow penalties.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Westchester Guardian.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
The Advocate
Richard Blassberg
Cops On Steroids?
Anabolic Steroids = Police Brutality
Anabolic steroids, high levels of synthetic testosterone and human growth hormone (HGH) have been suspected and tested for in Major League baseball, the NFL, and just about every professional and amateur organized sporting event, including the Olympics. Their use has been banned for many years, with only partial success, and such compounds remain a continuing problem in terms of accessibility and detection.
Actually, the impact of anabolic steroids is most often quite detectable, both in terms of the user's physical appearance and temperament. Physically, there is a muscling, or bulking up that is unmistakable, particularly in the extremities. Temperamental behavioral changes may be more subtle at first. However, users soon begin to display unusually aggressive behavior, progressing over time to outright belligerent, antisocial attitudes and activities. Situations that never pose any cause for concern, or a threat to safety and security, increasingly appear threatening.
A drug-induced paranoia, accompanied by the urge for violent physical contact, begins to take hold with continued exposure to steroids. Yonkers Police Officer Wayne Simoes' behavior with respect to Irma Marquez, on March 3, 2007, in the presence of several other officers, was that kind of extreme and inappropriate violence.
The videotaped segment makes it abundantly clear that Officer Simoes was confronted with no physical threat, no imminent harm; and yet responded in a manner Calculated to bring Grievous injury, if not death, to Ms. Marquez. Any individual capable of such horrific violence, without provocation, is a "walking time bomb." A police officer so wired is a major catastrophe about to happen who needs to be immediately removed from active duty, disarmed and defused.
To be sure, the Yonkers Police Department is not the only department in Westchester with officers who have demonstrated extreme belligerence and violence toward innocent, non-threatening, civilians. However, it is a department where per-capita complaints of police brutality have been very high in number and often extreme in character.
In 2005 Tina Bostwick and her daughter Mary, then 72, and 49 years of age, were brutalized by the Yonkers Police simply for having called them to respond to a badly beaten and injured teen that had fled from a neighbor's house. Mary, the daughter, was physically attacked by a responding police officer, handcuffed, brought to the police station, and charged with the usual cover-up, bogus, charges, Disorderly Conduct, Obstruction Of Governmental Administration, Resisting Arrest, etc. She has suffered enormous post-traumatic stress symptoms, and gone through great expense over the last three years, as a result.
In 2006 Rui Florim, then 21, was hunted down and grabbed by six Yonkers police officers upon leaving his job in Hartsdale. Dressed in civilian clothing and using unmarked cars, they pulled Florim from the vehicle he was riding in, and threw him into one of their cars where four of them proceeded to beat him mercilessly about the face and head. He required 70 stitches and staples to close his wounds, and five days in St. Joseph's Hospital's intensive care unit, the entire time kept under police observation that physically barred his family and his attorney from seeing him.
Most recently revealed, Irma Marquez, body-slammed in July of 2007, lucky-to-be-alive after being thrown head-first onto a tile floor, suffers from memory loss, and loss of mental and physical function that will likely plague her rest of her life. What we see in the videotaped segment is a Yonkers police officer acting out with unjustifiable rage against an unarmed, defenseless, innocent woman.
As alarming as that act was, is the failure of any one of several other officers, visible at the scene, to attempt to prevent Officer Simoes' brutal, and clearly criminal, conduct. Apparently violence of that extreme nature against unarmed civilians was nothing that unusual in their experience. And, perhaps no one in the room had courage enough to stand up for human rights and professional police conduct against a virtual "madman".
The Bostwick, Florim and Marquez cases are but three of literally hundreds of incidents involving Yonkers Police brutality in the last three years alone; and those cases reported come only from those victims brave enough to come forward.
Sources have informed The Guardian of doctors with offices very close to St. John's Riverside Hospital who allegedly have supplied several Yonkers police officers with anabolic steroids, and other compounds, for years. However,in reality, those bent on using anabolic steroids can easily do so without the need to deal with a physician. In our December 27, 2007 edition we ran a two-page feature spotlighting legislation being developed at that time by New York State Assemblywoman Amy Paulin, designed to curtail the operation of so-called "Internet pharmacies," brought to light by the Mitchell Report on Drug Abuse in Major League Baseball.
Again, the Yonkers Police Department is clearly not alone with respect to the steroid problem. In January of this year, the NYPD was compelled to broaden its probe of steroid use amongst police officers when at least 27 officers' names came up as customers of Lowens Compounding Pharmacy in Brooklyn, a pharmacy known to have been illegally supplying steroids to professional athletes. Additionally, the
Brooklyn DA's Office opened an investigation into their operations. By April the NYPD announced that they were going to begin randomly testing their 36,000-officer force for steroid use. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly stated, "It only makes sense to include steroids," referencing the fact that the NYPD was already testing for narcotics.
We believe the time has come for the City of Yonkers, specifically Mayor Phil Amicone and his police commissioner, Edmund Hartnett, to get real with regard to their long-standing, pervasive police brutality problem. It is not now, nor has it ever been, an acceptable state of affairs that the police department is run like a paramilitary organization, striking fear in decent, hard-working citizens, rather than enlisting their cooperation, and assistance, in crime fighting and prevention.
We, therefore, strongly suggest that the following measures be immediately implemented:·
The Advocate
Richard Blassberg
Cops On Steroids?
Anabolic Steroids = Police Brutality
Anabolic steroids, high levels of synthetic testosterone and human growth hormone (HGH) have been suspected and tested for in Major League baseball, the NFL, and just about every professional and amateur organized sporting event, including the Olympics. Their use has been banned for many years, with only partial success, and such compounds remain a continuing problem in terms of accessibility and detection.
Actually, the impact of anabolic steroids is most often quite detectable, both in terms of the user's physical appearance and temperament. Physically, there is a muscling, or bulking up that is unmistakable, particularly in the extremities. Temperamental behavioral changes may be more subtle at first. However, users soon begin to display unusually aggressive behavior, progressing over time to outright belligerent, antisocial attitudes and activities. Situations that never pose any cause for concern, or a threat to safety and security, increasingly appear threatening.
A drug-induced paranoia, accompanied by the urge for violent physical contact, begins to take hold with continued exposure to steroids. Yonkers Police Officer Wayne Simoes' behavior with respect to Irma Marquez, on March 3, 2007, in the presence of several other officers, was that kind of extreme and inappropriate violence.
The videotaped segment makes it abundantly clear that Officer Simoes was confronted with no physical threat, no imminent harm; and yet responded in a manner Calculated to bring Grievous injury, if not death, to Ms. Marquez. Any individual capable of such horrific violence, without provocation, is a "walking time bomb." A police officer so wired is a major catastrophe about to happen who needs to be immediately removed from active duty, disarmed and defused.
To be sure, the Yonkers Police Department is not the only department in Westchester with officers who have demonstrated extreme belligerence and violence toward innocent, non-threatening, civilians. However, it is a department where per-capita complaints of police brutality have been very high in number and often extreme in character.
In 2005 Tina Bostwick and her daughter Mary, then 72, and 49 years of age, were brutalized by the Yonkers Police simply for having called them to respond to a badly beaten and injured teen that had fled from a neighbor's house. Mary, the daughter, was physically attacked by a responding police officer, handcuffed, brought to the police station, and charged with the usual cover-up, bogus, charges, Disorderly Conduct, Obstruction Of Governmental Administration, Resisting Arrest, etc. She has suffered enormous post-traumatic stress symptoms, and gone through great expense over the last three years, as a result.
In 2006 Rui Florim, then 21, was hunted down and grabbed by six Yonkers police officers upon leaving his job in Hartsdale. Dressed in civilian clothing and using unmarked cars, they pulled Florim from the vehicle he was riding in, and threw him into one of their cars where four of them proceeded to beat him mercilessly about the face and head. He required 70 stitches and staples to close his wounds, and five days in St. Joseph's Hospital's intensive care unit, the entire time kept under police observation that physically barred his family and his attorney from seeing him.
Most recently revealed, Irma Marquez, body-slammed in July of 2007, lucky-to-be-alive after being thrown head-first onto a tile floor, suffers from memory loss, and loss of mental and physical function that will likely plague her rest of her life. What we see in the videotaped segment is a Yonkers police officer acting out with unjustifiable rage against an unarmed, defenseless, innocent woman.
As alarming as that act was, is the failure of any one of several other officers, visible at the scene, to attempt to prevent Officer Simoes' brutal, and clearly criminal, conduct. Apparently violence of that extreme nature against unarmed civilians was nothing that unusual in their experience. And, perhaps no one in the room had courage enough to stand up for human rights and professional police conduct against a virtual "madman".
The Bostwick, Florim and Marquez cases are but three of literally hundreds of incidents involving Yonkers Police brutality in the last three years alone; and those cases reported come only from those victims brave enough to come forward.
Sources have informed The Guardian of doctors with offices very close to St. John's Riverside Hospital who allegedly have supplied several Yonkers police officers with anabolic steroids, and other compounds, for years. However,in reality, those bent on using anabolic steroids can easily do so without the need to deal with a physician. In our December 27, 2007 edition we ran a two-page feature spotlighting legislation being developed at that time by New York State Assemblywoman Amy Paulin, designed to curtail the operation of so-called "Internet pharmacies," brought to light by the Mitchell Report on Drug Abuse in Major League Baseball.
Again, the Yonkers Police Department is clearly not alone with respect to the steroid problem. In January of this year, the NYPD was compelled to broaden its probe of steroid use amongst police officers when at least 27 officers' names came up as customers of Lowens Compounding Pharmacy in Brooklyn, a pharmacy known to have been illegally supplying steroids to professional athletes. Additionally, the
Brooklyn DA's Office opened an investigation into their operations. By April the NYPD announced that they were going to begin randomly testing their 36,000-officer force for steroid use. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly stated, "It only makes sense to include steroids," referencing the fact that the NYPD was already testing for narcotics.
We believe the time has come for the City of Yonkers, specifically Mayor Phil Amicone and his police commissioner, Edmund Hartnett, to get real with regard to their long-standing, pervasive police brutality problem. It is not now, nor has it ever been, an acceptable state of affairs that the police department is run like a paramilitary organization, striking fear in decent, hard-working citizens, rather than enlisting their cooperation, and assistance, in crime fighting and prevention.
We, therefore, strongly suggest that the following measures be immediately implemented:·
- Routine, random testing for Anabolic steroids and other illegal drugs;·
- Mandatory wearing of name plaques by every uniformed officer;·
- Formation of a real Civilian Complaint Review Board, not under Police Department control.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Janet Difiore.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
The Advocate
Richard Blassberg
DiFiore’s Incestuousness With Yonkers
Police Sacrifices Victims Of Police Brutality
Tony Castro Predicts, “It Will Come Back To Haunt Law Enforcement”
Nearly two years ago, in our September 21, 2006 issue, The Guardian blew the lid off years of Yonkers Police brutality, revealing an incident in 2005 in a front-page story entitled Mother, 72, Daughter, 49, Charge Yonkers Police Brutality. That story, which detailed the serious civil rights violations the Yonkers Police Department committed when they roughed up a middle-aged woman and her elderly mother, up behind Saunders High School, opened the floodgate to reports by residents, all over the City, and caused the sudden resignation and retirement of Police Commissioner Robert Taggart.
Within a week of the appearance of that story, President Karen Edmonson and Attorney Mike Sussman, of the Yonkers chapter of the NAACP, held a speak-out session at the Riverfront Library, attended by more than 125 persons, many of whom told about their own, and
their family’s, including mother’s and children’s, brutal encounters with the Yonkers Police, involving little or no provocation or justifi-
cation. Attorneys and law students from Pace Law School’s Criminal Justice Center, recorded their accounts which ultimately came to the attention the United States Attorney’s Office and the FBI.
More than a year ago, the FBI, in response, announced that they were conducting a “formal investigation into allegations of police brutality in Yonkers.” The Guardian is aware of visits by FBI special agents to a number of victim/complainants, including Tina and Mary Bostwick, the mother and daughter subjects of our first report. To date, we are not aware of any reports having been issued, or af-firmative action having been taken by the United States Attorney’s Of-fice, or the FBI, that might impact the continuing, unlawful brutality, and false criminal charges routinely worked against innocent men, women and children by, perhaps, 20 or so rogue, violent police offi-cers out of a force of some 670.
Last fall, a second speak-out was held at the Riverfront Library; this time in the auditorium, a few weeks prior to the mayoral election. Mayor Amicone, who had been campaigning nearby, came in to the auditorium in an ill-advised attempt to whitewash and dilute the concerns of the diverse, but mostly minority, audience. He was quickly booed and jeered, and literally chased from the auditorium.
In case after case, the routine has been the same; Yonkers Police beating up innocent citizens, then charging them with Disorderly Conduct, Obstruction of Governmental Administration, Resisting Arrest, Assault Upon A Police Of-ficer, or any combination thereof, both to cover and provide justifi-cation for their own criminal, civil rights violations, and as “bargaining chips” intended to discourage civilian victims from lodging criminal and/or civil complaints.
The practice has been going on for many years; DA Jeanine Pirro, for the most part, looking the other way. However, DA Janet DiFiore
has literally become a co-conspirator with Police Commissioner Hartnett and Mayor Amicone in case after case, as in the Irma Marquez
case. Marquez, all but killed by a totally unjustified body slam delivered by Yonkers Police Of-ficer Wayne Simoes, on March 3, 2007, was charged and prosecuted by DA DiFiore for Obstruction Of Governmental Administration and Disorderly Conduct, an absolutely absurd response by the DA given the clear, indisputable evidence provided by a security camera videotape at the scene.
Those who might wonder why Janet DiFiore repeatedly abandons her sworn duty to protect innocent citizens in her rush to aid and assist
rogue Yonkers cops, while covering up the Department’s serious civil rights violations, need to understand that she has a deep indebtedness
to the Yonkers Police, given the circumstances surrounding her race for District Attorney against Tony Castro in 2005. In point of fact, Di-
Fiore, whose husband attempted to bribe Right-To-Life candidate Anthony DiCintio off the ballot, was nonetheless publicly endorsed by
the Yonkers Police Department.
They were the host department at the Yonkers Polish Center within days of the election at a rally by police brass from Harrison, Dobbs
Ferry and other departments. But, more importantly, and more suspect, they were the department assigned to secure the warehouse storage
facility on Saw Mill River Road, where more than 300 voting machines were impounded at DiFiore’s request; a request filed three days
before the election was even held. This writer, who was reporting at the time for Martinelli Publications, witnessed the recanvas of those machines.
Having been Tony Castro’s campaign director when, as a total unknown he came close to defeating Jeanine Pirro four years earlier, I quickly recognized the peculiar voting patterns revealed in the 2005 Yonkers recount, not to mention numerous machines with broken seals. Despite the so-called “Non- Aggression Pact” of 2001, where Andy Spano and Larry Schwartz, and Reggie Lafayette, and all their henchmen, were actually part of the “fix” to reelect Jeanine Pirro, I never doubted that she won by six points, actually receiving more votes than my candidate. I have never enjoyed that lack of doubt with respect to Janet DiFiore. Given the totality of the circumstances, what reasonably
intelligent individual could?
Finally, speaking of Tony Castro, exposure of Irma Marquez’ case, less than two weeks ago, with its shocking videotape, brought to mind his client, Rui Florim, now approximately 23, who was beaten by six Yonkers police officers approximately 2 years ago. The facts of his encounter are no less outrageous and egregious.
Florim, who had gotten off work at 10:30pm from O’Porto Restaurant in the Village of Hartsdale, Town of Greenburgh, was being driven home by a female friend, having just crossed Central Avenue when they were pulled over by flashing lights in a dark area of the roadway. Six Yonkers Police Officers, including one female, all dressed in civilian clothing, pulled Florim from his friend’s car. And, forcing him into their unmarked car, four of them beat him about the face and head mercilessly.
He was then taken to St. Joseph’s Hospital, opposite Yonkers Police Headquarters, a hospital repeatedly used as the depository for victims of Yonkers Police brutality. He required 70 stitches and staples and five days in the Intensive Care Unit to recover. While he was in St. Joseph’s, Yonkers Police physically barred his family, and his attorney, from any contact with him.
Tony Castro represents Mr. Florim in State Court because, as with Irma Marquez, DA DiFiore is prosecuting him on trumped-up charges. Florim, will, no doubt, also be bringing an action in Federal Court. Castro told The Guardian, “The District Attorney’s routine response to Yonkers Police brutality is very short-sighted. She is not looking ahead to the long-term implications for juries and verdicts.
Jurors will learn what has been taking place. And, what has happened in The Bronx is what will happen in Yonkers, and all over
Westchester.” Castro went on, “It will come back to haunt law enforcement all across Westchester in the near-future. Their jury service is where citizens express their feelings about what they experience with police.”
Tony Castro, a former Bronx Assistant District Attorney, with 14 years experience, who trained hundreds of prosecutors, and who was
Deputy Bureau Chief of Homicides and the Grand Jury, was referring specifically to the preferential treatment DA DiFiore has repeatedly
shown the Yonkers Police Department at the expense of innocent citizens, as she has consistently been unwilling to investigate and prosecute their brutality against men, women and children. He is concerned that grand juries and trial juries will become so cynical and jaded that they will refuse to indict, or convict, in cases that are dependent upon police accounts.
The Advocate
Richard Blassberg
DiFiore’s Incestuousness With Yonkers
Police Sacrifices Victims Of Police Brutality
Tony Castro Predicts, “It Will Come Back To Haunt Law Enforcement”
Nearly two years ago, in our September 21, 2006 issue, The Guardian blew the lid off years of Yonkers Police brutality, revealing an incident in 2005 in a front-page story entitled Mother, 72, Daughter, 49, Charge Yonkers Police Brutality. That story, which detailed the serious civil rights violations the Yonkers Police Department committed when they roughed up a middle-aged woman and her elderly mother, up behind Saunders High School, opened the floodgate to reports by residents, all over the City, and caused the sudden resignation and retirement of Police Commissioner Robert Taggart.
Within a week of the appearance of that story, President Karen Edmonson and Attorney Mike Sussman, of the Yonkers chapter of the NAACP, held a speak-out session at the Riverfront Library, attended by more than 125 persons, many of whom told about their own, and
their family’s, including mother’s and children’s, brutal encounters with the Yonkers Police, involving little or no provocation or justifi-
cation. Attorneys and law students from Pace Law School’s Criminal Justice Center, recorded their accounts which ultimately came to the attention the United States Attorney’s Office and the FBI.
More than a year ago, the FBI, in response, announced that they were conducting a “formal investigation into allegations of police brutality in Yonkers.” The Guardian is aware of visits by FBI special agents to a number of victim/complainants, including Tina and Mary Bostwick, the mother and daughter subjects of our first report. To date, we are not aware of any reports having been issued, or af-firmative action having been taken by the United States Attorney’s Of-fice, or the FBI, that might impact the continuing, unlawful brutality, and false criminal charges routinely worked against innocent men, women and children by, perhaps, 20 or so rogue, violent police offi-cers out of a force of some 670.
Last fall, a second speak-out was held at the Riverfront Library; this time in the auditorium, a few weeks prior to the mayoral election. Mayor Amicone, who had been campaigning nearby, came in to the auditorium in an ill-advised attempt to whitewash and dilute the concerns of the diverse, but mostly minority, audience. He was quickly booed and jeered, and literally chased from the auditorium.
In case after case, the routine has been the same; Yonkers Police beating up innocent citizens, then charging them with Disorderly Conduct, Obstruction of Governmental Administration, Resisting Arrest, Assault Upon A Police Of-ficer, or any combination thereof, both to cover and provide justifi-cation for their own criminal, civil rights violations, and as “bargaining chips” intended to discourage civilian victims from lodging criminal and/or civil complaints.
The practice has been going on for many years; DA Jeanine Pirro, for the most part, looking the other way. However, DA Janet DiFiore
has literally become a co-conspirator with Police Commissioner Hartnett and Mayor Amicone in case after case, as in the Irma Marquez
case. Marquez, all but killed by a totally unjustified body slam delivered by Yonkers Police Of-ficer Wayne Simoes, on March 3, 2007, was charged and prosecuted by DA DiFiore for Obstruction Of Governmental Administration and Disorderly Conduct, an absolutely absurd response by the DA given the clear, indisputable evidence provided by a security camera videotape at the scene.
Those who might wonder why Janet DiFiore repeatedly abandons her sworn duty to protect innocent citizens in her rush to aid and assist
rogue Yonkers cops, while covering up the Department’s serious civil rights violations, need to understand that she has a deep indebtedness
to the Yonkers Police, given the circumstances surrounding her race for District Attorney against Tony Castro in 2005. In point of fact, Di-
Fiore, whose husband attempted to bribe Right-To-Life candidate Anthony DiCintio off the ballot, was nonetheless publicly endorsed by
the Yonkers Police Department.
They were the host department at the Yonkers Polish Center within days of the election at a rally by police brass from Harrison, Dobbs
Ferry and other departments. But, more importantly, and more suspect, they were the department assigned to secure the warehouse storage
facility on Saw Mill River Road, where more than 300 voting machines were impounded at DiFiore’s request; a request filed three days
before the election was even held. This writer, who was reporting at the time for Martinelli Publications, witnessed the recanvas of those machines.
Having been Tony Castro’s campaign director when, as a total unknown he came close to defeating Jeanine Pirro four years earlier, I quickly recognized the peculiar voting patterns revealed in the 2005 Yonkers recount, not to mention numerous machines with broken seals. Despite the so-called “Non- Aggression Pact” of 2001, where Andy Spano and Larry Schwartz, and Reggie Lafayette, and all their henchmen, were actually part of the “fix” to reelect Jeanine Pirro, I never doubted that she won by six points, actually receiving more votes than my candidate. I have never enjoyed that lack of doubt with respect to Janet DiFiore. Given the totality of the circumstances, what reasonably
intelligent individual could?
Finally, speaking of Tony Castro, exposure of Irma Marquez’ case, less than two weeks ago, with its shocking videotape, brought to mind his client, Rui Florim, now approximately 23, who was beaten by six Yonkers police officers approximately 2 years ago. The facts of his encounter are no less outrageous and egregious.
Florim, who had gotten off work at 10:30pm from O’Porto Restaurant in the Village of Hartsdale, Town of Greenburgh, was being driven home by a female friend, having just crossed Central Avenue when they were pulled over by flashing lights in a dark area of the roadway. Six Yonkers Police Officers, including one female, all dressed in civilian clothing, pulled Florim from his friend’s car. And, forcing him into their unmarked car, four of them beat him about the face and head mercilessly.
He was then taken to St. Joseph’s Hospital, opposite Yonkers Police Headquarters, a hospital repeatedly used as the depository for victims of Yonkers Police brutality. He required 70 stitches and staples and five days in the Intensive Care Unit to recover. While he was in St. Joseph’s, Yonkers Police physically barred his family, and his attorney, from any contact with him.
Tony Castro represents Mr. Florim in State Court because, as with Irma Marquez, DA DiFiore is prosecuting him on trumped-up charges. Florim, will, no doubt, also be bringing an action in Federal Court. Castro told The Guardian, “The District Attorney’s routine response to Yonkers Police brutality is very short-sighted. She is not looking ahead to the long-term implications for juries and verdicts.
Jurors will learn what has been taking place. And, what has happened in The Bronx is what will happen in Yonkers, and all over
Westchester.” Castro went on, “It will come back to haunt law enforcement all across Westchester in the near-future. Their jury service is where citizens express their feelings about what they experience with police.”
Tony Castro, a former Bronx Assistant District Attorney, with 14 years experience, who trained hundreds of prosecutors, and who was
Deputy Bureau Chief of Homicides and the Grand Jury, was referring specifically to the preferential treatment DA DiFiore has repeatedly
shown the Yonkers Police Department at the expense of innocent citizens, as she has consistently been unwilling to investigate and prosecute their brutality against men, women and children. He is concerned that grand juries and trial juries will become so cynical and jaded that they will refuse to indict, or convict, in cases that are dependent upon police accounts.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Thursday, June 5, 2008
In Our Opinion...
Predictable Melodrama At The Expense Of Yonkers’ Schoolchildren
It’s been an acknowledged, and much regretted, fact, for many years, that the Yonkers Public Schools, and the 23,000 youngsters who attend them, have been getting the short end of the stick, financially, from the State. Under New York State’s Public Education Funding Formula, the City of Yonkers receives barely half the funds per student that cities such as Buffalo, Syracuse, and Rochester, receive.
Certainly, throughout John Spencer’s eight-year regime, and for more than four years under his disavowed sidekick, Mayor Amicone, a total of more than a dozen years, teachers, parents, and most importantly, the kids, have had to put up with the insecurity and humiliation of never knowing, from one year to the next, whether sports, music, art, and a host of other activities that youngsters in other cities, other school districts, in New York State, could take for granted, would be available to them.
Nick Spano, for all his supposed political clout in the State Senate, Republican #3, somehow could not reverse the inequity in ten terms. Each year though, he played Santa Claus, apparently saving the day at the 11th hour, as though, for some reason, Yonkers kids were “the poor relatives” who had to go begging. It became a very tired act.
Some believed, with the introduction of video gaming at Yonkers Raceway, a giant step had been taken that would insure Yonkers Public Schools’ solvency. Not so. At last Tuesday night’s City Council meeting, May 27th, the latest in a series of political maneuvers and posturings, “full of sound and fury”, nothing productive with respect to the school funding problem was accomplished.
The Mayor had requested to speak to the Council, a rare request, particularly in light of his recent State Of The City Address. An air of mystery somehow attached as though the purpose of his request was unknown. Nevertheless, the Democratic majority, and the three Republican members, of the Council, had all come armed with their individual responses to Amicone’s brief statement, which called for passage of a resolution put before the Council, by him, weeks earlier, that demanded action in Albany to fix the funding formula.
Prior to the Mayor’s brief remarks, Teacher’s Union President Pat Puleo had made a reasonable presentation pointing out, among other things, that a city of 200,000, with a $1 billion budget, ought not be cutting $22 million from the repair and construction of school buildings. She declared, “No security officers, no guidance counselors; there’s no place to cut the schools’ budget!” Council President Chuck Lesnick laid out the Majority position, declaring, “We differ with the Mayor on strategy and not substance. The Majority will not sign this
resolution.”
Explaining it would be better if the resolution could pass 7-0, Majority Leader Sandy Annabi, claiming that the language of the resolution needed to be reviewed, then called upon Lesnick to explain what had been said by local state legislators behind the scenes. Lesnick explained, “It’s not the right time and place is what our state legislators have said. Having said that we wanted their advice, we feel we ought to follow it.”
All three Republican councilmembers fully availed themselves of the opportunity to ventilate and selfpromote on the subject. Dee Barbado, urging passage of the resolution immediately, stated she didn’t think it was “antagonistic.” John Murtaugh, referred to the Majority’s resistance to act immediately as a “tap dance.” Liam McLaughlin took the position that the resolution wasn’t too critical of the powers in
Albany, and urged, “We have a serious issue right now.”
A vote was taken with all four members of the Democratic Majority voting “No”; and the three Republicans “Yes”. Irrespective of the political motives and mileage, the predictable melodrama certainly did nothing to advance the cause of quality education in Yonkers. For the moment, the Mayor and his minority Party brethren on the City Council, came off more concerned about the City’s public school children while Council President Lesnick and company appeared far too concerned with offending their legislative representatives in Albany.
Reader Complains Of Yonkers Ticketing
Dear Editor:
It seems that Yonkers PD have nothing better to do on a Saturday evening/early morning than to give out parking tickets on Bronx River Road. On 5/25 at 12:02am I received a ticket for parking less than 30 feet from a crosswalk, a crosswalk with no sidewalk and led to nowhere but the fence to the parkway. Why are crosswalks put in locations that led to nowhere? You would think YPD would be paying more attention to car burglaries, destruction of owners vehicles, muggings, need I go on rather than sitting in their cars rolling down their windows and slapping bogus traffic summons on taxpayers’ vehicles just to fill their quotas. It’s bad enough on Bronx River Road there is a parking
problem to begin with, but this type of ticketing is ridiculous especially at that hour of the morning.
This type of policing does not re-flect the high standards that Chief Hartnett expects or should tolerate from his officers.
P.J. O’Meara
Reader Exposes County Police Conflict Of Interest
Dear Editor:
Does anyone find it interesting that Ron Gatto is in charge of the “Environmental Enforcement Unit” for Westchester County Police, yet he has his subordinate making a “Consumer Affairs” arrest and subsequent vehicle impounding of a garage door installer? All the while Ron Gatto’s wife owns a garage door installation company and that the arrested party is the number one competitor of Ron Gatto’s wife’s company, Whitaker Overhead Garage Door.
Is it more than coincidence that both garage door companies are from Yorktown, further proving that this was more personal than professional? Are there no more environmental violators for Gatto’s unit to focus on? I’m sure the Guardian can take it from here...
A Concerned County Resident
In Our Opinion...
Predictable Melodrama At The Expense Of Yonkers’ Schoolchildren
It’s been an acknowledged, and much regretted, fact, for many years, that the Yonkers Public Schools, and the 23,000 youngsters who attend them, have been getting the short end of the stick, financially, from the State. Under New York State’s Public Education Funding Formula, the City of Yonkers receives barely half the funds per student that cities such as Buffalo, Syracuse, and Rochester, receive.
Certainly, throughout John Spencer’s eight-year regime, and for more than four years under his disavowed sidekick, Mayor Amicone, a total of more than a dozen years, teachers, parents, and most importantly, the kids, have had to put up with the insecurity and humiliation of never knowing, from one year to the next, whether sports, music, art, and a host of other activities that youngsters in other cities, other school districts, in New York State, could take for granted, would be available to them.
Nick Spano, for all his supposed political clout in the State Senate, Republican #3, somehow could not reverse the inequity in ten terms. Each year though, he played Santa Claus, apparently saving the day at the 11th hour, as though, for some reason, Yonkers kids were “the poor relatives” who had to go begging. It became a very tired act.
Some believed, with the introduction of video gaming at Yonkers Raceway, a giant step had been taken that would insure Yonkers Public Schools’ solvency. Not so. At last Tuesday night’s City Council meeting, May 27th, the latest in a series of political maneuvers and posturings, “full of sound and fury”, nothing productive with respect to the school funding problem was accomplished.
The Mayor had requested to speak to the Council, a rare request, particularly in light of his recent State Of The City Address. An air of mystery somehow attached as though the purpose of his request was unknown. Nevertheless, the Democratic majority, and the three Republican members, of the Council, had all come armed with their individual responses to Amicone’s brief statement, which called for passage of a resolution put before the Council, by him, weeks earlier, that demanded action in Albany to fix the funding formula.
Prior to the Mayor’s brief remarks, Teacher’s Union President Pat Puleo had made a reasonable presentation pointing out, among other things, that a city of 200,000, with a $1 billion budget, ought not be cutting $22 million from the repair and construction of school buildings. She declared, “No security officers, no guidance counselors; there’s no place to cut the schools’ budget!” Council President Chuck Lesnick laid out the Majority position, declaring, “We differ with the Mayor on strategy and not substance. The Majority will not sign this
resolution.”
Explaining it would be better if the resolution could pass 7-0, Majority Leader Sandy Annabi, claiming that the language of the resolution needed to be reviewed, then called upon Lesnick to explain what had been said by local state legislators behind the scenes. Lesnick explained, “It’s not the right time and place is what our state legislators have said. Having said that we wanted their advice, we feel we ought to follow it.”
All three Republican councilmembers fully availed themselves of the opportunity to ventilate and selfpromote on the subject. Dee Barbado, urging passage of the resolution immediately, stated she didn’t think it was “antagonistic.” John Murtaugh, referred to the Majority’s resistance to act immediately as a “tap dance.” Liam McLaughlin took the position that the resolution wasn’t too critical of the powers in
Albany, and urged, “We have a serious issue right now.”
A vote was taken with all four members of the Democratic Majority voting “No”; and the three Republicans “Yes”. Irrespective of the political motives and mileage, the predictable melodrama certainly did nothing to advance the cause of quality education in Yonkers. For the moment, the Mayor and his minority Party brethren on the City Council, came off more concerned about the City’s public school children while Council President Lesnick and company appeared far too concerned with offending their legislative representatives in Albany.
Reader Complains Of Yonkers Ticketing
Dear Editor:
It seems that Yonkers PD have nothing better to do on a Saturday evening/early morning than to give out parking tickets on Bronx River Road. On 5/25 at 12:02am I received a ticket for parking less than 30 feet from a crosswalk, a crosswalk with no sidewalk and led to nowhere but the fence to the parkway. Why are crosswalks put in locations that led to nowhere? You would think YPD would be paying more attention to car burglaries, destruction of owners vehicles, muggings, need I go on rather than sitting in their cars rolling down their windows and slapping bogus traffic summons on taxpayers’ vehicles just to fill their quotas. It’s bad enough on Bronx River Road there is a parking
problem to begin with, but this type of ticketing is ridiculous especially at that hour of the morning.
This type of policing does not re-flect the high standards that Chief Hartnett expects or should tolerate from his officers.
P.J. O’Meara
Reader Exposes County Police Conflict Of Interest
Dear Editor:
Does anyone find it interesting that Ron Gatto is in charge of the “Environmental Enforcement Unit” for Westchester County Police, yet he has his subordinate making a “Consumer Affairs” arrest and subsequent vehicle impounding of a garage door installer? All the while Ron Gatto’s wife owns a garage door installation company and that the arrested party is the number one competitor of Ron Gatto’s wife’s company, Whitaker Overhead Garage Door.
Is it more than coincidence that both garage door companies are from Yorktown, further proving that this was more personal than professional? Are there no more environmental violators for Gatto’s unit to focus on? I’m sure the Guardian can take it from here...
A Concerned County Resident
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Yonkers City Councilwoman Gronowski Cites Amicone Administration’s Violations Of Civil Service Regulations
Joan Gronowski, Yonkers third District Councilmember, met with New York State Civil Service officials in Albany to request a forensic
audit of the Yonkers system. The last audit, conducted in 1994, found that the City’s Administration of Civil Service was “poor”. The
most significant violation, among the many cited at that time, was the City’s abuse of provisional hiring. State officials confirmed that Civil
Service Law allows a maximum of nine months for any individual to be kept in provisional status and that the City is obligated to call
for a Civil Service exam within 30 days of hiring. The Law explicitly provides that any employee has not achieved permanent status in nine
months must be dismissed.
The New York State Court of Appeals recently affirmed the nine month provision. (In the Matter of City of Long Beach, Respondent, v Civil Service Employees Association, Inc.— Long Beach Unit, Appellant. Louis D. Stober, Jr., for appellant.) During her
meeting in Albany, Councilwoman Gronowski was also informed that it is a misdemeanor under New York State Civil Service Law for any City official to certify a payroll containing illegal employees.
Documents provided by the Amicone Administration in December 2007 show that in Mayor Amicone’s Office, alone, there are no fewer than ten provisional employees, some of whom have exceeded the nine month deadline, and whose combined salaries total $744,283 dollars before benefits. Included in those titles are one Mayoral Staff Assistant at a salary of $44,928, one Principal Mayoral Staff Assistant
at a salary of $85,000, one hourly Principal Mayoral Staff Assistant, five Senior Mayoral Staff Assistants ranging in salary from $51,000 to
$64,000, and two Special Assistants to the Mayor with salaries of $97,000 and $133,166 respectively. These do not include nine mayoral employees in the exempt category, whose combined salaries total $897,979.
Gronowski notes that these totals do not include provisional employees who may be employed by the Board of Education, Municipal Housing Authority and the Parking Authority.
Gronowski campaigned with a promise to “expose the political patronage system and to make municipal employment an equal playing
field for all qualified candidates,” and states that she is committed to her campaign promise, and that she will not vote to certify a budget containing illegal employees. She was encouraged by the willingness of state officials to help her identify and resolve the problem.
Yonkers City Councilwoman Gronowski Cites Amicone Administration’s Violations Of Civil Service Regulations
Joan Gronowski, Yonkers third District Councilmember, met with New York State Civil Service officials in Albany to request a forensic
audit of the Yonkers system. The last audit, conducted in 1994, found that the City’s Administration of Civil Service was “poor”. The
most significant violation, among the many cited at that time, was the City’s abuse of provisional hiring. State officials confirmed that Civil
Service Law allows a maximum of nine months for any individual to be kept in provisional status and that the City is obligated to call
for a Civil Service exam within 30 days of hiring. The Law explicitly provides that any employee has not achieved permanent status in nine
months must be dismissed.
The New York State Court of Appeals recently affirmed the nine month provision. (In the Matter of City of Long Beach, Respondent, v Civil Service Employees Association, Inc.— Long Beach Unit, Appellant. Louis D. Stober, Jr., for appellant.) During her
meeting in Albany, Councilwoman Gronowski was also informed that it is a misdemeanor under New York State Civil Service Law for any City official to certify a payroll containing illegal employees.
Documents provided by the Amicone Administration in December 2007 show that in Mayor Amicone’s Office, alone, there are no fewer than ten provisional employees, some of whom have exceeded the nine month deadline, and whose combined salaries total $744,283 dollars before benefits. Included in those titles are one Mayoral Staff Assistant at a salary of $44,928, one Principal Mayoral Staff Assistant
at a salary of $85,000, one hourly Principal Mayoral Staff Assistant, five Senior Mayoral Staff Assistants ranging in salary from $51,000 to
$64,000, and two Special Assistants to the Mayor with salaries of $97,000 and $133,166 respectively. These do not include nine mayoral employees in the exempt category, whose combined salaries total $897,979.
Gronowski notes that these totals do not include provisional employees who may be employed by the Board of Education, Municipal Housing Authority and the Parking Authority.
Gronowski campaigned with a promise to “expose the political patronage system and to make municipal employment an equal playing
field for all qualified candidates,” and states that she is committed to her campaign promise, and that she will not vote to certify a budget containing illegal employees. She was encouraged by the willingness of state officials to help her identify and resolve the problem.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
The Court Report
By Richard Blassberg
Amicone “Dodges A Bullet”– For Now
Yonkers City Court, Cacace Justice Center, Yonkers, N.Y.
City Court Judge Charles Wood, Presiding
Last Thursday afternoon, October 18th, Westchester Guardian Publisher Sam Zherka, and several of his employees, were present in Yonkers City Court for a scheduled 1:00 p.m. appearance. At three minutes before 3:00 p.m., after clearing out all of the other items on his calendar, City Court Judge Charles Wood looked up and announced, “Mr. Lovett, please approach.”
Following the exchange of a few comments with the Judge, Attorney Jonathan Lovett, counsel to The Westchester Guardian and Publisher Sam Zherka, motioned Yonkers Assistant Corporate Counsel, Lawrence A. Porcari, to join him at the bench.
Moments later, the Court Clerk proceeded to call up nine employees of The Guardian, from the Circulation Department, by name and case number, as well as Publisher Zherka. Judge Wood, turning to Mr. Lovett, inquired, “Do you have an application?” Mr. Lovett responded, “We are in Federal Court, claiming that the Yonkers City Code, with regard to the distribution of newspapers, is facially in violation of the First Amendment
to the United States Constitution.”
The Judge then responded, “Let’s adjourn this matter to December 6th. Hopefully that will give Judge Brieant enough time to do his work.
Following the adjournment, Mr. Lovett, emerging from the courtroom, told this reporter, “They dodged a bullet.” Upon leaving the courthouse, Publisher Zherka and Attorney Lovett were confronted by reporters. Zherka stated, “I expected to be jailed today. However, the Judge did the right thing postponing the case until the Federal Court deals with it.”
Holding the current issue of The Guardian in his hands, he went on, “This newspaper represents the rights of the People. I am a firm believer in the Constitution and the First Amendment.”
Attorney Lovett then told reporters, “We have seven cases in Federal Court now, three of them name Mr. Porcari, Yonkers Assistant Corporate Counsel, in his individual capacity.” He then reached into his briefcase,
pulling out a copy of the Yonkers City Code, exclaiming, “You’d have to be a moron not to realize this Code violates the Constitution.”
Analysis:
Westchester Guardian Publisher Sam Zherka’s appearance in Yonkers City Court, together with several of his employees, was in answer to charges brought by the Amicone Administration under a City Ordinance
that is plainly un-Constitutional.
Mr. Zherka was prepared to go forward to trial, and to do jail time, if necessary, in defense of the First Amendment and the People’s Right to know. He understood, nevertheless, the Amicone Administration’s unwillingness, prior to Election Day, to bring any further public attention to their wrongful and vindictive actions,
their tyrannical attempt to silence legitimate criticism.
It should be noted that Amicone, and his subordinates, are under a Restraining Order imposed several weeks ago by Federal District Court Judge Charles L. Brieant.
Jonathan Lovett, attorney representing The Guardian and Publisher Zherka, has expressed his con-fidence in the outcome and success of his clients’ Civil Rights actions in Federal Court against Mayor Phil Amicone and several members of his City Administration for their flagrant, ‘content-based’ violations of the First Amendment against The Westchester Guardian, several of its employees, its publisher, and thousands of Yonkers readers, by the confiscation of 56 distribution boxes, as well as the use of harassment and arrest, to interfere with, and halt, the newspaper’s distribution in Yonkers for several weeks. His confidence is based, in part, upon very compelling evidence of the alleged wrongful conduct of City personnel under direct orders from the Mayor’s office; evidence consisting of explicit and damning photos, videos, and recorded statements, of City employees.
By Richard Blassberg
Amicone “Dodges A Bullet”– For Now
Yonkers City Court, Cacace Justice Center, Yonkers, N.Y.
City Court Judge Charles Wood, Presiding
Last Thursday afternoon, October 18th, Westchester Guardian Publisher Sam Zherka, and several of his employees, were present in Yonkers City Court for a scheduled 1:00 p.m. appearance. At three minutes before 3:00 p.m., after clearing out all of the other items on his calendar, City Court Judge Charles Wood looked up and announced, “Mr. Lovett, please approach.”
Following the exchange of a few comments with the Judge, Attorney Jonathan Lovett, counsel to The Westchester Guardian and Publisher Sam Zherka, motioned Yonkers Assistant Corporate Counsel, Lawrence A. Porcari, to join him at the bench.
Moments later, the Court Clerk proceeded to call up nine employees of The Guardian, from the Circulation Department, by name and case number, as well as Publisher Zherka. Judge Wood, turning to Mr. Lovett, inquired, “Do you have an application?” Mr. Lovett responded, “We are in Federal Court, claiming that the Yonkers City Code, with regard to the distribution of newspapers, is facially in violation of the First Amendment
to the United States Constitution.”
The Judge then responded, “Let’s adjourn this matter to December 6th. Hopefully that will give Judge Brieant enough time to do his work.
Following the adjournment, Mr. Lovett, emerging from the courtroom, told this reporter, “They dodged a bullet.” Upon leaving the courthouse, Publisher Zherka and Attorney Lovett were confronted by reporters. Zherka stated, “I expected to be jailed today. However, the Judge did the right thing postponing the case until the Federal Court deals with it.”
Holding the current issue of The Guardian in his hands, he went on, “This newspaper represents the rights of the People. I am a firm believer in the Constitution and the First Amendment.”
Attorney Lovett then told reporters, “We have seven cases in Federal Court now, three of them name Mr. Porcari, Yonkers Assistant Corporate Counsel, in his individual capacity.” He then reached into his briefcase,
pulling out a copy of the Yonkers City Code, exclaiming, “You’d have to be a moron not to realize this Code violates the Constitution.”
Analysis:
Westchester Guardian Publisher Sam Zherka’s appearance in Yonkers City Court, together with several of his employees, was in answer to charges brought by the Amicone Administration under a City Ordinance
that is plainly un-Constitutional.
Mr. Zherka was prepared to go forward to trial, and to do jail time, if necessary, in defense of the First Amendment and the People’s Right to know. He understood, nevertheless, the Amicone Administration’s unwillingness, prior to Election Day, to bring any further public attention to their wrongful and vindictive actions,
their tyrannical attempt to silence legitimate criticism.
It should be noted that Amicone, and his subordinates, are under a Restraining Order imposed several weeks ago by Federal District Court Judge Charles L. Brieant.
Jonathan Lovett, attorney representing The Guardian and Publisher Zherka, has expressed his con-fidence in the outcome and success of his clients’ Civil Rights actions in Federal Court against Mayor Phil Amicone and several members of his City Administration for their flagrant, ‘content-based’ violations of the First Amendment against The Westchester Guardian, several of its employees, its publisher, and thousands of Yonkers readers, by the confiscation of 56 distribution boxes, as well as the use of harassment and arrest, to interfere with, and halt, the newspaper’s distribution in Yonkers for several weeks. His confidence is based, in part, upon very compelling evidence of the alleged wrongful conduct of City personnel under direct orders from the Mayor’s office; evidence consisting of explicit and damning photos, videos, and recorded statements, of City employees.
In Four Years, Under Phil Amicone: In Four Years, Under Phil Amicone:
• Property taxes have risen 30 percent;
• School test scores have gone down;
• Gang violence and shootings are way up;
• Developers have gotten excessive tax breaks;
• The FBI is investigating deals with developers;
• Police brutality complaints swept under the rug;
• U.S. Justice Dept. investigating Yonkers Police Dept.;
• Elections have been monitored by Feds for fraud;
• Police and Fire Unions worked 21/2 years without contract;
• Record deficit spending, possibly $60 million this year;
• Thirty former Spano staff in no-show jobs for $1.3 million;
• Violates First Amendment to keep the truth from you.
• Property taxes have risen 30 percent;
• School test scores have gone down;
• Gang violence and shootings are way up;
• Developers have gotten excessive tax breaks;
• The FBI is investigating deals with developers;
• Police brutality complaints swept under the rug;
• U.S. Justice Dept. investigating Yonkers Police Dept.;
• Elections have been monitored by Feds for fraud;
• Police and Fire Unions worked 21/2 years without contract;
• Record deficit spending, possibly $60 million this year;
• Thirty former Spano staff in no-show jobs for $1.3 million;
• Violates First Amendment to keep the truth from you.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
The Advocate
Richard Blassberg
Tired Of City Hall Denials And Inaction, Victims Of Yonkers Police Brutality Send Amicone Packing
Saturday afternoon, September 29th, Yonkers Mayor Phil Amicone found out, the hard way, what
victims of police brutality, be they Black, White, Latino, or other, felt about his, and his police commissioner’s,
failure to acknowledge and deal with numerous unresolved cases of police brutality. Making an
unscheduled appearance at the Riverfront Public Library, before nearly 200 victims and community spokespersons, the second ‘speak-out’ event at the site in a year, Amicone attempted to tell the assemblage that
his administration “does not ignore police brutality complaints.” That remark was immediately responded
to by a local business operator, who yelled, “We don’t believe you.” There then followed shouts and taunts from
several in the audience as the Mayor beat a hasty retreat from the auditorium, obviously humiliated.
The gathering had been organized by Katrina Phillips, assistant to Al Sharpton, head of the National Action Network, brought into Yonkers by Karen Edmonson, President of the Yonkers Chapter of the NAACP, back in July, when it became obvious to her that conversations with Police Commissioner Edmund Hartnett “were
going nowhere.” Saturday’s forum was intended to accomplish what was not accomplished when the July event, scheduled at the Messiah Baptist Church on Warburton Avenue, was cancelled because of City Hall warnings to the pastor that violence and street clashes might result from the event.
Showing up briefly in July at the African-American Festival that followed the cancelled church event, Sharpton correctly observed that Yonkers Police brutality was “a problem not targeting only the minority community.” He ordered figures demonstrating that nearly fifty percent of complaints over the previous year had come from White complainants.
Mayor Amicone and Edmund Hartnett, his appointed Police Commissioner, had been put on notice a year ago, when the jolting frontpage headline of the September 21st edition of e Westchester Guardian read “Mother 72, Daughter 49, Charge Yonkers Police Brutality.”
The article detailed how Tina and Mary Bostwick, lifelong residents of Yonkers, had been badly mistreated
by Yonkers Police. Mary, the daughter, was roughed-up and arrested by a police officer with a reputation for
violent conduct, after summoning help for a severely injured youth who had been beaten by their neighbor.
Then, six days after the article hit the street, Police Commissioner Robert Taggart mysteriously resigned after forty years on the job. Following that article, literally scores of individuals, previously too frightened and intimidated to speak up, began coming forward. Their cases were detailed and documented. By not responding,
for the most part, and, in fact, stiff-arming the press and denying the longstanding pervasive problem, Amicone and Hartnett have lost the confideence of the community, particularly the City’s African-American community. At the same time they have caused the Federal Government, the Justice Department, through the United States
Attorney’s Office, to open an investigation into the matter, as it is obvious that City Hall has no serious intention of acknowledging the long-standing and pervasive police brutality problem, much less dealing with it.
Richard Blassberg
Tired Of City Hall Denials And Inaction, Victims Of Yonkers Police Brutality Send Amicone Packing
Saturday afternoon, September 29th, Yonkers Mayor Phil Amicone found out, the hard way, what
victims of police brutality, be they Black, White, Latino, or other, felt about his, and his police commissioner’s,
failure to acknowledge and deal with numerous unresolved cases of police brutality. Making an
unscheduled appearance at the Riverfront Public Library, before nearly 200 victims and community spokespersons, the second ‘speak-out’ event at the site in a year, Amicone attempted to tell the assemblage that
his administration “does not ignore police brutality complaints.” That remark was immediately responded
to by a local business operator, who yelled, “We don’t believe you.” There then followed shouts and taunts from
several in the audience as the Mayor beat a hasty retreat from the auditorium, obviously humiliated.
The gathering had been organized by Katrina Phillips, assistant to Al Sharpton, head of the National Action Network, brought into Yonkers by Karen Edmonson, President of the Yonkers Chapter of the NAACP, back in July, when it became obvious to her that conversations with Police Commissioner Edmund Hartnett “were
going nowhere.” Saturday’s forum was intended to accomplish what was not accomplished when the July event, scheduled at the Messiah Baptist Church on Warburton Avenue, was cancelled because of City Hall warnings to the pastor that violence and street clashes might result from the event.
Showing up briefly in July at the African-American Festival that followed the cancelled church event, Sharpton correctly observed that Yonkers Police brutality was “a problem not targeting only the minority community.” He ordered figures demonstrating that nearly fifty percent of complaints over the previous year had come from White complainants.
Mayor Amicone and Edmund Hartnett, his appointed Police Commissioner, had been put on notice a year ago, when the jolting frontpage headline of the September 21st edition of e Westchester Guardian read “Mother 72, Daughter 49, Charge Yonkers Police Brutality.”
The article detailed how Tina and Mary Bostwick, lifelong residents of Yonkers, had been badly mistreated
by Yonkers Police. Mary, the daughter, was roughed-up and arrested by a police officer with a reputation for
violent conduct, after summoning help for a severely injured youth who had been beaten by their neighbor.
Then, six days after the article hit the street, Police Commissioner Robert Taggart mysteriously resigned after forty years on the job. Following that article, literally scores of individuals, previously too frightened and intimidated to speak up, began coming forward. Their cases were detailed and documented. By not responding,
for the most part, and, in fact, stiff-arming the press and denying the longstanding pervasive problem, Amicone and Hartnett have lost the confideence of the community, particularly the City’s African-American community. At the same time they have caused the Federal Government, the Justice Department, through the United States
Attorney’s Office, to open an investigation into the matter, as it is obvious that City Hall has no serious intention of acknowledging the long-standing and pervasive police brutality problem, much less dealing with it.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
The Court Report
By Richard Blassberg
Mayor Amicone Imperils City Of Yonkers Recklessly Trashing The First Amendment
United States District Court, White Plains Judge Charles L. Brieant Presiding
Last Wednesday, August 29th, Attorney Jonathan Lovett filed papers in United States District Court, Southern District of New York, White Plains, under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983, on behalf of several readers of The Westchester Guardian, residents of Yonkers, Plaintiffs whose Constitutional rights, as guaranteed under the First Amendment, were violated by Philip Amicone, individually, and several Yonkers City employees under his command.
The Plaintiffs, some 23 in all, constitute merely the first wave of hundreds of Yonkers residents who have called, faxed, and e-mailed The Guardian, outraged by the Mayor’s removal of The Guardian’s distribution boxes throughout the City, thereby curtailing their ability to access and read the content of the newspaper for some
three weeks. Also named as Defendants in the suit, in their individual capacities, in addition to Amicone, were Police Commissioner Edmund Hartnett, Commissioner of Public Works, John A Liszewski, Corporation Counsel Lawrence A Porcari, Jr., Police Officer Paul Wood, and numerous “John Doe” police officers and sanitation workers.
The suit essentially charges Mayor Phil Amicone and several Yonkers City employees, with content-based First Amendment violations in that their concerted effort to confiscate and dispose of more than 50 of The Westchester Guardian’s distribution boxes, together with their contents, “intentionally prevented, and/or substantially impaired the dissemination of The Guardian within and throughout the City,” as the result of which Plaintiffs were “unable to obtain/read The Guardian and learn information, ideas and opinions as provided by that publication regarding on-going corruption in the City’s government.”
The complaint further alleges that as the result of Defendants’ actions, “Plaintiffs have been caused to suffer irreparable damage to their rights as guaranteed by the First Amendment; emotional upset; impairment of their otherwise insight into the criminal wrongdoing routinely indulged in by City officials, and persons with whom they associate; fear of the secrecy with respect to which Defendants have deliberately enshrouded their misfeasance, malfeasance and corrupt practices; fear of the blatant abuse of power and authority by the Defendants to support their campaign of terror against The Guardian, and its readers; anxiety attributable to the suppression by
Defendants of The Guardian and the impairment of Plaintiff ’s right to knowledge and information; punishment for exercising their right of free speech; and otherwise rendered sick and sore.”
The suit demands a jury trial and seeks an award from all Defendants in compensatory damages of $10 million, as well as an equal award in punitive damages, for a total of $20 million, “or such additional punitive damages as the jury may impose.”
Many observers have expressed shock over the heavy-handed tactics employed by Mayor Amicone, in his misguided attempt to silence criticism and commentary with regard to the conduct of his administration and the increasingly difficult plight of homeowners and taxpayers in Yonkers under his reign. Many individuals close to City government have recently expressed concern over Amicone’s failure to confront and deal with major issues. In this regard, readers may recall several articles that began to appear in The Guardian, nearly one year ago,
and frequently since, concerning Yonkers Police brutality, and Mayor Amicone’s and Police Commissioner Hartnett’s failure to adequately respond to that long-standing problem. Last week it was announced that
as a result of mounting complaints the United States Justice Department has launched an investigation into the matter.
By Richard Blassberg
Mayor Amicone Imperils City Of Yonkers Recklessly Trashing The First Amendment
United States District Court, White Plains Judge Charles L. Brieant Presiding
Last Wednesday, August 29th, Attorney Jonathan Lovett filed papers in United States District Court, Southern District of New York, White Plains, under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983, on behalf of several readers of The Westchester Guardian, residents of Yonkers, Plaintiffs whose Constitutional rights, as guaranteed under the First Amendment, were violated by Philip Amicone, individually, and several Yonkers City employees under his command.
The Plaintiffs, some 23 in all, constitute merely the first wave of hundreds of Yonkers residents who have called, faxed, and e-mailed The Guardian, outraged by the Mayor’s removal of The Guardian’s distribution boxes throughout the City, thereby curtailing their ability to access and read the content of the newspaper for some
three weeks. Also named as Defendants in the suit, in their individual capacities, in addition to Amicone, were Police Commissioner Edmund Hartnett, Commissioner of Public Works, John A Liszewski, Corporation Counsel Lawrence A Porcari, Jr., Police Officer Paul Wood, and numerous “John Doe” police officers and sanitation workers.
The suit essentially charges Mayor Phil Amicone and several Yonkers City employees, with content-based First Amendment violations in that their concerted effort to confiscate and dispose of more than 50 of The Westchester Guardian’s distribution boxes, together with their contents, “intentionally prevented, and/or substantially impaired the dissemination of The Guardian within and throughout the City,” as the result of which Plaintiffs were “unable to obtain/read The Guardian and learn information, ideas and opinions as provided by that publication regarding on-going corruption in the City’s government.”
The complaint further alleges that as the result of Defendants’ actions, “Plaintiffs have been caused to suffer irreparable damage to their rights as guaranteed by the First Amendment; emotional upset; impairment of their otherwise insight into the criminal wrongdoing routinely indulged in by City officials, and persons with whom they associate; fear of the secrecy with respect to which Defendants have deliberately enshrouded their misfeasance, malfeasance and corrupt practices; fear of the blatant abuse of power and authority by the Defendants to support their campaign of terror against The Guardian, and its readers; anxiety attributable to the suppression by
Defendants of The Guardian and the impairment of Plaintiff ’s right to knowledge and information; punishment for exercising their right of free speech; and otherwise rendered sick and sore.”
The suit demands a jury trial and seeks an award from all Defendants in compensatory damages of $10 million, as well as an equal award in punitive damages, for a total of $20 million, “or such additional punitive damages as the jury may impose.”
Many observers have expressed shock over the heavy-handed tactics employed by Mayor Amicone, in his misguided attempt to silence criticism and commentary with regard to the conduct of his administration and the increasingly difficult plight of homeowners and taxpayers in Yonkers under his reign. Many individuals close to City government have recently expressed concern over Amicone’s failure to confront and deal with major issues. In this regard, readers may recall several articles that began to appear in The Guardian, nearly one year ago,
and frequently since, concerning Yonkers Police brutality, and Mayor Amicone’s and Police Commissioner Hartnett’s failure to adequately respond to that long-standing problem. Last week it was announced that
as a result of mounting complaints the United States Justice Department has launched an investigation into the matter.
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