SHEEPSHEAD BAY'S ONLY INDEPENDENT NEWS BLOG

Source: Silvercore Training / Flickr

BETWEEN THE LINES: What we have in Congress — to paraphrase the iconic line from “Cool Hand Luke” — is a failure to legislate. That was quite evident last week after the Senate failed to expand existing gun laws without infringing on the Second Amendment. On top of everything else, because of undue filibustering rules, a 45 percent minority — too afraid to challenge the all-too potent National Rifle Association — defeated the will of the majority.

The American people — pardon the phrase — should be up in arms over legislation that would have strengthened and expanded background checks for gun sales.

With the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre still fresh in our minds, it was disgraceful, albeit not shocking, that nearly four dozen senators did nothing to assuage the painful memories of victims’ families or the overwhelming support of the American public in a clear cut triumph for the National Rifle Association.

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A Bushmaster AR-15, one of the three firearms the Newtown killer used to ambush his defenseless victims. Source: barryt83 / Flickr

BETWEEN THE LINES: When I wrote my first column about gun violence in the wake of the fatal Columbine shootings years ago, I knew it wouldn’t be the last. Similar incidents happened before and were likely to happen again. I’ve written seven since then. Here’s number eight.

By now, I thought, Congress would at least have set stricter federal standards to reduce the chance of it recurring. Sensible, necessary laws are passed to ensure public safety with speed limits, penalties to reduce drug and alcohol abuse, in addition to requiring licenses, registrations and, in most states, insurance for motor vehicles. But when it comes to guns, the attitude is far too restrained.

In and around the annual commemorations to the victims of 9/11, the inevitable question is: “Do we feel safer?” That query relates to potential terrorist attacks. However, after last week’s slaughter of 20 first graders and six adults at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, that question is also pertinent to our glut of guns. Americans own an estimated 300,000,000 of them.

Are we any safer? When people are massacred in small town schools and movie theaters, is there any safe haven from potential tragedy?

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The contentious relationship between cops and West Indian Day Parade revelers is spotlighted in a series offensive Facebook remarks made by a number of the officers. Source: Stopallthathating.com

BETWEEN THE LINES: With the 45th West Indian Day Parade only days away, the New York City Police Department last week disciplined a group of officers for posting racist comments about revelers following last year’s celebration.

The NYPD said, after more than 150 comments were examined, it identified 17 employees who wrote offensive remarks, in addition to complaints that degraded and maligned paradegoers.

The comments were posted on a Facebook page titled, “No More West Indian Day Detail.” However, police officials may not have been learned about it until lawyers representing a man caught with a gun at the parade apparently went to The New York Times. The page was subsequently deleted.

The punishment follows months of investigation, which had been promised by Commissioner Ray Kelly, after The New York Times first reported last December about the comments posted on the social network in the days after the 2001 parade.

Police spokesman Paul Browne recently told the Times that four officers face departmental trials on charges of “conduct prejudicial to the good order of the police department.”

Six other officers received command disciplines, which may entail the loss of vacation days, with the remaining seven receiving “letters of instruction,” which is equivalent to a reprimand.

The probe matched some comments, which included references to revelers as ‘savages’ and ‘animals,’ with the names of current police officers.
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WNYC took it upon themselves to map all of the street stops – a.k.a. stop and frisks – using information from the police department showcasing where guns were recovered last year, since firearm control has been the primary justification for the controversial tactic. The map reveals that, in Sheepshead Bay, the NYPD has turned up no firearms in the areas in which NYPD has concentrated its use of stop-and-frisk tactics.

In Sheepshead Bay, police made 1,324 stops in the Sheepshead Bay-Nostrand Housing projects. Yet only two guns were found in the 61st Precinct’s command, and neither were in the vicinity of the projects.

Two guns were found, however; one at the Log Cabin at 2123 Avenue Z, and the other during a random sidewalk stop near the Kings Bay fields, at Voorhies Avenue and Bragg Street.

Public Advocate and mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio has been saying that stop-and-frisk needs reform because it fosters a distrust between citizens and police officials. Others note that it is a major waste of public resources.

Those sentiments have been echoed by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, also a mayoral candidate. Stringer points out that the city is on track to stop and frisk more than 700,000 people this year, of which 85 percent are black and Latino males. Yet only seven percent of stops lead to an arrest, and less than one percent for gun-related charges.

Further, legal advocacy groups like the New York Civil Liberties Union deem stop-and-frisk as “racial profiling.”

An NYCLU analysis revealed that New Yorkers (mostly black or Latino) have been subjected to police stops and street interrogations more than 4 million times since 2002, and that nearly nine out of 10 stopped-and-frisked New Yorkers were innocent.

Commissioner Raymond Kelly and Mayor Michael Bloomberg say that stop-and-frisk is meant to get illegal guns out of the streets and criminals behind bars.

“You hear all the time from people who don’t like stop-and-frisk. But you know what people really hate in New York City, and always have? Guns,” said Kelly.

Current data shows that out of 685,000 stops in 2011, about 770 guns were recovered. This means that only one tenth of one percent of all stops resulted in cops finding a gun.

Supporters of the stop-and-frisk procedures say that the police concentrate their hubs of activity where violent crimes are most often reported, and that it is crime, not gun recoveries, which determine where police officers go. Also, because police saturate certain areas, this becomes a deterrent for carrying a firearm.

Similar results to those found at the Sheepshead-Nostrand Houses were also found at the Marlboro Houses, as well as areas citywide in which the city focuses its stop-and-frisk efforts.

What do you think? Are current stop-and-frisk tactics effective?

A SIG Sauer P220 45 ACP semiautomatic handgun. Source: kcdsTM / Flickr

BETWEEN THE LINES: After the January 2011 Arizona shooting spree when six were killed, including a 9-year-old girl, and more than a dozen injured, most notably U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, gun violence in America again became the focus of debate for several weeks.

Despite the predictable healthy dose of rhetoric in the aftermath of such tragedies, no remedies have ever resulted, nor has a damn thing ever been done, to change gun laws.

The relentless argument about whether or not our society has too many guns — it’s estimated there’s at least one firearm for every American — seems to be reflected in several news stories that have hogged headlines nationwide so far this year.

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Source: oceanausa.com

We’ve heard a gun of some kind has been found on a secondary roof in the upscale Oceana Condominiums Development on Brighton Beach Avenue. We don’t know the full story yet, but know NYPD officers are on the way to retrieve it…

… and that’s too bad. I mean, it’s the Oceana – the luxurious location of multi-million dollar condominiums with an ocean view. You figure if you’re going to pay that much money for a pre-fabricated construction, you might as well get some bang for your buck… literally.

Just imagine the listing:

Penthouse B – 3 Bedrooms, 3 Bathrooms, Powder Room, Two Terraces – $1,725,000 – Large Kitchen, High Ceilings, Marble Finishes, Hardwood Floors, Private Balconies, Windowed Open Kitchens – Shared gun in rooftop storage for miscellaneous shenanigans.

It’s starting to a feel a little like Grand Theft Auto IV over there, eh? Oh wait… it always did.

UPDATE [10:21 p.m.]: By the time we got to Avenue Y there were no police present. We then got a call from another reader saying he saw heavy police activity at Ocean Avenue and Avenue T. He said he overheard an officer say, “He didn’t throw the gun in the bushes.” It seems like the two incidents could be related, especially if someone was making their way by car down Ocean Avenue, and then tried to get rid of a weapon before being caught by police. We’ll see what we can find out.

We just got a tip that “something major is going down” on Ocean Avenue and Avenue Y. The tipster said about eight police cars were on the scene and all he heard was “he had a gun in his hand.” We’re going to see what we can find out. Anyone with information, please send it to us.