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Most New Yorkers probably think that government learned a great deal from September 11 about protecting the city, its symbols, landmarks, and people. The attack's immediate aftermath saw a barrage of reassuring official actions that were military-like in their precision -- securing vital areas, shutting down ground access to the city, and patrolling New York's perimeter from the skies and seas. In the months since, the official presence has withdrawn from the skies and the streets, but most New Yorkers assume hopefully that this retreat masks ongoing work behind the scenes. Citizens have no way of knowing for sure, since all anti-terror operations are secret. For those who agree with the former city official who told Richard Cohen of the Daily News that the September 11 attack meant that "the government let us down," the secrecy is yet another barrier to evaluating government actions.
Most New Yorkers -- 72 percent -- believe another terrorist attack is very or somewhat likely, according to a poll conducted by Blum & Weprin for the Daily News. A plurality of 28 percent speculate that it will probably involve smaller-scale car bombs or suicide-bombers, while 20 percent anticipate the use of biological weapons and 16 percent expect chemical weapons. Still, 72 percent say they feel safer or as safe in the city as anywhere else in the country. Are they right?
THE NYPD PROJECTS COMPETENCE
September 11 badly damaged public confidence in the federal security agencies -- the FBI and the CIA -- but enhanced confidence in the NYPD, which immediately went onto Omega Alert, its highest state of readiness. Through what Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly calls "target hardening" it has since been able to reduce the number of officers assigned to Omega posts Ñnot an insignificant matter since some violent crime, including rape, seems to be heading back up.
Nonetheless the New York Police Department has been refocusing the problem-solving strategy that helped reduce violent crime from local crime to terrorism. The strategy's specific elements, according to policing expert George Kelling, are accurate and timely intelligence, rapid deployment, effective tactics, and relentless follow-up and assessment. The media have contained many accounts of both historic and recent federal stone-walling of the NYPD on intelligence, the greatest federal failing, of course, on September 11. All parties now insist publicly that this is a problem of the past.
Perhaps it is. The NYPD is led by a police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, who has far stronger federal security credentials than any previous commissioner. His federal experience helps him in the many instances in which the NYPD tangles with the FBI and the federal Department of Justice over jurisdiction. As Cooper Union historian Fred Siegel says, "In a time in which the distinction between war and crime has narrowed, Kelly has already worked in positions in which he had to deal with this reality. Given that we're a target in New York, it's a huge asset that he's in a good position to make a difference."
Kelly has been aggressive, assigning NYPD personnel to areas that were once exclusively federal -- training some cops abroad, sending brass to the Naval War College, expanding the intelligence office to include foreign terrorism, and setting up a medical office to coordinate with federal agencies and the city's Department of Health on biological weaponry.
He has brought in high-level people with federal experience. He hired Ret. Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Frank Libutti as Deputy Commissioner for Counterterrorism to head a new division on counterterrorism and to direct the department's work with the FBI/NYPD Joint Terrorist Task Force. The idea is to ensure cooperation and flow of information between the agencies Ñnot a strength in the past. Libutti oversees the new Terrorism Security and Analysis Section, which conducts comprehensive security assessments of terrorist threats in the city. An Incident Response Team has been set up to respond to requests for assistance at suspected terrorist events. Kelly also hired a former top CIA operative, David Cohen, as the new Deputy Commissioner for Intelligence. Both deputies report directly to Kelly, who also established a new position of medical adviser to coordinate with the Department of Health.
How effective are these measures? We're unlikely to know unless -- probably until -- there is another attack. Over the last decade, the city has been the target of at least three other known terrorist plots: the 1993 truck bombing of the World Trade Center; the 1993 plot to bomb the United Nations and the Holland and Lincoln tunnels; and the 1997 plan to bomb the subways. New York remains the symbol of capitalism and Western culture, and a target.
SECURITY MEASURES AGAINST THE THUG AND THE TERRORIST
Even before September 11 New Yorkers had become accustomed to security measures deterring the common thug: metal detectors, photo IDs, bag searches, checks of electronic equipment. The devices are often primitive and the training of the personnel poor, but routine security checks have prevented at least some crime and perhaps some terrorism. The future, however, lies with high-tech solutions that are independent of human judgment, such as new sensing machines that can detect biologic agents, explosives, suspicious voids in truck cargo, or weapons hidden on someone a distance away. Private companies tend to be way ahead of government in spending the millions of dollars these machines cost.
The other set of measures are what the security trade calls Israeli tactics -- traffic-stopping checkpoints, street closings, intrusive questioning, random identification checks, intimate searches, and racial profiling. These are ostensibly meant to deter crime, but they are also meant to remind the public often and aggressively of the presence of terrorists and to get the public to accept the authority of the police and military. The inconvenience that accompanies these tactics is deliberate.
Giuliani's NYPD actually introduced a few of these ideas, such as the traffic-stopping checkpoints that were ostensibly for drunk-driving or seat-belt use. His 1998 pedestrian-controlling concrete barriers are another Israeli tactic, a re-engineering to encourage people to go only where they are directed and to accustom the public to accepting restrictions on their movements.
Street closings, immensely disruptive to the city's business and psyche, are increasingly being insisted on by powerful interests, including the federal government. The main federal building in Lower Manhattan, 26 Federal Plaza, has always had security problems. It houses the FBI field office that has investigated many terror plots. It houses the Immigration and Nationalization Service. Lines of anxious immigrants with federal applications snake around the building during peak periods. In late 2000, the General Service Administration installed barriers and posts and hired additional guards. Some federal officials are now urging the closing-off of Broadway(the main artery downtown), Centre Street (which leads to the Brooklyn Bridge), and Worth Street.
The public has very limited access now to most government buildings in New York. The new federal courthouse, for example, is blocked by a huge hydraulic truck barrier. Police headquarters, never really accessible since it was built during the Lindsay administration, has a 24-hour guard out front. Visitors must go through three checkpoints, carrying a government-issued photo I.D.
One bright spot on this glum governmental scene, however, is City Hall, which Mayor Bloomberg has re-opened to political events. press conferences and peaceful gatherings . They are again allowed on the steps of City Hall, as they had been from the early 19th century until the Giuliani administration.
And it's not just public buildings that have internal checkpoints and external barriers. Ugly concrete bolsters are being installed in front of otherwise handsome new buildings, like the Jewish Community Center on the West Side. The elegant glass, iron, and greystone building would be a beauty, if its exterior were not marred by white and yellow blocks of junky concrete, looking as if a sloppy contractor forgot to take them home.
NEW YORK IS NOT AN ISLAND
Much as it will seek to protect itself, New York will only be safe insofar as others protect it as well. The plane that flew into the World Trade Center took off from Logan Airport in Boston, an airport that the Federal Aviation Administration has repeatedly cited for safety violations. Everyone wants whatever went wrong at Logan Airport in Boston fixed. But what was it that failed? And will the FAA's new proposals and restrictions on passengers work? Are tactics like the FAA's ban on steak knives in first class or the abolition of curbside checking effective? Certainly neither would have prevented the hijackings.
Mary Schiavo, former inspector general for the U.S. Department of Transportation, argues that aviation security is a law enforcement function, and belongs with a law enforcement agency, not the FAA. Law enforcement officials would be far less ready to listen to concerns about the weight of new cockpit doors (additional weight would affect the cost of every flight), or the extra costs of sky marshals or deputized pilots.
New York has an acute interest in these issues, and in all matters having to do with its air space. In May the FAA announced that its ban on flights by small planes and helicopters over key American cities had been lifted. Planes could return to flying under visual flight rules without asking permission to enter a city's airspace, or identifying themselves to FAA regional or local controllers.
Even before the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, local officials had often been at odds with the FAA, which maintains that all small aircraft should be able to fly low, with no restrictions, over major cities and national monuments. This is in part because the FAA's role is to promote the aviation industry Ñnot police or regulate it beyond preventing collisions. They argue that flying freely anywhere in the country is a basic American right and expectation. As an FAA representative said at a community meeting in Manhattan, the same rules that apply over Kansas wheat fields apply to flying over New York City.
There is little doubt but that Al Qaeda intends to use small planes to attack more targets. Plans to pack a corporate jet with explosives were found in a German apartment rented by suspected Al Qaeda terrorists. Cell members in the U.S. trained at flight schools, obtained small-plane pilot licenses, and sought to rent crop dusters. The FBI renewed its warning about air attacks in early July.
Even the FAA concedes that some landmarks may be vulnerable. Deferring to its sister federal agency, the National Park Service, the FAA in late June banned flights near the Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore, and the St. Louis Gateway Arch during the July 4 holidays. The Statue of Liberty ban will continue through September 30, and forbids any plane from flying below 1,500 feet within a 6,000-foot radius of the statue.
These bans may be comforting to some, but they are not significant security measures because the FAA has no air police to stop a plane violating its rules. It can only suspend the pilot's license and levy a fine. The NYPD, though it has an aviation unit and some older helicopters, has no official enforcement role or authority in the air over the city.
Anyone with a license can rent a plane at many of the approximately 2000 general aviation airfields within a short flight of New York. Few of these have more than the most minimal security. Pilot licenses, which are easily forged and carry no photos, are seldom verified. Planes, which can fly into these fields from almost anywhere in the US, are not inspected before departure. Helicopters do not even need an airport for departureÑand in any case can stop anywhere to pick up anything.
So long as New York's skies are open, the city is undefended. An attacker boarding an airplane at LaGuardia faces far more government inspection than one flying a plane at 700 feet across 42nd Street.
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 A long anticipated trial over discrimination at the New York City Police Department was averted when the Latino Officers Association, the City of New York and the department reached a settlement shortly before the trial was scheduled to begin.
The lawsuit, commenced in 1999 by 22 individuals and the association, was certified as a class action three years later by Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. The class includes all African-American and Hispanic police and certain civilian employees of the New York Police Department from 1995 on.
Charging that the police department violated their city, state and federal civil rights, the plaintiffs alleged a hostile work environment where they were subjected to derogatory remarks, racist graffiti on lockers and similar conduct which was often tolerated by superiors. One of the worst problems was retaliation against officers who complained, according to the plaintiff's lead counsel, Richard Levy, who said the officers became "outcasts in many precincts." The plaintiffs also alleged disparate and discriminatory application of disciplinary rules and procedures. The lawsuit maintained that disciplinary charges were brought against blacks and Hispanics more often than against white officers and that more convictions were returned and more serious penalties were imposed for departmental convictions resulting in transfers, denials of benefits, suspensions and terminations. The charges against the officers ranged from rudeness to murder. Most fell into a generic category of conduct prejudicial to the NYPD.
Statistics relied on by plaintiffs indicate that when civilian charges against police officers originated at the Civilian Complaint Review Board, an independent non-mayoral agency cited for comparison purposes, disparities based on race or ethnicity were minor or non existent. In complaints filed by the public, blacks were charged at the same rate as whites; the figures for Hispanics were slightly more. However, when charges originated internally at the New York Police Department, overall disparities increased enormously with blacks and Hispanics much more likely to be charged than their white counterparts.
Similarly, when departmental trials were held, blacks were much less likely to be acquitted and have their charges dismissed, than whites. In fact, if the case, Latino Officers Association against City of New York and NYPD, had gone forward, the plaintiffs expected to prove that blacks were 60 percent more likely and Hispanics 30 percent more likely to be found guilty at departmental trial than whites. In terms of overall dispositions, charges against whites were more often dismissed, or resulted in findings of not guilty, while African-Americans and Latinos were far more often found guilty. In addition, when findings of guilt were handed down, blacks and Hispanics were terminated from the police force with greater frequency than white officers, who received lesser penalties.
If the settlement is approved by the court as expected, the class, which includes approximately 12,000 members, and their lawyers, will share a monetary settlement of $26.8 million of which 20 million is dedicated to claims and two million to administration. A panel is to be created to decide how many of the Hispanic and African-American members of the police force who served since 1995 may be eligible to share in the settlement and to what extent. It is not known how many claims will be submitted, or how many members will "opt out" and settle, litigate or withdraw their own cases. Claims may also be filed for lost benefits, but there are no provisions for reinstatement of individuals whose employment was terminated. The awards can range from $3,500 to $400,000.
In addition to the monetary provisions, the settlement includes an injunction against discrimination by the police department. While the defendants do not admit any wrongdoing, they accept that the police department is enjoined from discriminating based on race, color, national origin or ethnicity in the future. "The injunction outweighs individual recoveries," said lawyer Richard Levy. "It opens the door to a new day when black and Latino cops are not mistreated."
The settlement also requires the establishment of a review unit to analyze the NYPD's disciplinary process regarding discrimination and retaliation and whether African American and Latino/Hispanic members of police service are being investigated, charged or penalized in a discriminatory manner. The proposed order which is being submitted to Judge Kaplan for his approval and signature details the steps the police department will take to establish procedures to prevent discrimination.
All members of the certified class can apply for awards from the fund which is to be held by the New York City Comptroller; payment is to be administered by the Special Masters Kenneth Feinberg and Peter Woodin. Mr. Feinberg also heads the federal program of compensation to families of victims of the September 11th attacks. According to plaintiffs' attorney Richard Levy, "the case would not have settled without the Special Masters. We couldn't have achieved the results," he said. "But Feinberg had immediate access to Mayor Bloomberg, Police Commissioner Kelly, and Mike Cardozo [Corporation Counsel]. No one would meet with us at this level before."
Emily Jane Goodman is a New York State Supreme Court Justice
 Atop a Brooklyn roof, a single bullet from one cop’s gun pierced the chest of a nineteen-year old last month, ending his life and sparking yet another firestorm over police tactics. Timothy Stansbury, Jr. was armed only with a stack of CDs, on his way to a party via a rooftop shortcut, when he was shot at the top of the stairwell in his building, a public housing project in Bedford-Stuyvesant, by Officer Richard Neri.
Neri and other officers were patrolling the rooftop of the building, reportedly trying to open the door to go downstairs at the same time Stansbury and his friends were trying to use the same door to reach the roof. Whether Stansbury, Jr., was the victim of an accident or something criminal, a grand jury will decide. But while some focused on the swiftness with which Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly condemned the shooting as unjustified, as well as Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s quick arrival on the scene to comfort a grieving family, on the streets the story was about the police.
“The police see you and think you’re a suspect,” said Samuel Jackson, 20, of Crown Heights, calling police in his neighborhood disrespectful and overly aggressive. Jackson was reacting not only to the Stansbury shooting, but to a police effort widely hailed as a triumph by city leaders.
Last January, the story in Crown Heights was Operation Impact, a police effort involving bulked-up patrols in high-crime neighborhoods, in some cases, areas as small as a subway station or housing project. The police effort reduced total felony crimes in the targeted areas by 33 percent, from 11,033 to 7,421.Those numbers probably contributed to an FBI rating announced in December that put New York City among the safest cities with a population of 100,000 or more. City officials proudly trumpeted the success of Operation Impact when announcing last month that the program would be expanded. Operation Impact II will involve more police officers and stretch across more police precincts.
Crown Heights was where the original Operation Impact was first announced, and the increased police presence has not gone unnoticed. But while no one denied the need for police in their neighborhood, police tactics were openly questioned.
Jackson described tales of harassment that ranged from the trivial (he was told to go inside while drinking a beer on a stoop) to something more than that (he was pulled over while in a cab, searched and then “left like a dog.” )
He is not alone in expressing concerns about police conduct. Across the city, 5,581 people issued complaints about New York police last year, a 21 percent increase from 2002 and the highest number since 1995, according to a report by the Civilian Complaint Review Board released last month, as reported in Newsday.
Nevertheless, shooting incidents have decreased substantially for the police precinct, the 77th, which includes Crown Heights. Shootings numbered 64 in 2003, a reported 15 percent decrease from 2002. Police had reported a 41 percent increase in shooting incidents from 2001-2002. Homicides, however, remained unchanged, numbering 15 in 2002 and 2003.
Zeroing in on the impact areas, the numbers are rosier for the city overall. Shooting incidents in the impact zones decreased 30 percent, from 184 to 128. Homicides decreased 39 percent in the troubled areas, from 49 to 30.
Operation Impact II will send more than 1,000 police officers to 52 so-called impact zones, each chosen based on a statistical analysis of crimes. The officers, fresh graduates from the police academy, will join about 700 officers already working in the impact zones. Many of the new officers will be on foot patrols, and they will work with more veteran officers.
With public safety one issue where New Yorkers seem satisfied with city officials (Police Commissioner Ray Kelly had an approval rating of 70 percent in one poll)
Mayor Bloomberg mentioned three other recent police initiatives in his 2004 State of the City address:
Brooklyn Gun Court began last April. One judge was assigned to hear only felony gun possession cases from five of the most violent police precincts in Brooklyn, following each case from arraignment to sentencing. The results have been more convictions and lengthier sentences. Of the first 97 cases heard in the court, 99 percent resulted in convictions. The court has also largely done away with strictly probationary sentences, and the median jail time increased from 90 days to a year.
Mayor Bloomberg announced an expansion of the program in December, with similar courts now established in Bronx and Queens. An estimated two-thirds of all felony gun prosecutions will be funneled through the gun courts, with the Bronx Gun Court expected to process approximately 270 cases per year and the Queens Gun Court expected to handle about 175 cases. The Brooklyn Gun Court will now hear cases from seven police precincts.
“Gun cases are processed quickly, adjudicated fairly, and are sentenced in accordance with the state mandatory minimum laws,” Bloomberg said in a press release announcing the expansion of the program.
Operation Spotlight established specialized courts designed to speed-up the handling of what Bloomberg called career misdemeanor offenders at a press conference announcing the initiative.
The program began in July of 2002. Even as the city struggles with the financial burden of housing inmates at Rikers Island, that seems to be the destination for criminals going through the spotlight courts, though offenders can also be sent to drug treatment through the program.
The percentage of defendants receiving jail sentences has increased 48 percent, with sentences of more than 30 days increasing 75 percent.
Launched in October 2002, Operation Silent Night initiative identified 24 high noise neighborhoods throughout the City based on the number of complaints. More than 30,000 more quality of life police summonses have been issued in the first four months of the fiscal year (July 1 through Oct. 31) than those same months in 2002, and city officials have pinned the increase in part on Operation Silent Night and Operation Impact. Newsday reportedthat noise violations rose 31 percent to 4,648 in fiscal year 2003.
“I think from a public perspective it is terrific,” said Arline Bronzaft, a consultant to The Council on the Environment of New York City. However, Bronzaft questioned whether the city was any less noisy. Bronzaft said she was optimistic about a revision of the noise code, which she said has the support of the mayor’s office. Bronzaft said a draft of the code could be made public this month if approved by city officials, and brought before the City Council soon after.
City officials have cited Operation Spotlight and Operation Impact as the model for the program in place to clamp down on violent crime in schools, according to articles in the Times and Gotham Gazette. Like Operation Impact, the school program uses statistical analysis to decide which school is an “Impact School.” Chronic troublemakers with two or more principal or superintendent suspensions within a 24-month period will be dubbed “Spotlight Students” and subject to more stringent punishments for subsequent misbehavior.