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NY: Pulling over cabs to check customers for weapo
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Police Measures Avert Livery-Cab Killings
By MICHAEL LUO
Published: February 7, 2004
or years, driving a livery cab was one of the most dangerous occupation in the city, with dozens of drivers killed each year. Yesterday, however, the police, politicians and industry officials claimed a victory of sorts: 12 months without a single murder of a livery-cab driver.
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"In the last 30 years, there has never been a 12-month period in which no livery driver was killed," Fernando A. Mateo, president of the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers, said yesterday in a telephone interview. "This is the first time in 30 years we can say we feel a lot safer than we felt before." Mr. Mateo and others credit several measures for the decline in killings, including making bulletproof partitions obligatory in all livery cabs and using police decoys to pick up fares. The last livery drivers to die on the job were Fausto Arias, 47, and Alpha Balde, 44, in late January 2003. Mr. Arias was shot and killed in the Bronx on Jan. 27. Two days later, Mr. Balde died after a fistfight with a female passenger in Washington Heights.
In contrast, during the early 1990's, more than 30 livery drivers were killed every year. Even as the city enjoyed an extraordinary decrease in crime of more than 10 years, the murder of livery-cab drivers remained a stubborn problem. While murders of yellow-cab drivers had plummeted to almost none, nine livery-cab drivers died in the first few months of 2000 in a string of killings that confounded the police and garnered headlines.
The spate prompted a flurry of law enforcement and industry changes that helped improve the safety of the drivers, who often work in some of the city's most violent neighborhoods.
"It was a confluence of policy and law enforcement," said Matthew W. Daus, chairman of the Taxi and Limousine Commission.
The commission's board voted in an emergency session in 2000 to require livery-cab drivers who had previously been exempt to install bulletproof partitions or surveillance cameras in their cars. Livery-cab fleets, which account for only one-third of the industry, had been required to install partitions, which were mandated for yellow cabs in 1994. But owner-operators, the vast majority of drivers, did not have to have them.
The city also provided the industry with $5 million, or $325 for each car, to help pay for the equipment. Partitions cost about $275; cameras, $700. In the end, more than 16,000 cars got one or the other, officials said.
In Albany, lawmakers took the unusual step of passing tougher sentencing laws, adding three to five years to the minimum sentences for anyone convicted of a violent crime against an on-duty livery-cab, yellow-cab or limousine driver.
On the law enforcement side, the police started a decoy program in May 2000 in which officers began posing as livery-cab drivers, cruising neighborhoods and picking up fares. They also formed a task force to aggressively investigate armed robberies of drivers, which averaged more than 2,000 per month in the early 1990's. Last year, there were 455.
Finally, they encouraged drivers to sign up for a special decal that allowed police officers to pull them over to make sure they were all right and to check their passengers for weapons. In 2003, the police made 6,211 of these stops, resulting in 50 gun arrests.
"We've kept livery and taxi protection high on the radar," Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said in a statement yesterday. "The mayor's made it a priority, and we are following through by stopping vehicles and putting decoys out on patrol."
The changes have apparently worked. Since 2000, according to numbers released by the livery-cab industry, only six drivers have been killed.
Mr. Mateo was quick to praise the Police Department yesterday, saying that relations between drivers and the police had improved markedly since the mid-1990's. Now, whenever there is a spate of armed robberies of drivers in a particular neighborhood, he said, the police are quick to warn drivers and distribute descriptions of the suspects.
"We've never had an administration so cooperative with issues pertaining to the cab drivers, he said.
Jose Viloria, 48, a livery-cab driver for the last 15 years, said yesterday that his family used to be terrified every time he drove, and that after being held up twice, he stopped working at night. Many of his friends quit the industry, and his wife urged him to do the same.
But he told her, "This is the only thing I know to do," he said yesterday.
Recently, he went back to working at night, while working another job during the day.
"I feel safer," he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/07/nyregion/07livery.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878<P>
By MICHAEL LUO
Published: February 7, 2004
or years, driving a livery cab was one of the most dangerous occupation in the city, with dozens of drivers killed each year. Yesterday, however, the police, politicians and industry officials claimed a victory of sorts: 12 months without a single murder of a livery-cab driver.
Advertisement
"In the last 30 years, there has never been a 12-month period in which no livery driver was killed," Fernando A. Mateo, president of the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers, said yesterday in a telephone interview. "This is the first time in 30 years we can say we feel a lot safer than we felt before." Mr. Mateo and others credit several measures for the decline in killings, including making bulletproof partitions obligatory in all livery cabs and using police decoys to pick up fares. The last livery drivers to die on the job were Fausto Arias, 47, and Alpha Balde, 44, in late January 2003. Mr. Arias was shot and killed in the Bronx on Jan. 27. Two days later, Mr. Balde died after a fistfight with a female passenger in Washington Heights.
In contrast, during the early 1990's, more than 30 livery drivers were killed every year. Even as the city enjoyed an extraordinary decrease in crime of more than 10 years, the murder of livery-cab drivers remained a stubborn problem. While murders of yellow-cab drivers had plummeted to almost none, nine livery-cab drivers died in the first few months of 2000 in a string of killings that confounded the police and garnered headlines.
The spate prompted a flurry of law enforcement and industry changes that helped improve the safety of the drivers, who often work in some of the city's most violent neighborhoods.
"It was a confluence of policy and law enforcement," said Matthew W. Daus, chairman of the Taxi and Limousine Commission.
The commission's board voted in an emergency session in 2000 to require livery-cab drivers who had previously been exempt to install bulletproof partitions or surveillance cameras in their cars. Livery-cab fleets, which account for only one-third of the industry, had been required to install partitions, which were mandated for yellow cabs in 1994. But owner-operators, the vast majority of drivers, did not have to have them.
The city also provided the industry with $5 million, or $325 for each car, to help pay for the equipment. Partitions cost about $275; cameras, $700. In the end, more than 16,000 cars got one or the other, officials said.
In Albany, lawmakers took the unusual step of passing tougher sentencing laws, adding three to five years to the minimum sentences for anyone convicted of a violent crime against an on-duty livery-cab, yellow-cab or limousine driver.
On the law enforcement side, the police started a decoy program in May 2000 in which officers began posing as livery-cab drivers, cruising neighborhoods and picking up fares. They also formed a task force to aggressively investigate armed robberies of drivers, which averaged more than 2,000 per month in the early 1990's. Last year, there were 455.
Finally, they encouraged drivers to sign up for a special decal that allowed police officers to pull them over to make sure they were all right and to check their passengers for weapons. In 2003, the police made 6,211 of these stops, resulting in 50 gun arrests.
"We've kept livery and taxi protection high on the radar," Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said in a statement yesterday. "The mayor's made it a priority, and we are following through by stopping vehicles and putting decoys out on patrol."
The changes have apparently worked. Since 2000, according to numbers released by the livery-cab industry, only six drivers have been killed.
Mr. Mateo was quick to praise the Police Department yesterday, saying that relations between drivers and the police had improved markedly since the mid-1990's. Now, whenever there is a spate of armed robberies of drivers in a particular neighborhood, he said, the police are quick to warn drivers and distribute descriptions of the suspects.
"We've never had an administration so cooperative with issues pertaining to the cab drivers, he said.
Jose Viloria, 48, a livery-cab driver for the last 15 years, said yesterday that his family used to be terrified every time he drove, and that after being held up twice, he stopped working at night. Many of his friends quit the industry, and his wife urged him to do the same.
But he told her, "This is the only thing I know to do," he said yesterday.
Recently, he went back to working at night, while working another job during the day.
"I feel safer," he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/07/nyregion/07livery.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878<P>
Comments
By PAUL ERTELT, Ottaway News Service
ALBANY - Senate Republicans are at odds with Gov. George Pataki over guns and fees.
The governor wants pistol owners to renew their licenses every five years and pay a $100 fee - or more if they own multiple guns. Now, unless they're revoked for criminal activity, licenses are good for life.
The fee would generate an estimated $31 million a year in revenue, with most of the money going into the state general fund.
Many Republican lawmakers are up in arms over the fee and what they see as one more infringement of Second Amendment rights.
"It's not going to make anyone safer. It's to encourage people to give up their guns," said Sen. Owen Johnson, the Long Island Republican who chairs the powerful Senate Finance Committee.
Several other Republican senators, including Sen. Betty Little (R-Queensbury), said they also oppose the plan. Republicans control the Senate.
Little said the plan would force legitimate gun owners to jump through the hoops of getting their licenses renewed but would not prevent criminals from getting guns.
"I don't see what's to be gained here," she said.
Chauncey Parker, Pataki's criminal justice director, said the renewal requirement would allow the State Police to keep its database current for all handgun owners, thus enhancing public safety.
The counties and New York City would continue to issue pistol licenses, and records of those licenses would continue to be filed with state police. Pistol owners would not be required to supply additional information to get a license, Parker said.
"All this does is it keeps current records that the State Police are required to keep as a matter of law in New York state," he said. "It doesn't in any way change the requirements for getting a pistol."
State Police maintain records of nearly 1.2 million pistol licenses issued since 1936.
"We have no idea any longer how many are still active," said State Police spokesman Lt. Glenn Miner.
New York City and its suburban counties require pistol owners to renew their licenses periodically, but there is no statewide renewal requirement. Colorado is the only other state that does not require pistol permit renewals.
Some lawmakers said they expect the proposal to die in the budget process.
http://www.pressrepublican.com/Archive/2004/02_2004/020620043.htm
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878<P>
The bumper stickers the NRA sent out had two words in bold letters: PATAKI and FREEDOM.
You saw them on the back of pick-up trucks everywhere.
Who'd have thought, those years ago, that George Pataki would turn out to be the most anti-gun governor in New York's history. Who'd have imagined he would so quickly and so effectively stab his most loyal supporters in the back.
But it happened. Over and over.
And it's happening again now.
Republican New York Gov. George Pataki is proposing changes to New York's pistol permits that are nothing less than a frontal attack on handgun owners.
Which leaves those handgun owners in a precarious position. They have nobody on their side. Nobody. Oh sure, lots of Republicans pretend to be. They make the rounds of the sportsmen's clubs, and they have mailings that show them gun-in-hand. But when push comes to shove, New York gun owners take it in the shorts every time.
It seems the only time the politicians remember them is when it's time to come around asking for campaign contributions.
This proposal from George Pataki is proof.
Right now, New York pistol permits are issued for life - on good conduct. There are county fees associated with the processing of the paperwork. It is an onerous system that can take a year or more to produce a permit. And even then, the permits can be restricted or nullified by whim of the county judges who technically issue them.
It is a troubled system.
But it is a system, and after a fashion it works.
But George Pataki wants to change that.
He has proposed changes that will dramatically increase the cost of getting a pistol permit, cut counties out of their share of the fees, make handgun licenses too expensive for the elderly and poor, and eliminate lifetime permits.
Specifically, he wants them to be renewed every five years and he wants the state fee for each renewal to be $100. Additionally, he wants there to be a $25 fee each time a handgun is bought or sold - on top of already heavy state sales and sporting-equipment taxes.
Currently, a pistol permit application process - which includes pictures and fingerprints, a background check and county fees - costs something less than $100 - and that lasts a lifetime. Putting a handgun on or off your license costs $3. Nobody's getting gouged, you're just paying the price of processing.
But $100 every five years and $25 each time you buy or sell a gun isn't about processing, it's about profiteering.
And so is the statewide registry of handguns which seems also to be a part of this proposal. Now, handgun ownership records are kept by the county. Under this new proposal, they would be tracked by the New York State Police.
Gun owners don't like that.
Gun owners don't believe it's any of the state's business. And gun owners fear that in a state so belligerent to the interests of firearms owners, the day may not be too distant when a statewide ban or confiscation is ordered. This new state handgun registry is a step in that direction.
And the mandatory renewal every five years brings this fundamental right into repeated question. It subjects the right to carry a handgun to the happenstance of whether or not a gun-hating judge has newly taken the bench.
Gun owners fear that the five-year license is an intermediate step toward the rejection of the renewal of those licenses. If gun owners have to ask every five years, they believe that sooner or later the state government will come up with an excuse to tell them "no."
Gun owners don't trust George Pataki.
That's because they know George Pataki.
Ironically, most gun owners believe that even the current system of pistol permits is an intrusion on their liberty. There is no other Constitutional civil right that requires a state license to be exercised, and they're not sure why guns should be any different.
The Constitution says "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
"Keep" means own and "bear" means carry.
And it makes no distinction between handguns and long guns. It just says "arms."
So New York gun owners wonder why they need a state license to own and carry a handgun. They wonder what business the state has in regulating - and thereby restricting - a federal Constitutional right.
And New York gun owners wonder why their governor can't understand that. And why he has taken one more step in his grand march toward a gun-free society.
New York's gun laws should be liberalized and loosened. Instead the governor wants to make them harsher and more burdensome.
The state Senate should stop him.
That bastion of the Republican Party should rein in the greed and the oppression which characterize this proposal.
Gun owners have stood by the Republican Party. It's time for the party to return the favor. Even if it has to thumb its nose at the governor.
- by Bob Lonsberry c 2004
http://www.lonsberry.com/writings.cfm
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878<P>
By Paul Ertelt
Ottaway News Service
peottaway@aol.com
Albany - Republicans in the state Senate are at odds with Gov. George Pataki over guns and fees.
The governor wants pistol owners, who now hold permanent pistol licenses, to renew their licenses every five years and pay a $100 fee per gun - more if they own multiple guns.
But many Republican lawmakers are up in arms over the fee and what they see as another infringement of Second Amendment rights.
"It's not going to make anyone safer. It's to encourage people to give up their guns," said Sen. Owen Johnson, the Long Island Republican who chairs the powerful Senate Finance Committee.
Also opposed to the plan are Sens. John Bonacic, R-C-Mount Hope; Bill Larkin, R-C-Cornwall-on-Hudson; and Tom Morahan, R-C-I-New City.
"Families have an inherent right to protect themselves," said Bonacic, who has had a pistol license since 1972. "It's a constitutional right, and they shouldn't have to pay to maintain that right."
Chauncey Parker, Pataki's criminal justice director, said the renewal requirement would allow the state police to keep its database current for all handgun owners. This would, he said, enhance public safety.
The counties and New York City would continue to issue pistol licenses, and records of those licenses would continue to be filed with state police. Pistol owners would not be required to supply additional information to get a license, Parker said.
"All this does is it keeps current records that the state police are required to keep as a matter of law in New York state," he said. "It doesn't in any way change the requirements for getting a pistol."
State police maintain records on nearly 1.2 million pistol licenses issued since 1936.
"We have no idea any longer how many are still active," said state police spokesman Lt. Glenn Miner.
New York City and its suburban counties require pistol owners to renew their licenses periodically, but there is no statewide renewal requirement. Colorado is the only other state that does not require pistol permit renewals.
The fee would generate an estimated $31 million a year, with most of the money going into the state general fund, Parker said.
Lawmakers said their constituents don't like the plan and are letting them know it.
"Twenty-five or 30 people have communicated with me their displeasure with this proposal," Larkin said. He said he agreed with Bonacic that the proposal would infringe the right to bear arms.
Morahan said he doesn't see it as a gun-control issue, but he still opposes the plan.
"I don't like it. I don't like any tax or any fee increase," he said.
Morahan said he expects the proposal will die in the budget process.
http://www.recordonline.com/archive/2004/02/06/onspisto.htm
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878<P>
by Jim Lobe
New York, the city most affected by the 9/11 attacks almost two and a half years ago, has become the latest U.S. municipality to formally urge major reforms to the USA PATRIOT Act to eliminate threats to basic civil rights and due-process protections.
The New York City Council voted Wednesday to urge local agencies not to subject New Yorkers to secret detentions without access to counsel and the New York Police Department (NYPD), in particular, to protect the free-speech rights of individuals and refrain from enforcing federal immigration laws or engage in racial or ethnic profiling.
The measure, known as Resolution 60, was approved by voice vote and also calls upon the New York delegation in Congress to "actively work for the repeal of those sections of the USA PATRIOT Act (USAPA) and related federal actions that unduly infringe upon fundamental rights and liberties."
"The city of New York - perhaps more than any city in America - is keenly aware of why we are engaged in a war on terror," said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, the local branch of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). "With its diverse population, it is fitting and proper that the nation's largest city has joined millions across the country in demanding that America can, and must, be both safe AND free," she added.
Passage of the resolution came two weeks after the Los Angeles City Council passed a similar resolution by a 9-2 margin. The Jan. 21 vote was depicted as a direct rebuff to President Bush, who had called for extending and expanding the Patriot Act during his State of the Union Address the night before.
In so doing, Los Angeles, the country's third largest city, and now New York have joined a growing list of 250 municipalities, counties and states encompassing nearly 50 million people across the country that have approved measures over the past two years that urge far-reaching reform of the USAPA to ensure basic rights and due process.
Other jurisdictions that have approved such resolutions include Philadelphia, Baltimore, Detroit, Seattle, San Francisco, and Chicago, the nation's second largest city, as well as small communities from Alaska to North Carolina and Maine. The state legislatures of Hawaii, Alaska, and Vermont have also approved similar measures.
The main focus of their objections includes the sweeping powers given to the Justice Department to round up, detain, and summarily deport immigrants without filing charges or providing them with access to attorneys, or, in some cases, even to their family members; the use of racial and ethnic profiling by federal agencies in targeting suspects; and the granting of unprecedented powers to the FBI to secretly obtain information with little or no judicial review about individuals, ranging from their financial records to their book-borrowing patterns from local libraries.
Late last year, the Bush administration indicated it will seek a further expansion of those powers in a new act, as well as an extension of the USAPA beyond its December, 2005, expiration date. At the same time, the administration managed to push through new powers for the FBI enabling it to search and seize business records without court approval from securities dealers, currency exchanges, travel agencies, post offices, casinos, pawnbrokers and any other business that, in the government's eyes, has a "high degree of usefulness in criminal, tax or regulatory matters." Under the 2001 USAPA, such powers were limited to business records held by banks, credit unions and similar financial institutions.
The ACLU, a leader in national and grassroots efforts to oppose the USAPA's more far-reaching provisions and related legislation, has been joined by a wide coalition of other groups from across the political spectrum. Indeed, some of the strongest opposition to USAPA has come from the political right, including Americans for Tax Reform and the Eagle Forum, among others.
The coalition's common denominator has been the fear that USAPA has upset the delicate balance between security and liberty and now threatens individuals' privacy and constitutional freedoms.
More than 90 organizations had endorsed the New York resolution, including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the New York Public Library Guild, and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. At the council's hearings held earlier, a number of family members of NYPD and NYFD officers who died on 9/11 testified in support of the resolution.
"The fact that the resolution passed in New York City, site of the devastating 9/11 attacks, sends a resounding message that New Yorkers are not willing to trade their freedom for policies that do not make them any more safe," said Laura Murphy, head of the ACLU's Legislative office here. "The City of New York paid a higher cost than most cities, but New Yorkers are standing up and refusing to sacrifice their fundamental freedoms."
Among the 34 cosponsors of the resolution was Council Member Alan Gerson, whose district includes the site of the World Trade Center.
The impact of the City Council's vote on security is likely to be put to a major test when the Republican National Convention meets in New York Aug. 30 to Sept. 2. Large-scale protests are expected.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/ips/lobe53.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878<P>