Saturday, 23 April 2011, NEW YORK - In the wake of what has been reported as "news" although it has probably been happening for about a century, New York City police and government officials expressed shock that New York police officers' fix tickets by making them disappear in the arcane process by which they travel from traffic violation back through the police station. Now they will be filled out with about six carbon copies
Surprisingly, a spokesman defended the practice as merely a "courtesy" to which police officers had long been entitled. (This statement quickly disappeared from later reports of the story). As to police and government officials to express any kind of surprise appears just possibly disingenuous since they, along with the allegedly ticket offenders who pay bribes, no doubt have long been beneficiaries of the process. The fact however is that police it is pointed out can "fix tickets" by simply skipping the hearings of those that they have ticketed. Although they do have to take a "sick day". Alternatively, it is pointed out that police can show up at the hearing and simply "forget" the circumstances to establish the requisite evidence.
This technique, known as the "I cannot recall" strategy, was perfected by President Ronald Reagan. It must be comforting to New Yorkers that their police officers who may be prosecuting crimes that were perpetrated against citizens, may, in spite of their police training, forget essential facts so that the charges must be dismissed, say in an aggravated assault, manslaughter, rape, or murder case, for example.
We at the Ninth Amendment have rarely seen a police officer tell the truth on the stand at least in the way that facts are not obviously skewed to give the trier of fact the wrong impression and emphasize the Defendant's guilt or another officer's innocence regardless of the truth. When there is more than one officer, those that do "remember" the facts often testify in such a contradictory and confused fashion from other police witnesses that one has absolutely no idea how the verdict will come out or if the officers were even at the same scene. These confused officers presumably are required to "rehearse" their exact testimony before the next trial.
Well, things could be worse. San Antonio, Texas, as previously reported in a post here on the Ninth Amendment remains the only major (well, over 1.3 million residents) police department that has not yet even computerized its crime base at all, including major crime reports. In audits of recent years something like one third of crimes allegedly committed in San Antonio could not be investigated or prosecuted because the officers' handwritten reports dropped more or less randomly at the station were simply lost, written so long after the fact that nothing could be remembered to put on the form, never written at all, or in most cases just simply disappeared.
Copyright 2011 Big M and Little L All World Rights Expressly Reserved
Surprisingly, a spokesman defended the practice as merely a "courtesy" to which police officers had long been entitled. (This statement quickly disappeared from later reports of the story). As to police and government officials to express any kind of surprise appears just possibly disingenuous since they, along with the allegedly ticket offenders who pay bribes, no doubt have long been beneficiaries of the process. The fact however is that police it is pointed out can "fix tickets" by simply skipping the hearings of those that they have ticketed. Although they do have to take a "sick day". Alternatively, it is pointed out that police can show up at the hearing and simply "forget" the circumstances to establish the requisite evidence.
This technique, known as the "I cannot recall" strategy, was perfected by President Ronald Reagan. It must be comforting to New Yorkers that their police officers who may be prosecuting crimes that were perpetrated against citizens, may, in spite of their police training, forget essential facts so that the charges must be dismissed, say in an aggravated assault, manslaughter, rape, or murder case, for example.
We at the Ninth Amendment have rarely seen a police officer tell the truth on the stand at least in the way that facts are not obviously skewed to give the trier of fact the wrong impression and emphasize the Defendant's guilt or another officer's innocence regardless of the truth. When there is more than one officer, those that do "remember" the facts often testify in such a contradictory and confused fashion from other police witnesses that one has absolutely no idea how the verdict will come out or if the officers were even at the same scene. These confused officers presumably are required to "rehearse" their exact testimony before the next trial.
Well, things could be worse. San Antonio, Texas, as previously reported in a post here on the Ninth Amendment remains the only major (well, over 1.3 million residents) police department that has not yet even computerized its crime base at all, including major crime reports. In audits of recent years something like one third of crimes allegedly committed in San Antonio could not be investigated or prosecuted because the officers' handwritten reports dropped more or less randomly at the station were simply lost, written so long after the fact that nothing could be remembered to put on the form, never written at all, or in most cases just simply disappeared.
Copyright 2011 Big M and Little L All World Rights Expressly Reserved
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