Cop had tape recording rolling the night NYPD dragged him to Psych ward

[Liberal_in_LA]

Cop who made tapes accuses NYPD of false arrest

It was Halloween night last year, but the scene outside patrolman Adrian Schoolcraft's home had nothing to do with trick-or-treating. The unannounced visitors were fellow New York Police Department officers from the Emergency Service Unit — men trained to capture dangerous suspects once they're cornered.

But wasn't this the home of a cop who said he just went home sick?

Hearing the commotion outside, Schoolcraft did what had become second-nature to him: He clicked on a tape recorder, then whispered into it.

"All right. ... ESU is here."

As several armed officers entered the apartment, a ranking NYPD officer found Schoolcraft resting on his bed — and gave him a scolding.

"Adrian ... you didn't hear us knocking on that door?" Deputy Chief Michael Marino can be heard saying on tape.

"No," Schoolcraft replies, saying he had taken Nyquil.

"For the last couple hours?" Marino asks.

"No ... Why would I expect anyone to knock on my door, chief?" Schoolcraft asks, sounding groggy.

"I don't know, Adrian, but if you hear somebody knocking normally you get up and answer it; they were kicking on that door loud and yelling."

"I wasn't feeling well ...."

As the conversation goes on, Marino tells Schoolcraft he's showing worrisome signs of agitation.

"Chief...," he replies, "if you were woken up in your house how would you behave? What is this, Russia?"

Schoolcraft's account of the messy episode that unfolded next bumps against the NYPD's carefully crafted image as a fine-tuned crime fighting machine.

His description of being taken in handcuffs to a psychiatric ward that night suggests the nation's largest police force could have a vindictive underbelly. He claims that cops risk retribution when they try, as he did, to blow the whistle on supervisors' faking of crime statistics to make the stats look better.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/10/09/national/a094224D52.DTL&tsp=1#ixzz11yX6kefY

[virgogal]

1. That was a really strange story.

[arendt]

2. Excerpts can be heard at "This American Life".

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/414/right-to-remain-silent

BTW - this show is becoming increasingly relevant. They do economic reports with Planet Money, and stuff like this.

[girl gone mad]

3. That show was pretty shocking.

Our entire system needs a reset. It seems like virtually every institution is deeply corrupted.

[Liberal_in_LA]

4. Thanks! I'll be sure to catch it

[The Doctor.]

9. Yep... heard it a few weeks ago. Had to do with quotas.

He was the cop who didn't go out of his way to fuck with people... so they fucked with him.

Cops have been under pressure to look like they are doing more because of a system (name escapes me) that keeps national stats. It's a double-edged sword... tracks stats, but creates pressure. In some cases, serious crimes like rape go unrecorded just to keep the stats good.

It's quite wrong.

[barbtries]

5. i heard the officer's story on NPR

a couple weeks ago. the link is in this thread; i highly recommend it. what was done to this man is scary. i'm very happy that it looks like he'll be vindicated since he recorded everything, happily, and the cops didn't find the recorder. good for him.

[Liberal_in_LA]

6. what he did took discipline - turning on the tape recorder when a swat team arrives

[bobbolink]

7. Thanks for posting this. This is probably not all that unusual.. what was unusual was it being

recorded.

Sadly, I think we are all going to have to figure out ways to have a recorder going all the time.

Whadda country.... :(

[Panaconda]

8. K&R n/t

[DeSwiss]

10. K&R - Police State - n/t

[earcandle]

11. Crazy making...

[fasttense]

12. I've always suspected the crime statistics have been rigged.

Ever since the crime numbers decreased under the bushes while poverty rates increased, it seemed suspicious.

And... obviously... they are still rigging the crime stats, just like they are rigging the economic numbers, the election returns, housing numbers, and just about any number the government reports. They were given cate blanche to rig them under the bushes and as far as I can tell, President Obama hasn't changed that.

[DirkGently]

14. Points to the larger issue of dumbing everything down to numbers and dollars,

doesn't it? Same fallacy that turns teacher evaluations into a report on how many students pass a random "standardized test."

It's business-inspired, widget-making principles, applied to life. Doesn't work.

This guy's story is chilling. I heard the This American Life as well, and the "chief" telling a very calm police officer that he's "EDP" ("Emotionally Disturbed Person") and will be dragged away in cuffs is incredible. Then they find what they assume is the only tape recorder in the room, and talk about that.

[Javaman]

13. Anyone who's lived in NYC for any period of time...

knows full well that a huge amount of cops are on the take on one level or another.

I had friends who worked in housing, vice, narc and in transit. They would tell me shit that would make anyone freak out.

The average beat cop is under such incredible pressure from the thieves above that it turns good cops bad.

[WingDinger]

15. Had a similar midnite door busting, after I took down a crooked cop and judge.

Vindictive breakin. rightwing commentary on my lifestyle. Handcuffs. Ridiculous assertions. I kept my cool, and took them apart. Lectured them for two hours. They kept telling me to be quiet, so as not to wake the neighbors. I wanted witnesses. They left, without me, or anything else. I am a med mar patient. And they didnt get shit. Cept for a few pics of my garden.

[Nothing Without Hope]

16. Heard it on NPR. Shocking. If his father hadn't gone looking

for him, he'd still be in that psych ward with no one knowing what happened to him. If not worse. In the story, the high-level people who were responsible for corruption were all promoted. Chilling. The system is thoroughly rotten.

The recorder that caught the scene described was the hidden one behind some books in his apartment. He had another one in his pocket, and they destroyed it. They thought that took care of any evidence.

So this guy, who only wanted some discreet internal investigation, found that the internal investigative department was totally corrupt. So he is no longer a cop, when he only wanted to be a good cop. The filthy swine who instituted and enforced corrupt practices are still in office.

Makes you wonder how many other honest people they have silenced or disappeared. Surely this wasn't the first time. They had the whole routine ready to go, complete with a shady psych admission at a collaborating facility.

[Blue_Tires]

17. Somewhere Frank Serpico is smiling...

[Nothing Without Hope]

18. kick n/t