(NEW YORK) MintPress — Ever since taking over as the head of the NYPD in the aftermath of 9/11, police commissioner Ray Kelly’s most critical mission has been to thwart all terrorist threats against the city.
Yet his pro-active manner of policing, including spying and surveillance programs in Muslim communities, has at times pushed the limits of the law and provoked outrage from civil rights advocates.
Kelly’s assertive style has also created a bureaucratic battle with many at the FBI who think his intelligence-gathering operatives are stepping on their toes.
His supporters, however, maintain that it’s hard to argue with the department’s track record, repeatedly saying that at least 14 full-blown terrorist attacks have been prevented or failed on Kelly’s watch.
The NYPD itself has published a full list, saying terrorists have “attempted to kill New Yorkers in 14 different plots.” Mayor Michael Bloomberg has bolstered that claim, saying in March, “We have the best police department in the world and I think they show that every single day and we have stopped 14 attacks since 9/11, fortunately without anyone dying.”
But Kelly’s critics maintain that figure is largely exaggerated. A recent review of the list by the independent news organization ProPublica shows that it overstates both the number of serious, developed terrorist plots against New York and the NYPD’s role in stopping the attacks.
Fact-checking the NYPD’s numbers
According to ProPublica, the list includes at most three definitive terrorist plots, including the failed attempt to bomb Times Square by Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad in May 2010.
But, it maintains, “The plot was widely seen as a law enforcement failure, as Shahzad was able to plant the rigged car in Times Square without being on the radar of the NYPD and other agencies.”
Similarly, the thwarted 2009 plot by three former high school classmates from the Queens to set off bombs in the subway system was “uncovered not by the NYPD, but rather by an email intercepted by U.S. intelligence.”
Finally, in regards to the August 2006 arrests of a group of men later charged with plotting to use liquid explosives to blow up planes bound for North American from London, ProPublica said that although one of the men had a memory stick containing information on flights bound for several cities, including New York, the plan was to blow up the planes over the ocean.
In addition, it found, “The NYPD was not involved in thwarting the plot.”
“Of the other 11 cases, there are three in which government informants played a significant or dominant role; four cases whose credibility or seriousness has been questioned by law enforcement officials; and another four cases in which an idea for a plot was abandoned or not pursued beyond discussion,” it concluded.
Recurring theme
Bloomberg has also defended the NYPD’s “stop-and-frisk” program, which disproportionately targets young African American and Hispanic men, by claiming it has saved thousands of lives.
“Nobody should ask Ray Kelly to apologize — and he’s not going to and neither am I for saving 5,600 lives.” he said earlier this year.
Once again, the figures don’t tell the real story. According to DNAinfo.com, which analyzed the city’s crime data, while the NYPD was stopping and frisking a record 685,724 people last year, 1,821 were victims of gunfire. That’s nearly the same number as in 2002, Bloomberg’s first year in office, when 1,892 people were shot, but just 97,296 were frisked.
Between 2009 and 2011, the number of people shot in New York climbed from 1,727 to 1,821 even as the NYPD was ratcheting up the number of people it rousted from 510,742 in 2009 to the record 685,724, the statistics showed.
A similar pattern of rising shootings and escalating stop-and-frisks occurred from 2004-2006. During those years, the NYPD stop-and-frisks jumped 70 percent, from 313,523 to 506,491, but the number of shooting victims rose about 7 percent, from 1,777 to 1,880.
The 5,600 figure quoted by Bloomberg referred to the number of murders, not the total number of people shot. The numbers crunched by DNAinfo compared the numbers of shootings rather than deaths.
Experts say the declining murder rate has been helped by advancements in medicine, on-scene triage by paramedics and emergency room techniques rather than the NYPD’s use of stop-and-frisk.
Kelly on the offensive
Kelly, never one to let the truth get in the way of a good story, provoked even further controversy earlier this week, infuriating several community leaders on Tuesday by declaring that many of them are more interested in criticizing the stop-and-frisk policy than in speaking out against gun violence.
In the aftermath of a particularly violent week — July 2-8, when 77 people were shot in New York City — Kelly told reporters, “There doesn’t seem to be any major community response. Many of them will speak out about stop-and-frisk but are shockingly silent when it comes to the level of violence right in their own communities.”
“I believe [Kelly] is using racial undertones to divide this city on who has a passion to deal with the issues of crime,” charged state Sen. Eric Adams of Brooklyn. “He basically said black elected officials don’t care about the safety of their community.”
New York City Councilman Jumaane Williams couldn’t agree more. “I am outraged at the presumptuous and patently false comments of Commissioner Kelly, which directly insult communities like mine, which are grieving for our lost and trying to save our young people every day,” he said.
A spokesperson for Mayor Bloomberg, meanwhile, stated, “The commissioner didn’t say anything he hasn’t said multiple times before, and the mayor is in agreement.”