It is the the deadliest attack on U.S. law enforcement since Sept. 11, 2001, NBC News reports
By NBC 5 Staff
Five officers are dead — four Dallas police officers and one Dallas Area Rapid Transit officer — after two snipers ambushed and opened fire on police at the end of a peaceful protest against nationwide officer-involved shootings Thursday night, officials say.
“This is a terrible blow to the city of Dallas. This is a terrible blow to the United States of America,” Rawlings said on the NBC’s “Today” show.
Rawlings said the suspect involved in an overnight standoff with police died after officers used explosives to “blast him out.”
Rawlings said he was not sure how the suspect died or what weapons were found on him. He said police have swept the area where the standoff took place and found no explosives.
JANUARY 27, 2016, 6:44 PM LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 27, 2016, 8:26 PM
BY SALVADOR RIZZO
STATE HOUSE BUREAU |
THE RECORD
Investment gains for New Jersey’s $79 billion pension fund fell sharply in the fiscal year that ended June 30, and those pension investments are in negative territory so far this year, state officials reported Wednesday.
Christie administration officials and the State Investment Council had acknowledged in July that, with 11 months of data, the pension fund was likely to see a sharp drop in its rate of return for fiscal year 2015. Now, with all 12 months of data, the state announced that it achieved investment gains of 4.16 percent, a tumble from 16.87 percent in the previous year.
New Jersey’s pension fund is the 17th largest in the country and 33rd largest worldwide – investing in everything from real estate, private equity, commodities, stocks, hedge funds and more. Nearly 780,000 public workers and retirees are beneficiaries of the pension system, meaning they depend on the success of those investments.
The state Supreme Court has said that public workers are entitled to their pension checks “when due.” If the money does not come from investment gains, it would have to come from state taxpayers or public workers.
The fund’s performance is in negative territory so far this fiscal year, down 3 percent for the July-through-December period, officials added.
Three towns in Sen. Paul Sarlo’s district are arguing before the state Supreme Court that they should not have to release records from a 2014 road chase in which police fatally shot a 23-year-old black man. Salvador Rizzo and John C. Ensslin, The Record Read more
FRESNO, Calif. — While officers raced to a recent 911 call about a man threatening his ex-girlfriend, a police operator in headquarters consulted software that scored the suspect’s potential for violence the way a bank might run a credit report.
The program scoured billions of data points, including arrest reports, property records, commercial databases, deep Web searches and the man’s social- media postings. It calculated his threat level as the highest of three color-coded scores: a bright red warning.
The man had a firearm conviction and gang associations, so out of caution police called a negotiator. The suspect surrendered, and police said the intelligence helped them make the right call — it turned out he had a gun.
As a national debate has played out over mass surveillance by the National Security Agency, a new generation of technology such as the Beware software being used in Fresno has given local law enforcement officers unprecedented power to peer into the lives of citizens.
Police officials say such tools can provide critical information that can help uncover terrorists or thwart mass shootings, ensure the safety of officers and the public, find suspects, and crack open cases. They say that last year’s attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., have only underscored the need for such measures.
JANUARY 4, 2016, 6:47 AM
BY JOHN CICHOWSKI
NORTHJERSEY.COM
Officer Tim Franco offered one final wish as he left his job for the final time last week.
“Cameras,” said Fair Lawn’s retiring traffic safety officer.
Most cops love recent improvements in law-enforcement technology, especially surveillance cameras that provide powerful evidence for documenting shoplifters, cheats, liars and worse. But Franco likes them for recording what happens at busy intersections.
“Not just crashes,” he said. “Close calls, too.”
Police usually know crash details from accident reports. But unlike pilots who must report close calls to aviation authorities, it’s rare for drivers or police to document events that almost happen – except when regaling colleagues or reporters about the harrowing experiences that nearly become the big events of their day.
But as Franco learned over his 31½-year career, these experiences have value beyond locker-room chatter.
That’s because workplace bean counters figured out years ago that there are about 30 close calls for each accident. If cops and engineers had access to a huge sample of these “what ifs,” as Franco calls them, they could be added to the small number of crashes they record. Doing so would add more precision to their ability to improve road safety – either through enforcement or through charges made in signage or the design of troublesome intersections.
“Right now, the system for gathering crash data is very limited,” Franco said. “But the camera technology exists to do a better job,”
To hear the media tell it, America is in the grip of an unprecedented crime wave, an orgy of wanton murder in which heavily armed thugs randomly gun down innocent unarmed people, some of them teens, just for sport.
Except that these homicidal goons are wearing the blues and badges of American police departments.
It’s the narrative that’s given rise to the protest movement Black Lives Matter and to a growing public mistrust of the police in general. From Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., to the recent shooting of a middle-aged woman and a teen in Chicago, the body count seemingly keeps rising, exacerbating racial tensions and keeping the nation on edge. And each incident is breathlessly reported by a media determined to show that America remains deeply, irredeemably racist.
Last week, The Washington Post published a study of the police shootings that took place in 2015. Likely they intended the story to be shocking — as on Dec. 24, 965 people were killed by police! Instead, the report quells the notion that trigger-happy cops are out hunting for civilian victims, especially African-Americans. Among its key findings:
White cops shooting unarmed black men accounted for less than 4% of fatal police shootings. In three-quarters of the incidents, cops were either under attack themselves or defending civilians. In other words, doing their jobs. The majority of those killed were brandishing weapons, suicidal or mentally troubled or bolted when ordered to surrender. Nearly a third of police shootings resulted from car chases that began with a minor traffic stop.
ELIZABETH — A recent Kean graduate has been charged with being responsible for a series of tweets threatening black students at the school two weeks ago, acting Union County Prosecutor Grace H. Park announced Tuesday.
Kayla-Simone McKelvey, 24, of Union – a black alum who graduated in May – was charged by summons with third-degree creating a false public alarm.
Students react after Kean Twitter threatKean students react and sound-off after an anonymous Twitter user sent messages threatening to shoot black students at the university. (Video by Adam Clark & Amanda Marzullo | NJ Advance Media for Nj.com)
Park said an investigation by the Union County Prosecutor’s Office’s Special Prosecutions Unit and Kean University police found that McKelvey, a self-proclaimed activist, participated in a student rally to raise awareness of racism on college campuses on Nov. 17, but left midway through and walked to a computer station in a university library.
Once there, McKelvey allegedly created an anonymous Twitter account – @keanuagainstblk – and began posting threats of violence against black Kean students.
Midland Park NJ, An adult male shooting victim was transported by ambulance to Hackensack University Medical Center from a home located at 29 Post Street, Midland Park shortly after 12 midnight on Friday, 10/16. The victim was reportedly shot in the abdomen. A paramedic unit from The Valley Hospital assisted Midland Park EMS.
The victim was conscious and alert at the time of transport. A bloodied white tee shirt could be seen on the victim as he was being loaded into the ambulance. Police officers from Wyckoff and Midland Park were observed at the scene shining flashlights inside the first floor of the home. No other information about the nature of the shooting was immediately available.
SEPTEMBER 30, 2015, 11:57 PM LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2015, 12:01 AM
BY JOHN C. ENSSLIN
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
A frequent critic of Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli was removed from the county freeholder meeting late Wednesday night after attempting to play a video of a woman who claims authorities did not impose sufficient penalties on a Teaneck dermatologist who has been accused of sexual misconduct with patients.
Freeholder Chairwoman Joan Voss declared that the board would not allow the video to be played until the board’s lawyer has a chance to review the legality of showing it. The video was posted on YouTube earlier in the day.
That decision threw the room into tumult when Molinelli critic Bill Brennan attempted to play the video anyway.
“Mr. Brennan, I am going to have you removed if you do not stop, and I mean it,” Voss said shortly before two officers led him out of the freeholder chambers.
Brennan — a former firefighter who runs a Facebook page critical of the prosecutor — and several others attended the meeting to call on the Board of Freeholders to ask that it petition the state attorney general to take over Molinelli’s office.
Among them was Carlstadt Mayor William Roseman, who was accused by Molinelli’s office of allowing his ex-wife to continue to receive health benefits after their divorce.
The state Supreme Court ruled in June in a sharply worded decision that prosecutors had wrongly denied an application for Roseman and his ex-wife to enter the Pretrial Intervention program, which allows the accused to avoid prosecution by entering a rehabilitation program.
The court called the denial “a gross abuse of discretion.” And a Superior Court judge in Hackensack dismissed the indictment against Roseman and his ex-wife in July.
Molinelli could not immediately be reached for comment late Wednesday.
SEPTEMBER 16, 2015, 9:43 AM LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2015, 12:24 PM
BY CHRIS HARRIS
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
PARAMUS — A 27-year-old Clifton man who has an apparent affinity for Red Bull drinks was arrested Tuesday by authorities on three counts of robbery and kidnapping, and two weapons charges.
According to police, Eddie J. Johnson is accused of brandishing a knife and forcing men and women into cars, where he instructed them to drive to an ATM machine to withdraw cash for him or supermarkets to buy him energy drinks in bulk.
Paramus Police said Johnson first approached a woman back in February in the parking lot of Blink Fitness at the Outlets at Bergen Town Center, asking her for money. When she refused his request, Johnson had the woman drive him in her vehicle to an ATM to take out money.
Police said the woman purposely entered the wrong pin number for her account, so Johnson forced her to take him to the Pathmark in Elmwood Park, where he instructed her to buy $70 worth of Red Bull with her credit card. He fled on foot, energy drinks in hand.
Updated at 2:33 PM EDT on Thursday, Sep 3, 2015 NBC 4 NYC
A founding member of the long-running “James Bond gang” that had been targeting high-end homes in affluent neighborhoods across the tri-state for years has been arrested, prosecutors said Thursday.
Bruce “Cap” Anderson, 48, of Queens, was arrested Tuesday in connection with an ongoing investigation that netted the arrests of several other alleged members of the gang in 2014. Anderson and five other defendants are named in a 24-count indictment tied to the burglary and trafficking of stolen property.
Mother Sues Ivy School, Amazon Over Daughter’s Suicide
The group of burglars had been operating in New Jersey for years and expanded to Rockland County in 2013, according to police. At one burglary in Orangetown in early January, thieves lifted $30,000 worth of jewelry.
Authorities in New Jersey launched an investigation in 2014 after more than two dozen high-end homes in Bergen, Morris and Somerset counties were burglarized over a period of several months. The burglaries had many similarities and were identical in the manner in which they were carried out.
New Jersey lawyers might have some new defenses against drunk driving cases. Courts may see a growing number of issues involving the rules of evidence as a result of a recent ruling by the New Jersey Supreme Court – but there was no choice. In Missouri v. McNeely (2013), the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the State of Missouri’s argument that exigent circumstances necessarily exist when an officer has probable cause to believe a person has been driving under the influence. This is because BAC evidence is inherently evanescent. Instead, the justices suggested that obtaining a warrant should be the default protocol. (Donald Scarinci, Politickernj.com) https://politickernj.com/2015/08/supreme-court-changes-new-jersey-dui-protocol/
AUGUST 12, 2015, 8:00 AM LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 12, 2015, 1:07 PM
BY CHRIS HARRIS AND STEFANIE DAZIO
STAFF WRITERS |
THE RECORD
MAHWAH — Police have arrested a brother and sister in connection with a stolen bag containing $150,000 cash that had been accidentally left on a curb in Mahwah last month.
Mahwah Chief James Batelli said that Jamar Bludson, 35, was apprehended in Newark on Tuesday, around the same time his sister, 32-year-old Irvington resident Tamirah Laberth, was detained by police.
The other suspect in the bag’s theft, Alton Harvey, 42, of Hillside, was arrested a few days after the alleged crime. Harvey and Bludson were both charged with one count of theft of mislaid property, a second-degree crime.
JULY 30, 2015, 7:05 PM LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, JULY 30, 2015, 7:46 PM
BY ABBOTT KOLOFF
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
MAHWAH — Police have arrested one of two men allegedly involved in the theft of a bag of about $150,000 in cash that had been accidentally left on a curb this week and are looking for the other suspect, saying in a news release on Thursday that the pair already spent some of the money, using cash to purchase an SUV.
Alton Harvey
Alton Harvey, 42, of Hillside was arrested Wednesday afternoon as police conducted surveillance in Irvington of the white van allegedly used by the suspects on the day of the theft and a Chevrolet Tahoe that had been purchased with money from the bag, Police Chief James Batelli said Thursday. Police are also looking for Jamar A. Bludson, 35, of Newark, he said.
Video surveillance cameras recorded the passenger of a white van removing the bag from the lawn, Mahwah Police Chief James Batelli said.
Police said that Harvey drove the van and that Bludson, the passenger, was the person seen on video surveillance picking up the satchel of money from the curb. The bag had been left there accidentally by two workers for an ATM company located on Industrial Avenue. Police have not identified the company for security reasons and company officials have not responded to messages seeking comment.
