Corruption in the NYPD much wider than Occupy Wall Street beatings

Two weeks after the infamous Pepper Spray video went viral, Inspector Anthony Bologna has been punished. Well they took away ten days pay. A criminal investigation is still pending.

This seemed to me to be a rather trivial punishment for the casual use of a weapon that can and does cause deaths. Defending the civil lawsuit brought by the victims of Bologna's attack will cost very considerably more than the $6,000 he will lose in wages. A similar suit brought in San Francisco resulted in a $750,000 settlement for the Plaintiff's legal fees. The NYPD has already paid out up to $30,000 to settle four previous lawsuits involving Bologna and another five are pending.

Just what does a police officer have to do to get fired in the NYPD? Well two recent cases show that you can get suspended indefinitely without pay for not making your arrest quota and then reporting the illegal quota system to internal affairs.

The Schoolcraft lawsuit alleges that Deputy Chief Michael Marino unlawfully maintained a quota system while running the 81st Precinct. His allegations are based on tape recordings Schoolcraft made of supervisors berating him for failing to make his quota. This is not the first time this type of allegation has been made against Marino. In 2006 an arbitrator found that he had run an illegal quota system while commanding the 75th Precinct.

The complaint in the Schoolcraft case makes for shocking reading. It is alleged that the defendants retaliated against Schoolcraft in numerous ways, including getting him committed to a mental institution for 6 days.

But don't think this type of behavior is ignored in the NYPD. Marino was recently transferred to a post on Staten Island. Though it is not clear whether this was due to the Schoolcraft allegations or the fact that Marino was found guilty of illegally receiving steroid drugs for which he received a 30 day suspension and a year's probation.

The story was first broken in 2010 by the Village Voice. This has resulted in two disciplinary investigations against Marino that appear to be ongoing and an investigation into the allegation that serious crimes were downgraded that has completed but the NYPD refuses to release.

Schoolcraft is not the only NYPD officer making this allegation either. A Brooklyn officer, Adil Polanco has a remarkably similar story.

How can anyone take Mayor Bloomberg's claim to be tough on crime seriously when he can't even police his own police force? In both cases the police corruption is alleged to be the direct consequence of Mayor Bloomberg policies. There is no evidence that Bloomberg ordered anyone to commit criminal behavior, all he did was to set criteria for promotion that he must have known would encourage the criminal behavior.