NYPD back up at Brown Brothers Harriman building across the street from Liberty Park, site of original Occupy Wall Street encampment Lower Manhattan.
Trapwire cameras in NYC subway station
Like every other place in America New York City has suffered its share of cutbacks in recent years. Not that you could tell from the forces deployed to the Occupy Wall Street events.
Like every citizen in every other town in the Nation who pays for this local protection along with every city service, we New Yorkers have watched as the cutbacks have impacted the schools and seniors, arts and parks and projects, with the understanding the cost cuts need to be spread around.
But the allocation of those cuts and services have revealed an imbalanced set of priorities to me as NYPD decked out in full sets of brand new riot gear have trampled me along with my civil rights and others at peaceful protest events.
Still, there has at least been the assurance that the NYPD is operating under the general umbrella of protecting New York City.
Today that changed with the discovery of an article published Wednesday, September 5, 2012 by AL-Monitor, that bills itself as the pulse of Middle Eastern Security issues. It announced the opening of a brand new NYPD office in Israel, which was rather shocking to me.
How is it that Israel, the Nation who has the legendary IDF - Israeli Defense Forces, made famous on film for its Raid on Entebbe was determined to need an NYPD office locally?
Who in the world approved this plan, it sure didn't make any of the news we New Yorkers read that's for darn sure.
Apparently it hasn't seen the light of day in American papers either, though our MSM is so worthless they still don't report on Monsanto's hand in our food supply so perhaps it is unrealistic to expect them to give us accurate information about anything.
By: Avi Ashkenazi posted on Wednesday, Sep 5, 2012
The New York Police Department opened its Israeli branch in the Sharon District Police headquarters in Kfar Saba. Charlie Ben-Naim, a former Israeli and veteran NYPD detective, was sent on this mission.
You don’t have to fly to New York to meet members of the police department considered to be the best in the world — all you have to do is make the short trip to the Kfar Saba police station in the Sharon, where the NYPD opened a local branch.
Behind the opening of the branch in the Holy Land is the NYPD decision that the Israeli police is one of the major police forces with which it must maintain close work relations and daily contact.
Ben-Naim was chosen for the mission of opening the NYPD branch in Israel. He is a veteran detective of the NYPD and a former Israeli who went to study in New York, married a local city resident and then joined the local police force. Among the things he has dealt with in the line of duty are the extradition of criminals, the transmitting of intelligence information and assistance in the location of missing persons, both in the United States and in Israel.
It was decided, in coordination with the Israeli police, that the New York representative would not operate out of the United States embassy but from a building of the Sharon District Police headquarters, situated close to the Kfar Sava station. The NYPD sign was even hung at the entrance to the district headquarters, and Ben-Naim’s office is situated on the first floor of the building. One of the walls bears the sign: “New York Police Department, the best police department in the world.”
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/security/01/09/nypd-kfar-saba-branch-new-york-p.html
Seriously? Just two weeks ago we lived through a Keystone Cops episode where 9 bystanders were shot by a wild west response by NYPD to a disturbed man shooting his former employer on 33rd Street.
Aside from the two men involved in the original incident, every single injury to all the innocent passers by came from shots fired wildly by NYPD responding after the event was reported by citizen 911 calls!
UPDATE #10: All nine people who suffered gunshot wounds outside the Empire State Buiding Friday morning were hit by police gunfire, Police Commsisione Raymond W. Kelly said Saturday. Citing ballistics evidence, Kelly said that it looks like three of the nine bystanders were hit with bullets, while the rest were “struck with fragments of some sort,” reports the New York Times. Three of the victims remained hospitalized Saturday but were in stable condition.
Video released late Friday (embedded below) shows how the police officers opened fire on Jeffrey Johnson as soon as he pointed a .45-caliber pistol at them on the sidewalk. One officer fired seven times, the other nine times. Neither had ever fired their weapon on patrol before, reports the Associated Press. Although witnesses had initially said Johnson had fired at the officers, Kelly said it looks like he never fired his gun after shooting and killing a former colleague.
As a resident it makes my blood boil to see the waste targeting protesters, but this office in Israel goes far beyond that. Why aren't we paying to add extra foot patrols to the late night subway routes or even additional target practice so the nest time NYPD happens to be on a crowded street they can keep from hitting multiple bystanders because they have no clue how to handle their weapons! We could fund community service lessons for the folks in uniform or a hundred other things NYC needs, but to have a sattelitte office half way around the globe surely isn't on the list anyone who lives here wants to pay for.
NYPD block pedestrians and traffic on Manhattan side of Brooklyn Bridge as more than 700 Occupy Wall Street protesters trapped between here and Brooklyn are arrested on the bridge Saturday, September 30, 2011.
What part of local protection does that fall under? Don't we as Americans foot the bill for enough foreign Military Aid, troops and bases and diplomatic missions with contractor security consulting in every corner of the globe?
What happened to the idea of separating foreign and domestic enforcement and the dividing line between State and Federal powers?
How blurred is the line of protection and global spying when we have NYPD set up shop in a foreign country?
What possible reason is there to put my local police in a foreign country except to continue to integrate a global police state?
Are we all just watched from anywhere, everywhere we go and one Trapwire camera can track us from Manhattan to Israel?
You've got me if there's a good answer to that, but it's distressing to be asking the question, more distressing no one else is asking!
