#1. NYPD officer arrested for beating woman after drunkenly breaking in to her apartment

By Caroline Bankoff From New York Mag

In mid-June, NYPD officer Eugene Donnelly was given the department’s second-highest honor, the Police Combat Cross, for arresting a man who fired at him in 2012. The 27-year-old decided to celebrate the award with a night of drinking, which is normal enough. What he did after passing out at a pal’s apartment in Woodlawn was less normal, though definitely not unprecedented.

According to the New York Daily News, Donnelly woke up sometime in the middle of the night and, wearing only his underwear, wandered out of a Bronx building. After he went back inside, he mistook a neighbor’s apartment for his friend’s place (or something) and broke down the door. Donnelly then walked into the bedroom of the 30-year-old woman who lived there, a complete stranger, and punched her more than 20 times in her bed. He also drank a carton of milk he found in the fridge before fleeing.

Luckily, a surveillance camera captured some of Donnelly’s disturbing late-night episode, and his photo was distributed around the neighborhood before the NYPD realized that the suspect was one of their own. The Daily News reports that he was placed on modified duty and stripped of his gun and badge after the incident. On Monday, he was finally arrested and charged with misdemeanor assault and burglary, and has now been suspended without pay. At least he wasn’t carrying a weapon when he felt compelled to attack a random person, unlike that other guy.

For more on this story go to: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/08/cop-arrested-for-drunken-break-in-and-beating.html?om_rid=AACMTw&om_mid=_BT4S5hB87oZE1q

#2. Three NYPD officers have drunkenly shot at people in the last week

By Joe Coscarelli From New York Mag

The copycat crime spree is coming from inside the department. For the third time since last Thursday, a New York City police officer has been charged with drinking and shooting — and that’s in addition to the three additional DWIs local cops collected within 27 hours last week. It’s almost like this job drives a person to get wasted (and then, occasionally, fire a weapon at an innocent bystander).

The latest incident, breaking the all-male trend (which included an officer shooting his partner in the wrist after a bunch of beers), comes courtesy of Sgt. Wanda Anthony, who fired at a car while off-duty in New Jersey around 3:30 a.m. on Wednesday.

The tabloids have two slightly different version of events, neither better than the other. The New York Post:

The Staten Island cop, who has a tattoo of an AK-47, was wasted at the time and was coming home from a date with a man when his wife stormed out of the house and confronted her, sources said.

During the argument, she pulled out her service weapon and fired, hitting the car, the sources said. No one was injured.

And the Daily News:

[…] outside a strip club in Somerset County, N.J., NYPD Sgt. Wanda Anthony, assigned to the 122nd Precinct in Staten Island, fired at least one round at a former boyfriend and his new squeeze, law enforcement sources said. No one was hit. Anthony, who fled in a car, was pulled over and charged with driving while intoxicated following the 3 a.m. incident by the Watchung Police Dept.

That came just hours after an even worse incident in Westchester, as reported yesterday. More details do not explain much, but NYPD Officer Brendan Cronin apparently fired 13 shots, hitting a random man in his car six times, for apparently no reason:

Cronin was so drunk, he did not even remember firing his weapon, the sources said. “We have not been able to find any link between the two persons,” said Pelham Police Chief Joseph Benefico. “We have nothing to link either party to each other — no road rage, nothing.”

Then the officer reportedly pointed his 9mm at the police who chased him down after the shooting.

“We’re very concerned with a number of reports,” Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said. “I, personally, am very disturbed about the number of incidents in recent weeks that are part of a longer-term problem of inappropriate use of alcohol by members of our department.” The rest of us should probably be more concerned with our immediate safety.

IMAGE: Officer Cronin, not alone in his disgrace. Photo: NYPD

For more on this story go to: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/05/three-drunk-nypd-officers-shoot-at-people.html

#3. Eric Garner not killed by chokehold, say police unions, despite all evidence to the contrary

By Joe Coscarelli From New York Mag

Just about everyone who watched the video saw a chokehold. Mayor de Blasio said it was a chokehold; NYPD Commissioner William Bratton said, diplomatically, “this would appear to have been a chokehold”; and the city’s medical examiner said Eric Garner of Staten Island’s death was a homicide, caused by “compression of his neck (chokehold), compression of his chest and prone positioning during physical restraint by police.”

But the police unions are not buying it (because that’s their job).

“It was not a chokehold,” said Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association president Pat Lynch, as reported by DNAinfo, at a press conference today directed at “police haters.” “He was a big man who had to be brought to the ground to be placed under arrest by shorter police officers.”

“I’ve never seen a document that was more political than that press release released by the [Medical Examiner’s] office,” he added. “We spoke with experts who had never seen it released the way it was, without the facts behind it, without the Medical Examiner’s report and in parentheses, ‘Chokehold.’ That’s not a medical term.” And “compression of his neck”?

The New York Times today has a detailed look at what happens next in the Garner case. Despite the medical conclusion that it was indeed a homicide, Staten Island District Attorney Daniel M. Donovan Jr. will ultimately decide whether or not to charge the officer, Daniel Pantaleo, who has given up his gun and badge during the investigation. But as the Times notes, “It is a decision fraught with legal and political complications, all the more so because Staten Island is home to many police officers and, more than any other borough, is seen as sympathetic to law enforcement.”

And how have these things turned out historically?

In April 1994, a Staten Island man accused of dealing drugs, Ernest Sayon, died in police custody and the medical examiner ruled his death a homicide, including “by compression of the chest and neck.” A chokehold was never proven and a Staten Island grand jury declined to indict.

This time, of course, there is video, although even that now comes with complications after the videographer was arrested on a weapons charge, making him both a witness and defendant.

While the police unions said, “The mayor needs to support New York City police officers unequivocally,” de Blasio responded at a press conference of his own. “I have an immense respect for the men and women of the NYPD. They have a tough job and they do it very well,” he said. “Union leaders will say what union leaders say. We have a job to do, we’re going to do our job. I don’t let the rhetoric of union leaders get in the way of getting our job done.”

For more on this story go to: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/08/eric-garner-not-killed-by-chokehold-say-police.html?om_rid=AACMTw&om_mid=_BT4S5hB87oZE1q

See iNews Cayman related story posted July 24 2014 “Bratton’s ‘troubling’ statement” at: http://www.ieyenews.com/wordpress/brattons-troubling-statement/