Showing posts with label New York City Police Department. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New York City Police Department. Show all posts

Thursday, June 04, 2009

Rape Evidence And The NYPD











Black Cop Shot Down In Harlem By White Cops: The Race Angle

The way to cure this malaise is to shoot for a NYPD that is about half female at all levels.

Op-Ed Columnist - Is Rape Serious? - NYTimes.com When a woman reports a rape, her body is a crime scene. She is typically asked to undress over a large sheet of white paper to collect hairs or fibers, and then her body is examined with an ultraviolet light, photographed and thoroughly swabbed for the rapist’s DNA. It’s a grueling and invasive process that can last four to six hours and produces a “rape kit” — which, it turns out, often sits around for months or years, unopened and untested. Stunningly often, the rape kit isn’t tested at all because it’s not deemed a priority. If it is tested, this happens at such a lackadaisical pace that it may be a year or more before there are results (if expedited, results are technically possible in a week). .... this isn’t justice; it’s indifference. ..... The report found that in Los Angeles County, there were at last count 12,669 rape kits sitting in police storage facilities. More than 450 of these kits had sat around for more than 10 years, and in many cases, the statute of limitations had expired. ..... There are no good national figures, and one measure of the indifference is that no one even bothers to count the number of rape kits sitting around untested. ..... a broad distaste for rape cases as murky, ambiguous and difficult to prosecute, particularly when they involve (as they often do) alcohol or acquaintance rape. ....... “They talk about the victims’ credibility in a way that they don’t talk about the credibility of victims of other crimes” ...... one shining exception: New York City has made a concerted effort over the last decade to test every kit that comes in. The result has been at least 2,000 cold hits in rape cases, and the arrest rate for reported cases of rape in New York City rose from 40 percent to 70 percent ........ Some Americans used to argue that it was impossible to rape an unwilling woman. Few people say that today, or say publicly that a woman “asked for it” if she wore a short skirt. But the refusal to test rape kits seems a throwback to the same antediluvian skepticism about rape as a traumatic crime.
Op-Ed Columnist - After Wars, Mass Rapes Persist - NYTimes.com a new foreign policy agenda is emerging around issues like poverty, genocide, climate change and a topic that until recently was hushed up — sexual violence. .......... mass rape as an element of warfare in Congo, Darfur, Bosnia, Rwanda, Liberia — but the lesson here in Liberia in West Africa is that even when the fighting ends, the rape continues ......... the 14-year civil war in Liberia, from 1989 to 2003, when as many as three-fourths of women were raped .......... so many of the girls are pre-teens. ...... the best way to deal with rape — whether in Darfur or Liberia, or even in the United States — is to demystify it, dismantle the taboos, and address it directly ........ Congo and Sudan, where the brutality is particularly appalling ...... even when wars end, mass rape continues by inertia. ...... Liberia’s president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first woman elected a president in Africa, has sent strong signals that rape is intolerable.
Well: My Brief Life as a Woman The side effect that surprised me most were the hot flashes — not that I got them, I was expecting that, but by how intense they were. They often woke me in the middle of the night and made me sweat so much that I drenched the sheets. In midwinter I’d walk our miniature poodle, Bijou, wearing shorts and a T-shirt. I sometimes felt as if Deb could fry eggs on my chest. (It’s also a bit disconcerting when your hot flashes are fiercer than your wife’s.) ...... certainly under-represented in the arts. Where are the great hot flash novels or movies? How come there’s not a Web site or magazine called “Hot Flash Monthly”? ....... Not only was I temporarily menopausal, but it appeared that I was also turning into a teenage girl from the early 1970s. ........ my six months of hormone therapy ...... my lifelong sense that the world of women is hormonal and mysterious, and that we men don’t have the semblance of a clue. ........ when your significant female other bursts into tears at the drop of a dinner plate or turns on you like a rabid pit bull — whether she’s pregnant, having her period or in the throes of menopause — believe her when she blames it on the hormones.

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Wednesday, May 27, 2009

An Event Invite From DL21C: This Can't Be Real

Kirsten Gillibrand Is A Good Choice

This is not happening. I think this is a major league technical error. I once pressed a button somewhere and everyone in my Yahoo mail contacts list ended up getting an invite to link with me on LinkedIn. One email back read, I would really like to get back in touch with you, but I really don't know I want to do LinkedIn and Facebook.

Or this is a group account, and another DL21Cer is playing a prank on the honorable Ms. Caputo by quietly adding my name to the guest list. Which one?

Or Ms. Caputo is worried about the future political fallouts from pressing two bogus charges against me, bogus as determined by the New York City authorities: I hired no lawyer. That is going to become really problematic after I win the Nobel Peace Prize next year. Here is a recent email from the guy who only a few days back became Prime Minister of Nepal:

Time To Rally Around Madhav Nepal
Madhav Nepal Would Be A Great Choice
Options For A New Coalition Government

But the two women running for office in New York are named Brooke Ellison and Jessica Lappin. I am honored to be Facebook friends with both, and to have an active Facebook friendship with one of them. Brooke is my favorite New York politician. She makes my day every time she says something to me.

I am a Third World guy. I am not an Indiana person. I ran away from Indiana. And I still think Dan Berger is a major league asshole, a lowly staffer to a lowly Congressman (as measured by the standards of world history). I mean, who gives a fuck about Charlie Rangel? I don't. Nobody seemed to have heard of him down there in Alabama. I asked a whole bunch of black guys.

My life for most of this year has been at the Netizen blog, not the Barackface blog. Barackface was last year, or at least the first half when I was on the surface. I am a tech startup guy, I am not a politician. And no, this is not a career change. Internet access is the voting right for this 21st century. I am Third World (that is the nigger version). I am Global South (that is the Afro Americo version).

This invite has opened up a can of worms for me.

The first time NYPD took me away for a night, two of the questions on the way were, is that your car, and where is the tunnel? I have been through so many 9/11 generated humiliations, this was not the first time, I was yawning. The day 9/11 happened, I happened to be in a small town in KY. The locals called the cops on ME! 9/11 did not make this country racist. This country was racist way before 9/11, like way before.

And then the little nonprofit motherfucker Justin Krebs did what he did. A few days back I also had a Drinking Liberally invite to show up for his organization's sixth birthday party. I thought I had unsubscribed from their mailing list.

This is de ja vu.

These people must really not like Bobby Jindal. (Bobby 2016, Until Then Adios)

NYPD and the immigration people could work in close coordination on everything except that on April 22 recently the court clerk said they sent my immigration letter last year to "Indiana!" NYPD forgot to tell the immigration people that I was, well, in New York! NYPD, New York Police Department. Hello.

April 22 Immigration Court Date

The six months felt like a death sentence. Once I got into a really bad road accident upstate in April 2002. Road ice in April, can you imagine? I realized the difference between life and death was three seconds, 1001, 1002, 1003. I counted. Another time I missed a major 100 vehicle pileup on the interstate in Atlanta by only a few hours: dense fog. I was a few hours too early. Another time I missed a bridge collapse in Oklahoma by a few hours. I was a few hours too late. One fine morning - like 1 AM - a bunch of Texas police officers rained bullets about 10 feet from me. I was not holding a wallet, but they later said they thought the gun was inside the vehicle. I once drove overnight through a hurricane: I followed it up along the East Coast.

Summary.
  • She did like me, a few different times, including on day one. Day one was special, but the little nonprofit motherfucker had to mess up.
  • Finally in early 2008 especially after the Zipper bar event I was like, it is not like I don't like you back, but we have to talk. Day one was the only day one there ever was going to be.
  • But she has to act protective of a lowly Congressional staffer and a little nonprofit motherfucker. (Mideast Peace: Tech Industry Style) At the Texas event I decided, okay, so your latest is that you don't like me, I respect that. I have seen these pendulum swings a few times.
  • This was no Harvard bond. Mike Luchipuchinachi never went to Harvard. Dumb white guys including those that might have gone to Harvard love doing the border patrol thing: color line border patrol.
  • But showing up for DL21C events was my right. I thought and still think DL21C would be honored to have me. You can not like a guy, and then not like a guy, and then that be a reason he can't show up for public political events.
  • By January this year even that logic got boring. Barack was already in. The presidential politics is all I care about. I still don't get excited about local races. And I had things to take care of.
  • I like doing creative, innovative work. My attention had shifted.
  • This was a broad experience in race and gender. That is what it boils down to. A sexist pig, racist bitch thing. A racist, sexist pig thing.
But this invite did remind me of a Senator Kirsten article I recently read on the Huffington Post and commented on there.

Renewing My Commitment To Our Veterans Huffington Post (Blog Post by Senator Kirsten)

It also reminded me of a recent New York Times article I read about the Twitter guys. The venue seems to be the same. Did someone say Baruch?

A Night Out With | Biz Stone and Evan Williams The Twitter Guys New York Times

I am not really angry about the six months. I have had a technical attitude since I got out in November. There were legal details that needed taken care of. The two city charges were soon gone. Then the immigration thing had to be taken care of.

I don't think this invite is real. So I am not going. The last thing I want is to show up for a DL21C event and then get told I am not welcome, to be shown the door. Also, political events like this one don't excite me all that much. At some level it is scary how they can do the exact same thing over and over again. The format is so concrete. It scares my innovative mind.

Google's Newest Venture: Google Ventures
Taking The Number 2 Spot On Google Search For Donut Android

That makes me think of another detail. At one point in late 2007, early 2008 my attitude was, so what do you want? You like me? You don't like me? Or do you just want me to join DL21C? I don't see the point. I don't get the impression DL21C wants to do anything more than it is doing already. You don't need me to join DL21C. But if you do, here is what I would like to suggest. I had a whole bunch of digital stuff to suggest. I guess that was like Steve Wozniak taking his prototype to the HP people. They were absolutely not interested.

It makes no sense for me to show up for DL21C events unless things are normal between Ms. Caputo and me one on one, outside of DL21C. Right now I don't think it is. So I will stay put with my tech startup work. Fuck politics.

Twitter anyone?

But I have to be honest, there is a political animal part of me that keeps going back to Godfather I and Godfather III where the Marlon Brando and Al Pacino characters are opposed to retaliating after attempts on their lives. Instead they want to do business with the strong opponents, strong enough to have made attempts on their lives.

"That is not what I wanted!" says Al disapproving of the retaliation.



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