[The sense of authoritarianism that now pervades New York City and continues to expand
its boundaries and seek deeper and deeper penetrance into the lives of every day New
Yorkers dictates that the editors of the SHADOW re-establish Kop Watch as a regular feature
of its Web site, just as it has been a feature of the print version of the Shadow since 1988.
Kop Watch is not intended to disrespect police officers in general as workers or to deny the
value of their services to the public in emergencies and in combating undeniably antisocial
behavior such as rape, theft, assault, and homicide. It is the behavior of government in general
that the Shadow focuses upon, and, in particular, the tendency of government in places like
NYC to continually redefine what had once been normal human behavior as "criminal", which
started with the Koch administration and was refined with neofascist brilliance by Giuliani and Bloomberg, the latter of whom has now thoroughly outdone the former by making the mere
act of smoking a cigarette in the open air a criminal act. It is the police state that we are going
after, not the police.

Do police officers themselves really want to be the engine of an ever more prissy and intrusive civilization that ultimately serves only real estate values and the psychological hangups of city
fathers who have sacrificed democracy in the name of fear?

The following are things in New York that used to be considered normal behavior, but which
have been redefined as crimes by the Giuliani and Bloomberg administrations:

• Non-government sponsored fourth of July fireworks.

• Drinking beer discretely from a paper bag on the street.

• Smoking marijuana anywhere.

• Putting up posters, either with tape or paste which since Giuliani has been classed with
graffiti.

• Drinking or selling drinks at a legally permitted street fair.

• Smoking in bars (inspecting bars for the presence of ashtrays has become a priority for
a Buildings Dept. that takes years to investigate leaks and sagging walls).

• Sitting on the sidewalk in public areas.

• Spontaneous demonstrations such as the ones that routinely took places in the Lower
East Side in the '80's and 90's.

• Pedestrians outside police barricades talking or communicating with people behind the
barricades who are demonstrating peacefully and legally.

• Migrating beyond the internal barricades that are intended to split up public gatherings
such as demonstrations.

• Being in a public park after the 11:00 pm to 1:00 a.m. curfew (actually initiated under Koch
and Dinkins).

• Being in a gathering of 20 or more people in a public park without a permit.

The crackdowns on the above mentioned activities were not the result of current legislation
passed against the activities but involved either the revival of enforcement of long unenforced
laws or simple testing of the waters, by city lawyers, as to what sort of repression the courts
would allow the government to exert. It is interesting that one area of city government that
has not been hit by massive layoffs has been the Mayor's personal corps of over 600 lawyers
who are employed to challenge and erode our constitutional rights.

Some of the activities subjected to crackdown were specifically political-not just the restrictions
on demonstrations and park gatherings but the redefinition of the posting of flyers and leaflets
as a form of graffiti vandalism. The crackdown on postering alone has transformed the political
scene, particularly here in the Lower East Side, from one in which communities learned of what
was going on by simply reading what was on the walls to one in which people now need to
actively seek information on the Internet. Democracy was circumvented not by censoring the
content, but by banning a medium, which amounted in practice to the same thing.

One could certainly think of a lot more things that people could do in the '80s that Giuliani in
particular got rid of, but there is of course a pattern to the things that we have listed above, in
that they are intended to break up the opportunities for community gatherings and for intercommunication between people, and have had deep implications on the culture of NYC.
Because the people of the city no longer possess their own streets and parks, it is the real
estate interests that have taken hold of them, and that was the master plan all along. By
sweeping the native New Yorkers back under the rug, the cultural situation becomes shifted
in favor of the wealthy, so called better class of citizens whose presence in the city is sought
by the owners of the land, and by the banks who loaned them the money to become the owners
of the land. That is the explanation why everything that brings New Yorkers together in groups
has been redefined over the past twenty years as a threat to public safety and a police matter.

Again, we must address this question to the police officers themselves--whom we invite to
peruse the SHADOW Web site along with the public at large. Do you wish to be savers of lives
and thwarters of crime, or the instruments of shoddy social engineering in the name of big real estate?]

+   +   +   +   +   +   +   +   +   +   +   +   +   +   +   +   +   +   +   +

Jurors Interviewed on "Rape Cops" Acquittal

[June 9, 2011] In a piece of news that has been conspicuously absent from the mainstream
press, but which was uncovered by the online NYC news source DNAinfo [http://www.dnainfo.
com/20110606/lower-east-side-east-village/jurors-believed-cops-were-guilty-of-rape-but-lack-
of-dna-forced-acquittal] and elaborated on by other homegrown Web sites, including newsvine [http://jerry611.newsvine.com/_news/2011/06/08/6809317-nyc-acquitted-rape-cop-jurors-say-
moreno-definitely-raped-her-but-csi-effect-saved-him] and The Gothamist [http://gothamist. com/2011/06/06/rape_cop_jurors_moreno_definitely_r.php], two female members of the jury
who acquitted former NYPD Officers Kenneth Moreno and Franklin Mata of rape actually
believed that Moreno had raped a young fashion executive in her East 13th Street apartment
while Mata stood by as an accessory. Melinda Hernandez told DNAinfo "In my heart of hearts,
I believe her that the officers did it."

The second juror, who refused to be named was more blunt, saying "He raped her. There is
no doubt in my mind." and admitted that the verdict was "a slap in the face for women." The
jurors, including a third, juror John Finck, who stated "We were strictly bound by the judge's instruction that there must be evidence beyond a reasonable doubt in order to convict the defendants of the major charges of the case," explained that the absence of DNA evidence
was critical in their decision to acquit.

One legal expert referred to the acquittal as a manifestation of the "CSI Effect" because, as
he speculated, that TV show has instilled a sense of dependence on technology in court
cases.  As reported in a previous Kop Watch clip, Moreno admitted to his victim during a
sting operation orchestrated by the Manhattan DA's office, in which she had met him outside
the Ninth Precinct wearing a listening device, that he had worn a condom. That sounds like a reasonable explanation for the absence of the DNA, doesn't it? This recorded admission, which
had been played back to the jury, apparently did not serve as evidence enough that the
involuntary sex act took place. Nor did the CCTV video recording of Moreno and Mata
returning to the victim's apartment three times. Nor did the record of the victim's medical examination which showed her to have a bruised cervix. Nor indeed, did the victim's own
testimony of being penetrated from behind on a vomit-soaked bed by a man who ripped off a Velcro-fastened garment -- something like a bulletproof vest -- before he got down to business.

Apparently, real, old fashioned evidence counts for nothing, and as long as you bag up your
DNA before zipping the fly of your blue polyester pants, and as long as you are a cop with a
pig PBA lawyer like Joe Tacopino, you can get away with rape.

+   +   +   +   +   +   +   +   +   +   +   +   +   +   +   +   +   +   +   +

Outcry Against "Operation Lucky Bag" Sting Operation

[May 23, 2011] Assemblywoman Grace Meng of Flushing, Queens has introduced a bill that
would prohibit police from using a tactic whereby a wallet or bag containing valuables is left
in an obvious public place and, if a person picks it up and fails to deliver it immediately to a
police officer in the vicinity, he or she is arrested by undercover cops. The tactic, deemed
"Operation Lucky Bag" by the NYPD, is supposed to be yet another "quality of life" initiative
to keep New Yorkers honest and civil. A 55 year old Flushing resident was put through the
system for three days for walking away with a purse containing some cash that had been left
in an ATM; he pleaded guilty to petty larceny in order to avoid being sent to Rikers, and now
has a criminal record.

However, in another Lucky Bag arrest, a judge threw out the case because the law states
that a person has 10 days to return lost property that he or she has found. Again in Flushing,
police detained a clergyman who had picked up an item planted by the police but released him
after he explained to them that he intended to mail it back to its rightful owner.

+   +   +   +   +   +   +   +   +   +   +   +   +   +   +   +   +   +   +   +

Jury Deliberates Fate of Alleged "Rape Cops" Moreno and Mata

[May 23, 2011] Jury deliberations continued Monday in the case of veteran NYPD Officer Kenneth Moreno, who is charged with raping an East Village fashion executive in December 1998, in her
own apartment, and his partner Officer Franklin Mata who is accused of having acted as a lookout and of falsifying information to cover up the crime, which occurred while the two cops were on
duty and in uniform. During the seven-week trial, the jury heard evidence that the cops had been summoned to the scene by a 911 call from a taxi driver who had driven the woman home from a party in Brooklyn where she had consumed too much alcohol and had vomited in the cab.
Moreno and Matas responded, and although procedure would have been to summon an
ambulance since it was a health/safety issue rather than a law enforcement issue, escorted
the woman up to her apartment. However, on a surveillance tape the cops were seen entering
and leaving the woman's 13th Street building four times using a key, and at one point they told
a building resident that they were investigating a prowler, about which they filed no report at all.
Mata is also accused of calling in a false 911 report, under an assumed name, about a homeless
man sleeping in a doorway, in order to give the cops an excuse to stay in the neighborhood and return repeatedly to the woman's apartment. The accuser, who was 27 at the time of the alleged incident, testified that while she was partially immobilized and sick from consuming an ample mixture of drinks, hours earlier, a man ripped off a Velcro garment which might have been a bulletproof vest, approached her from behind on her bed, and penetrated her. Subsequent
medical examination revealed that she had a bruised cervix. Officer Moreno admitted to
returning repeatedly to the woman's apartment but claimed that he, a reformed alcoholic, had
gone back at the woman's own behest to administer "counseling." However, he stated in the presence of his accuser at the Ninth Precinct, while she was wearing a hidden microphone
supplied by the DA's office, that he had "worn a condom" that night.
 

GLOBAL OUTLOOK is one of the very few great investigative journals that exposes 
not only the truth behind mainstream media's lies and propaganda, but the methods by 
which the media and gov't operate, from disinformation to false-flag operations.

You can get this Collector's Edition through the SHADOW for only $5.00 + $2.00 
postage (the cover price of this 296 page issue is $14.95!) Send payment by money order
to: SHADOW Press, P.O. Box 20298, New York, NY 10009