Ray Kelly's Gulag, The NYPD commissioner's secret list

Kelly was present Monday night during the Eviction at Zuccotti Park.

Ray Kelly has this list of Officers who cannot be transferred without his approval. The article goes on to say on the list are also female officers who are pregnant, Officers who are married to other Officers, Officers who have been in some sort of incident who requested transfers later on but were denied, and so on.

Some way, some how, the Village Voice has managed to get their hands on this.

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly keeps a secret list of police officers who cannot be transferred without his specific approval. The list, which the Voice obtained from an NYPD employee, is part of a 23-page spreadsheet that contains the names of 2,300 officers, their ranks, their ID numbers, old units, new units, and coded descriptions of thousands of personnel decisions throughout the past several years. Strangely, the document isn't marked with any police insignia or command titles.

In all, according to the list, Kelly banned transfers without his specific approval for at least 96 police officers over the past several years and rejected pending transfers for at least 59 more, which overrules his subordinates. He also transferred 228 officers to VIPER, where cops sit and stare at video screens to monitor crime in public housing—a unit seen as a dumping ground for those in trouble or out of favor, where careers can languish for years. Hundreds more names on the list are of officers "transferred for cause," or sent to another command for some transgression, which could be anything from serious misconduct to irritating a commander. Most of the officers who made the list don't know that the commissioner essentially froze their careers in place, in what some department insiders say is Kelly's version of the city's notorious former "rubber room" system for teachers awaiting adjudication of their cases, where they were asked to sit indefinitely in classrooms away from students. Others call the list Kelly's "gulag," a way of punishing officers without forcing them to retire or quit.

If most of this article is true then I'm now realizing how many pissed off cops are really around here. A cop knows whats coming when he/she signs up to be an Officer but I would bet my Dinner that no cop wants to be assigned to the projects. It already says above me that it's a dumping ground, I see for myself this is a dumping ground, how an this possibly get any better? Moving on...

Here are a few examples, with names. Some you just might remember...

One of the officers designated "do not transfer without PC approval" is James Albertelli, who was indicted in 2005 on bribery and coercion charges when he was assigned to the 13th Precinct in Manhattan. But in 2006, he was acquitted of all charges, and Patrolmen's Benevolent Association boss Patrick Lynch called it a "politically motivated case." "With nothing more than a bogus complaint and no evidence, the DA's office charged two honorable police officers in a successful attempt to generate pre-election publicity," Lynch said. And then, in January 2008, Albertelli was transferred to the 111th Precinct with the notation "Don't move again without PC approval."

Kathleen Clifford, reads, "Do not transfer again without explicit PC approval." Clifford's "crime": Records show that she arrived at work 25 minutes late. Her sergeant told her to change into her uniform immediately. Instead, she detoured to look at a sheet that listed assignments for the day. As a result, she was penalized 10 vacation days for failing to comply with a supervisor's order. That seems like a fairly inconsequential transgression.

Sergeant Michael Miller was also placed on the "do not transfer" list, one of about a dozen officers put on there following an investigation of corruption allegations in Brooklyn South Narcotics. The notation sends him to the 120th Precinct in Staten Island. Last month, Miller saved his own life during a struggle with a gunman by ingeniously sticking his finger into his assailant's gun barrel and forcing his thumb between the hammer and the firing pin. In other words, an officer who was transferred in the wake of one investigation was hailed as a hero a few years later.

Perhaps the most famous officer to be frozen in place by Kelly is Kenneth Boss, who was one of the four officers who shot and killed unarmed Guinean immigrant Amadou Diallo in 1999. For the past 13 years, Boss, who is still on the force, has been without his police-issued guns and assigned to nonenforcement duties. Although Boss was acquitted of all charges in the Diallo case, Kelly refuses to rehabilitate him, which is understandable. Boss has sued twice to force the department to return him to full duty, but the lawsuits were dismissed each time.

And then there's Richard Neri, who shot and killed unarmed 19-year-old Timothy Stansbury in early 2004. Kelly suspended him for 30 days. Neri was placed on the "do not transfer" list and sent to the property clerk division, where he will presumably serve out his career but remain employed and likely receive a pension. The city paid $2 million to settle a lawsuit filed by Stansbury's family.

Another officer who made Kelly's "do not transfer" list is Alain Schaberger. According to the entry, Schaberger had been on modified assignment for some reason in the Manhattan South command. Kelly ordered him transferred from Manhattan South to the 84th Precinct in Brooklyn. In March, as he was responding to a domestic-violence call in the 84th, Schaberger was pushed over a railing and struck his head, killing him. His funeral was attended by thousands of police officers, Commissioner Kelly, and Mayor Bloomberg, who referred to him as a "quiet, gentle soul." His commander called him a "true cop's cop."

More examples in the link.

It's been known here that Kelly doesnt go for favoritism, but it shows that:

Assistant Chief Joseph Cunneen ordered that Sergeant Steven McGuire be transferred to a command near his house. "Move closer to home AC Cunneen," the entry for McGuire reads. That entry sounds an awful lot like Cunneen was doing a favor for McGuire, and Kelly went along with it.

Yet at the same time:

Kelly, insiders say, doesn't like people coming directly to him to ask for favorable transfers for a protégé, nor does he like people using backdoor connections to win transfers. Just two weeks ago, as the Daily News reported, Kelly ignored letters from State Senator Eric Adams and Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. asking him to appoint Lieutenant Robert Gonzalez as head of training. Instead, Kelly selected James O'Keefe, who held the job during the mid-1990s. He described O'Keefe as someone who met the highest possible standards. He never interviewed Gonzalez, the News reported. For his part, Gonzalez was miffed that he didn't get the interview, telling the News, "It would have been nice to be granted an interview and taken seriously." Similarly on a number of occasions, the list shows, Kelly has rejected transfer requests in ways that appear to reject favoritism. For example, when Detective Denise Marcano was up to transfer to the Real Time Crime Center, where cops monitor crime trends, Kelly himself turned her down. The spreadsheet notes: "Disapproved by PC. Has to go through channels."

Continued

That entry suggests that someone tried to bring Marcano in through the back door, and Kelly rejected it.

Theres another set of examples within the link that shows Officers who put in a transfer and were denied didnt have a reason stated as to why they were rejected.

The use of penalty transfers and freezing cops in place rather than firing them shows another side of Kelly, insiders say. "He doesn't want to fire cops," a source says. "He would rather stick you somewhere to teach you a lesson, and then if you straighten up, you can come back. He actually wants to give you a second chance." Indeed, from January 2011 through the end of August, Kelly fired just two of 147 officers found guilty of civilian-complaint-related disciplinary infractions. In 2010, he fired no officers from cases referred by the Civilian Complaint Review Board. That hesitancy to fire officers can generate controversy. One cop who beat a fellow officer with a beer mug wasn't fired. Instead, he was sent into VIPER for a couple of years and then into reinstatement training to see if he was ready to return to enforcement duties. A cop critical of the handling of this officer's case says: "The NYPD should have gotten rid of him sooner. Instead, his pension keeps getting bigger."

What about the second chances of people who did no crime, but were at the wrong place at the wrong time? What about second chances for someone who was merely acting in self defense? So a person can assault another person but because he has a "badge", he should just get a demotion, some classes, and right back in?

Sorry I made this super long but I wanted to provide some of the content here for those who cant or are too lazy to click, I really use to like this guy but whatever OWS is here for, I dont care anymore, dirty laundry is coming out.

VillageVoice

And so your point is?

Law enforcement works on suspicion all the time.

I'm not clear just what you want or think should happen?

Are there people you want dismissed?

Are there people you want back on the street with a loaded gun?

What do you want?

I wanted to share this here considering everything going on with nypd and ows and Ray Kelly. DUH


Does that not make just a LITTLE sense to you?

Sounds a lot like office politics. Every CEO has these types of lists.

Wish I could be a fly on the wall near the water cooler at the NYPD after this list hit the papers.

Edit to add: Clearing OWS from Zuccotti park or maintaining barriers during marches took more than just Kelly's 'dregs', especially the 2-month anniversary march, they had thousands out and most of them were in riot gear. And don't nearly all rookies start out in the projects? Everyone has to expect that if you screw up, piss off the boss, you end up with the s*** jobs.