NYPD Commissioner: Seeking Suspects' Intel "An Essential Element"

A New York Times story Sunday calling attention to the New York Police Department's policy of seeking intelligence from Muslims its officers arrested won't affect the program, Commissioner William Bratton said Tuesday.

"Not at all," Bratton said in an interview with the Jerusalem Post. "[T]his is an essential element of policing. I created this policy back in 1994, in New York City last time I was commissioner where every person arrested was interviewed by detectives about not necessarily the crime they committed but do they have information about other crimes and is there an ability to develop these people into confidential informants."

The Times story, which ran above the fold on Sunday's front page, cast the program – which also tries to enlist suspects to be informants – as a form of inappropriate policing.

Iran's Press TV was quick to publicize calls for a Justice Department investigation from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). "It is chilling to note that any Muslim who comes in contact with the NYPD will either be spied on or will be pressured to become a spy," said CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad. "Seeking information about crimes and criminals is appropriate. Coercing people who have no knowledge of criminal activity to spy on law-abiding members of their faith is not."

But Bratton and Deputy Commissioner John Miller sounded unmoved. "We have to get back to planet Earth for a minute," said Miller, who runs the NYPD's intelligence division. "If you don't talk to people you don't get good intelligence," Miller said. Any controversy "is driven by how the program is characterized" more than its execution. That's because "the basic tenant of policing is that when you take people into custody you try to get information from them, this is how we take guns, this is how we seize narcotics this is how we solve murders every single day."

Bratton's comments underscore what Patrick Dunleavy pointed out Monday. Using suspects to try to learn about other crimes and conspiracies is an everyday police practice, has been for years, and simply is common sense. The Times tried to make that a scandal.

Reader comments on this item

Response to Bratton/Miller's comments about gathering intelligence

Submitted by Jim, May 14, 2014 11:52

As a long-term police official and part-time professor, I fully agree with Chief Bratton's assessment about the proactive approach regareding the collecting of important information from arrestees regardingother potential criminal activity. We've been doing that since organized police forces were formed. Prior to 9-11, nineteen foreign and future hi-jackers were traveling all over the U.S. and many had contact with law enforcement. Mohammad Atta got a speeding ticket prior to the hi-jacking. The world has changed. Extremists seek to do harm to this great nation because we are a roadblock to extremist Islamist goals. I worked detectives for years and always tried to ask about other crimes a perpetrator might have committed or had knowledge of--it's called "doing your job"!! Get off of NYPD's back. We've thwarted over 65 transnational terror attacks since 9/11 because of aggressive and proactive law enforcement. I might add that Ed is living in a fantasy land--Ed obviously has never worked the streets or has a clue about those who protect Americans day in and day out.

Excellent response

Submitted by Geppetto, May 13, 2014 15:42

These gentlemen, Bratton and Miller, get it and responded the way all challenges from the Journalists who align themselves with Muslim Brotherhood organizations, should be responded to. It is not the critics of the Muslim Brotherhood and the ongoing Jihad around the world that need to be marginalized it is they who need to be exposed as the Jihad front groups they are.

It is happening. Watch yesterday (5/12/14) evenings Kelly File. She interviewed Dr. Aayan Hirsi Ali and they openly discussed the Boko Haram incident in the CAR, this groups theological roots and the role of Islam in promoting terror around the world with particular emphasis from Dr Ali on its inherent misogynistic aspects. As a former, young, Muslim girl who suffered genital mutilation and lives under a Fatwa (a Muslim death threat) Dr Ali, labeled an "Islamophobe" by CAIR, knows what she's talking about.

In a sane world...

Submitted by Ed, May 13, 2014 15:23

A sane world would free Snowden and arrest, try, jail, and hang the treasonous NY Times cadre.

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