​The revolver used in the shooting of Police Officer Kevin Brennan has a controversial history, and a reputation as a poorly made street gun that was likely passed from hand to hand over a period of many years and may have been used in other crimes before it got to would-be killer Luis Soto.

The RG 40, a .38-caliber revolver with a two inch barrel, and its brethren are cheap, easy to use knockoffs of a standard Colt design. Critics say the weapon have no useful purpose other than to kill people at close range.

Firearms experts say the company which distributed the weapon, RG Industries, a Florida subsidiary of the German manufacturer, Rohm, went out of the gun business in the mid-1980s, so the weapon that Soto used to shoot Brennan could be more than two decades old.

"Nothing unusual about it being an older gun," a retired police officer says. "You can pass all the laws in the world, it's not going to stop people from getting firearms. There's a lot of guns on the street."

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​In more fallout from "film gate"--the NYPD's decision to show a controversial anti-Islam film to cops at an anti-terror training center--Mayor Bloomberg says it showed "terrible judgment," and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly admitted he gave an interview to the filmmakers, and called it a mistake.

The reaction from Bloomberg and Kelly make this controversy more of a lesson about their media relations policies than about the film, "The Third Jihad," itself. That's because the NYPD's statements in particular have been contradictory to say the least, and the focus is falling on top Kelly spokesman and advisor Paul Browne. (Browne has not responded to Voice emails on this.)

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​More than a year after revelations in this newspaper and others media outlets about police under-reporting of crime complaints, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has taken the unusual step of actually reminding cops that they can't ignore civilians who want to report a crime.

A department order issued at the end of last week tells cops they have to take complaints, and they can't send folks to another precinct or another police agency, or go back to the scene of a crime and then call 911, or any of the other dodges that have evolved over the past ten years.

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​In another example of the chickens coming home to roost, the NYPD has had to reveal that almost 1,500 police officers were shown a controversial film which the Voice described a year ago--in first breaking the story--as a "spectacularly offensive smear of American Muslims."

Back in late 2010, this reporter asked NYPD spokesman Paul Browne whether the film had been shown as part of a mandatory anti-terror refresher course. Browne flat out denied it had ever been shown to police officers.

When then-Voice columnist Tom Robbins subsequently asked Browne the same question, the spokesman declared it was "shown only a couple of times when officers were filling out paperwork before the actual coursework began."

Well, the Brennan Center of Justice obtained NYPD records--it took a year, natch--which show at least 1,489 officers, including 68 lieutenants and 159 sergeants saw the film. In addition, the film was shown over and over for between three months and a year, according to a New York Times story in today's paper.

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​City Councilman Al Vann, who has represented Bedford-Stuyvesant in some elected capacity since 1974, weighed in on the NYPD's refusal to release 11 years of 81st Precinct crime statistics, calling it "unacceptable."

"Given the past controversy in the 81st Precinct, it is especially important that the NYPD be forthcoming and transparent with respect to what occurred in the precinct over the past decade," he said, in a statement. "By concealing this public information, the NYPD is not only violating the law, but jeopardizing the significant progress made in rebuilding the relationship and trust between the Bedford-Stuyvesant community and the 81st Precinct."

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​Republican candidate Ron Paul may have Libertarian leanings, but that hasn't stopped him from requesting tens of millions in earmark money from the government for pet projects in his district.

For example, in 2010, Paul asked for $4.5 million for the annual youth fair in Wharton County, Texas, population 41,000, records show. Events include the "chicken chase," "bull blowout," the "wee folks pet show," and the "princess pageant."

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​The web is abuzz today with reports that the Department of Homeland Security has approved collecting of personal information from television anchors, news reporters, bloggers, and anyone else who uses social media.

The so-called Media Monitoring Initiative allows the government to keep data on people who use "traditional and/or social media in real time to keep their audience situationally aware and informed." The program is housed in the DHS National Operations Center.

"The new provisions in the NOC's write-up means that any reporter, whether someone along the lines of Walter Cronkite or a budding blogger, can be victimized by the agency," according to a writeup on the website, rt.com.

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​Continuing its record of stone-walling public inquiry, the NYPD is refusing to release crime statistics for the past 11 years from the scandal-tainted 81st Precinct in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn.

As a result, the New York Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit this week asking a judge to force the department to follow the state's Freedom of Information Law. The law places "statistical or factual tabulations or data" squarely within the sorts of records that public agencies are required to make public.

The 81st Precinct was the nexus of the scandal involving Police Officer Adrian Schoolcraft, who was carted off to a psychiatric ward three weeks after making allegations that his commanders were manipulating crime statistics. Schoolcraft secretly made recordings inside the precinct, which were the centerpiece of the Voice's award-winning "NYPD Tapes" series. The disclosures led to several internal investigations, and transfers and disciplinary action against the commander and four of his subordinates.

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​Investigators with the Drug Enforcement Agency helped a Mexican narcotics kingpin transfer million of dollars in illegal cash profits, the New York Times reports today.

The DEA program recalls a similar, much smaller scale operation first reported in the Voice last month in our article about government informant Angel Perez. The Voice article disclosed that Perez convinced U.S. Immigration and customs agents to move $500,000 in cash from the Dominican Republic to Miami and Puerto Rico. But, somehow, the smuggling operation didn't result in any arrests or even the identification of the source of the money.

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​A bit of good news as the passing of 2011 nears: homicides were down five percent for the year, the overall crime rate was flat, and fires killed just 64 people, the second lowest number of fire fatalities since 1916, the mayor's office says. But the neighborhood crime numbers reveal several troubled areas, where crime jumped sharply.

In a rare moment of rhetorical restraint, the mayor's announcement noted that "near record levels for public safety were maintained in 2011." (Usually, these press releases tell us New York is the "safest large city in America.")

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