Chad Griffith

It comes as no surprise that controversy would ride the coattails of the news yesterday that Attorney General Eric Holder may suggest a federal monitor over the NYPD should stop-and-frisk be deemed unconstitutional in Floyd v. New York. Bloomberg and NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly freaked out in a teleconference with Holder the other day when they heard about the Justice Department's proposal. And yesterday, at an unrelated press conference, the m ayor made his opposition to the proposal absolutely, 100 percent clear.

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Maybe the parts of the Community Safety Act that debuted on the council floor yesterday won't even be necessary. In an exclusive report by the Daily News last night, it's been discovered that Attorney General Eric Holder and his Justice Department are thinking about asking the trial judge on Floyd v. New York--the case in motion downtown that questions the constitutionality of stop-and-frisk--to assign an inspector general to oversee the NYPD's actions should the practice be overturned. A controversy so bad, even Washington might get involved.

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C.S. Muncy

They're two bills birthed from latest NYPD controversy. One would establish an inspector general to oversee the department, and another would allow citizens to sue the police over claims of racial profiling. The two parts of the overarching Community Safety Act have divided the city's most powerful, setting up a policy showdown for the upcoming mayoral race. And today, the bills will begin their gestural journey through the City Council as Speaker Christine Quinn gears up for an unprecedented legislative maneuver on her floor.

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Not your mayor.

Ten years in command of one of the world's largest city law enforcement agencies. A solid Bloomberg ally, managing the mayor's budget cutbacks after 9/11 changed the way the NYPD does business. A fantasy for New York Republicans, the New York Post editorial page, and even fellow Voice scribe Graham Rayman. But, as yesterday's mayoral certification deadline came and went, the message is clear: NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly will not be running for City Hall anytime soon.

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Caleb Ferguson

A 26-year-old gay man was beaten eight days ago just outside Brooklyn's 79th Police Precinct by police officers who made homosexual slurs, the victim and two of his roommates who witnessed the incident tell the Voice.

The encounter, which took place around 4 a.m. on Sunday, June 2, and is under investigation by NYPD Internal Affairs, erupted after an officer standing in the precinct parking lot mistakenly accused one of the men of urinating on the side of the stationhouse, and then called in as many as 5 other cops to join in the assault.

Williamsburg waiter Josh Williams [pictured above], 5-foot-8 and 140 pounds, suffered a laceration on his face that required four stitches, bruised ribs, a black eye, and scrape on his torso. Williams and his roommates--Tony Maenza and Ben Collins, both 24--were then arrested on specious charges in what they call an effort to cover-up the attack. Maenza made an iPhone video of a portion of the incident.

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Could Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly be considering a dramatic late entry into the mayoral race? With 19 days to go before the campaign finance certification deadline, the chatter that the 71-year-old commissioner will run to replace Mayor Bloomberg reached a renewed crescendo yesterday, insiders tell the Voice.

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The NYPD's stop and frisk campaign led directly to the surge in low-level marijuana arrests, figures released today by the New York Civil Liberties Union show.

For context, marijuana arrests are the top arrest category in the entire stop and frisk program. Last year, five percent--or 26,000--of all stops were for suspected possession of marijuana. Despite the fact that whites use marijuana at a higher rate, blacks by far bore the brunt of those stops--61 percent, in all. Incredibly, just 9 percent of marijuana-based stop involved white folks.

Here's the kicker: misdemeanor law requires that the pot be in plain view, and cops can only stop people they actually see with marijuana, and yet, the drug was seized in just 8.5 percent of the stops, which means cops were either wrong or willfully wrong in the other 91.5 percent.

The numbers, the NYCLU says, "strongly suggest that officers are stopping people for alleged marijuana offenses without any justification."

Out of those 26,000 stops, just over 5,300 resulted in marijuana arrests.

"Despite the NYPD's repeated claim that its stop-and-frisk program is valuable because it targets guns, the facts show that it is much more a marijuana arrest program," the NYCLU says.

Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson is slamming a judge who dropped charges against a police officer in the fatal February 2012 shooting of an unarmed teenager. Meanwhile, the judge blamed the prosecutors for screwing up their grand jury instructions.

"It cannot be said more forcefully that we disagree with the court," Johnson said in a statement. He added he was weighing whether to bring the case to another grand jury or to appeal the decision to a higher court.

Judge Steven Barrett dismissed manslaughter charges against Police Officer Richard Haste yesterday for killing Ramarley Graham, saying that prosecutors erred in their presentation to the grand jury.

Graham's mother, Constance Malcolm, screamed, "They killed my child," as the judge moved toward his ruling from the bench.

After ejecting Malcolm from the courtroom Barrett said, "I regret that there are people who are hurt by this." He said he was required under the law to dismiss the case, but noted that prosecutors could re-file the case with another grand jury.

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FoxBroadcasting/Youtube

Remember your meme? It was fall of 2011, when computer screens were bright with speculation about a well-dressed cop with Lower Manhattan's First Precinct who kept showing to Occupy-related events. The image of the "hipster cop," or real-life Detective Rick Lee, became loved, then sort of hated, then largely disappeared into the ether as the original news peg died.

Then we saw this, the trailer for "Brooklyn Nine-Nine," a Fox show starring Andy Samberg and airing this fall. In it, Samberg plays a manchild/cop in the NYPD's fictional 99th precinct (somewhere in Brooklyn) who gets ribbed by his colleagues for his casual attire.

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C.S. Muncy

At this point, it goes without saying the controversy that is stop and frisk will be a staple of the 2013 mayoral race.

Floyd v. New York - a case that seeks to upend the controversial practice - is heating up, as the NYPD seeks to justify its usage through intimidating tutorial videos. The Community Safety Act, which would implement serious transparency measures on the boys in blue, is currently making its way through City Council, with each major figure in New York City politics taking a stand on it. And, of course, we learned last week that stop and frisk numbers are actually dropping as we move closer to the ballots.

The momentum is evident here but, for voters, their options are limited. As of now, Comptroller John C. Liu is the only candidate that has called for the complete repeal of stop and frisk across the five boroughs. Christine Quinn and Bill de Blasio has called for its reform, holding themselves back from full elimination of a policy that has racked up 5 million tallies since its inauguration.

So, when it pertains to stop and frisk, what better time for civil rights groups to call on the youth vote to get things done?

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