New York Post reporter Doug Auer allegedly became the target of police ire after he wrote a scandalous story about an illicit Labor Day BBQ on the roof of police headquarters. Apparently, nothing is as sacred to New York’s Finest as roasted meat, fire code be damned.

According to Mr. Auer, current and retired cops responded on an unofficial NYPD message board with jeers, threats and personal details (including the reporter’s home address and personal photos from his Facebook page), Gothamist reported at the time.

Mr. Auer, who said he took down his Facebook page in response, is back–and now he’s commenting on his private Facebook page. He's also threatening “atomic wedgies” to those who come after him.

“So, I had to take my account down for a while because, as a journalist, I wrote a controversial story that upset some retired NYPD cops who, in turn, issued threats against me and my family,” Mr. Auer wrote on his newly reactivated Facebook page.

“There may be more hard roads ahead, but we’ll tackle the obstacles with courage and dignity. And to those who come after us, we will mete out justice . . . with wedgies. Atomic wedgies!”

Zoe West. (via Animal New York)

Almost a year to the day after she was first arrested for participating in Andy Golub's nude painting stunt in Times Square, 5-foot-2 model Zoe West is finally getting paid by the city. Though it looks like she's been charging an hourly rate ... and has kept the meter running since she was first brought in.

Ms. West's lawyer Ron Kuby told The New York Postthat the petite beauty had settled out of court with the city for $15,000 for her false arrest late last August. (Technically, you cannot be arrested for public nudity if it's for performance purposes.)

"The beauty of New York City is a naked girl can win a nice suit," Mr. Kuby said, probably after thinking all night about how he was going to phrase it for the paper.

For her part, Ms. West is going to use the money and move to Manhattan to find a job. Hopefully she realizes that getting paid for performance art isn't something that happens every day here.

Dimitry Sheinman in Inwood Hill Park with his daughter and his dog in 2004. (Photo: TheSheinmanSource.com)

Dimitry Sheinman is an author, painter, self-proclaimed clairvoyant and, most importantly, a suspect in the brutal 2004 killing of Juilliard student Sarah Fox.

In June, after several years in Africa, Mr. Sheinman returned to New York to deliver police information that he claimed he obtained through psychic visions—and to shop around a book about his experience with this still-unsolved Manhattan murder mystery.

About a month after Mr. Sheinman’s re-emergence, the Fox case sprang back into the headlines when an unnamed official told reporters that DNA from a discman found near Fox’s body matched a chain that Occupy Wall Street protesters used to hold open gates at subway stations to provide commuters with free rides. A day later, another unnamed official revealed the DNA match was the result of an error: evidence from both cases was tainted by a lab worker.

In 2004, then-DA Robert Morgenthau said that Mr. Sheinman was the “number-one suspect, but there is not enough evidence to charge him.” Police and the district attorney’s office declined to update that statement, and the investigation is still open.

The Observer sat down with Mr. Sheinman at a Midtown bar earlier this month. Accompanied by his wife, Jane, who has stood by him since he was named as a suspect in the Fox case, he was unassuming, with closely cropped salt-and-pepper hair and well-muscled arms poking out of a tight T-shirt.

Mr. Sheinman, who was born in Moscow, spoke rapidly, with a thick Russian accent, fixing his wide blue eyes intently on us throughout the conversation. As a demonstration of the existence of psychic “sensitivities,” he asked us to hold our arm across the table.

“This might be a little strange for you, but look at this, I’m not going to touch you,” he said, passing his fingers over our skin and ever-so-slightly grazing the arm hairs that rose up as he moved. “Here you’re starting to feel what I’m doing, and at first you didn’t, but then you did. And so, I was pulling a little bit on your flesh. I can go more deeper, then I know things about you. It’s like a computer, 0-1-1-1-0-0. That just shows me your amount of sensitivity; people sometimes block it. Like, I also—I know what you feel, it sounds creepy to regular people.”

Indeed, Mr. Sheinman’s claims do sound disturbing to some. According to Mr. Sheinman, detectives began suspecting him in the Fox case after his first psychic vision, which occurred while he was being questioned in the police precinct. He details the experience in the third chapter of his manuscript.

While looking at a map of Inwood Hill Park, where Ms. Fox was found naked, strangled and surrounded by tulip petals, Mr. Sheinman writes that he was “transported to the murder site, suspended from above,observing the nightmare unfolding below,” with Ms. Fox “hovering over the crime scene” beside him. Mr Sheinman said he shared his observations with the police in an attempt to help them solve the crime.

“I had a vision of the killer grabbing her and punching her and, as a result, smashing her ribs. So I said maybe she has a broken rib,” Mr. Sheinman remembered.

A question from the police provoked another psychic revelation, he said.

“They asked if he f--ked her. ...You know, they tried to speak in that kind of a tone to, like, strike up camaraderie between sick minds,” said Mr. Sheinman. “I saw her clothes neatly piled up ... and her tampon, on top of the clothes. So I thought, my God, she had the period. Probably not, that’s what I said.”

After he was questioned, police asked Mr. Sheinman to return to the 8precinct again. During this visit, he made another observation about the crime. However, Mr. Sheinman said he’s not sure whether it was genuine clairvoyance.

“This one big-shot detective was insinuating a stick, so I don’t even think it’s a clairvoyant vision ...Then they go, ‘Did he put a stick into her?’” Mr. Sheinman said. “Then he was showing me with his hand, and then maybe clairvoyantly, or whatever, I thought maybe he did, but I’m not sure that’s pure clairvoyance.”

Whether it was clairvoyance or not, Mr. Sheinman said his three revelations about Ms. Fox’s death all proved correct. Since they also all involved facts investigators hadn’t revealed to the public, Mr. Sheinman became the police’s main suspect.

Mr. Sheinman steadfastly maintained his innocence and refused to have further discussions with detectives.

Both the NYPD and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office have declined multiple requests to comment on this case.

Prior to his trance at the precinct, Mr. Sheinman’s neighbors brought him to the attention of the police. Mr. Sheinman often walked his dog in the park where Ms. Fox’s body was found, and he admits he regularly got into minor altercations when people questioned him about why the large Rhodesian Ridgeback wasn’t on a leash. In his book, Mr. Sheinman
detailed the “unpleasant” experience of being “pestered every other second” by people concerned by his dog.

One year after Ms. Fox’s murder, Mr. Sheinman got into another confrontation in the park that resulted in him being charged with
assaulting another man and spending 59 days on Riker’s Island. Ms. Sheinman claims the incident occurred after the other man’s dog jumped on her and that the man was clearly aware of Mr. Sheinman’s status as a suspect in the Fox case.

“He punched someone whose dog jumped on my belly. I was eight months pregnant lying in the meadow in Inwood Park,” Ms. Sheinman said. “My husband pulls the dog off, and suddenly the owner is right there screaming ‘You bloody murderer!’ And he punched him.”

According to The Daily News, law enforcement sources said Mr. Sheinman’s assault prosecution was “part of a psychological squeeze on Sheinman as the anniversary of Fox’s slaying approache[d].” However, Mr. Sheinman’s arrest yielded no new information about the Fox killing, and the experience convinced the Sheinmans to get out of the country and move to Cape Town once he served his sentence.

While in South Africa, Mr. Sheinman began writing his book. He said he used his psychic abilities to travel to the past and review the events surrounding the murder as they happened.

“I had to go back in time and see how the whole thing was happening,” Mr. Sheinman said. “I literally felt what the police ate, how the coffee bubbled up in their stomachs.”

Mr. Sheinman also said he has gotten in touch with other professed clairvoyants to work on solving the Fox case. Along with four other alleged psychics, Mr. Sheinman said he had visions about the murder that led him to focus on the name of a man that he believes may have been involved in the murder.

When he arrived back in New York City last month, Mr. Sheinman delivered the police a letter with information gleaned from himself and his fellow clairvoyants. Mr. Sheinman invited the press to wait outside as he brought the envelope into the precinct. Law enforcement sources told the news site DNAInfo they were “unable to question Sheinman further because he still has an attorney of record dating back to when he was originally questioned in the case. Mr. Sheinman’s letter named a former teacher of Ms. Fox’s at Juilliard who was reportedly ruled out as a suspect eight years ago.

Mr. Sheinman dismissed reports that the police wanted to question him about the case beyond the information in his letter.

“The police, when they said that they want to talk to us or whatever, that was like their form of harassment, because I made sure all the information that I know of is in the letter,” said Mr. Sheinman. “If I have any information—new information that I think would help police to catch—my God I want to catch the guy, I would give them immediately that information, obviously.”

Mr. Sheinman reported he and his wife were planning to head back to Africa in mid-July. As of press time, calls to his U.S. cell phone went unanswered.

hwalker@observer.com

An unidentified person made the distress call via radio transmission— at the (coincidentally) stoner-loving time of 4:20pm. The caller claimed a boat named the Blind Date had exploded  and then sunk 17 nautical miles off the coast of central New Jersey. It was reported that all 21 passengers had made it onto life rafts but many were suffering injuries from the incident.

"We got to the reported location within the hour but by 6:30 we looked into the possibility of it being a hoax call," Captain Gregory P. Hitchen of the Coast Guard, said in a press conference at 10am this morning. "With the weather conditions last night, if there was an explosion like the one reported it would have been easy to spot debris, bright orange life rafts or an oil slick from one of our helicopters."

After determining the call was most likely a scam, the Coast Guard offered a $3,000 reward for anyone with information about the person responsible for the false reports. If prosecuted, this federal offense could cost the prankster fines up to $250,000 or 10 years in prison.

"There are many motives for one to do such a thing," Captain Hitchens explained. "For a variety of reasons, people like the attention they get from watching the boats and helicopters go out and search. It's very strange."

June 14 2011, almost exactly a year ago, an unidentified caller reported a sinking 33-foot sailboat with four passengers taking on water in the same Sandy Hook bay. Like yesterday's effort, the search was extensive but fruitless and later ruled as a hoax. The Coast Guard is currently looking into the possibility of a connection between the two incidents. While last years call was at 3:20 and not 4:20, the internet is still abuzz with the possible non-coincidence of yesterdays prankster making his report at a universally adopted "burn time" for marijuana users.

Isn't the general mainstream consensus that stoners are relaxed and unmotivated? Whatever happened to listening to The Dark Side of The Moon while tripping off of the technicolor visuals of The Wizard of Oz and wolfing down Taco Bell in your parents basement?

Luka Magnotta posing in front of the Hollywood Sign in a picture dated to 2007. (Photo: Flickr)

Could Canadian killer and infamous internet villain Luka Magnotta be behind a Hollywood murder mystery? After an international manhunt, German police say they have arrested Luka Magnotta in Berlin over ten days after he allegedly killed and dismembered a man named Lin Jun, posted a gruesome video of the crime online and mailed the body parts to the headquarters of Canadian political parties. However, The Observer has uncovered information that could potentially link Mr. Magnotta to an infamous case from earlier this year where the severed head and hands of a man were found on a wooded trail near the Hollywood Sign.

Update (6/8/12 8:37 A.M.): The LAPD has confirmed they are investigating the possibility Mr. Magnotta was involved in the Hollywood Sign killing.

Mr. Magnotta is a self-described male model and sometime escort who became infamous on the internet in late 2010 after online sleuths tied him to a series of videos showing a man killing kittens by drowning them and suffocating them in a vacuum bag. Over the past few years, Mr. Magnotta has used a series of online accounts and aliases to promote himself and discuss his alleged participation in the kitten killings. Immediately after the video of the Canadian murder, which includes footage of necrophilia and potential cannibalism, was posted online, Mr. Magnotta disappeared and law enforcement began an international manhunt saying they believed he fled to Europe.

Luka Magnotta posing as James Dean in Los Angeles. (Photo: Luka-Magnotta.Deviantart.com)

While Mr. Magnotta was on the lam, a series of YouTube accounts appeared commenting on the case. Experts have said at least one of the accounts, which used the user name "Beavis Butthead," "sounds exactly like" it was being operated by Mr. Magnotta himself. An online gaming account that had been used by Mr. Magnotta in the past also showed activity following his disappearance. When the German police arrested Mr. Magnotta, they found him at an internet cafe, further indicating he was accessing the web while on the run. Detective Sergeant Antonio Paradiso of the Montreal Police Service told us Mr. Magnotta "most probably" made online postings while he was on the lam, but it is very difficult to confirm for certain.

"That's very difficult to verify, we're still making verifications. There are all these sites anyone can access, it's incredible how difficult and complicated it could get," Mr. Paradiso said of the YouTube accounts potentially belonging to Mr. Magnotta.

One suspicious account that emerged while Mr. Magnotta evaded capture used the name HollywoodLoveLetters.

Update (6/6/12 3:31 A.M.): A group of activists affiliated with the organization Last Chance For Animals has taken responsibility for creating the HollywoodLoveLetters account on YouTube. They claim it was part of an "investigation" into Mr. Magnotta.

The account opened on Friday and its first action was"liking" footage of an interview with Mr. Magnotta. HollywoodLoveLetters followed that up soon afterward by posting a video entitled "The James Dean Killer - Luka Rocco Magnotta." Prior to the video's being posted, no public accounts attributed the "James Dean Killer" moniker to Mr. Magnotta, but the alleged killer himself has a documented interest in the late movie star. He once named Dean as one of his idols, has claimed to have undergone cosmetic surgery to look more like the actor and has posed for photo shoots dressed as Dean.

The "James Dean Killer" video featured a description calling Mr. Magnotta "the sexiest serial killer ever to walk the earth." Many of the online sleuths who have been following Mr. Magnotta commented on the video claiming the poster must be the alleged killer himself, but HollywoodLoveLetters never directly responded to these comments.

Purported family photos of Luka Magnotta that appeared in the YouTube video entitled "The James Dean Killer - 1 Man 1 Icon - Luka Rocco Magnotta." (Photo: YouTube)

Originally, the avatar used on the HollywoodLoveLetters profile was a mashup of the gay pride flag and the U.S. flag. Over the weekend, HollywoodLoveLetters switched the picture to a shot of the Hollywood sign. On Sunday, HollywoodLoveLetters began directly referring to the Hollywood Sign killing by "liking" a video news report on the case. That day, HollywoodLoveLetters also posted another video about Mr. Magnotta entitled "The James Dean Killer - 1 Man 1 Icon - Luka Rocco Magnotta." This second video features several purported personal photos of Mr. Magnotta including pictures described as showing his parents in the 1980's and him at five months old that do not seem to have appeared online prior to the video's release. In the purported photo of his parents, his mother is scrawled out. A distorted voice in the video also utters the words "The Nine Satanic Statements," which come from the bible of the Church of Satan. Last April, a post titled "The Nine Satanic Statements, Sins and Rules Of The Earth" appeared on one of the many blog sites that seem to have been maintained by Mr. Magnotta. The naming convention of the newest HollywoodLoveLetters video also matches the title of the gruesome video of the Canadian killing that was posted online, which was "1 Lunatic 1 Icepick." The account has shown no new activity since Mr. Magnotta's capture this morning and the user did not respond to a request for comment last night.

In addition to the YouTube activity and the obvious similarities in the methodology of the Jun killing and the Hollywood Sign murder, which both involved severed body parts placed in prominent locations, Facebook postings on one of the many accounts attributed to Mr. Magnotta indicate he was in Los Angeles less than one month after the Hollywood Sign killing. In the postings, which were dated February 19, the Facebook user who identifies themselves as Mr. Magnotta tries to arrange a meeting with a friend and informs them he is "doing massages" in Los Angeles. He lists a phone number that traces to an L.A. escort agency as the best way to contact him.

Facebook posting showing a user who identifies themselves as Luka Magnotta claiming to be in Los Angeles in February.

The severed head and hands were found by the Hollywood Sign by two women who were walking their dogs on January 17. Police later identified the victim as Hervey Medellin, 66. Mr. Medellin was reported missing by his boyfriend on January 9.

We have given this information to police in both Montreal and Los Angeles. Both agencies have told us they are reviewing our tip.

"For the moment we're still working on what we have here. We have a lot of things to do on that," Mr. Paradiso said. "Maybe tomorrow, or sometime this week, I'm going to call LAPD or speak with someone there to see if there's a link between our file and their file."

With the online information being difficult to quickly verify, Mr. Paradiso said the only confirmed links between Mr. Magnotta's case and the Hollywood Sign killing are "there's a body that's cut up, that the guy was gay and that our guy may have frequented Los Angeles."

At this stage, it's impossible to say for sure whether the HollywoodLoveLetters account belongs to Mr. Magnotta and whether he actually had anything to do with the Hollywood Sign killing. The only thing that's certain is that someone out there is going to great lengths to associate him with it.

Ever vigilant. (Getty)

Though the 9/11 Memorial's attendance has been underwhelming, a few safety concerns have surfaced in the recent months. Terrorism, of course, has always been a focal point in post-9/11 debate and planning, but the NYPD acknowledged another concern: suicide.

As it sits, the granite memorial lined with artificial waterfalls drops three stories into the ground. Police officers are concerned that grief-stricken visitors will be overwhelmed and tempted to jump to their death, the Times reports:

[I]n New York, as the Sept. 11 memorial began to take shape in 2006, the concern about possible suicide attempts was expressed by James K. Kallstrom, a former adviser on counterterrorism. At the time, the greater concern was that someone would throw a satchel laden with explosives or release an airborne contaminant around the memorial’s twin, one-acre watery voids.“Our big worry several years ago, in the original design, was terrorism, and now we add suicide to the equation,” said Glenn P. Corbett, an associate professor of fire science at John Jay College, who is advising the Skyscraper Safety Campaign in its criticism of the memorial as inadequately safe and secure. “I think it’s going to happen — a suicide. I think it is an unbelievably emotional site.”

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said there is a plan in place to prevent suicides, though he refused to divulge it. Normally, this seems like hiding the truth from the public, but in this case, it probably makes sense not to make this any easier than it might already be.

mewing@observer.com

Utica police pull over suspect couple

Upstate New York's finest have been allegedly caught on tape trying to plant drugs on an African-American couple that was pulled early last year.

The Utica police, who are identified in the video as Officers Palladino and Padulla, then search the car. It appears (from the video) that they can't find anything, which is when one of the officers pulls out a small baggy from his pocket, places it in the car, and then reappears moments later holding the same bag out in front of him as apparent evidence.

Short video:

Long video:

Perhaps this video is a fake, because it was put up last February and only has 310 views. Still, it doesn't look very good for the officers involved.

Protesters amassing on the pedestrian walkway at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge. (Photo: Hunter Walker)

Leading up to Thursday night's Occupy Wall Street march across the Brooklyn Bridge, the atmosphere was ominous. Streets in the financial district were filled with helmeted police officers on horseback and empty police wagons. After an afternoon filled with hundreds of violent arrests, protesters in Zuccotti Park prepared for the worst as they readied to culminate the day with a massive march across the Brooklyn Bridge.

As usual, the first sounds we heard upon arriving at the park were protesters repeating the words of a speaker via the "people's mic." A man who called himself Bless passed out cigarettes and shouted a phone number for legal representation.

"I'm living proof, 36 hours and I'm out," he said. "I had 36 hours locked up for holding the flag."

This was originally supposed to be a commemoration of Occupy Wall Street reaching the ripe old age of two months, but Tuesday's raid that temporarily pushed the occupiers from the park and resulted in the destruction of the dense tent city where this now global movement was born cast a dark shadow over the proceedings.

Last time the protesters attempted to cross the bridge, it ended with over 700 arrests as the protesters were stopped before reaching the Brooklyn side. During that march, the protesters blocked the roadways on the bridge. Yesterday, they planned to stick to the pedestrian walkway.

Wearing a pink ski jacket and a white knit cap over her long braids, a woman named Lady Millard announced the evening's agenda.

"We will be leaving for Foley Square at five, but we also need people to hold down the park," she said.

"That would be me!" Bless said.

Two men walked through one of the gated entrances to Zuccotti where burly guards from the company that owns the space, Brookfield Properties,bar those with large bags and tents. Since the eviction, camping is no longer allowed in the park.

"Welcome to Occupy Wall Street," one of the men shouted as he strutted in.

Just before five, Ms. Millard led the crowd out of the park waving an American flag. About 150 people followed behind her chanting the now familiar refrain of the movement that was made in Zuccotti Park. "We are the 99%! You are the 99%!"

As we moved North up Broadway, the Observer asked Ms. Millard if she was prepared to be arrested. "I'm not worried." It wouldn't be the first time she was put in police custody at the protests. "I was taken to Bellevue," Ms. Millard said referring to New York's infamous downtown psych ward.

Their route to Foley Square brought the protesters past City Hall, which was completely encircled by police with riot helmets and batons. Marchers called out to passing pedestrians asking them to join the procession.

"Banks got bailed out, we got sold out," they chanted.

One of the women in the march struck up a conversation with a policewoman who stood in front of City Hall.

"No helmet tonight?" the marcher asked.

"No, I just like the hat," the policewoman said with a smile.

The impromptu amateur rap concert in Foley Square. (Photo: Hunter Walker)

At Foley Square, protesters passed through barricades that kept them shoulder to shoulder on the sidewalk. The threat of another violent crackdown seemed omnipresent. Scores of police officers stood in the streets wearing their riot gear. We had to walk a block to get around the barricades and into the square.

Somewhere in the crowd, there was a public address system blasting music and speeches. It was so packed in the park we were never able to pinpoint the location of the main microphone despite spending more than an hour listening to it blaring statements from an assortment of speakers.

"Hello beautiful people. It's so good to be with the best people in the world tonight here in Foley Square," someone said.

A male and female rapper did most of the talking.

"If you love freedom say, 'Oh yeah,'" the man said.

Many of the marchers wore gear identifying them as members of local unions including the UAW, UFT and 1199 SEIU. At 6:15 p.m., the crowd begin to inch toward the bridge. Barricades, crowds and general confusion made it hard to move. Over the public address system, the male rapper said a "children's brigade" had arrived from Union Square. A voice that sounded like it belonged to a little girl came on next chanting "Fight! Fight! Fight!"

"Hip hop is in the house. The children are in the house," the man said.

For approximately the next hour, we slowly moved out of the park and onto the bridge. Many in the crowd were getting fed up with the rappers.

"Why are they dominating the stage? All groups should be represented," asked Cynthia Price. She had greyish hair, glasses and a sign that read, "Sorry for the inconvenience, we are trying to change the world." Ms. Price used her smartphone to tap out an email to an official Occupy Wall Street account asking them to stop the soundtrack. Behind us, we overheard a tall man named Andrew complain about the music.

"I'm pretty against whoever's got this P.A. running," Andrew said.

The rappers were eventually joined by old school hip hop star KRS One who asked protesters to show the world how clean they could be by taking litter with them as they exited Foley Square.

"Occupy a garbage container," he said

We pushed our way to the front of the crowd. Marchers were at a standstill on the corner of Centre and Chambers. Police allowed people to file through a small opening in the barricade and the march barely moved.

"Bloomberg fuck you!" protesters chanted venting their displeasure with the Mayor.

Once we made it through the barricade on Chambers the crowd thinned and began moving much more quickly. We climbed on top of a statue in front of City Hall to get a photo of the massive group of marchers already making their way across the bridge.

"I'll give you one shot," the policeman guarding the statue said. "You got to get off before my partner comes, he's the nasty one."

At the base of the bridge, two lines of workers from a coalition of city unions stood on either side of the walkway between the police and protesters. Other demonstrators handed out small electric votive candles to mark the movement's "birthday."

Once on the bridge protesters began a chant of "Bloomberg beware, Zuccotti Park is everywhere."

The Verizon building is the 99%. (Photo via Tumblr 'This Is the Right One')

Lights projected huge letters onto the nearby Verizon building proclaiming the day a victory and listing occupations in various other cities. "Occupy Alaska ... Occupy Miami ... Occupy Detroit." Huge cheers went up from the crowd when the light show culminated with messages reading "Occupy Earth" and "We are winning."

All the way across the bridge, cars driving on the road on either side of the pedestrian walkway honked in support of the protesters. On the Brooklyn side, we spotted residents of apartments in Cadman Plaza flickering the lights in their homes as the march went by.

Protesters slowly funneled down the steps leading onto the street from the bridge guided by NYPD Community Affairs officers wearing blue windbreakers and baseball hats.

"Watch your steps on the way down. Watch the children and the elderly in the procession," the officers said.

A passing protester remarked to the officers that she was surprised by cordiality.

"We're from Brooklyn, we're always nice in Brooklyn," one of the officers said.

Protesters brought the statue of liberty with them to Brooklyn. (Photo: Emily Witt)

Overall, the march gave us the impression protesters and the NYPD may finally have learned to get along. Or perhaps, Occupy Wall Street has simply accumulated the a critical mass necessary for the protesters to assert themselves in New York City's streets. The crowd of marchers on the Brooklyn Bridge last night was estimated to be approximately 32,000 strong.

Though the threat of violence that hung in the air never materialized, the night was not entirely without incident. In Brooklyn, the marchers gathered for a general assembly meeting at the Brooklyn War Memorial. A man named Leo spoke to the group via the "people's mic."

"At 6 p.m. tonight, 99 of our friends including union members and City Council members sat down in front of the Brooklyn Bridge temporarily," Leo said detailing how the group was arrested for their act of civil disobedience. "Right now, they're still on a bus in Queens. Thought you should know. Send them some love when they get out," Leo said.

This morning, an NYPD spokesman told the Observer "something like 250" people were arrested during yesterday's day of protests.

"I don't think we have an exact count," the spokesman said.

With additional reporting
by Emily Witt.

Former Philadelphia Police Captain Ray Lewis occupying Zuccotti Park last night. (Photo: YouTube)

A Philadelphia Police Department spokesperson confirmed to the Observer that Mr. Lewis was a captain prior to retiring in 2004. He was photographed at the protests yesterday afternoon as demonstrators ringed Zuccotti Park in the wake of their eviction.

In his late night interview with the livestreamers, Lewis said police in New York City should have dealt with Occupy Wall Street through negotiation rather than forcefully removing protesters from the park.

"You should, by law, only use force to protect someone's life or to protect them from being bodily injured OK? If you're not protecting somebody's life or protecting them from bodily injury, there's no need to use force. And the number one thing that they always have in their favor that they seldom use is negotiation--continue to talk, and talk and talk to people. You have nothing to lose by that," Mr Lewis said. "This bullrush--what happened last night is totally uncalled for when they did not use negotiation long enough."

Mayor Bloomberg has stated the raid was necessary because the protest encampment carried with it a risk of crime, fire and health hazards. Mr. Lewis called that rationale "a farce."

"They complained about the park being dirty. Here they are worrying about dirty parks when people are starving to death, where people are freezing, where people are sleeping in subways and they're concerned about a dirty park. That's obnoxious, it's arrogant, it's ignorant, it's disgusting," Mr. Lewis said.

Mr. Lewis said the police want to get rid of him, but he vowed to keep coming back to the protests.

"They're trying to get me arrested and I may disappear OK?" Mr. Lewis said. "As soon as I'm let out of jail, I'll be right back here and they'll have to arrest me again."

Mr. Lewis thinks some officers might appreciate his presence, but not top brass.

"I'm their worst enemy, especially with the white shirts, the bosses OK? Some of the fellow cops they might be thinking, you know, 'That guy, he's got a point,' but the bosses, i'm their number one enemy," Mr. Lewis said.

Mr. Lewis clearly doesn't think the NYPD likes him, but he told the protesters he doesn't think cops are their enemy.

"All the cops are, they're just workers for the one percent and they don't even realize they're being exploited," Mr. Lewis said.

Viewers who watched Mr. Lewis' interview told us he spoke on camera for more than 40 minutes. We'll try to get our hands on a full clip, but for now, you can watch an excerpt of Mr. Lewis' livestream appearance below.

Illustration: Jason Seiler

The commissioner of America’s largest police force was not on hand last week to see a horde of his own officers stand outside a Bronx courthouse and call him a hypocrite.

He showed up a few hours after they’d dispersed, appearing in a press room inside the Bronx District Attorney’s Office. There, for the second time in a week, he stood in front of a podium andtold reporters in his customarily halting monotone voice that members of the NYPD had once again broken the law.

“These misdeeds tarnish the good name and reputation of the vast majority of police officers who perform their duties honesty and often at risk of their own personal safety,” Raymond W. Kelly said, reading from a prepared statement.

The transgression du jour was ticket-fixing—16 officers were being indicted following a three-year investigation—and though the high-profile case made for the department’s biggest headache since the Mollen Commission, it was arguably a sign of evolution: after decades during which such “favors” were par for the course, the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau had made it clear that such corruption would no longer be tolerated.

If only parking tickets were the worst of it.

[WEB-ONLY FEATURE: RAY KELLY IN PICTURES: TIMELINE OF A TOP COP]

In recent weeks, other embarrassing scandals have emerged at a steady clip. After years in which the department seemed to be riding high in the public’s esteem, the sensational trial of the so-called “rape cops,” despite ending in a controversial acquittal, placed the boys in blue in a harsh light. Then came a parade of revelations and misdeeds, including gun-running, evidence-planting and of course pepper-spraying.

“I got to tell you, I’ve got almost 30 years in this department, and morale is really at an all-time low,” Sergeant Ed Mullins, a 29-year NYPD veteran and the president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association told The Observer.

A 21-year-veteran of the NYPD, who asked not to be named, agreed. “Morale is not good,” he said. “It sucks. Years ago, people thought the cops did nothing wrong. Now it’s back to ‘Cops are the bad guys.’ We’re working stiffs, we have families to support. People seem to forget that we work as hard as everybody else.”

“Morale is in the eye of the beholder,” Paul Browne, Deputy Commissioner of Public Information, wrote in an email to The Observer. “For the very few who engaged in misconduct, my guess is it’s not great.”

Thank goodness for the “Hipster Cop,” the nattily-dressed community affairs detective whose love of all things Ralph Lauren and Converse made him an instant internet curio and perhaps the most likable peace officer in the Zuccotti-era NYPD. Like Mr. Kelly, who has a self-professed weakness for Charvet ties, he has style on his side.

But the fop cop and the top cop may not be enough to counter the actions of their colleagues, like the one caught bragging to a friend that he had “fried another nigger” after conducting a stop-and-frisk, a controversial tactic that has exploded under Mr. Kelly’s tenure.

To be sure, Mr. Kelly is still celebrated throughout the world as the man who safeguarded New York City from a terrorist onslaught, a no-nonsense crime-fighter beloved for his tough demeanor and Popeye-esque grin. In the decade that followed the September 11th attacks, he built the NYPD into a paramilitary force, capable of shooting down a plane and protecting its own borders without the Federal government’s assistance.

“The last 10 years since 9/11 is the only decade since the 1960s where there hasn’t been a terrorist attack of some sort in [New York],” Mr. Brown noted.

He added that Mr. Kelly’s second tenure as police commissioner—he held the job under Mayor David Dinkins from 1992 to 1994—resulted in an impressively low crime rate “that had no where to go but up.”

With the city the safest it had been in decades, Mr. Kelly found himself sitting for a glowing 60 Minutes profile and fielding invitations to Vanity Fair soirees.

Then came the Occupy Wall Street protests. Compared to, say, Oakland, the NYPD has arguably handled the demonstrations with restraint. But the pepper-spraying of seemingly peaceful protesters by a high-ranking NYPD official, a “white shirt,” who then melted into the crowd, presented an indelible image of a department that seemed unmoored. The offending officer was quickly identified as Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna—not by the NYPD, but by internet sleuths. After Ron Kuby, an attorney for one of the protesters, demanded Mr. Bologna’s arrest, he was instead docked 10 vacation days and given a cozy reassignment to Staten Island, where he lives.

Now, officers from all five boroughs have been asked to work overtime on the periphery of Zuccotti Park, where every flare-up between the demonstrators and police is instantly captured on camera phones, posted to YouTube and dissected for hints of excessive force.

The month of October was a particularly rough one for the NYPD.  On the 4th, citing a projected $4.6 billion deficit for fiscal year 2012, Mayor Mike Bloomberg imposed a hiring freeze and a mandatory 2 percent spending cut for all city agencies, including the police department.

On October 6, Mr. Kelly testified before the City Council after the AP reported that the NYPD had dispatched undercover officers to infiltrate mosques and Muslim student groups. Mr. Kelly denied the accusations.

That same week, an ex-undercover cop, Stephen Anderson, testified in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn that narcotics officers were paid two to three hours of overtime for every heroin or cocaine arrest they made. The policy, he said, led other cops to start “flaking,” department slang for planting drugs on innocent suspects. According to the Daily News, the practice has already resulted in $1.2 million in settlements for false arrest lawsuits, and on Tuesday, Detective Jason Arbeeny, a 14-year NYPD veteran, was found guilty of planting drugs on a woman and her boyfriend.

The Bologna incident was followed by another altercation with an Occupy Wall Street protester, when footage emerged of Deputy Inspector Johnny Cardona punching Felix Rivera-Pitre in the face.

“I’ll only caution people when you see a picture, you have to see the whole sequence of events,” Mr. Kelly said after the incident. “Sometimes these are not neat situations. They can get tumultuous.” (Prosecutors have met with Mr. Cardona and are investigating the matter.)

On October 17, Officer Michael Daragjati was charged in Federal District Court in Brooklyn with violating the civil rights of an African-American man on whom he’d performed a stop-and-frisk. During the April 15 incident, when the man asked for Mr. Daragjati’s badge number, the officer charged him with resisting arrest. He later referred to the man by the aforementioned raical epithet during a phone call to a friend, which was recorded by the feds.

On October 25, Federal prosecutors charged a group of NYPD officers—some active, some former—with trafficking guns, slot machines, and stolen cigarettes across state lines.

Then charges came down in the ticket scandal.

Mr. Kelly has seen much worse during his decades on the job, Mr. Browne noted. It’s nothing like 1971, the department spokesman wrote, “when Mr. Kelly was a sergeant and 12 NYPD officers were killed in the line of duty, compared to one in the last year and zero last year.”

And it beats 1981, “when Mr. Kelly was an assistant chief and there were 725,866 crimes committed in the city, compared to 188,164 last year.”

And even 1990, “when Mr. Kelly was a first deputy commissioner and there were 2,245 murders in the city, compared to the 426 so far this year.”

In short, it’s all relative.

Nonetheless, it hasn’t helped that as his officers appear on the courthouse steps and in YouTube videos and the pages of city tabloids, Mr. Kelly is more often spotted in party photos in glossy magazines and websites like NY Social Diary. The contrast isn’t lost on rank and file officers, a law enforcement expert told The Observer.

“There’s so much work to do to fix [the NYPD], and for whatever reason Ray Kelly has gotten into this whole celebrity thing,” said the expert. “You talk to cops and they follow this stuff.”

Still, it wasn’t until the ticket-fixing protest on Friday that the tensions within the NYPD became public. Hours before Mr. Kelly addressed reporters, a swarm of cops in street clothes arrived at the courthouse after being summoned via text messages sent by their respective benevolent societies. Packed behind barricades, they held up signs reading “Courtesy Is Not a Crime,” jeered at news reporters, denounced the district attorney, and even exchanged words with civilians lined up at a benefits center across the street.

“Taking care of your family, taking care of your friends, taking care of those that support New York City police officers and law enforcement is not a crime,” Patrolman’s Benevolent Association president Patrick Lynch explained outside the arraignments.

A retired sergeant who served during Mr. Kelly’s tenure and asked not to be named attributed many of the issues facing the NYPD to a laissez-faire culture.

“Officers don’t start off being corrupt,” he said, adding that conducting a stop-and-frisk is another abuse of power. “They start off with little things, like abusing people’s rights, and when they get away with that, then more and more their disrespect for procedures, for protocol, for the law, increases, and they get into other things.”

Stop-and-frisks have skyrocketed during Mr. Kelly’s tenure. The NYPD questioned and/or frisked 97,296 people in 2002, according to the New York Civil Liberties Union. In the first six months of this year, the NYPD stopped 362,150 people, putting it on pace to top all previous records. Of that number, 88 percent were found to be innocent of any crime, and 91 percent were people of color.

“From the borough command to the precincts, they put the pressure on officers to produce the numbers,” said a high-ranking cop. “And [officers] stop people who don’t need to be stopped.”

As a result of all the scandals, some are now calling for a total revamp of the department. “I hesitate to say to bring in a corporate person, but they got to bring in a culture change, and it won’t be a cop,” said Eugene O’Donnell, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

“The leadership always has to be held accountable,” insisted Mr. Mullins of the seargeants’ association. “If we are going to hold the people at the bottom accountable for a condition that existed for many, many years, it goes all the way to the top.”

Which isn’t to say that the commissioner is worried. After all, a friend said, the man has survived Vietnam and 25 different commands in the NYPD.

“Whatever comes his way, he just responds,” the friend added. “There are always going to be issues, just like there would be with any huge work force with any industry.”

On October 19, Quinnipiac University polled New York voters on possible mayoral candidates. A quarter of them said they would elect Mr. Kelly, the highest out of all likely candidates for the 2013 race.

drosen@observer.com