by Jennifer C. Hunt

I am fascinated by cultural differences in urban behavior within the U.S. as well as internationally.  Watching people drive in New York City is a dead give away as to where they hang their hat even before seeing their license plates.

I once sat next to a friend from California who was, paralyzed, while trying to make a left turn in New York City.F inally, in desperation, I had to resort to some tough back-seat-driving talk to get him to move. He didn’t understand that New York drivers  learn to push their way through.

The other day, a friend told me a story about his observations of driving in L.A. and N.Y.  He was on the turnpike in L.A. when an ambulance switched on its siren a half mile back. In an orderly fashion, cars turned into the far lanes and stopped, leaving the center lane clear for the ambulance and any other emergency vehicle that might come along. The people didn’t start driving again until after all emergency vehicles had passed.

A week later, my friend was driving on the FDR when he heard the sound of a siren. As the ambulance moved south, the cars moved right or left to make way but they didn’t stop or slow down. As soon as the ambulance passed, drivers moved their vehicles back into the middle lane and stepped on the gas, following in the path of the ambulance to get where they were going in record time.

In New York City, jaywalking is considered natural and normal behavior. Jaywalkers jaywalk in front of police cars,  knowing that cops understand informal rules and don’t view the practice as an affront to their authority.

I don’t know if people jaywalk in L.A.

I do know that jaywalking is considered immoral and illegal in urban Germany. Jaywalking is seen as bad partly because it sets a poor example for the children.

Seattle appears to have relatively strict rules in regards to jaywalking. According to a recent article in the New York Times, a Seattle police officer stopped a young black woman for jaywalking then beat her when she  presented resistance. The incident was apparently videotaped.

In this case, jaywalking was not the impetus of the apparent beating but rather the challenge to police authority.

In today’s New York Times, Laurie Goodstein provides an encouraging report regarding the relationships between the police in L.A.s County Sheriff’s Department and members of the Muslim community.

“We’re not gong to win the war against terrorism without Muslim’s, ” Sheriff Leroy Baca is quoted in an interview.

“Law enforcement officers visit mosques…., have tea with imams and … hand out business cards.” An example is cited of a father who reported to police his concern that his son was demonstrating signs of religious fundamentalism and an interest in Jihad. The police interviewed the teenager and discovered he was simply asserting his Muslim identity rather than an interest in participating in terrorism.

Years ago, in the wake of 9/11, the federal government pushed local law enforcement agencies to work with them interrogating Muslim members of the community about their and their neighbors’ activities, in essence labeling all Muslims suspects. The acting Chief of the Portland and the Seattle P.D.s refused to cooperate. They believed that such indiscriminate questioning would alienate members of the Muslim community with the result trust would be undermined and future intelligence lost.

The result would be fear and silence and the reduction in the police department’s ability to learn about terrorists plots before they came to fruition.

Local police have also been pressured to cooperate with INS and question Muslims and others about their immigration status. A number of police departments have avoided asking the relevant questions because they are likely to reduce trust and limit the likelihood that Muslim (and other immigrant) members of the community will report terrorist threats  or serious crimes.

Had a Muslim man who spoke little English not have trusted the police sufficiently to come forward to report his knowledge of a plot to blow up the subway in Brooklyn in 1997, many lives would have  been lost in the first suicide bombing in New York City.

Kudos to  the L.A. Sheriff’s Department

Photograph is 6 Truck NYPD-ESU in the old days.

Bluebloods has regressed. To put it simply, the technical advise for this program sucks. The program is an embarrassment to anyone who wants to know anything about the NYPD and to the police officers who work in that world. I haven’t seen the latest episode but I did see the one before that.

In that episode, there is an attempt to assassinate the Police Commissioner. Detective Bluebloods (Danny) runs into a meeting of top brass. Guess who we see there – yet another police officer who is wearing a uniform with four stars on his shoulders. This means that the black guy who was once the four star chief of the department has disappeared with no reason provided. Now we have a white guy who has some grudge against the police commissioner from way back when. The PC, Tom Sellick, is such a nice, reasonable guy that he appoints a person with a grudge as the top rank uniformed member of the Department for the simple reason that he is competent.

When Danny approaches this chief of the department, he addresses him as “commissioner.” The proper term of address would be “chief” not commissioner. Commissioner is a civilian not a uniformed title. The real police commissioner is not dead but in a hospital. Therefore neither the first deputy commissioner nor the chief of the department has taken his place. Here is where my own technical expertise fails. I am pretty sure the first deputy commissioner is in line to be the PC if the PC suddenly dies. But I’m not certain of this.

Come on Bluebloods producers, how much does he take  to get just a few things straight. It’s really not all that complicated.

To make everything worse, guess who shows up at John Jay College for the dedication memorial for the Bluebloods brother who died in the line of duty.

You got it. At least three and possibly four, four star chiefs including Bluebloods Grandpa who is back in uniform as chief of the department, Bluebloods Tom Sellick who is at the podium in uniform as chief of the department, and, as I recall, the new white guy who appears to be the real chief of the department. Maybe there wasn’t a fourth. I stopped counting stars at some point.

Another piece of total technical idiocy: In the wake of an assassination attempt on a police commissioner, there wouldn’t be a two person security detail accompanying him everywhere. Intel detectives and others would go in to the area in which the dedication is to take place, many hours prior, and make sure there are no threats. They would also check out points of vulnerability and make a plan for a quick exit in the event of an attack.

Snipers from ESU and ESU officers carrying heavy weapons would be all over the place along with a large security detail as well as detectives from Intel, trained in dignitary protection.

The last thing that would happen would be to allow a guy, dressed like a priest with no proper I.D., down the escalator into the atrium. Even without all this happening, there are guards at the top of the escalator who check I.D s at John Jay College.

Guess who saves the day? Detective Danny Bluebloods and his uniformed brother appear to be the only officers who are capable of seeing the threat of the priest/assassin on the escalator and making the coordinated move to abort his second attempt to kill the Police Commissioner.

This little escapade makes the rest of the NYPD look bad. If only two officers in the whole police department are able to protect the Police Commissioner, what is going to happen if we have a serious terrorist attack?????