A state felony to annoy police once? -- How about a felony civil rights violation to stop-and-frisk kids 25X?

 
The New York State Senate wants to make it a felony to annoy one police officer -- one time? After all cops take the job to avoid conflict, stress or real danger.

How about federal civil rights legislation that makes it a felony to infringe whole classes of citizens’ Fourth Amendment rights -- day-in-and-day-out?  Did someone say stop-and frisk? The privacy protected by the Fourth Amendment is important enough to be a part of the Constitution because it is an important part of our DNA.  Treating supposedly (supposed to be) free people like prisoners in their own neighborhoods truthfully ruins their whole lives.

According to a New York Magazine story Officer Pedro Serrano, who dissented from massive unconstitutional intrusions by secretly recording superior orders to perpetrate abuse and making those recordings public, he “lost count of the number of times he was stopped and frisked [growing up], but he estimates somewhere between 25 and 50.”   
http://nymag.com/news/features/pedro-serrano-2013-5/index1.html  [p.2]  

From the same story: “As for his fellow cops at the 4-0, Serrano discovered that they fell into three camps. One third supported him (“They were like: ‘We get it, no problem’ ”); another third were furious (“They think what I did is wrong”); and the rest were neutral (“They were like, ‘We don’t care either way; we just  don’t like the bad stuff that’s coming because he’s pissed off now’”). 
http://nymag.com/news/features/pedro-serrano-2013-5/index6.html  [p.7]

 It is heartening to know that only one third of the cops turn out to be yahoos. Yahoos are not inherently evil – most are just  bureaucratically insensitive doing their job (human nature; have to be some). But when yahoos are put in charge of a whole police department – and then told to make everyone else into yahoos – at a very quick step, yet – you get the kind of all pervasive Fourth Amendment violations upsetting New York City neighborhoods; in turn giving departments across the country (Oakland?, Boston?) bad ideas.

The caption under the picture topping the first pages describes three teens being thrown on a wall and groped "on Seneca Avenue in the Bronx, on their way home from school in September 2012." 

Here is my first question -- which fits so many of these stops: If these kids are stopped for resembling descriptions of perpetrators of a crime, why did the police not hold them for a witness or victim to come and identify?  Second question: Given it is a 1000 to 1 shot (more like 10,000 to 1? – never happened to me) that any one person is exhibiting a suspicious bulge in their clothing resembling a knife or gun, making it 1,000,000 to 1 to find two in a row and 1,000,000,000 to 1 to find three in a row, how can police explain habitually frisking whole gaggles of kids -- or any other category -- at once?

Nothing seems capable of guaranteeing Fourth Amendment protections at the local level. Even federal courts can only do so much against determined executive opposition.   [[ Opps; I guess not -- have to rewrite this section.  The 1964 federal Civil Rights Act makes it a felony to conspire to infringe First Amendment rights while acting under color of law. ]]   Unfortunately, as late as 2013, there may be a growing need for federal civil rights legislation to put teeth into Fourth Amendment protections.

Federal civil rights legislation criminalizing Fourth Amendment prohibited intrusions at some level (I cannot suggest precise language) could do double and triple duty.

Double duty: the crazy business in the Boston suburb of invading every house within a 20 square block area without warrants in pursuit of a 19-year-old who might be in possession of a handgun would have been deeply discouraged by the existence of federal privacy wrong doing penalties. Triple duty: President Bush's warrantless wiretaps never would have been considered in the first place. Nor possibly would much of the unconstitutional data-gathering we all strongly suspect is going on behind closed government doors these days but are totally barred from discovering, were a felony civil rights conviction attached.

Where are we going to find a new Lyndon Johnson dedicated to pushing through the new civil rights bill?  (Hint: Elizabeth Warren for president. :-])

Fictionalized Account 
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MSrlPSOM1A&feature=endscreen

Real Account
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gim9tUbdoj0&feature=endscreen 

Crime was already down 4X when Mad Mayor Bloomberg took office -- whence he upped stops and frisks 7X by the year 2011 (from 100,000 to 700,000).  4 X 7 = 28 times as many stops per reported crime.  Last year down to only 20X.  ("Mad  Mayor" alludes to hizzoner building a brand new $400 million courthouse in the Bronx -- after we already opened a brand new $120 million court in 1977, to catch the then criminal case overflow, which new court was almost as nice as the 1939 landmark courthouse and architectural anchor of the neighborhood up the block on the Grand Concourse.  He blew another $630 million presumably doing the same trick in Brooklyn -- also after crime went down 4X!)
http://www.nycourts.gov/publications/benchmarks/issue5/mega-courthouse.shtml

My minimum wage worksheet

My minimum wage worksheet -- the easily could-have-been minimum wage double-indexed for inflation and per capita income growth:
 
yr  per capita    real    nominal  dbl-index  %-of

68    15,473    10.69      (1.60)                 100%
69-70-71-72-73          [real, low point -- 8.39]
74    18,284      9.43      (2.00)     12.61          
75    18,313      9.08      (2.10)     12.61
76    18,945      9.40      (2.30)     13.04     72%
77                                                             [8.84]
78    20,422      9.45      (2.65)      14.11
79    20,696      9.29      (2.90)      14.32
80    20,236      8.75      (3.10)      14.00         
81    20,112      8.57      (3.35)      13.89     62%
82-83-84-85-86-87-88-89                        [6.29]
90    24,000      6.76      (3.80)      16.56
91    23,540      7.26      (4.25)      16.24     44%
92-93-94-95                                              [6.50]
96    25,887      7.04      (4.75)      17.85
97    26,884      7.46      (5.15)      19.02      39%
98-99-00-01-02-03-04-05-06                    [5.95]
07    29,075      6.56      (5.85)       20.09
08    28,166      7.07      (6.55)       19.45
09    27,819      7.86      (7.25)       19.42      40%
10-11-12                                                     [7.36]                 
13   29,209?     7.25      (7.25)        20.20?    36%?

 * * * * * * 
An added thought: By the year 2013 some could speculate that a $20.20/hr minimum wage might not be a realistic expectation evidenced by double indexing alone because the fabric of the economy might have changed so radically over 45 years.  Might be an outside possibility, but, LBJ's 1968 minimum wage would have morphed to more than $14/hr with double indexing by only 1978.  Can anyone explain how the economic fabric might have changed sos radically in a mere 10 years?

More on the theme of getting males to -- actually -- think about any new approach in the American labor market (or anything else)

FROM MY EMAIL TO A CHICAGO LABOR ACTIVIST:
Tomorrow I start writing what I hope will be a "doozey" on the minimum wage.  First, let me explain what I have been doing lately.  I've spent two months crossing the country with email: hitting top newspapers in almost every state (47) with a long message, "Open letter to Oakland mayor Jean Quan -- the only law that can end gun violence", pushing my big obsession -- the only way back -- legally mandated sector-wide labor agreements.  I figured journalists could digest something long.  And hitting every state legislator with an email address (except New Hampshire state reps: all 400!) with, first, earlier versions of my $15/hr minimum wage pitch and then the "black hole theory" -- which latter I started sending that to both papers and legs once I dreamed it up.  May have sent out 14,000 altogether.  AT&T kept cutting me off for suspected spamming -- finally figured out how to restart (wait 6 hours first for a bad one -- don't do more than 200 in an hour or be cut off for an hour).

My "doozey" will take a phrase that a professor hit me with: "marginal productivity."  I had to look it up too.    Without bothering with the "technicalities" (I'm more salesman than tech) I am going to ask -- after some tech explanation:
Did LBJ consult the concept marginal productivity when he raised the minimum wage to $10.75/hr (adjusted and rounded);
did Congress consult marginal productivity when it failed to raise the minimum wage for the next 5 years ('69-'73);
or for 8 years in a row ('82-'89);
or for 4 years in a row ('92-'95);
or for 9 years in a row ('08-'06);
for for now going on 4 years?

Not impressed?  That is because you are a female -- you don't need to be coaxed that doubling the minimum wage is not an impossibly big step.  Males, OTW, are so slaved to checking in with group -- even the top progressive economists -- that they will not consider anything too novel, too different for one second  -- no matter how much sense it might make in the logical abstract.  How else are we going to cooperate going after small animals with big sticks -- can't think too independently!
 
Egro, my open letter to female mayor Jean Quan -- trying to get her to approach my favorite (mostly male) economic faculty up the road in Berkeley (my California driver's license says I live up that same road) on the subject of sector-wide labor agreements.
 
The "doozey": whisks away the concept of any (scary) established economic order in the way -- portrays just years of sleepy forgetfulness.  Then, comes the lock: I point out that double indexing LBJ's minimum wage to inflation and per capita income growth yields $20.20/hr -- leaving today's federal minimum wage at just 36% of that -- maybe not even that much to fix, just fill in part of what's missing (enough to get to $15/hr?).  
 
Want to get somewhere with the male animal on doubling the minimum wage: first, supply the magic numbers, the "black hole theory of the minimum wage" ($15/hr being the median wage: half the workforce will get raises percentage multiples of what their employers pass through to prices will be: wages cause demand to go up) -- and -- then, have fast food workers make a scene for $15/hr all across the nation, anywhere and everywhere you can (the absolutely needed social signal).  Last I heard they are making a stink in Missouri.

[LATE THOUGHT -- possibly to be included with the "doozey"]
Even according to Malthusian theory -- from the pre-industrial world where per capita output could not expand every year: all other things held equal, the federal minimum wage would have dropped only a third as US population grew by half (200 million to 300 million).  Instead by early 2007 the federal minimum wage had dropped almost in half.

RE: Amanda Bynes' allegation that New York police officer sexually assaulted her

RE:  Amanda Bynes' allegation that New York Police Officer sexually assaulted her 

As I was shocked to discover upon my researching what I thought TSOs could and could not legally touch at the airpot: every male police officer in this country is taught that frisking a woman is no different than frisking a man.  Their department policy may spell out limits (e.g., heel of the hand lifting breasts) but as far as they are concerned the criminal law does not apply -- to them.  Sorry about that Amanda!

 

Three videos of male officers subjecting female victims to (ever so slow motion) sexual battery:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RxH1CnYhd8&feature=related (groped in first minute – released at tenth minute) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NI7JEA4iK4&feature=related
http://www.wktv.com/news/local/FULL-DASHCAM-VIDEO-OF-21111-Utica-traffic-stop-136602198.html (groping begins at 12 minutes -- takes a long time to load)
 * * * * * *
Back when the airport screening got heavy I got on the net to research what the constitutional limits must really be.  Turns out police departments around the country think there are no limits criminal or constitutional to male officers groping females.  I was shocked by one of my first finds: a widely reported story of a courthouse guard groping a mother with two little children to find a sticker in her back pocket.  Story was about scanners coming to courthouses -- groping not even commented on!
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/news/ap/us_news/2010/Nov/24/full_body_scanners_popping_up_at_courthouses.html

Officer safety is the first excuse.  But a female checked for guns -- which can be done without touching anything with fingers -- and rear cuffed behind is a shield is not going to, first, do the Houdini and slip the bracelets and, then, do the Incredible Hulk, tear aside the partition, draw a sharp object from her bra and scratch the police officer. 

Second is the mindless notion that it is not sexual battery as long a cop does it.  "We are professionals doing a job."  Even: "We are like doctors."  Policy may or not discourage going as far as possible but whatever they do, they don't consider it illegal.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090210210037AAXeuFi

Turns out at the airport the letter of the law is that once you enter the security zone, you must submit to the complete body grope -- even if you are a female and only males are available (which is supposed to be not extremely unusual in small airports).  It presumably is not strictly enforced -- but just the idea that it can be written shows a giant mental cog is missing with law enforcement on this issue.
http://ontodayspagelinks.blogspot.com/2010/12/tsa-opposite-gender-screening-mandatory.html

Here a female reporter incredibly subjects herself to a male full body frisk on camera.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFEML_BlRrc&feature=related
They even practice kids on kids (presumably over 18).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1-dcSUDPE8&feature=related

Simple enough: any search for evidence can be conducted at the police station by the same matron who would strip search the woman if arrested.  Probable cause means better than 50/50 chance she will be charged, right?  In any case, women in this country can live with the fact that they may be pulled in to a police station to be searched some time in their lives.  I can't find the link but Kansas City (I think) police recently held a woman for three days until a female officer came to work to search her for a major shoplift.  What women cannot live with is leaving their driver's license home and knowing some brute will perfectly free to grope all over her like she was a teenage boy.

The same law applies to cops that applies to everybody else.  A possibly needed common sense legal point: you cannot justify battery because of some good overall effect -- like freeing more police to patrol -- you can only justify battery because of a dangerous circumstance on the spot.  One more: If any male police officer can grope a female for any reason as long as it is not sexual -- so can any other male.

                          [ADDENDUM]  
The police point to the Terry decision allowing a pat down under clothing under certain constitutionally approved circumstances as if no distinction needs to be made as to sex (as to sexual battery actually).

If there had been a state law that prohibited male police frisking a female intimately (lifting breasts with the heel of the hand, hips and legs any way they want to in today's practice) as a felonious sexual battery could Terry's words have canceled that -- the word of "God"?

Actually, there is no constitutional path by which a court can set aside a criminal prohibition.  A court can set aside a protection of a citizen (Fourth Amendment in this case) for police or societal need -- but it cannot allow an exception to a legislative prohibition against harming a citizen other than for imminent danger.  If the Terry court had consciously thought of excepting females from protection from sexual battery it could not have done it.

If a legislature excepted police officers from the prohibition against sexual battery, then, an opposing equal protection (the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment) argument would come into play to protect the citizen.

California actually has a half thought out rule that police and private security should try to get a female, first, before a male frisks a female -- which implies sloppily that such male-on-female frisks are not actually illegal.  Since this was written to protect females, it should not be taken as establishing an exception but as regulating an exception that the legislature misunderstood to already exist.

Why do women always have the balls -- about the $15/hr minimum wage?

In my cab driver "psyche theory", males are too instinctively stuck in (hunting pack) group think to seriously ponder any radically new direction, no matter how well proven, or for how long, outside their pack territory (like Europe, Canada, South America, Asia).  Take (my eternal obsession) legally mandated, sector-wide labor agreements that could instantly re-write the social contract in America which all progressive economics academics have heard of but will never mention out loud -- or (in today's instant case) a $15/hr minimum wage; no matter how reasonably well the eighth-grade math says the outcome will (automatically) work out (click below).
http://ontodayspage.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-black-hole-theory-of-minimum-wage.html 

In today's case, the female Los Angeles City Controller Wendy Greuel (an instinctive individual gather) -- takes after the female Massachusetts freshman US senator in advocating a much higher minimum wage -- in her instant case, $15/hr.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-greuel-demurs-20130513,0,6383511.story
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/18/elizabeth-warren-minimum-wage_n_2900984.html%3Cbr  

Somewhere in Robert Kuttner's 2010 book "A Presidency in Peril" is a scene from the early Obama administration in which a female member asks -- in the context of going against the pro-Wall Street think -- "Why do women always have the balls?"  The women don't of course; or they would get all over us.  We must learn to think about what might actually work in the abstract, first, boys -- then and only then worry about how to go about getting it.

Time -- or at least a place -- to switch "Great Wage Depression" for "inequality"

I finally came up with a justification -- in at least one segment of the labor market -- to switch in the words "Great Wage Depression" and switch out the wan, antiseptic word "inequality."

Much unemployment is due to Americans now willing to work for badly substandard wages -- especially for a minimum wage that is $3.25/hr below LBJ's 1968 minimum -- double the per capita income or productivity later!

Which super low minimum wage results in 100,000 out of 200,000 -- half! -- of Chicago's gang age minority males *working* for drug dealing street gangs (also results in schools not working because students wont make the effort when nothing reasonable is waiting for them in the labor market).
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57451996/gang-wars-at-the-root-of-chicagos-high-murder-rate/

Progressive economists should research just how many Americans are unemployed because of super-low pay -- especially not for a minimum wage that would have to be *tripled* to catch up with a doubling of productivity over the last 45 years.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/18/elizabeth-warren-minimum-wage_n_2900984.html%3Cbr