Ailsa Chang, the WNYC reporter who broke the recent New York Police Department marijuana arrests story, blogged about comments by Commissioner Ray Kelly [10] at a news conference this week explaining why he issued the order to his officers:
"Police Commissioner Ray Kelly says he had heard multiple allegations that his officers were skirting the law when charging people for misdemeanor marijuana possession — but he says he doesn't know if they are true."
I suppose "multiple allegations" is one of way describing the in-depth report published on the topic in 2008 [11], the report on the fiscal costs of the arrests [12] published this year, or the extensive discussion of the arrests [13] that's taken place in the media for much of this year. Oh, let's not forget the bill filed this year in Albany for the specific purpose of stopping such arrests [14].
Of course the nearly 12-fold sudden increase in the number of marijuana possession arrests was no tip-off that anything was up:
And to be fair, the New York Times didn't call for a federal Dept. of Justice investigation of the arrests [15] until last Monday, after Kelly issued the order, so that doesn't count. (But it's a good idea.)
No, there's no reason why the nearly ten-year commissioner of the department, who had been commissioner for another two years prior to that, and who has worked in important positions in the department for a total of more than 30 years [16], could have known to look into this before now. There was no reason to suspect anything may have been amiss until an "allegation was made" recently. None at all -- he had no way to know! I believe him -- I really do.
