Last summer while protesting the Federal Reserve Bank of New York an NYPD officer said something interesting to me. “Some people want to get their moneys worth.” The “white shirt” NYPD ranking officer was referring to the unusually high NYPD presence around the Federal Reserve Bank that day. He went on to say that the heavy police presence was in response to an internet posting (of mine) calling for a “flash mob” to protest the fed. Watch the video below to see the exchange at 1:50.
A month later the NY Daily News reported that the NYPD had started a “social networking task force” to monitor the internet for criminal activity and protests.
This week NYC Mayor Bloomberg was quoted as saying “I have my own army in the NYPD, which is the seventh biggest army in the world.” during a speech at MIT.
Recently I learned that the officers comment about “getting their moneys worth” referred to a program called “Paid Detail Unit” implemented by Mayor Guiliani in 1998.
Pam Martens of Counterpunch.com reported recently:
The corporations pay an average of $37 an hour (no medical, no pension benefit, no overtime pay) for a member of the NYPD, with gun, handcuffs and the ability to arrest. The officer is indemnified by the taxpayer, not the corporation.
The Neo-Praetorian Guard
When the infamously mismanaged Wall Street firm, Lehman Brothers, collapsed on September 15, 2008, its bankruptcy filings in 2009 showed it owed money to 21 members of the NYPD’s Paid Detail Unit.
Other Wall Street firms that are known to have used the Paid Detail include Goldman Sachs, the World Financial Center complex which houses financial firms, and the New York Stock Exchange.
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