The three shots rule

Since people have been asking me privately about that whole "three shots and re-assess the situation" procedure I mentioned a few times, let me just come out and say it:

I made it up. It's completely fabricated. We've never had such a rule, at least not during my entire career in this department.

I tell you this because a few individuals in my inner circle were becoming convinced that I must be losing my mind. Not to worry, I was completely aware that I was manufacturing a large helping of proverbial bovine excrement.

Update: David just called and said he knows some people who can back-date an Interim Order or something and make it look like this has been on the books for years. Mordechai will be dispatched to break into the appropriate record rooms to "plant" the orders in strategic locations. So forget I even said anything about this at all.

The NYC Robbery Department

Why am I posting a photograph of a banking establishment on my blog? Because this just happened a few days ago:

"NYPD cop Christian Torres, busted in Pennsylvania Thursday in a botched bank heist is suspected of robbing two other banks in Manhattan last year."

My first question after punching my fist through my office wall (and seriously hurting myself by slamming it into that first slab of reinforced concrete that we're building to house the secret counterterrorism vault), was why the hell this ass-hat had to generate two index crimes in Manhattan last year. Couldn't he have at least confined his unauthorized off-duty self-employment to Pennsylvania?

I'm also very upset that this clown was a former member of my prized Cadet Corps. That's where I started back in the day, pushing and shuffling important pieces of paper through the echelons of bureaucracy. Naturally, I wanted to immediately rip into whichever sorry excuse was in charge of hiring this idiot and making me look bad. I guess I really shouldn't have been surprised when I found out that the previous commanding officer of the Cadet Corps had his own little scandal unfold in the form of a domestic disaster last year. Decide for yourself what this Captain was doing in his office when he should have been working, but I'm pretty sure he wasn't meticulously reviewing applications.

And after the current Cadet Corps C.O. was finished kissing my proverbial behind, he - of course - professed to have been "taken by surprise" at this whole incident. Whatever.

So I called up Rafael next. He tried to heap shovels full of bovine excrement my way by playing semantics. Because Rafael apparently thinks that no actual investigation needs to "necessarily" take place, since the unit responsible is called "Application Processing Division" instead of "Application Investigation Division." I was about to launch Rafael's career into the vast depths of Viper Hell when George walked in and stopped me.

"Boss, I overheard your conversation while walking down the hall. Rafael's just doing his job. There's a reason we don't investigate as deeply as we used to," George proclaimed. "And why would that be," I asked. "Because we don't exactly want to find certain 'stuff' in people's backgrounds, if you know what I mean. That could - unnecessarily, of course - delay a candidate's entry into the academy."

I have to admit, George makes an excellent point. Also, Paul assures me that this whole story will get buried soon enough anyway. But even as I sit here massaging my bruised knuckles I can't help but feel that this is only the first wave in what is turning into a dangerous storm.

Still, I do have to wonder why we employ "investigators" at APD who supposedly couldn't find a single problem in this crooked rookie's "meticulous" background, yet a couple of armchair Sherlock Holmes types armed with a simple Google search uncovered this genius' MySpace profile about five minutes after the story broke? How is this possible? Are we shooting for the Guinness World Record in investigatorial incompetence or something?

And where the bloody hell is Charlie? Is he even on our payroll anymore?

The Economist & "NYPD blues"

Breakfast didn't go well at all this morning. Not only did I burn my two slices of toast (stupid toaster), but my favorite magazine, The Economist, published a critical piece on the NYPD's recruitment efforts in their latest issue.

Now, I won't deny that we have a recruitment problem. But I still expect my minions to toe the official line that everything is actually just fine and rosy. The article opens with this disgraceful remark:

"“BEING a cop was a great job in the late '80s. It paid well. Now, I would never encourage people to do it,” confides a veteran New York police officer."

Who does this "veteran New York police officer" think he is? This wasn't cleared through Paul's office. I've dispatched Mordechai to find this clown. I told him he can pull a couple of IAB guys off the important Bronx Court House Parking Placard Enforcement Unit for this (but only for a few days, as placard enforcement is a high priority with our new PlacardStat meeting coming up soon).

I have to admit though, I was happy they printed our official line on why we've been having so many academy drop-outs in our last couple of classes:

"The department cannot even hold on to the recruits it does manage to find. Since the salary cut, the numbers graduating from its police academy have steadily fallen. Of the 1,968 hired in July 2005, 1,736 graduated, but only 914 graduated out of the 1,142 hired last summer. The NYPD blames a combination of tougher academic standards and reduced pay."

I literally fell off my chair when I read that one (and, unfortunately, took my entire tablecloth along with a full cup of coffee and other assorted breakfast items with me). Because, in all honesty, if you really believe that we've implemented "tougher academic standards" then I have an entire police department to sell you, complete with overseas Intell detectives. But, I have to confess, it sure does sound good and most people tend to be idiots who actually believe crap like that, so I guess it works out for us.

However, I really don't know what the hell Paul was thinking when he told them this:

"Paul Browne, the deputy police commissioner, says the NYPD “is keeping all the balls in the air”, but conceded it cannot continue indefinitely."

Balls in the air? WTF is that even supposed to mean? Needless to say, I called Paul up and screamed at him for ten minutes about this entire article. We're going to suspend the Economist's press passes for a couple of months. That should clear things up a bit with them on how we do business, I think.