8 The Courier sun • SEPTEMBER 1, 2016 for breaking news visit www.qns.com Lawmaker wants US government to investigate NYC’s ‘unfair’ bail system By Liam Baker [email protected]/@QNS The city’s bail system unjustly punishes poor people, a local lawmaker has told two high-ranking officials with the Justice Department. Councilman Rory Lancman recently sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara calling for an investigation into the bail system’s constitutionality. Every year, thousands of defendants — mostly blacks and Latinos — are held on Rikers Island due to an inability to come up with bail money, sometimes as low as $500. Lancman’s letter comes in light of the Department of Justice’s amicus brief in Walker v. City of Calhoun, where it argued that bail systems that don’t take into account the defendant’s inability to pay or alternative methods of assuring appearance at trial are unconstitutional. According to data from the city Department of Corrections, 53 percent of all inmates locked up on Rikers Island were detained due to an inability to post bail. For defendants charged with lesser crimes, the statistics are even more glaring: In 2014, the New York City Criminal Justice Agency reported that 85 percent of non-felony defendants were unable to post bail of $500 or less. Of these defendants, 46 percent of them didn’t make bail prior to their cased being resolved. Lancman’s letter was inspired by the precedent set by the Justice Department in Walker v. City of Calhoun, where a Georgia man spent six days in jail because he couldn’t make $160 bail. The Justice Department subsequently declared that courts that jail defendants for inability to post bail are unlawfully discriminating against the poor. In the case of those facing less serious offenses, bail usually isn’t necessary to assure appearance in court, according to Vanessa Ogle, director of communications for Lancman. “Studies have shown that there is little incentive for defendants to flee when they’re charged with misdemeanors and other less serious offenses,” Ogle said. One such study is the Manhattan Bail Project from the Vera Institute of Justice, which found that 98 percent of non-felony defendants could be relied to show up in court if judges didn’t require upfront payment or if they set bails more in line with the defendant’s financial resources. The communities being impacted the most by these harsh bail laws are the black and Latino populations. In 2014, 89 percent of pretrial detainees held on $1,000 bail or less were black and Latino, according to New York City Criminal Justice Agency, “New Yorkers who are unable to pay low amounts of bail are being punished for being poor — and the vast majority of people being hit hardest by this broken system are black and Latino New Yorkers,” Lancman said in a press release. A month later, and cops are no closer to solving Karina Vetrano’s murder BY ROBERT POZARYCKI [email protected]/@robbpoz Friday, Sept. 2, marks the onemonth anniversary of Howard Beach resident Karina Vetrano’s murder, and police are continue to search for the suspect responsible for her death. Leads in the case have been difficult to come by, but Karina’s family insists that the killer is out there and someone knows something. In an interview on Curtis Sliwa’s WABC-AM radio talk show on Monday, Aug. 29, Phil Vetrano suggested that a male runner known to frequent the same jogging path that his late daughter had taken had dropped off the radar and should be questioned as a suspect. The next day, however, the NYPD dismissed that runner as a suspect, according to a WNBC-TV report. The runner, who had stopped running due to a bad knee, came forth to investigators and was questioned. A test of the runner’s DNA revealed that his genetic material did not match DNA recovered from items found near the crime scene. Meanwhile, on Tuesday, NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce announced that a DNA profile of Karina Vetrano’s murderer has been developed from samples collected from the victim’s body and cell phone. “We put that into our database, and there was no nationwide hit on it or any state hit on it,” Boyce said, as quoted in a WABC-TV report. Karina Vetrano left her 84th Street home on the afternoon of Aug. 2 for a run and never returned home. Hours later, she was found raped and fatally strangled among the tall weeds in the Gateway National Recreational Area portion of Spring Creek Park, off the intersection of 161st Avenue and 78th Street. The shocking crime prompted many in the community to call for additional security in the area. The NYPD has since installed eight security cameras near the park in the hope of providing extra sets of eyes on activities. During a community meeting at St. Helen’s Church days after the homicide, Queens Borough President Melinda Katz announced that the cameras would be installed. The NYPD reviewed the area and determined the best locations to place the cameras, which will capture footage of activity near the parkland. “Part of the problem is clearly that it’s federal property inside, but there is street property outside and city property outside, so at my request, the Police Department went out there on Aug. 5 and surveyed … and at the request of your elected officials I’ve allocated the funding for all of the cameras,” Katz said at the meeting. “So the money is there. Money is in the budget for it. I wish it had been there previously, but it’s there now.” In a message on its Facebook page, the Howard Beach Lindenwood Civic Association expressed gratitude to Katz and the NYPD for installing the cameras: “For those residents who took the time to post, attend the community meeting and request NYPD cameras on poles outside Spring Creek Park, your request did not fall upon deaf ears.” Through an online campaign, Howard Beach residents raised more than $200,000 in reward money for the tipster who helps police track down and arrest Vetrano’s murderer. That reward will supplement a $35,000 reward being offered by the city; the Mayor’s Office added $10,000 to the reward last week on top of funds provided by the Crime Stoppers hotline, the NYPD, the Police Foundation and the Uniformed Firefighters Association. Anyone with information regarding the Vetrano homicide that can prove helpful is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 800- 577-TIPS, visit their website or send a text message to 274637 (CRIMES), then enter TIP577. All calls and messages are kept confidential.
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