I had heard rumblings of this earlier this week. The number I initially heard was $500K to the Police Benevolent Society, but this was never confirmed anywhere. But I was still looking for something to follow up the first "rumor". Today I ran across it in an article by Amy Goodman. The article I read was on the ReaderSupportedNews.org site. The article by Amy Goodman was titled Policing the Prophets of Wall Street. In it Amy describes the settlement she and her colleagues received from events at the RNC convention in 2008. She also discusses her concern that;
Bruce Nestor, president of the Minnesota chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, told me: "St. Paul actually negotiated a special insurance provision with the Republican host committee so that the first $10 million in liability for lawsuits arising from the convention will be covered by the host committee.... It basically means we (the city) can commit wrongdoing, and we won't have to pay for it."
Then we move to the next paragraph;
Jump forward to today. The bailed-out Wall Street megabank JPMorgan Chase gave a tax-deductible $4.6 million donation to the New York City Police Foundation, which has protesters asking: Who is the NYPD paid to protect, the public or the corporations? The 99 percent or the 1 percent?
In closing Amy wrote this;
According to an undated press release on JPMorgan Chase's website, in response to the $4.6 million donation: "New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly sent CEO and Chairman Jamie Dimon a note expressing ‘profound gratitude' for the company's donation." Given the size of the donation, and the police harassment and violence against the protesters, we must question how Kelly shows his gratitude.
This donation was also written about on a site called disinformation. A site with which I was unfamiliar, but describes themselves on their about page as;
Launched on September 13, 1996, disinformation was designed to be the search service of choice for individuals looking for information on current affairs, politics, strange science and “hidden information” that seldom slips through the cracks of corporate-owned media. Ironically, it was funded by one of the largest media companies in the world (TeleCommunications, Inc. now part of Comcast), who paid for placement on Netscape’s then ubiquitous search page.
The site drew immediate attention and (usually) applause from the very same news media that it was criticizing as being under the influence of both government and big business, but the honeymoon was short. Some three weeks after launch the CEO of TCI learned of disinformation and immediately ordered it closed down. Needless to say, the founding team managed to keep the site going and it evolved into one of the most popular alternative news and underground culture destinations on the web. At the height of the dot-com boom The Disinformation Company was acquired by one of the high fliers of the so-called new economy, Razorfish — when the bubble burst so did Razorfish and today The Disinformation Company is independently owned.
Their article was titled; JP Morgan Chase Donates $4.6 Million To NYPD On Eve Of Protests. In their article they ask the question; Wondering how much it costs to buy off the police department?
I agree with a comment in the article that states, it doesn't matter how you look at this it smells. And to use a quote from the disinformation article;
We simply don’t know whether the police would have behaved one iota differently in the absence of the JP Morgan donation. But it raises the troubling perspective that they might have.
Yes it does. I don't know if it has had any influence on the actions of NYPD since this weekend, but it raises doubts and questions about their response. NYPD had been looked upon since 11 September 2011 with respect and honor, all well deserved, but has New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly sold their soul to JP Morgan Chase for $4.6 million?
Don't miss Horace Boothroyd III diary from Sunday discussing this too.
From The Comments
bevenro found a link to a HuffPo article pointing out the donation was made as far back as June.
Coquiero makes makes an argument that;
Even if the donation was made earlier in the year, you don't think it's possible that JP Morgan smelled which way the wind was blowing a while ago?
This story jibes perfectly with the other stories of the rich hiring personal security, anticipating some kind of violence directed at them.
Writers Note
I'm going to request that everyone read past the first 28 (twenty-eight) comments before adding your own comments. You'll find additional info discussed, which was added to this post. Also some harsh accusations which were explained and retracted. Treat them as such.
Thank you for reading.