Ray Kelly's $1.5 Million Bodyguards, And The Murder Plot That Wasn't

Ray Kelly's $1.5 Million Bodyguards, And The Murder Plot That Wasn't
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Over at DNAinfo, Murray Weiss is reporting from police sources that Ray Kelly will keep a 10-officer, $1.5 million a year police detail in his retirement.

Kelly will justify the cost, it seems, by relying on an assessment from the NYPD's controversial Intelligence Division (which was originally mostly responsible for the safety of dignitaries and celebrities visiting New York, before in morphed into a mini-CIA).

I've put in a request with the NYPD's press team for a copy of Intel's memo. A taxpayer expense of this magnitude should be justified in a written document available for public review. Don't hold your breath.

In the meantime, this May 17 declaration from Deputy Commissioner David Cohen in one of the NYPD surveillance lawsuits may provide some insight on the perceived threats to Kelly's safety.

After the officers who shot Sean Bell were acquitted, Cohen wrote, surveillance was ramped up citywide "in response to the possibility of unlawful activity and allowed for informed decision-making on the likelihood of violence or other unlawful activity, as well as resource deployment decisions."

"The shooting and subsequent trial sparked demonstrations across New York City and widespread threats of violence against members of the NYPD, including Police Commissioner Kelly, who was the target of a murder plot motivated by the Sean Bell matter," Cohen wrote.

Ray Kelly murder scheme! Sounds pretty serious. Until you learn who was behind the 2007 "plot": a 400-pound, imprisoned, impoverished wheelchair-bound "mentally ill" man with a rap sheet the length of your arm.

"I want them to feel like I'm a motherf------ terrorist," the brilliant plotter allegedly told an undercover cop (he pled guilty to criminal solicitation).

"I don't think this had anything to do with Sean Bell," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at the time. "This is a deranged person and sadly, there are always these kinds of threats against the police commissioner and against others in public service, and we take them all very seriously."

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