Norman Seabrook is the absolute worst
I’m so glad that guy’s been arrested.
For years I’ve been listening to sports radio, specifically Mets broadcasts on AM710, where Seabrook would have a regular spot – already a sign that the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association has way too much money – and there’d be this awful, deliberate attempt of disgust and fear mongering about the job of a corrections officer.
[Side comment: can someone confirm that Kars4Kids is a scam?]
The ad, which ran way too often and which made me crazy with rage, included the phrase, “We protect you from all the people who’d kill your wife and rape your daughter.” See more people complaining about that ad spot and more on this website.
What he was referring to was Riker’s prisoners. He was the union boss protecting the Rikers officers who beat those prisoners, including teenagers, when they were unarmed and often had handcuffs on.
And I get it, it’s a tough job, and union bosses protect their members. But this guy was on a different level of extreme, both in how far he’d go to protect abusive guards and the extent to which he created a war-like atmosphere between prisoners and guards. He’s a bully who leads and protects an army of bullies.
This is a guy who, in order to prevent a prisoner from testifying against one of those officers, had the entire bus system from Riker’s shut down. This is a guy who continues to allow prison guards to get away with anything at all, training them to do it behind a curtain or off camera, defending their conduct, and getting rid of investigators he doesn’t like or cannot control. This is a guy who told people to “follow the rules” so that they don’t have “to sit down at a table and come up with a story that doesn’t make any sense.”
The actual charges against Seabrook are that he invested his members’ pensions in a failing hedge fund in return for kickbacks. I’m guessing that’s not the first time something like that happened, and I’m hoping they pin a whole lot more on the guy, and that he’s never seen again. I’ve honestly had nightmares about my sons somehow fucking up and going to Riker’s, and I’d like those to end. Maybe with Seabrook gone we can finally reform that god awful hellhole.
mathbabe 
Have never heard of this person/situation so apparently a more local, than national, story. But it does bring to mind that ‘power corrupts… etc.’ It is a shame that throughout my life the leaders (not members) of major unions have been embroiled in major scandals and corruption. That is what allowed Reagan et. al to easily marginalize them (unions) and thwart their countervailing balance to corporate greed/corruption. We’ve paid a heavy price for their loss.
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Could great men thunder
As Jove himself does, Jove would ne’er be quiet,
For every pelting, petty officer
Would use his heaven for thunder;
Nothing but thunder! Merciful Heaven,
Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt
Split’st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak
Than the soft myrtle: but man, proud man,
Drest in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he’s most assured,
His glassy essence, like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As make the angels weep; who, with our spleens,
Would all themselves laugh mortal.
— Measure for Measure, 2.2.113–126
All in all, nothing more than the very model of a modern politician
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Without defending anything that NS did, I don’t think he invested anything in a “failing hedge fund”. Platinum’s historical returns have been amazingly good – even if what they’ve invested in is the kind of stuff that some might hope WOULDN’T work out for them – and if Seabrook had just invested his members’ money there, without the alleged corruption, they should have carried him out shoulder high.
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Kars4Kids gets one star (out of four) on charity navigator, and a write up in charity watch:
http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=11555
https://www.charitywatch.org/charitywatch-articles/catchy-jingle-not-a-green-light-to-donate/92
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Aha!!!
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I think you are stereo typing correction officers as being bullies, pretty much the same as saying all black people are criminals or all Muslims are terrorists. Very harsh words and a narrow mind set.
Let me fill you in, a large majority of correction officers are black, and the force is made up of well over half black women. Seems like you have had to much of that media kool aid to know that tho. You seem to be taking the side of criminals instead of law enforcement. You are part of the problem don’t you get that? Nobody is saying beating an inmate up severely is OK, but under the law officers are allowed to use force when necessary.
You say officers are bullies beating up people in handcuffs, well ever ask yourself why those people are in handcuffs? It is mainly because they are the most violent offenders on Rikers, the ones who have slashed, stabbed assaulted inmates and staff. That is why they are in handcuffs and they are even violent in handcuffs.
Certain inmates do not follow direct orders they are not children they don’t throw temper tantrums and pout when they don’t get their way, they turn violent. Hopefully you live your life and never have to encounter a single one of these people you seem to be siding with, because they are everywhere inside Rikers, the slashers, the rapists, the murderers, the drug dealers, gun dealers you name it, they are the ones on Rikers. When you turn on the news and see an innocent person slashed on the subway, robbed, shot in NYC they go to Rikers island. you think they really care what an officer wants them to do?
Also, look at the spike in violence that has occurred under these wonderful reforms that you want so much. Huge spikes in slashings and stabbings. Norman Seabrook fought against, the same people you are trying to help you wind up hurting. So what is really being accomplished? That’s right, your great reforms have done nothing but create a more violent place for everyone inmates, officers and civilian staff.
You see people like you don’t understand is that no words on paper will save your life when you are being attacked by a gang of inmates, no reform is going to save an inmates life when they are being assaulted by other inmates. Violent people are just that violent, they don’t care about your reforms. No camera can hop off the wall and save you or anyone.
I would think someone like you who gives speeches and thinks so highly of themselves would realize some of these things. But maybe you are to smart for common sense.
I also see you pray your sons don’t wind up in Rikers, what you should be praying for is that they are never the victim of a violent crime. Because I think if someone you loved were to ever become a victim your view would change. Seems there are people (like you) who are siding with criminals and forgetting about the victims.
Good luck to you.
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You’re right, most correction officers are probably fine people trying to do their jobs. I should have said that.
As for the spikes in crimes, I’d like to see your data.
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