Cops might as well wear blindfolds if the City Council passes a bill that would let them use little more than the color of a suspect’s clothing in descriptions — or risk being sued for profiling, according to this provocative new ad (pictured) from the NYPD captains union.

The ad asks, “How effective is a police officer with a blindfold on?”

And the answer is not very, says the NYPD Captains Endowment Association, which is fighting the measure, claiming it would handcuff cops and send crime rates soaring.

Union President Roy Richter — who is seen in the ad wearing a blindfold in Times Square — told The Post the bill is dangerous because “it will ban cops from identifying a suspect’s age, gender, color or disability.

“When we have wanted suspects and patterns of crimes, those are very important descriptive terms to let officers know who to look for.”

The ad warns that if cops transmit a description of a suspect that goes beyond the color of his or her clothing, they could be sued for racial profiling if the proposal becomes law.

The ad will appear in tomorrow’s Post, in addition to the union’s Web site, Twitter and Facebook — and provides links to contacts for City Council members to sway their vote on the measure.

The bill’s sponsor, Jumaane Williams (D-Brooklyn), and Speaker Christine Quinn are going to bypass normal committee process and bring the measure directly to a vote.

Detectives-union President Michael Palladino blasted Quinn for supporting the rare expedited process — and said his union plans to place ads in newspapers next week.

“The [union’s] ad will focus on . . . Speaker Quinn’s political decision to sell the security of all New Yorkers for votes. Where was the speaker and her legislation for the last seven years?” Palladino asked.

A rep for Quinn said she sent the proposals to a floor vote because a majority of council members supported it and Public Safety Committee chair Peter Vallone Jr. — an opponent — refused to let it out of committee.

PBA President Pat Lynch said the “so-called biased policing” package was a misnomer.

“Rather than focus on unnecessary laws, the council should be supporting its police officers — not attacking them,” he said.

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A recall petition against a Colorado lawmaker who supported gun control laws was deemed sufficient Tuesday, setting up the first potential recall of a state lawmaker in Colorado history.

But a lawyer for Democratic State Senate President John Morse immediately vowed to challenge the recall effort.

Morse’s attorney, Mark Grueskin, said the recall petition has a fatal law — it never mentions there would be an election to fill the senator’s seat, which is required by the Colorado Constitution.

“This isn’t some technicality or loophole. This is a critical piece of information that the proponents of this petition decided not to impart to petition signers,” Grueskin told 7NEWS.

But the group pushing the recall says their petition follows the letter of the law — and Secretary of State Scott Gessler’s office certified the petition.

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The producers of an upcoming documentary on TWA Flight 800—which exploded and crashed into the waters off Long Island, N.Y., on July 17, 1996, killing all 230 people on board—claim to have proof that a missile caused the Paris-bound flight to crash. And six former investigators who took part in the film say there was a cover-up and want the case reopened.

“There was a lack of coordination and willful denial of information,” Hank Hughes, a senior accident investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board, said on Wednesday during a conference call with reporters. “There were 755 witnesses. At no time was information provided by the witnesses shared by the FBI.”

Jim Speer, an accident investigator at the time of the crash for the Airline Pilots Association, who sifted through the recovered wreckage in a hangar, said he discovered holes consistent with those that would be formed by a high-energy blast in the right wing. He requested it be tested for explosives. When the test came back positive, he said, he was “physically removed” from a room by two CIA agents.

The investigators would not speculate on the reasons for the alleged coverup or who would have fired the missile that they believe took down the plane.

After a four-year investigation, the NTSB concluded the plane was destroyed by a center fuel tank explosion likely caused by a spark from faulty wiring. But according to Tom Stalcup, a co-producer of the documentary, the film presents new “radar and forensic evidence proving that one or more ordnance explosions outside the aircraft caused the crash.” The film will premiere on EPIX on July 17, the 17th anniversary of the disaster.

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At a June 18 gun control rally in New Hampshire sponsored by New York mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns group, the name of Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev was read aloud as a recent victim of gun violence.

Throughout the rally, organizers read a list of names of people who had been killed with guns since the Dec. 14 shootings at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT.

When they read Tsarnaev’s name, pro-gun supporters who were at the rally to counter Bloomberg’s group began shouting, “He’s a terrorist,” according to a report by Tim Buckland of the New Hampshire Union-Leader.

Tsarnaev was killed by police in a gun fight days after detonating bombs at the Boston Marathon.

Pro-gun attendees said the buses of the rally organizers had Texas license plates, and rally organizers refused to talk to talk to the media. Gun rights supporter Tony Mayfield was in attendance and said: “This is joke. We have, for all intents and purposes, a corporation from out of town doing this little publicity stunt here.”

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The deadline draws closer by the hour. In New York, the band of good-government reformers, labor unions, enviros, community organizers, religious leaders, and more have until Thursday night, when the current legislative session ends, to press state lawmakers to pass legislation combating political corruption and kickstarting a public financing program for statewide elections. Standing in their way: The odd coalition of breakaway Democrats and Republicans who control the state Senate and who are blocking the public financing bill, which passed the state Assembly earlier this year and is backed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Friends of Democracy, the super-PAC run by political operatives Jonathan Soros and David Donnelly, is one of the most aggressive backers of public financing in New York State. Soros, the son of liberal financier and mega-donor George Soros, and Donnelly see New York as the front line in the post-Citizens United battle against big-money politics. In an interview on Tuesday, Donnelly had a cut-and-dry message for the independent Democrats, who broke away from the traditional Democratic caucus to form a new leadership coalition, and the Republican legislators who are denying a vote on public financing: Support reform, or we’ll fight to replace you.

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The New York Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the New York Police Department over its surveillance of Muslim communities, accusing the police of trampling on religious freedoms and constitutional guarantees of equality.

The surveillance by the NYPD’s intelligence division has extended beyond New York City’s five boroughs into neighboring New Jersey and other nearby states. The police department says that surveillance of Muslims is legal under an earlier federal court order.

The lawsuit is the latest skirmish in an ongoing battle between the NYPD and civil liberties advocates over the department’s aggressive policing tactics – including its stop-and-frisk practices, which are the subject of a separate federal lawsuit.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, in Brooklyn, seeks to put an end to the NYPD’s surveillance of Muslims, the destruction of all records on individuals created as a result of the program and the appointment of an independent monitor to oversee the department.

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A controversial provision that would have struck down late-term abortion restrictions in New York state has died in the state senate. The measure, which would have radically expanded abortion-on-demand for reasons of “health,” among other changes, was the tenth point of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Women’s Equality Act.

However, just after midnight last night, the Independent Democratic Conference (IDC) introduced the other nine planks – and others of its own creation – while ignoring the abortion language.

Governor Cuomo struck out at the IDC during a public radio interview on Monday, vowing a bruising political fight against the group’s four members.

“They decided, by their actions, to deal with it in an election contest. I think it is a serious mistake,” Cuomo said on “The Capitol Pressroom” show. “This is going to be an electoral decision, and it’s going to be in the re-election campaigns of these senators.”

The New York legislative session ends on Thursday, making it a practical certainty that the abortion provisions will not be reintroduced, let alone passed this session.

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A business owner shot and killed a robber Monday in Newark.

Around 3:20 p.m., the suspect walked into an unidentified business in the 500 block of Central Avenue in Newark with a loaded gun and a backpack, according to the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office and Newark police.

The suspect announced a robbery, and ordered the owner to fill the backpack with money and gold. The suspect said he would shoot the owner’s family members if the owner did not comply, authorities said.

But the owner fought back. He pulled his own gun, and shot the suspect.

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Vice President Joseph R. Biden said Tuesday the fight for congressional action on gun legislation is far from over while outlining unilateral steps the Obama administration has taken to combat gun violence in the wake of the Connecticut school shootings in December.

The address was simultaneously a summary of what President Obama has been able to do through executive actions since the shootings in Newtown, Conn., and a rallying cry to remind voters and lawmakers that neither Mr. Biden nor Mr. Obama is going to let the issue fade from public memory.“The most important message to take from here today is the president and I are a team,” Mr. Biden said. “We have not given up. Our friends in the House and Senate, they have not given up.”

Mr. Biden said because of a “perverted” rule requiring 60 votes to herd off potential filibusters in the Senate, the 41 Republicans and four Democrats who opposed the administration’s gun control bill were able to block it even though it had the support of 51 Democrats and four Republicans.

“I know for a fact some of them wonder about, now, whether that was a prudent vote,” said Mr. Biden, who described the shooting deaths of 20 first-graders and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School as “the straw that broke the camel’s back” in the gun debate.

An anti-gun violence rally at the Statehouse plaza on Tuesday turned ugly when gun rights supporters turned out to protest the event and one pro-gun advocate had to be Tasered by Concord Police after resisting their efforts to detain him.

Daniel Musso, 52, of Brentwood attempted to interject commentary while John Cantin of Manchester was speaking about his efforts to influence U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-NH, on the background check issue.

Musso, who was wearing a pro-Native American rights T-shirt, asked Cantin to take his glasses off and later, challenged Cantin’s statements and statistics. Private security hired by the Mayors Against Illegal Guns group asked Musso to leave but he didn’t budge. After a few minutes, Musso threw up his hands and left Cantin’s side.

Later, police were led by the private security team to the Musso’s location, interspersed with other gun rights advocates and began speaking with him. A scuffle broke out and three officers attempted to subdue Musso.

The three officers eventually pinned Musso up against the Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce information booth in the plaza and repeatedly warned him to stop resisting while he denied he was resisting. An officer kneed Musso and he was then Tasered by another officer and brought to the ground before being taken into custody.

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