NYPD work slowdown will be dealt with ‘very forcefully,’ Bratton says
Commissioner investigating dramatic drops in arrests to determine whether the dip is a deliberate jab at NYC mayor
Any New York City police
officers refusing to make arrests or issue traffic violations to express
their dissatisfaction with Mayor Bill de Blasio will face forceful
consequences, the department’s top cop said Monday.
New York
Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said at a press conference that while
he is not convinced the NYPD's rank-and-file is engaging in an organized
work slowdown, he is actively investigating a dramatic drop in arrests
in recent weeks and will deal swiftly with any intentional slacking off.
“We’re
watching that very closely,” Bratton said Monday of the dip in
summonses and arrests. He’s ordering a “comprehensive review of what has
been happening,” drilling down to the precinct and squad car level to
determine who is working and who may be dropping the ball.
The number of summonses in the city is down 90 percent for the week ending Sunday, according to the Daily News, while arrests are down 56 percent compared to the year before.
The
steep drop in arrests follows several public incidents in which
hundreds of police officers turned their backs to the mayor. They first
turned as the mayor arrived at a New York City hospital after the
killing of two cops, Wenjian Liu and Raphael Ramos, by a man apparently
seeking revenge for two deaths involving police officers, those of
Ferguson, Mo., teenager Michael Brown and of Eric Garner of Staten
Island, N.Y.
The officers turned their backs again, first at
Ramos's funeral and then at Liu's funeral this Sunday, to express their
dissatisfaction with de Blasio's treatment of the NYPD. De Blasio’s
critics have charged that the mayor inflamed anti-police tensions by
sympathizing with those protesting the treatment of Brown and Garner.
“At
this time, I would not use the term slowdown,” Bratton said. But he
added that if he determines that the drop in arrests is part of an
organized effort on the part of police, “we will deal with it very
forcefully.”.
The commissioner stressed that the drop in summonses
and arrests had not yet led to an increase in crime. On Monday, the
mayor and Bratton announced a 4.6 percent decline in major crimes last
year as compared to the year before.
“We’re not in a public safety crisis in New York City, by any stretch of the imagination,” Bratton said.
De
Blasio, who has repeatedly praised the police department in recent
weeks, said he believed it was too soon to consider the trend a
deliberate slowdown.
“We need to see a little time pass before we can draw conclusions,” De Blasio said.
Both Bratton and the mayor both criticized the officers who turned their backs Sunday.
“They
were disrespectful to the family involved, that’s the bottom line,” De
Blasio said of the hundreds of officers who turned their backs to him at
Liu’s funeral on Sunday. Bratton said the officers “embarrassed
themselves” by making a political statement in the middle of a funeral.
Last
month, de Blasio called for a moratorium on protests against excessive
use of police force until after both officers had been buried. Now that
they have both been laid to rest, protests are likely to resume. The
city has spent $35 million so far to police the demonstrations,
according to the department.
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