New York’s Finest, at their finest.
NYPD traffic tickets and summonses for minor offenses have dropped off by a staggering 94 percent following the execution of two cops — as officers feel betrayed by the mayor and fear for their safety, The Post has learned.
The dramatic drop comes as Police Commissioner Bill Bratton and Mayor Bill de Blasio plan to hold anemergency summit on Tuesday with the heads of the five police unions to try to close the widening rift between cops and the administration.
The unprecedented meeting is being held at the new Police Academy in Queens at 2 p.m., sources said.
Angry union leaders have ordered drastic measures for their members since the Dec. 20 assassination of two NYPD cops in a patrol car, including that two units respond to every call.
It has helped contribute to a nose dive in low-level policing, with overall arrests down 66 percent for the week starting Dec. 22 compared with the same period in 2013, stats show.
Citations for traffic violations fell by 94 percent, from 10,069 to 587, during that time frame.
So your brilliant, devious plan is this: you’re going to show the people who believe that the NYPD is full of power-hungry bullies and paramilitary goons what for by displaying to the country exactly how most of the collars you make are in fact wholly unnecessary exercises of petty microagression towards the citizenry you hold in open and rancorous contempt.
Okay then. Go with that plan, guys.
The Thin Blue Line, indeed.
Kerry Reid
Crybabies In Blue
You know, I wonder where all those people who scream about how we have to “clean house” and completely replace the staff at “failing” schools are now that the NYPD has clearly indicated that they do not wish to do the job for which they are paid by the public.
jayboat
Damn, if there was ever a time for a popcorn joke.
Except that none of this is funny.
debbie
The New American Way: Extortion.
Corner Stone
It’s almost like an article written by The Onion. “Cops determined to show they’re really nothing better than petty buggers”
That seems like a brilliant plan, brazenly display that the NYPD is largely nothing more than a revenue source for the city, essentially stealing from the working class and poors, to pay for amenities for the wealthy.
JPL
Wow…
Corner Stone
Who the F do they think is going to approve for the funds necessary to accomplish this level of staffing and/or overtime?
lol
Keep waiting to hear from all the good cops that people keep assuring me are in the NYPD.
Oh, they’ve been intimidated into silence through threats of violence or worse?
Weird. I guess nothing to see here.
gussie
Seriously, what’s the downside here? Just the loss of revenue? The theory is that Windows will get Broken, and serious crimes will skyrocket?
Luther Siler
The REALLY awesome part will come when the mayor runs for reelection on the massive reduction in the crime rate.
Jasmine Bleach
Damn, you mean low-level arrests and citations have fallen by that amount and the city and population are still operating in a non-dysfunctional state?!?
I think I see where some cost savings for the city can be had . . . the data show that you can reduce low-level policing by 66%-94% and still have things work!
charluckles
At least they aren’t snow plow drivers or sanitation workers. People might be angry.
TFinSF
Fire them all. Hire new ones. Maybe screen out anyone displaying signs they might be an asshole this time. Granted, it may take a while to restaff, but better understaffed than staffed with useless assholes.
SatanicPanic
I mean, I guess city hall will get annoyed by having to divert money from somewhere else, but otherwise this is an amazing case of shooting their own feet.
Corner Stone
The fucking balls on these guys. What a clown.
japa21
I was going to ask if the NYPD realized how much like jerks they look to the world at large, and then I realized they just don’t care how they look or what people think of them.
Since, in their minds, all non-police are inferior beings (except the 1%) those opinions don’t matter.
SatanicPanic
@Corner Stone: hehehehehehe I guess turning their backs on him at a funeral was “working through problems?”
Howard Beale IV
Anybody else catch that number? FIVE Police Unions?
Corner Stone
Also from the linked article:
“The Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association has warned its members to put their safety first and not make arrests “unless absolutely necessary.”
I’m as big a supporter of unions as you’re likely to find on this blog, and pretty much anywhere else, but this isn’t about a company dock that won’t rectify unsafe working conditions in their warehouse. Even in those situations you can be punished or fined for any actions deemed as “work slowdown”, unless a strike is called.
I don’t see how city leaders can let any of this stand.
Couldn't Stand the Weather
Back in the day, I ran into some charming members of the constabulary of Richmond. They behaved in a borderline racist fashion, surprising no one.
Dealing with Virginia cops is a cakewalk compared to St. Louis, Missouri, Cleveland, Ohio and New York.
Amir Khalid
Just curious: what is the revenue lost to New York City from these tickets not issued and fines not assessed? Are these cops required to make a quota, like their drug-squad colleagues must with arrests?
Citizen_X
@gussie: There’ll be graffiti! Pants will sag! Wiseass kids will mouth off! Don’t you care?
Corner Stone
@Howard Beale IV:
Exactly the same as the number of points on a pentagram! Is that you, Satan?
GregB
The Thin Blue Whine.
Amir Khalid
@Howard Beale IV:
One for patrol officers (the one headed by Pat Lynch), one for sergeants, one for detectives, one for lieutenants, and one for captains. I am as mystified by that as you are.
Corner Stone
@Citizen_X:
It’s almost as horrifying as the picture painted by the article Atrios links to today.
“With audible murmurs of “This is no way to live,” “What the hell am I doing here—I hate it here,” and “Fuck this place. Fuck this horrible place,” all 8.4 million citizens in each of the five boroughs packed up their belongings and told reporters they would rather blow their brains out with a shotgun than spend another waking moment in this festering cesspool of filth and scum and sadness.”
Jasmine Bleach
@Corner Stone:
I dunno–I’m kind of all for not making arrests “unless absolutely necessary.” I suppose it all becomes rather subjective at that point, but really, the number of people we have in prisons and jails in this country is abhorrent, and probably half (e.g., drug possession charges) are unnecessary.
I’m half inclined to let them go for it, get the NYPD out of people’s faces on the street, and see what happens. If things go along pretty much as they have been without much change in levels of crime, lay off 66% of them and call it done.
Kerry Reid
@GregB: I hate myself for not coming up with that. Bravo!
Jasmine Bleach
@Howard Beale IV:
Maybe one for each borough?
SatanicPanic
@Jasmine Bleach: Isn’t this an admission that they’re making unnecessary arrests?
Gin & Tonic
@TFinSF: Just curious, did you support Reagan doing that with PATCO?
Roger Moore
@Amir Khalid:
You can have conflicts of interest when a union includes both managers and the people they’re managing, so it makes at least some sense to keep the higher level officers in a different union from the lower level ones. I don’t know if it makes sense to have quite as many as they do, but some separation makes sense.
Corner Stone
@Jasmine Bleach:
Couple of points there 1) I agree to an extent, but it should be driven by a sane policing policy, not petty BS spite in an unauthorized work stoppage and 2) it makes one wonder if they even realize that after people notice they can go about their day without being hassled for petty BS, they might really freakin resent it when the “normal” levels resume.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Blasio can have his Reagan moment – call in the National Guard and fire every single police officer, status not eligible for rehire. I would without hesitation.
I am no union buster but this is a union whose successors will need to have a forceful reminder of who it is they actually work for.
Hungry Joe
“Make no unnecessary arrests”!? Finally, something positive comes out of all this: a great motto. They should stencil it on their patrol cars and stamp it on their badges.
Roger Moore
@Corner Stone:
The point, though, is that the people who were being regularly hassled by NYPD are already up in arms about it; they don’t need a work slowdown to realize that they’re subject to petty harassment. The people who don’t have a problem with the way NYPD has been policing are unlikely to see much effect. The only way they’ll hear about it is on the news, which will very likely blame any serious crime on the police situation but somehow twist it around to make it de Blasio’s fault for failing to kowtow to the police
Amir Khalid
@Roger Moore:
I was thinking, “one for patrol officers in the streets, one for sergeants at their desks” etc. had a kind of Tolkien-ish ring to it.
Corner Stone
@Roger Moore: I think there is probably a good chunk of citizenry that will take notice on this. The city wasn’t driving revenue exclusively off the backs of the poors, because the poors have no assets to extort. So, IMO, there is a non-insignificant cohort that might possibly be moved to action as a result of these decisions by the NYPD.
El Caganer
@Corner Stone: So instead of making arrests, they’re just going to shoot people? Sounds like a plan!
Roger Moore
@Amir Khalid:
I am acutely aware of the dangers of a union representing different levels within an organization because I’ve been having problems with it myself. Divide and conquer is an old union busting trick, and having multiple levels of the organization in a single union makes it way too easy. It’s a big problem with the Wobblies’ idea of one big union.
mtiffany
587? 587? The cops wrote 587 citations for traffic violations in that time period?!?!?!
I always suspected NYC was full of bad drivers, but 587? I didn’t think were that many…
Shalimar
@Gin & Tonic: I know I didn’t, even though I was far less pro-union than I am now. Mainly because I was 13 and naively thought Teamsters was just a synonym for gangsters and unions were incredibly corrupt. No, I was sure that such a safety-critical job shouldn’t have every single person be learning from scratch at the same time.
Even though there didn’t turn out to be an increase in crashes after we replaced all the air traffic controllers, and even though I don’t trust police at all to protect me from anything and don’t think 90% of what they do is critical, I still don’t think it wouldn’t be practical or appropriate to replace all the NYPD though I have a knee-jerk sympathy with the idea.
What worries me more than anything is the Jerad Miller situation. He thought he was the vanguard of a revolution against government by killing police officers. I think it is far more likely that any real rebellion will be led by police, and we are beginning to see that develop in New York.
chopper
like hassling people for selling loosies? a little late there, fellas.
chopper
if i were the mayor, i’d use this as an excuse to slash the NYPDs budget. fuck em.
hey, if we’re gonna stop doing low-level policing and enforcing traffic laws, we don’t need so many cops amirite?
Shalimar
@El Caganer: They always shoot people. Now, under their new and improved plan, there will be multiple dashboard and body cams at the scene of each police shooting. So even more equipment that mysteriously is never turned on.
ChrisNbama
Actually it is pretty brilliant. Lack of citations impacts city coffers. How much revenue is the city losing due to bullshit citations not being issued?
El Caganer
@ChrisNbama: Probably enough so it can’t give cops a raise in their next contract.
JerryN
Not sure that I buy the numbers (after all, it is the NY Post). The NYPD has a separate traffic division that writes the bulk of the tickets for parking violations, illegal turns, etc. That division is staffed with agents, not officers, and the only weapons they carry are a scanner for the registration stickers and a ticket book.
Patricia Kayden
If a police temper tantrum slowdown (or whatever this is) leads to less Blacks being killed by them, I’m okay with that. Murdering someone for selling loose cigarettes is beyond the pale. They need to understand that.
Kristin
I guess it’s time for a big layoff!
The Other Bob
@Hungry Joe:
How about “No unnecessary killing.” That we could all agree on.
Mnemosyne
@Shalimar:
It is possible to turn a police department around, though it takes a shitload of work and a couple of decades. LAPD is surprisingly professional now — we had major protests over the shooting of a local man soon after Ferguson and protests over the lack of a indictment in Mike Brown’s killing and we had no police riot. They let people peacefully protest as long as they didn’t block traffic and didn’t bring in the riot gear or rubber bullets. I have a couple of links in the thread above.
I say “surprisingly professional” because I lived here during the 1992 riots, when then-Chief Daryl Gates decided that if people were pissed at LAPD, then LAPD would stay inside and prove that the city really needed them. That worked out about as well as it works when you decide to ignore your ex-lover to prove they really miss you. I never imagined in a million years that LAPD would be able to turn themselves around and become a professional police department rather than an occupying force, but they seem pretty firmly on that road (though they’re not quite there yet).
Corner Stone
@El Caganer:
And charge the family for the bullets.
Profit!
TFinSF
@Gin & Tonic: I was five when that happened. So, yes, strong Reagan backer at that age.
mclaren
Have you people finally realized that the police-military-prison-surveillance-torture complex runs America?
Are you people waking up to the fact that the civilians are no longer in charge?
After 9/11, the police and the military took over in a soft coup. Now they’re flexing their muscles.
This is the way it is, people. Civilians don’t have a say in the new post-9/11 security state.
You’re not in charge, the muggers with badges are.
mclaren
@Mnemosyne:
Are you drunk, Mnemosyne? Or are you just high on LSD?
Timeline of the LAPD Rampart Division scandal.
Yes, Mnemosyne, framing innocent people for drug and firearm possession and stealing cash from drug dealers and drugs from the evidence lockup is one hell of a “reform.”
The LAPD is a group of thieving corrupt goons only different from the drug dealers and gang members they shoot and arrest by being a larger gang, better armed.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@mclaren:
Tell me, mclaren, what year do you think it is right now? When I say it takes a couple of decades to start to turn things around, can you do some simple math to figure out when the Rampart scandal broke and when the last set of prosecutions occurred? Just round numbers will do.
Carnacki
The Thinskin Blue Line
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@mclaren:
Fatal LAPD Pursuit Shooting Not Justified, Chief Beck Says
http://abc7.com/news/fatal-lapd-pursuit-shooting-not-justified-chief-beck-says-/423090/
Obviously same as it ever was. Because LAPD has a history of looking at officer-involved shootings in an unbiased way and saying that they thought certain ones were unjustified, amirite?
Mike in NC
Way too many cops in this country. We live in a small town of about 3000 (off season population) and every day I’m on the road I can see town police cars, county sheriff cars, and state trooper cars. No doubt they all have quotas to fill.
Laertes
Mnemosyne: “LAPD used to suck. They’re better now.”
mclaren: (quick bit of Googling)
mclaren: “Hey, here’s a link about an LAPD thing I just learned about today! I haven’t read enough to understand that this all went down a decade and a half ago! I’m going to post it with a really snotty tone, making it utterly impossible to walk back when someone notices my obvious error!”
Mnemosyne: “Rather proves my point, don’t you think?”
mclaren: (limps away in silence)
gallery: (cheers)
Patricia Kayden
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini): I have to wonder if the victim being White made a difference. Just saying.
mclaren
@Mike in NC:
Now this is insightful — but take the next step and ask yourself why you see so many police cars everywhere, writing tickets and arresting people (where they’ll be charged for their stay in jail per diem as well as fined) and doing asset forfeiture.
The reason you’re seeing cops swarm like locusts to write tickets and forfeit assets is because revenues in cities and towns and states across America have collapsed. With the advent of the new oligarchy and the global financial meltdown of 2008-9, the American middle class has been crushed and as a result people can’t afford to pay property taxes (they’ve lost their homes and moved into tiny apartments) and can’t afford to buy boats or expensive new cars (which would keep those licensing fees rolling in) and they can’t afford to buy big-ticket items like stoves or refrigerators or giant-screen TVs (which would keep those state and city tax revenues rolling in).
So all of America is now in the same boat as Ferguson, Missouri — revenues have crashed, and the only way to make enough income for the city or county or state to survive is to extort cash from the citizenry by using police as a glorified protection racket.
Source: ” What collapsing empire looks like: Cities are forced to turn off streetlights and slash school days while the wealthy thrive and wars drone on,” Glenn Greenwald, 6 August 2010.
Cities and states are so desperate they’re doing crazy things like selling off their parking meters to private companies and trying to sell public freeways to foreign combines that want to turn ’em into toll roads. Cities are tearing up their roads and repaving ’em with gravel because they can’t afford the upkeep. Cities are shutting down their streetlights and ending their bus service because it costs too much to keep the fucking streetlights lit.
Read Matt Taibbi’s Griftopia.
JaneE
They are not going to fire the entire force, but they should. Call in the national guard to police the streets until a new set can be hired. Turn investigation over to other departments in the state or call in Federal help. And make sure that the psych tests are used to weed out the unstable or worse. Let the union try to prove in court that they are not already in breech by refusal to work, and refusal to respect the chain of command, not to mention demanding blanket immunity for crimes committed by their members. And put the ones who did break the law in jail, with the other criminals. Sometimes the police are justified in using force, even lethal force. Sometimes the amount of force is questionable, and maybe it was actually justified. But sometimes the force cannot be justified at all. Those cases should be as repugnant to the police as they are to the general public, but that is not the case in NYPD.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Patricia Kayden:
I wouldn’t be surprised, unfortunately, but it certainly wasn’t the first time the LAPD shot a white person, and up until now, they always claimed those shootings were justified, too. So it actually is a hopeful sign that they’re starting to change.
I’ll be very curious to see what Chief Beck has to say about the autopsy report that was released yesterday — he’ll probably wait until after the holiday since our local activists are understandably worked up about the St. Louis and NYC grand juries and were out protesting the autopsy yesterday. The finding that one of the three shots occurred with the muzzle pressed against the victim’s back looks really, really bad and is going to be very tough to sweep under the rug with no discipline to the officers.
Heliopause
Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit selling loosies and piss in public in NYC.
Bill
Isn’t this a positive development?
mclaren
@Laertes:
Laertes makes a fool of himself by claiming I didn’t know about the LAPD Rampart scandal from the moment it happened back in 1997. Everyone laughs in disbelief.
Mnemosyne: It was only a few bad apples in the LAPD! They’re totally professional!
Laertes: Genius argument! “Only a few bad apples!” That’s so breathtakingly original, it’s sure to win the day! Watch as mclaren slinks away, never to be heard of again!
Meanwhile…
Source: “After Dorner: How the LAPD Has Covered Up Its Bad Behavior: The LAPD is supposed to have cleaned up its act under the tenure of Police Chief Charlie Beck. But his record is rife with denials and whitewashes,” The Nation, 26 March 2013.
Yes, nothing says “professional police force” like the LAPD beating a woman to a pulp during a routine traffic stop and then giving each other a fist bump. When civilians think of the word “professional policing,” the first thing that comes to mind is shooting hundreds of rounds at innocent women delivering newspapers during the crazed out-of-control manhunt for Christopher Dorner.
Mnemosyne: Okay, it was a year ago! A year! But only a few more bad apples! Hundreds of bad apples!
Source: “LAPD Violent Arrests: Recent Spate Of Controversies Could Harm Goodwill Efforts,” 25 October 2012.
And then there’s the charming LAPD Officers Luis Valenzuela, James Nichols Accused Of Forcing Women To Have Sex” 4 January 2013.
Yes, nothing says “professional policing” like officers demanding sex from a woman they’ve stopped on the freeway.
Source: “Los Angeles gang police quit over financial rules,” 10 January 2011.
So let’s see…the LAPD is so corrupt and so violent that it took a court order to get them to change their behavior.
Whoops.
And after that court order? Well, aside from the officers beating innocent women and high-fiving one another, or demanding sex from women they stop for traffic violations, or quitting the gang units because financial disclosure laws would reveal the bribes they took and the cash they ripped off from drug dealers, there’s the little matter of theLAPD systematically mislabeling crimes to artificially reduce the crime statistics:
Looks like the LAPD hasn’t reformed itself at all. It’s still a bunch of racist superviolent thugs and thieves and liars.
But then everyone who grew up in South California knows that. Everyone knows you don’t go out in HelL.A. after 10 p.m. at night because that’s when all the bad cops, the really vicious corrupt thug cops that the city won’t fire but dumps on the graveyard shift, wolfpack, and that’s when the innocent civilians wind up face-down on the asphalt with a clean piece planted on them that the LAPD goons stole from a drug dealer after ripping off his stash.
It’s common knowledge. Drive in HelL.A. after 10 at night, and you’re taking your life in your hands — because of the corrupt thuggish LAPD.
Hey, Mnemosyne — keep bleating “that was years ago” and “it’s only a few (dozen) [hundred] {thousand} bad apples in the LAPD!”
Everyone’s laughing at you too hard to pay attention anymore.
mclaren
@JaneE:
Seriously. New York City is in a state of emergency if its paid police refuse to enforce the law.
Declare a state of emergency, call in the National Guard to handle policing, fire the entire NYPD and hire new people.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Heliopause:
You sell piss?! There’s a market for that?
NJ_Cher
@Citizen_X: Pants will sag? OMD! I can’t take it!!!
chopper
@mclaren:
well, we’re laughing anyway.
Snarki, child of Loki
“There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time.”
Said by some commie-liberal “Cal” somethingoranother.
paradoctor
The difference between a law enforcement officer and a peace officer is that a law enforcement officer makes an arrest whenever possible, and a peace officer makes an arrest only if necessary.
Is the NYPD flouncing its way to the peace-officer model?