New York City Mayor Eric Adams and New York City Police Department (NYPD) Commissioner Edward A. Caban today issued an open call to members of the New York City Council to ride with NYPD officers as they patrol the city and employ the community policing strategies that helped drive down overall crime, including violent crime, across the city in 2023. The call follows Mayor Adams’ veto of Intro. 586-A, a bill that could make New York City less safe by forcing NYPD officers to spend more time filling out reports after Level 1 interactions with the public instead of patrolling the street and keeping the public safe.
Under the Adams administration, overall crime — including violent crime — was down in 2023. However, Intro. 586-A could slow NYPD police response times, erode years of progress building police-community relationships and preventing crime through community-oriented policing, and add tens of millions of dollars in additional NYPD overtime each year, while Mayor Adams looks to lessen spending on overtime.
“As elected officials, we have a sacred responsibility to keep our constituents safe, and I am confident that my colleagues in the City Council share our administration’s commitment to keeping New York the safest big city in America,” said Mayor Adams. “With a bill pending that could make the city less safe, city councilmembers deserve to see firsthand how our NYPD officers are keeping the public safe and building relationships in our communities — and they deserve to understand how this bill would force those officers to spend more time filling out paperwork instead of protecting New Yorkers and keeping our streets safe. We encourage all of them to take advantage of this opportunity.”
“In their ongoing work to keep New York City the safest big city in America, the men and women of the New York City Police Department have millions upon millions of interactions with the people they serve each year,” said NYPD Commissioner Caban. “These interactions are the bedrock of policing, and the proposed ‘How Many Stops Act’ turns this critical public safety tool into a burdensome drain on our police officers’ time and resources. So in an effort to continue our good-faith discussions with the authors and supporters of this bill, we invite any and all members of the City Council to join our officers as they do the vital work of keeping our city and its people safe. We want to show them firsthand the sheer scale of what NYPD cops and detectives do every day. And we need them to understand how essential it is that our officers spend their time doing police work, not paperwork.”
In 2023, the city saw a drop in overall crime, including decreases in five of the seven major crime categories, a 12 percent decline in homicides, and a 25 percent drop in shooting incidents. Crime has fallen as a result of proactive strategies deployed by the Adams administration, including the continued focus on community-oriented policing and plans to crack down on auto thefts, retail thefts, and gun violence through a $500 million blueprint to keep communities safe. The NYPD also made the most grand larceny auto arrests in 20 years, shut down more than 50 illegal smoke shops while seizing more than $23 million in illegal products, and took more than 6,500 illegal guns off the street last year — including the highest number of 3D-printed ghost guns in New York City history — bringing the total number of firearms taken off New York City streets to more than 13,700 since the start of the Adams administration.
New York, NY January 21, 2024
Source: NYC.gov – Big New York news BigNY.com
