The NYPD is working again after a slowdown in policing petty offenses, commissioner Bill Bratton said Friday.
"I don't know what the cause is. That's 30,000-some-odd officers; that their motivations might be different for different ones," he said, referring to a recent 90-percent drop in summonses resulting in an estimated $10 million revenue loss per week.
"I'm not aware of any formal encouragement by union leadership in this matter."
As New York magazine reported, the city's police force responded to the shooting of officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu in December by ceasing to enforce crimes like peeing in public, parking violations, and other revenue-drivers for the city.
Several media reports citing sources in the department say that the rank and file are furious at Mayor Bill de Blasio for anti-police remarks he made during a media interview, and for siding with protesters aggrieved over the death of Staten Island man Eric Garner. By some interpretations, de Blasio emboldened the protesters, inspiring some to attack and injure officers, and ultimately inspiring the late Ismaaiyl Abdullah Brinsley, 28, to kill their colleagues.
"The slowdown is over in the sense that the numbers are starting to go back up again. I anticipate by early next week that the numbers will return to their normalcy," the commissioner reported.
The crackdown on the rank and file appears to have been implemented late Thursday night in the 105th precinct bordering Nassau County. A driver checkpoint was set up at Springfield Boulevard and Jamaica Avenue on orders of the lieutenant, and no one was to take so much as a meal break until they'd written at least two summonses.
The New York Post reported Sunday that "police officers around the city are now threatened with transfers, no vacation time [or] sick time unless they write summonses," according to one police union source.
"The majority of [new] summonses written aren’t protecting the public in any way," said another source. "But now they’re realizing how much revenue the city is losing and they’re enforcing their will upon us."
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