NYC Magazine » NYPD

NYC Murder Rate at Record Low

Igor Derysh — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 22:30:51 +0000

NYC's Army

Say what you will about New York City turning into a police state (and I’ve said plenty) but it does work. According to the New York Times, New York City is on pace to have its lowest murder rate on record.

The Times reports that by December 27, the city had 461 murders, 35 less than the city had in 2007 when the city had less than 500 murders for the first time.

Pretty good considering as recently as 1990 the city saw more than 2,200 murders in one year.

At the same time, the city’s current deficit will undoubtedly lead to thousands of the NYPD’s massive police force getting laid off which could lead to a slight increase in the rate.

On the other hand, murder rates have fallen greatly all over the country. The FBI is reporting that the murder rate around the country has fallen by 10% (New York City’s has fallen by 19%).

Other cities where crime has fallen greatly include Atlanta, Chicago, Boston, and Philadelphia. The biggest drop was seen in Los Angeles whose murder rate fell by nearly 30% in the first half of this year.

The Mayor’s office has linked the fall in murders to tighter gun control policies, a link that is hard to deny.

Here is a look at how New York City’s murder rates have looked over the last two decades:

1990: 2,245 (record high)

1995: 1,200+

2000: 700

2005: 539

2006: 596

2007: 496

2008: 522

2009: 461+

NYPD Pushing Ridiculous “Feet-on-Seat” Tickets in Subway

Igor Derysh — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 14:00:01 +0000

Just as the NYPD tried to tackle jaywalking a few years ago, cops are not stringently ticketing commuters (who are already being screwed by the MTA) for putting their feet up on train seats…even when train cars are nearly empty.

The Gothamist details how two people have received $50 fines for putting their feet up on seats nearby despite the fact that they did so on nearly empty cars after midnight.

One such case included a Fashion Institute of Technology student who received two fines on two consecutive days even though he did so at around 2:30 AM.

According to the Gothamist, here is what happened after the student was ticketed for the second time: “’After the second time, I asked the officer, ‘Really, what’s going on? Why is this happening?’” the Harlem resident and Cincinnati native said. “And he told me, ‘Recently we’ve been told to write tickets instead of give warnings for this type of thing.’ He said they need to hit quotas.” Stevens admitted to stretching out the first time, but in the second case he insists he merely had his legs crossed. “The officer said it was a danger because people can get robbed on the subway if they fall asleep, which I didn’t. Give me a break.’”

In another case, a 58-year-old man received the same ticket at almost the same time of night when he wouldn’t be bothering anyone.

Since the MTA instituted the law that prohibits taking up more than one seat the city has been fining nearly 1,000 commuters for the violation in a cheap attempt to raise money for the city by collecting from taxpayers who haven’t done anything wrong.

NYC Wastes Tens of Millions on Pot Arrests, 12% of All Arrests Are Marijuana Charges

Igor Derysh — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 14:00:43 +0000

Mayor Bloomberg...

For all the talk about crime statistics in New York City, the irony of all ironies is that the taxpayer is charged tens of millions of dollars every year so that cops can arrest people for harmlessly smoking a pot.

According to a recent study, around 12% of all arrests in New York City are on marijuana charges, something that was rarely done until Rudy Giuliani and, even more so, Michael Bloomberg installed policies to make their crime statistics look good by going after pot smokers.

Of course the crime stats improved under Giuliani and Bloomberg, the two mayors saw marijuana arrests surge from under 1,000 marijuana arrests per year under Mayor David Dinkins to a whopping 40,000+ last year!

Bloomberg, who has himself admitted to enjoying marijuana in his younger years, has boasted about improving the city’s crime statistics on top of what happened under Giuliani but that is because under Mayor Mike, the city has been arresting 12,000 more people every year for pot than under Rudy.

A recent study featured in the New York Times showed some interesting statistics resulting the city’s war on pot.

For one, while Giuliani did not go that overboard with pot arrests, the very lowest-level pot arrests jumped by more than 50% under Bloomberg!

Even more interesting is the racial divide in these cases. Of the 40,000+ arrested for marijuana charges last year, nearly 90% were black or hispanic.

Just to show how ridiculous Mayor Mike’s policy has been on marijuana, in 2008 alone, the city arrested more people for marijuana charges than in in 12 years of Mayor Ed Koch, four years of Dinkins, and the first two years of Giuliani COMBINED!

Fatal Shooting In Times Square

Yelena Mandenberg — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 06:13:55 +0000

Times Square today, after a shooting between a cop and a street vendor turned deadly

Thursday morning, a police sergeant (wearing plain clothes) had a showdown with a street vendor on 42^nd street, ending with the death of the vendor.

The incident, taking place on New York’s most famous and crowded street, caused quite a commotion and was incredibly public as hundreds of people passed by the scene.

This happened at around 11:15 a.m., when the sergeant, Christopher Newsom, 41, had a confrontation with two men outside of 1515 Broadway, the skyscraper that is between 44^th and 45^th Streets that is most famous for being the setting of the MTV show, “Total Request Live.”

According to the New York Time, sergeant Newsom regularly was assigned to the Midtown South Precinct peddler unit, but switched for the day to help out the anticrime unit that patrols Times Square.

Newsom supposedly recognized two men who were selling CDs to passersby and asked for their vendors’ tax stamp, which they would need to legally sell the CDs in the street.

When asked, one of the vendors, 25-year-old Raymond Martinez of the Bronx, took off running. Sergeant Newsom chased the vendor until they would up at a promenade that leads to the main entrance of the Marriott Marquis Hotel.

Police and detectives were able to see what happened next thanks to the security cameras outside the Marquis.

Apparently, the sergeant yelled at the vendor to stop and put up his hands, but Martinez had a different idea in mind. He pulled out what police found to be a stolen gun out of his coat. Martinez proceeded to shoot twice at the sergeant, who has been on the force for 17 years, until his gun jammed.

In that time, sergeant Newsom had managed to find his weapon, and fired four shots, all of which hit Martinez in the chest, below the neck, and in the left arm. He also had a graze wound in his right arm.

Emergency workers took Martinez to St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center, where he was pronounced dead.

City Offers Free Swine Flu Shot To All, Until Saturday

Yelena Mandenberg — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 06:10:37 +0000

Swine Flu Vaccine Loses Popularity in New York

Since the hype about swine flu has died down recently, the city has been getting less and less demands for the swine flu vaccine, and is going to stop giving out free shots this Saturday. However, until then, they are inviting everyone – regardless of age or health – to come receive the shot.

These shots are given out at free clinics, which were mainly created so that middle and high school students could receive free medical attention but are now also currently open to accommodate pregnant women, people ages 4 to 24, and people from 25 to 64 who have underlying health problems such as diabetes, asthma, or heart and lung conditions.

In just four weeks, 37,000 New Yorkers were vaccinated at the free clinics. However, last weekend, the demand suddenly fell to just 7,000 people, which is when the city made its decision to pull the vaccine.

Few New Yorkers have actually gotten the vaccine. There were approximately 2 million doses allocated to New York city, but according to the New York Times, fewer than 440,000 New Yorkers have actually been vaccinated, 97,845 of them children.

NYPD Won’t Stop Stop-and-Frisk Program

Igor Derysh — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:00:50 +0000

When Michael Bloomberg campaigned for re-election, one of his biggest claims was his work to lower crime in the city. While crime did indeed go down under the Bloomberg but so did the level of civil liberties that New Yorkers have.

Now, it appears that the controversial and seemingly unconstitutional NYPD Stop-and-Frisk program will continue despite countless calls from civil liberties and beleaguered New Yorkers to stop the searches of innocent New Yorkers.

The NYPD’s Stop-and-Frisk program has been going on for years. Each and every year the NYPD stops more than half of a million New Yorkers, mostly minorities and people in their teens and twenties, and frisks them, despite their being no evidence that the person did anything wrong.

Of the New Yorkers stopped, only six percent are given a summons and seven percent are arrested.

Essentially, the program makes simply walking down the street cause to be stopped by an officer and searched as passers-by watch and assume the worst.

The NYCLU has been protesting this program since its inception, arguing that statistically the program overwhelmingly targets minorities, especially African-Americans.

It is this program that has made New York City the marijuana arrest capital of the country. Nearly 40,000 people were arrested for marijuana possession in New York in 2008 while other states and cities around the country have decriminalized marijuana arguing that controlling pot is a massive waste of city resources.

For more on the NYPD Stop-and-Frisk program, click here.

NYPD Finally Pulls in New Applicants

Yelena Mandenberg — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:30:38 +0000

NYPD Badge

For a place like New York City, a gigantic police force is a top priority, but in recent years, the NYPD has been unable to generate any interest in this career field. Finally, new numbers show that because of the prolonged recession and an increase in rookie salaries, the number of applications to the Police Academy rose 54 percent.

For a while, the applications have slowed. Many thought they could find better jobs, or safer jobs. Now, however, many people who have been out of work for a while decided to live out their childhood dreams and become police officers.

This increase in applicants also means that the NYPD is becoming more and more diverse. The percentage of black, Hispanic, Asian and female officers has been steadily rising since 2000.

Yet, now that the NYPD has enough applicants, due to budget cuts, they cannot afford to take full advantage of the surplus.

“When we had the money, we didn’t have the people,” the police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, said in an interview with the New York Times. “Now we have the people and we don’t have the money. We have people knocking on our door and we can’t do anything.”

A policeman’s salary can be very enticing at a time like this. Currently, the base salary for first-year officers is $41,975, back up after falling to $25,100 in 2005. After five and a half years, the total compensation, which includes holiday pay, uniform allowance, night differential and longevity pay, is up to $90,829.

Is there really a wonder why the police force is suddenly one of the best places to work?