Large Numbers of the NYPD Leave Their Jobs After Calls For Defunding Get Louder

Defund the police? This is crazy.

Reform the police? Yes, absolutely. And give the NYPD MORE money for training that meets the ideals of the public in the areas of respect for all, equality, zero tolerance for bias, hate crimes, intentional harm, intimidation, or false claims. Open the records and hold anyone who violates these rules accountable with punishment equal to the crimes they commit, just like anyone else.

Defund the police? No, but make each officer accountable for his/her actions, and Do No Harm unless in danger of being killed with a lethal weapon. Keep all body cams on at all times, have the public give input on what happened. Give the public a voice, hear what people say, act on it.

We were walking our dog down second avenue about two weeks ago at 10:00pm when we saw two cars roll up to the Verizon Wireless store across the street. About 6-8 men rushed out of the cars, ran to the glass windows of the store, broke the glass, entered the store through the broken windows and grabbed all the telephones and other equipment on the walls and on the tables, and then jumped back into the waiting cars and took off. Police were called and there in 4 minutes, blocking off the sidewalk from pedestrians (and their pets) so no one got hurt.

We were glad that they came.

Defund the police? Who takes their place? Where will funding for the newbies come from?

This issue is so hot, our Mayor has no idea what to do:
De Blasio and lawmakers in budget stalemate over NYPD cuts, layoffs
Betsy Combier
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272 uniformed NYPD cops file for retirement after George Floyd death

Dean Balsamini, NY POST, June 27, 2020

Cops are hanging up their handcuffs in huge numbers.

The flurry of Finest farewells began after the police-involved killing of George Floyd on May 25, with 272 uniformed cops putting in retirement papers from then through June 24, the NYPD says.

That’s a 49 percent spike from the 183 officers who filed during the same period last year, according to the department.

An NYPD source suggested the recent departures could signal a coming crisis for the 36,000-member department, which also faces a $1 billion budget reduction amid the “defund the police”  furor.

“We are worried about a surge in attrition reducing our headcount beyond what we can sustain without new recruits, and are afraid the City Council has not taken the surge into account,” he said.

Police Benevolent Association president Patrick Lynch said cops are “at their breaking point, whether they have 20 years on the job or only two. We are all asking the same question: ‘How can we keep doing our job in this environment?’ And that is exactly what the anti-cop crowd wants. If we have no cops because no one wants to be a cop, they will have achieved their ultimate goal.”

Ed Mullins, president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, said an “exodus” from the NYPD has begun. He said nearly 80 of his members have recently filed for retirement, and that morale is “at the lowest levels I’ve seen in 38 years.”

The fiery union leader added, “People have had enough and no longer feel it’s worth risking their personal well-being for a thankless position.”

“There is no leadership, no direction, no training for new policies,” he said. “Department brass is paralyzed (and) too afraid to uphold their sworn oath in fear of losing their jobs. Sadly, the people of this city will soon experience what New York City was like in the 1980s.”

Outrage over Floyd’s death sparked nationwide protests, and some NYPD officers see themselves as collateral damage.

“It’s an all-out war on cops and we have no support,” said one veteran Brooklyn cop, who is retiring next month. “I wanted to wait for my 30th anniversary in October, but the handwriting is on the wall.”

Many men and women in blue are fed up, feeling targeted and frustrated that they are expected to fight crime with fewer tools than ever, while getting no backing from politicians, injured in protests, and constantly scrutinized, according to agitated officers and angry police unions.

The weary rank and file also wonder if one bad decision on the job could get them arrested and charged with a crime.

“If you have your time in and have an opportunity to do something else, get out while you can,” advised Joseph Giacalone, a retired NYPD sergeant and adjunct professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan.

Giacalone said he’d received three emails in “the past week or so” from students asking for advice about changing their career choice. Giacalone said he has not gotten “these kinds” of emails since the Michael Brown killing in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014.

He said he “never discourages anyone” about the job, he just “lays out the pros and cons” and also reminds students there are federal law enforcement jobs.

On Thursday, The Post exclusively reported that Bronx NYPD precinct commander Richard Brea is quitting to protest the department’s handling of police reform and anti-brutality protests. The Deputy Inspector, who led the Bronx’s 46th Precinct, will retire after nearly three decades on the force.

NYPD Sgt. Joseph Imperatrice, founder of Blue Lives Matter, which formed after NYPD officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos were assassinated in 2014, claims close to a dozen cops per day are putting in their papers. Imperatrice believes the number is “noticeably higher” than usual and due to the “anti-police and anti-criminal accountability” climate.

Imperatrice contends the number of cops leaving the job since the end of March is “approaching the 700 to 1,000 range between COVID and the anti-police narrative.”

“I feel sorry for the cops who just began their career and have 20 years to go,” Imperatrice said. “Morale across the nation for anybody who puts on that uniform is at an all-time low … Officers are showing up to work putting on their uniform and within a few days thereafter being put into handcuffs.”

He said one “fed-up” Manhattan detective, a 22-year-veteran with a wife and kids, is just waiting to hear back about a new job and then he’s putting in his papers and moving to Arizona. He believes the city is “going down the tubes quick and it’s not going to turn around anytime soon.”

Imperatrice said the heartbroken mom of an anti-crime unit cop killed in the line of duty recently contacted him, “beside herself” because the NYPD disbanded the unit and thus “disbanded the legacy of her son.”

“The politicians are spitting in the faces of families of cops killed in the line of duty and now they’re handing over the keys to the city to these criminals. This is insane,” Imperatrice fumed.

“Of course, if a police officer is acting criminal or abusing their authority, they should be held accountable. But the majority of incidents we are seeing do not warrant officers losing their job and being locked up.”

Said John Jay professor Giacalone: “We are living in the Twilight Zone — where the good guys are the bad guys and the bad guys are the good guys. No bail, no jail, selective prosecution — unless you’re a cop, then game on.

“People have lost their collective minds.”

Michael C. Dorf: Civilian Control of the Police

January 14, 2015

MICHAEL C. DORF

Civilian Control of the Police 

in NYC

LINK

Roman emperors formally staked their power on Senate recognition, but in practice their authority depended on support from the legions and the Praetorian Guard. Despite its republican traditions, in its imperial phase, Rome was a dictatorship—sometimes a benevolent one, but a dictatorship nonetheless—because truly representative government demands civilian control of state force. For that reason, Article II of the U.S. Constitution makes the President, a civilian, Commander in Chief of the armed forces.

As with the nation, so with its parts. Thus, recent actions by a not inconsiderable number of New York Police Department (NYPD) officers to challenge the authority of Mayor Bill de Blasio by refusing to enforce the law should raise loud alarms. Police officers are entitled to express pointed disagreement with their civilian leaders, but when that disagreement crosses the line into defiance, democracy itself is threatened.

The Underlying Dispute

In considering where to draw the line between permissible protest and mutiny, it is important to set aside the substance of the underlying disagreement. That may be difficult to do in this instance, because the position of protesting NYPD officers is, not to put too fine a point on it, ugly.

Consider the now-infamous statement of NYC Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch that Mayor de Blasio had “blood on his hands” for the murder of officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu by a man who may have drawn some inspiration from anti-police-brutality protesters but was clearly a dangerous and deranged criminal.

What, exactly, did de Blasio do to render himself culpable in the killing of Ramos and Liu in the eyes of Lynch and his supporters? In the wake of a Staten Island grand jury’s failure to issue an indictment for the choking death of Eric Garner, de Blasio had the temerity to speak the indisputable truth that young African American men like his own son are at elevated risk in encounters with the police. De Blasio has repeatedly acknowledged the difficult and dangerous work that police do, but that was not enough to satisfy Lynch, who sees police–civilian interactions in Manichean terms: Because de Blasio does not offer all NYPD officers 100 percent backing in everything they do, Lynch denounces him.

Legitimate Speech

Police Chief William Bratton and some supporters of Mayor de Blasio have criticized the NYPD officers who turned their backs on the mayor at the funerals for Ramos and Liu on the ground that they were exploiting a tragedy to make a political point. That is a legitimate criticism of the officers’ judgment, but the officers were within their rights to exercise bad judgment or even to give offense. Although not entirely analogous, the Supreme Court’s 2011 ruling in Snyder v. Phelps underscores the proposition that the First Amendment protects offensive speech, even offensive speech that aims to use a funeral for political purposes.

More broadly, police officers have a right to speak out on matters of public concern, even if doing so could be seen as somewhat undermining the authority of their civilian leaders.

As a Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. wrote in the 1892 case of McAuliffe v. Mayor of New Bedford that a plaintiff who had been fired from his position as a police officer “may have a constitutional right to talk politics, but he has no constitutional right to be a policeman.” Yet constitutional law long ago rejected the Holmesian view that the state may, as a condition of employment, suppress otherwise protected speech.

Under the modern employee speech doctrine, public employees do not forfeit their right to speak as citizens on matters of public concern simply by virtue of accepting a government job. Government may not suppress such speech by its employees unless doing so is necessary to the effective provision of services.

The NYPD officers who turned their backs on Mayor de Blasio were expressing an odious view, but they were nonetheless “speaking” as citizens on a matter of public concern. And while the incidents caused embarrassment to the mayor, the police commissioner, and others, they did not interfere with the provision of police protection in any clear way.

To see why the First Amendment protects NYPD officers in expressing their displeasure with the mayor, imagine that they were making a different point. Suppose that in the wake of the Garner non-indictment, the mayor gave a public speech praising the NYPD for its aggressive use of force, and that some officers turned their backs at that speech. Surely many of the people who now condemn the NYPD officers for their treatment of Mayor de Blasio would praise the hypothetical officers for their courage in confronting their leaders, for speaking truth to power.

An Illegal Strike

Police officers also have a legal right to another kind of speech. They can organize to form a union that, in turn, can collectively bargain on their behalf. Some of the issues that are legitimately subject to collective bargaining are also matters of public policy. For example, whether police must be outfitted with body cameras is both a matter of working conditions for the police and civil rights of the public.

But New York law generally denies to public employees the right to strike. Whatever the merits of the general provision, the reason for the prohibition of police strikes is obvious. A strike in some other sector may cause financial losses and public inconvenience, but a strike by the police threatens the very foundation of government.

The NYPD are not formally on strike, but over the last several weeks, the number of arrests and tickets for relatively minor offenses as well as some not-so-minor offenses (such as gun possession and drunk driving) reportedly declined substantially. Although there is no clear evidence of a coordinated refusal by police to enforce the law, the same report (a New York Timesstory) indicates at least informal coordination. Call it a stealth strike.

Whether overt or covert, a police strike is dangerous and illegal. Where, as appears to be true here, the tacit strike threatens the public safety unless elected leaders give in to the strikers’ policy demands, democracy itself is under attack. There is no place in New York or America for a Praetorian Guard.

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Michael C. Dorf, a Justia columnist, is the Robert S. Stevens Professor of Law at Cornell University Law School and the principal author of The Oxford Introductions to U.S. Law: Constitutional Law. He blogs at DorfonLaw.org.

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