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NYPD Sergeant Says Police Manipulated Crime Stats In Queens
By
Christopher Robbins
Published Mar 26, 2012
Modified Mar 26, 2012
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By
Christopher Robbins
Published Mar 26, 2012
Modified Mar 26, 2012
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An NYPD sergeant and 19-year veteran of the force says that cops systematically downgraded and misclassified serious crimes in Queens' 100th Precinct to pad crime stats, then transferred him to a graveyard shift in retaliation. "I just couldn't take it anymore," Sergeant Robert Borrelli told ABC of the pressure to manipulate crime statistics. "There came a point I finally broke and I'm like, you know, this has to stop."
Sergeant Borrelli turned in hundreds of incident reports from the Precinct in the Rockaways to the NYPD's quality assurance bureau, and was told that only four of them were misclassified, and all due to "typical administrative errors." “His allegations were thoroughly investigated by our quality-assurance division, and they were found to be unfounded,” Deputy Inspector Kim Royster, who heads up the department's DCPI division, told the Post.
Borrelli taped a conversation with a crime victim, who tells him she was urged to rush through the act of filling out a police report—"keep it short and sweet,"—and also a conversation with quality assurance officer who assure him that there was in fact, egregious misclassifications. A police source tells the Post that Borrelli's instance on accurate record-keeping is likely responsible for the 100th Precinct's 144% jump in burglaries, 66% rise in felony assaults, and 31% increase in robberies. “You could correlate when he started looking at the [complaints] to the increase in crime in this precinct."
"The transfer is in retaliation," Borrelli insists. "They brought me up on bullshit charges," which included an incident in which he yelled at a superior officer, "interfered" with a burglary investigation, and ticketed a firefighter for handing out radios. Instead of working the post he held for 9 years, Borrelli now works at Central Booking in the basement of Bronx Criminal Court.
Tagged
100th Precinct
compstat
Crime Statistics
nypd
queens
quotas
Ray Kelly
rockaways
whistle blowers
Christopher Robbins
Christopher Robbins is a New York City reporter covering transportation, affordable housing, local politics, and criminal justice. His work has also appeared in New York Magazine, The Village Voice and The New York Times. Chris is a graduate of Patrick Henry High School in Roanoke, Virginia, and enjoys biking to Fort Tilden in the summertime.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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