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NYPD: Too Many Cops Are Shiftless, Donut-Loving "Malcontents"
By
Christopher Robbins
Published Apr 30, 2013
Modified Apr 30, 2013
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By
Christopher Robbins
Published Apr 30, 2013
Modified Apr 30, 2013
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You're not the only one who kills time at work curling up with a newspaper and the knowledge that your direct deposit will hit your checking account at 12:01 a.m. on Friday. According to top NYPD officials, 10% of uniformed officers are shiftless "malcontents," which is why strict performance goals (not the Q-word!) have to be instituted. This defense has been repeatedly presented by the City and the NYPD during the landmark stop-and-frisk trial, and has prompted the harshest sentence we've ever seen come out of the New York Times' police bureau: "Indeed, some police officers need to be weaned off the idea that they are paid to drive around in their patrol cars, eating doughnuts."
Throughout the federal trial lawyers for the plaintiffs, who are challenging the constitutionality of stop-and-frisk, have played tapes that seem to incriminate commanding officers of instituting quotas.
Not so, Deputy Inspector Steven Mauriello testified. The man you hear on the tape yelling to his subordinates that they need more collars or U-250s (stop-and-frisks) is really just trying to motivate his men to work while they're on overtime.
“The sergeant is complaining that the cops on overtime didn’t want to get out of the car,” Mauriello testified. “He doesn’t want them sitting in the car reading the newspaper.”
Quotas aside, this is another mystifying issue. Why does so much police work get done when they're making time-and-a-half? (And why aren't more cops better at making those crazy sound effects?)
Former Chief of Department Joseph Esposito, who testified that 10% of uniformed officers were "complete malcontents that will do as little as possible no matter how well you treat them," implored his men to raise the amount of police activity recorded on straight time.
"Raw number of 250s are up, but Cs and 250s are done on overtime and that will come back to hurt us," Esposito told one commander, according to the minutes of a CompStat meeting obtained by the plaintiffs. In another, Esposito says, "We have to handle at squad, precinct level. We need to be a lot more proactive. Your gun collars are down and straight time activity is down."
Esposito went on to explain what he meant:
And when you see 60 percent of the activity, in this case it's criminal court summonses were done on overtime, it's something that has to be looked at. Why? Why couldn't the officer see it on overtime and not on straight time?
It is an indicator that he or she says, you know what, I don't have to work hard on straight time, I will wait for the overtime and do it then. We can't have that. We have to have the officer being an officer whenever he or she is at work.
Read more of our coverage of Floyd v. City of New York.
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joseph esposito
nypd
stop-and-frisk trial
stop and frisk
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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