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Ray Kelly Is A Greedy Liar
By
Christopher Robbins
Published Dec 30, 2015
Modified Dec 30, 2015
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By
Christopher Robbins
Published Dec 30, 2015
Modified Dec 30, 2015
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Ray Kelly once said that taking credit for a decrease in crime is “like taking credit for an eclipse.” But that was before he was trying to sell a ghost-written memoir and remind potential voters of his name. Now the city’s longest-serving police commissioner is exploiting the fears of New Yorkers for money and vanity.
Crime has been falling in New York City since the mid-nineties. It fell after 9/11, it fell while the NYPD stopped and frisked millions of innocent New Yorkers, and it continued to fall after a federal court told the NYPD to stop stopping and frisking millions of innocent New Yorkers. “No question about it, violent crime will go up,” Ray Kelly said about that, and guess what: crime fell some more.
Crime’s mysterious decline continued after Bill de Blasio was elected. While murders have increased slightly this year, overall crime has dropped by 2%.
Kelly says this recent decrease is due to crime stat manipulation: "I think you have to take a hard look at those numbers."
His proof consists of “active members” of the department telling him that the NYPD does not consistently count people who are grazed by bullets or injured by broken glass in shootings as “shooting victims.”
“Like all New Yorkers, I am troubled by the eroding quality of the life in the city that is obvious to anyone who lives here,” Kelly added. (It’s unclear how #DeBlasiosNewYork has changed Battery Park City, where Kelly lives.)
The NYPD’s press office released a statement pointing out that “there has been no change in the way shooting incidents are calculated.” Commissioner Bill Bratton told Kelly to “stand up, be a big man, and explain what you’re talking about.”
This fight isn’t a “spontaneous dispute over the veracity of the NYPD’s official tally of shootings and murders,” as the Times reports. It's part of a decades-long dick measuring contest between two powerful men who hate each other, a feud that has wasted an untold amount of energy and public resources. (These two even fought over who was invited to their rival anti-terrorism conferences—Leonard Levitt has much, much more).
The difference now is that Bratton is in charge of the NYPD, and Kelly isn’t.
There are many issues Kelly could credibly raise to criticize the NYPD and inspire reform—on onerous quotas, on costly use of force, on its lack of female and black police officers, and yes, even on stat manipulation. This will never happen, because these are just as much Kelly's problems as they are Bratton's (he also seems to be missing some crucial emails).
This is a man who continued to defend a Muslim surveillance initiative that generated no leads, who insisted on having free meals and membership at the Harvard Club, and who didn’t bother to defend his stop and frisk program in federal court but happily cut the ribbon at his friend’s new Applebee’s.
Sated with public service, Kelly now collects huge speaking fees, has a paid gig as a talking head on ABC News, and just took a new job at the security firm K2 Intelligence, following his consulting position at Cushman Wakefield.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal last month that mentioned a possible run for mayor in 2017, Kelly talked about what motivates him these days:
Asked the differences between public- and private-sector work, Mr. Kelly said “money” with a laugh. He earned about $200,000 a year as police chief. K2 Intelligence declined to say how much he would earn in his new job.
Bratton is also exceedingly vain, and he can't take credit for incremental crime decreases any more than Kelly can (in the mid-‘90s Bratton made fun of Kelly’s “community policing” initiatives—now he can’t seem to get enough of them) but at least he and his mayor are accountable to the people they have to protect. Ray Kelly’s only concern is for himself.
Tagged
Bill Bratton
crime
nypd
Ray Kelly
stat manipulation
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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