Gothamist
A non-profit newsroom, powered by WNYC.
Gothamist
Listen Live
News
Bratton Goes "Back To The Future" To Justify 1,300 New Cops
By
Nathan Tempey
Published Jun 26, 2015
Modified Jun 26, 2015
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
Never miss a story
Email address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .
By
Nathan Tempey
Published Jun 26, 2015
Modified Jun 26, 2015
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
We rely on your support to make local news available to all
Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2026. Donate today
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Yesterday afternoon, Police Commissioner Bill Bratton and Mayor de Blasio revealed the basic outline of the community policing push they used to justify committing $100 million in the budget to hiring 1,300 more officers. The premise is that rank-and-file cops are generally so busy driving from call to call that they don't ever get to know people on their beat, contributing to the documented distrust of cops among people of color, particularly in poor neighborhoods with the most police and the most recorded crime. The disconnect also leads to police dissatisfaction, they argued. The solution, supposedly only possible with these additional 1,000 cops (300 others will be assigned to counterterrorism), is to have two officers per small area walk the beat on a dedicated basis, without having to respond to outside calls.
De Blasio and Bratton said the beat cops would attend community meetings, get to know the people on the street, and develop networks of potential informants to consult when serious crimes occurred. The idea, Bratton admitted, is nothing new.
"This is essentially back to the future, everything old is new again," he said. "Cops who are going into the community care about the community."
This all sounds hunky dory, but it should be noted that Bratton's former Chief of Department Philip Banks was saying basically the same thing last summer, only the new patrol officers he talked about were coming off of desk duty as part of the Summer All Out initiative. The Summer All Out initiative is underway again this year, proving that there is some wiggle room within the more than 34,000 police under the employ of the department.
Bratton and de Blasio refused to tell reporters where exactly this "new" approach will be employed, but said a pilot version is being tested out in Washington Heights's 33rd Precinct and Inwood's 34th. The lack of detail didn't stop them from presenting the initiative, which they tied to increased counterterrorism staffing, as a panacea that would not only help police and other New Yorkers get along better, but also work to address the department's now-infamous problem hiring African-American men.
"We need to keep building trust between police and community," de Blasio said. "That will encourage many young people of color to join the NYPD."
In a statement, the group Communities United for Police Reform echoed the sentiments of activists at a community meeting on crime on Wednesday night in Prospect Lefferts Gardens, saying essentially that if Bratton's latest move means more Broken Windows policing as usual, it stinks.
"The source of communities' mistrust and concerns are not simply about the lack of consistent, interpersonal relationships with individual police officers, but more so about NYPD tactics and policies that are discriminatory and abusive and a lack of accountability for that mistreatment," spokeswoman Priscilla Gonzalez said.
The group also said "many" police reform groups were "not meaningfully engaged in the development of this plan," so it "raises more questions than answers."
You may peruse the entire "One City" plan of action here, at your leisure.
Tagged
Bill Bratton
bill de blasio
broken windows
community policing
hiring spree
nonewnypd
nypd
original
Nathan Tempey
Read more
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
MORE news
Deer are all over New Jersey roads looking for sex, state officials warn
Mid-October through mid-December is deer mating season, which can be a danger to drivers as the sex-seeking creatures cross roadways throughout the Garden State.
By
Rosemary Misdary
Published Oct 16, 2026
Man messaged 'I got straight poison' before giving NYC college students fentanyl, feds say
A transcript from an April court hearing sheds new light on what transpired at Fashion Institute of Technology.
By
Samantha Max
News
Man messaged 'I got straight poison' before giving NYC college students fentanyl, feds say
A transcript from an April court hearing sheds new light on what transpired at Fashion Institute of Technology.
By
Samantha Max
Inside the plan to fix the nearly collapsed Pfizer Building, 1/64th of an inch at a time
By
David Brand
School bus carrying autistic students got lost in Brooklyn for 4 hours last year
By
Jessica Gould
NYC’s bridges can last 'forever,' if we take care of them
By
Clayton Guse
Never miss a story
Catch up on the most important headlines with a roundup of essential NYC stories, delivered to your inbox daily.
Sign upEmail address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .