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NYPD Disbands Plainclothes "Anti-Crime" Units
By
Sydney Pereira
Published Jun 15, 2020
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By
Sydney Pereira
Published Jun 15, 2020
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After more than two weeks of citywide mass protests against racist police violence, the NYPD announced on Monday that it was disbanding the small units of plainclothes officers that are involved in a disproportionate number of fatal shootings and civilian complaints.
"Effectively immediately, we will be transitioning those units—roughly 600 people citywide—into a variety of assignments including detective bureau, neighborhood policing, and other assignments," NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said during a press conference on Monday. "Why? This is 21st century policing."
The plainclothes "anti-crime" units operated out of unmarked vehicles, and did not respond to 911 calls. Instead, they were charged with what Shea called "proactive" policing. The anti-crime teams across all 77 precincts will be disbanded.
"When you look at the number of anti-crime officers that operate within New York City, and when you look at a disproportionate, quite frankly, number of complaints, shootings—and they are doing exactly what was asked of them," Shea said. "I think we can do better. I think that policing in 2020 is not what it was in five, ten, twenty years ago."
"Make no mistake, this is a seismic shift in the culture of how the NYPD polices this great city," Shea added.
The NYPD's use of plainclothes officers has long been criticized—31 percent of fatal NYPD shootings involved plainclothes officers, according to a 2018 report in The Intercept. Plainclothes officer Daniel Pantaleo fatally choked Eric Garner in 2014. Plainclothes officers killed Crown Heights resident Saheed Vassell in 2018, and Sean Bell in 2006, and Amadou Diallo in 1999.
This is at least the second time that the NYPD's plainclothes units have been reassigned. In 2002, former NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly disbanded the "street crime" unit responsible for killing Diallo, but insisted at the time that it was merely a rebranding: ''There is not a change in function. It is a change in title because we no longer have anything called Street Crime.''
The plainclothes anti-crime units that Kelly reassigned would later go on to fuel the explosion of unconstitutional stops.
The commissioner said that the NYPD will still use plainclothes officers, and the anti-crime officers in the Transit unit will remain unaffected. "They do amazing work," Shea said of plainclothes cops.
"There is no better place to start reducing the NYPD's headcount than by disbanding the Anti-Crime Unit, an outfit infamous for employing hyper-aggressive policing techniques to brutalize New Yorkers—mostly those from communities of color—and to defy their basic constitutional rights," the Legal Aid Society said in a statement.
"This is welcome news, but New Yorkers will not be better served if these officers are simply reassigned, carrying with them the same bad habits that earned Anti-Crime its dismal reputation," the statement added. "The City must drastically reduce the NYPD’s headcount and use those funds to invest in communities. Anything less is simply window dressing to distract away from the greater systemic issues that currently roil law enforcement in New York."
Joseph Giacalone, a retired NYPD sergeant and current adjunct at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, called Shea's move a "monumental shift" that "caught me by surprise."
"What it looks like is that we’re going back to the more traditional police response, which is reactive. That’s the way the cops generally used to handle this stuff—where they waited for something to happen, a crime to be committed, and then they would go and investigate it," he said. "Anti-crime has played a big role in reducing gun violence in NYC, disrupting gangs and the like. Once you remove that deterrent from your communities, it’s going to play a role into how criminals shift their actions."
Shea's announcement comes after nearly three weeks straight of protesting against police violence and systemic racism, but he told reporters that he has been thinking about disbanding the unit since he was appointed in the fall. "The protests really did not factor in here," Shea said.
Last week, the state repealed the 50-A law that shields police disciplinary records from the public—a part of a slate of police reforms.
But those measures haven't stopped protesters from flooding the streets, with many of them calling for outright defunding the police and directing those funds elsewhere. Mayor Bill de Blasio has committed to shifting NYPD funds to education and social services, but has declined to support the City Council's proposal to cut $1 billion from the NYPD's $6 billion budget.
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Sydney Pereira
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