rollingstone | The few police spokespeople who are saying anything at all about the
slowdown seem to be saying they're doing this for a variety of reasons.
The New York Post reports that some of the reduction may be due to safety measures recommended by union members after the Ramos/Liu murders:
Cop union leaders told their members to respond to all calls
with two patrol cars — and make arrests only when "absolutely necessary"
— to avoid potential copycat attacks following the Ramos and Liu
assassinations.
But then Edward Mullins, head of the Sergeants' Benevolent
Association, who admitted that "people are talking to each other" and
that the action has "became contagious," told the Times that police are still responding to essential calls, and only ignoring "financial" infractions:
All of the 911 calls are being responded to...The lack of summons activity, we're talking about financial fines. That's one of those things that will correct itself, I'm sure.
But then there was this bizarre quote in the Post yesterday:
Michael Palladino, the head of the detectives union, responded with frustration.
"You can't win," he said. "When cops make
arrests and give summonses, they are accused of being robotic with no
feelings, When cops exercise discretion and express feelings, they’re accused of being political and disrespectful."
So which is it? Are police cutting down on arrests out of concern for
their safety post Ramos/Liu? Are they merely pulling a slowdown by
specifically abandoning non-essential, financial infractions?
Or are they "exercising discretion" and showing "feelings" by doing
away with the harassing, often arm-twisting, day-ruining barrage of
useless and expensive summonses that have been handed out in low-income
neighborhoods in massive numbers since the early Nineties?
I'm not buying the "feelings" line, although I know for a fact that a
lot of police hate the endless regime of Broken Windows tickets (not as
much as the people getting the tickets hate it, but still).
I'm guessing police are trying to make the public and the Mayor feel
the pain of their absence as much as possible without opening themselves
up to accusations of deliberately making the city unsafe, and this is
the only way they can think to do it.
