'BROKEN WINDOWS' POLICING IS BACK AND THAT'S GOOD!

NYPD revives ‘broken windows’ policies as Adams fumes over weekend shootings 

 

By Larry Celona, Craig McCarthy and Bruce Golding

 

New York Post

March 23, 2022

The NYPD will reportedly return to “broken window” policies after Mayor Eric Adams held a meeting with department leaders to discuss recent shootings

 

Mayor Eric Adams called police brass on the carpet over the two dozen shooting incidents that took place this past weekend — sparking the NYPD to scramble to get more cops on the streets in a revival of some “broken windows” policies, The Post has learned.

Adams summoned Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell and Chief of Department Kenneth Corey to City Hall on Tuesday to answer for the surge in bloodshed that left 29 people wounded ahead of his planned news conference on the NYPD’s new anti-gun units, law-enforcement sources said Wednesday.

During Monday’s event, Adams and Sewell touted the seizures of 10 guns over six days, with Hizzoner proclaiming that his fledgling administration was “moving in the right direction” to crack down on shootings.

But behind closed doors, Adams — a former NYPD captain — fumed that the department wasn’t doing enough to justify his remarks, sources said.

Immediately afterward, Corey convened an emergency conference call with top-ranking officers from the NYPD’s eight borough commands, 77 precincts, 12 transit districts, nine Housing Bureau service areas and the Detective Bureau, sources said.

During the meeting, Corey spoke with a sense of urgency in his voice as he ordered to the 100-plus supervisors to stop the bleeding by putting extra cops on patrol, sources said.

 

Adams held a meeting with Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell and Chief of Department Kenneth Corey after a bloody weekend of shootings 

 

“He told us that he wants us to engage with quality-of-life infractions and criminals,” a Brooklyn supervisor said.

A source said Corey told the bosses: “You have a mayor and a police commissioner who support you, don’t squander this opportunity.”

“We’re going back to what works. This is exciting times,” he added.

Police brass also noted that Friday — when nine people were shot, up from just one on the same day last year — was a warm day and said they didn’t want shootings to continue to spike as temperatures increase, sources said.

Under the directives, cops assigned Adams’ newly created anti-gun units — who ride around in unmarked cars to bust people packing heat — will report for duty four hours later and work from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. in all 12 Bronx precincts and two — the 73rd and the 75th — in Brooklyn, sources said.

 

Chief of Department Kenneth Corey reportedly told people in the NYPD that “we’re going back to what works.”

 

Those crime-ridden areas account for more than half of the shootings taking place in the city, sources said.

In addition, local “neighborhood coordination officers” will be shifted from helping detectives investigate unsolved crimes to enforcing quality-of-life offenses, including littering and fare evasion, sources said.

Any suspect who’s missed two or more court appearances over the past two years won’t be eligible for a desk appearance ticket and will instead be arrested and sent for arraignment, sources said.

 

                                                   The NYPD’s new anti-gun unit uniforms.

 

Those moves mark a return to the zero-tolerance, “broken windows” policing strategies that were widely credited with reducing crime in the Big Apple during the 1990s.

The NYPD’s “youth coordination officers” assigned to various city schools will also spend their time patrolling nearby parks when classes aren’t in session, sources said.

The redeployments of the NCOs and YCOs will put more than 500 cops on the streets for at least part of their shifts, sources said.