THE NEW “OLD”
BRATTON :
SIGNIFICANT
INITIATIVES COMING TO NYPD
William J.
Bratton has made a name for himself
based largely on a “broken windows” theory
of policing.
(Credit Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times)
TAGS:
NYPD COMMISSIONER BILL BRATTON,
NEW
INITIATIVES FOR BRATTON’S NYPD,
USING
OLDER “PROVEN” METHODS IN SECOND TENURE IN 1PP,
BRATTON’S
SIGNATURE METHODOLOGY,
SALUTE
TO BRATTON ON LATEST ANNOUNCEMENTS
(Thursday, June 26, 2014 University
Heights, The Bronx, NYC) Welcome back
Bill. After six months in his second
tenure as the NYPD Commissioner the Bill Bratton we knew and respected back in
the early 1990’s is once again asserting himself in old familiar ways and we
applaud the return of this Bill Bratton. All New Yorkers of a certain age can
vividly recall the “bad old days” when New York City ranked at the top of all
major crime categories and the City itself seemed at times to be tenuously
balanced on life support as the NYPD fought crime tooth and nail in some of the
most crime ridden Precincts in the nation.
As our City sank ever deeper into the scalding molten lava of crime, low
quality of life, wide spread crime in our subways and on our streets during the
disastrous years of the hapless administration of David Dinkens, the arrival of
Rudy Giuliani into City Hall as our Mayor was welcomed by all. Giuliani, a tough former Federal Prosecutor
for the Southern District of New York was a well-known and highly regarded
crime fighter that a beleaguered population looked to for solutions despite his
political affiliation as a Republican in one of, if not the most Democratic
cities in America. Giuliani tapped
one-time Chief of the NYC Transit Police, a native Bostonian highly regarded in
Law Enforcement circles, Bill Bratton to serve as his NYPD Commissioner. The rest of that chapter in the storied past of
NYC and the NYPD is, as they say, history.
A MORE FAMILIAR BILL
After getting off to somewhat
of a rocky start in his second term as NYPD Commissioner, Bill Bratton seems to
have found his sea legs. Some of his
earliest restructuring of the top cops in One Police Plaza, alterations of
patrol tactics and anti-crime strategies, as well as a handful of profound
shifts in the Intelligence and Counter Terrorism Divisions, the “old” Bill
Bratton is once again seeking novel approaches to policing the City that has
changed and been changed so much since his last go round in the first Giuliani
administration. It was during that
tenure that Bratton, an innovative flamboyant Cop, Jack Maple who designed the
technological template for what became CompStat, implemented a
variety of measures that ultimately resulted in the most amazing turn around
and elevated the City of New York to the literal “safest big City” in the
United States. That Bratton has returned
to a City that he had an integral role in making safer in his first term in 1PP
cannot be denied. The initiatives put in
place in the post 9/11 years under Mayor Bloomberg and Commissioner Ray Kelly have
proven to be successful in the constant overcast of another terrorist attack.
As the initial shock of
September 11th, 2001 began to fade some of the initiatives Ray Kelly
implemented in both the Intelligence and Counter Terrorism Divisions, as well
as a sound patrol practice known as “Stop, Question and Frisk” (SQF) became controversial. The “See Something, Say Something” campaign
enlisted all New Yorkers to be
constantly vigilant of any suspicious activity such as unattended packages or backpacks
left on subway trains, and it paid off.
Some have questioned the legality of the means to the ends in this
equation as well as the right to privacy and freedom of religion citing the
enhanced monitoring of New York City’s large Muslim community as “racial
targeting”. Such knee-jerk reactions are
typical here in this bastion of Liberal Democrats however every step Kelly
implemented in his Department was upheld in the Courts despite repeated
attempts to have NYPD’s operations curtailed.
The activists’ version of an effective policy dropped the “question”
element from the equation as it became derisively known as simply “Stop and
Frisk”. It was in this legal battle as
well as the enhanced surveillance in Muslim neighborhoods coffee shops and
Mosques that forced Bloomberg and Kelly to scale down their efforts. Yet, it cannot be dismissed that the NYPD thwarted,
averted or prevented (some would add "allegedly") 13 terrorist plots.
That NYC has not seen another terrorist atrocity since 9/11 is an
undeniable fact and arguably should be credited to Kelly and his Department.
When our current Mayor Bill de
Blasio was a candidate he ran on a strong anti-Stop, Questions and Frisk
platform, called for an end to what he viewed as “racial profiling” by the NYPD
and vowed to “reform” the NYPD with measures that included the installation of
an Inspector General, Philip Eure, as the supreme “watchdog” over NYPD. Eure’s purview remains ill-defined given
the already existing Civilian Review Board that has been in operation for many
years. During the earliest days of the de Blasio/Bratton tag team it appeared
that Bratton was prepared to be more of a contrite penitent seeking the
approval of all the varied “disenfranchised” communities within our Five
Boroughs. After all, candidate de Blasio
was never shy in his criticism of the NYPD, Ray Kelly, Mayor Bloomberg and any
and all of their policing initiatives.
When the candidate became our Mayor and appointed Bratton as his Top Cop
many rank and file Member of Service (MOS) of the NYPD were uncertain of what,
if any changes Bratton would enact. Others
among the ranks had only been newborns during Bratton’s first stint in
1PP.
SURVEILLANCE CITY: EYES IN THE SKIES
Since the September 11, 2001
terrorist attack there has been a dramatic increase in the number of
surveillance cameras operated by the NYPD, private security firms, local shops
and other public places. While the exact
number will not be released by the NYPD, personnel in the Intel Division unofficially
claim that they operate upwards of 22,000 closed circuit monitoring cameras
including at least half that number having long term recording
capabilities. As any New Yorker knows
all those tinted dome affixed to street corners, building lobbies and exteriors
as well as the portable NYPD surveillance towers are keeping a watchful eye on
us all. In recent years in NYC and other
locations across the country closed circuit cameras have contributed mightily
in the identification and arrests of criminals of every ilk. Yes, there are privacy issues and it will
always be a hotly debated topic among civil libertarians and public advocacy
groups and Law Enforcement. Certainly it
is a valid debate but in the world of asymmetrical warfare and non-state
sponsored terrorism, it could reasonably be posited that the security of the “great
good” can trump the absolute privacy of people in public domains. In this age of exploitive, narcissistic “social
media” where people willingly, if not wantonly reveal themselves in a
cyber/viral manner, there seems to be a cognitive dissonance when it comes to
individual privacy. That the very same technology we use privately can also be
utilized for public safety should not be as controversial as it often is.
EYES UNDERGOUND
Yesterday Commissioner Bratton
announced his plans to have surveillance cameras installed in all subway
stations and subway cars. That he man who
first employed some high-tech algorithms and innovations back in the 1990’s
would seek novel approaches in an effort to keep the crime rates decreasing
only seems logical. His idea is to
enable the NYPD to do “more with less”, to utilize the available technology in
the on-going fight against crime throughout our vast, largely subterranean rail
transportation system.
If all the subway track in the
service of the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) was laid out end to end it
would reach from Times Square to Detroit, a distance of approximately 829
miles. That’s a lot of track and the
subway system has an average weekday ridership of 5.5 million commuters. There are 484 subway stations in the complex
City-wide network that presents, and always has, a host of challenges for the
NYPD to effectively monitor and police.
Bratton envisions an underground
surveillance array of cameras that will be monitored by Cops armed with tablet
computers and other hi-tech, hand held devices.
This would represent the latest innovative method of “smart policing”;
of doing more actual crime intervention with fewer Cops assigned to a
designated locale. Such an MTA-wide network
of cameras and communications technology could and would prove its value and
financial “return on investment” in a very brief time as one NYPD Three Star Chief
commented in a phone conversation earlier today. He spoke under the condition of anonymity
because he is not officially authorized to speak to the media on behalf of the
NYPD.
TWEAKING COMPSTAT
Another of Commissioner
Bratton’s announcements yesterday was directly related to the as yet to be
determined relationship between the decrease in Stop, Question and Frisk usage
and the uptick in crime, particularly gun violence in some off the highest
crime Precincts in the City. Here, at
the 46th Precinct in the University Heights neighborhood of The
Bronx there has been a troubling increase in violent crime since the orders
from 1PP to reduce the frequency of SQF.
Returning to his penchant for statistically derived patterns and trends,
Bratton has ordered a review focusing in the seven other Precincts besides the
46th that are experiencing the most disturbing increases in gun
crime after reductions in SQF. As a “numbers
guy” and a stickler for accountability among the ranks he commands, it is only
natural that he would revitalize some of the methods that had yielded some much
of the NYPD’s success during his initial tenure as Commissioner. He has
announced some plans to revamp deployment of his Officers as determined by CompStat
and seasonal specifics such as increasing the police presence in Coney Island
as the summer beach and boardwalk activity heats up. We view these as more
proactive, practical applications of a Police Department that must always be dynamic
due to the nature of our City both as the home to almost 9 million residents
and a world renowned, international capitol.
WE STAND CORRECTED
As even the most casual reader
of the Brooding Cynyx knows, we have been highly critical of the second
incarnation of Bill Bratton. We had been
very skeptical regarding the return of Bratton and never missed an opportunity
to make our opinions known. We have
received a great deal of criticism for our negative stance on Bratton
Version 2.0 and have respected all opinions voiced including those most
critical of our own opinion. While much
remains to be seen in the not too distant future we have begun to turn the
objective corner on our assessment of the return of Bill Bratton.
It is encouraging to watch as
Bratton settles more comfortably into his Office and begins to assert himself
and emerge from beneath the shadow of the Mayor who chose him specifically to
perform an extremely challenging job.
Without doubt there will be troubles along the way; as we all realize
here in Gotham City anything can happen in the blink of an eye. We live and move at a pace that can only ever
be natural for the native born. We’re
tough and resilient, we don’t suffer fools easily, we can be aggressive and
abrasive to the outside world but among our diverse and disparate selves we are
one, we all share this 326 square miles with each other and are the only people
on the planet who can proudly claim the title of "New Yorker".
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The Brooding Cynyx 2014 © All Rights Reserved
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