With the NYPD ordering all officers to report in uniform on Friday because of potential unrest stemming from the war in Israel, former NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton blasted the New York City Council for anti-police sentiment that is driving the reduction in police numbers.
This comes as the former leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, called on Muslims to hold a global demonstration in support of the Palestinians on Friday.
Bratton told The Post that the NYPD is down about 3,000 to 4,000 officers since he left the top job in 2016.
“The department is down to about 33,000 officers,” he said. “In my time, we were able to expand the department to about 36,000 or 37,000. This is coming at a time when the potential threat around the world and the threat to the United States has increased exponentially.”
Critically, two NYPD units that specialize in combating terrorism — the Critical Response Command (CRC) and the Strategic Response Group (SRG) — are down officers.
“Both have primary missions: the CRC is focused on protecting against terrorist-related types of attacks and the SRG is trained to deal with crowd control demonstrations,” Bratton said. “Both have been significantly reduced in size.”
“This year’s city budget is not asking for additional officers because, I believe, they understand that the City Council is not going to approve of their anti-police attitude,” Bratton said. Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images
Bratton, who was the city’s top cop for two terms, from 1994 to 1996 and 2014 to 2016, blamed the City Council for the police decline.
“This year’s city budget is not asking for additional officers because, I believe, they understand that the City Council is not going to approve of their anti-police attitude,” Bratton said.
“So right now you have a severely understaffed police force that is overworked and having to work incredible overtime. Ironically, the City Council is upset about the high overtime in the NYPD, but that’s because they refuse to hire more officers.”
As Israel launched a war on the Gaza Strip in retaliation for a recent deadly Hamas attack, former Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal called on Muslims to stage a global pro-Palestinian demonstration on Friday. AFP via Getty Images
The NYPD told all officers to report in uniform starting Friday in anticipation of potential unrest.
“All uniformed service members in every rank, will be on duty in that day’s uniform and ready to deploy,” read a Wednesday memo sent to all NYPD members.
Police will not be given an excuse or shift change and the order will remain in effect “until further notice,” according to the memo.
The NYPD has 3,000 to 4,000 fewer officers since Bratton left in 2016. Helayne Seidman
Last month, The Post reported that the CRC, a unit within the NYPD’s Counterterrorism Bureau trained to respond quickly to “the most organized and heavily armed attacks” could be reduced by 75%.
Members of the CRC — described as one of the department’s “first lines of defense against terrorist-related attacks” — were warned of possible personnel changes in an internal memo in mid-September.
“Today, I was informed that our unit will be downsized significantly, up to 75%,” Deputy Chief Scott Shanley, the unit’s commanding officer, wrote in the memo, obtained by The Post.
The unit, described by the NYPD as “a permanent cadre of hand-picked police officers dedicated to combating terrorism,” was started eight years ago with 500 cops and supervisors, sources said.
Bratton said the two anti-terrorism units he created in 2015, Strategic Group Response and Critical Response Command, have deployed officers at critical times.Getty Images
The officials are sent to high-profile events in the five counties, including the US Open and other sports games; New Year’s Eve in Times Square; the lighting of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree; the West Village Halloween parade; Fleet Week, and any occasion when the president or dignitaries visit.
Bratton said the CRC and SRG units, which he launched in 2015, have never been more important than now.
“Each entity will have 600 trained officers, all specially equipped with long guns, helmets, heavy armor – they are an elite unit trained to deal with counter-terrorism,” Bratton told The Post. “They are the people you see in front of synagogues and the UN.”
A high-ranking NYPD source agreed with Bratton’s assessment.Helayne Seidman
Bratton said the NYPD is still a very strong organization and he believes it is well equipped to deal with violence, but he warned that the department needs more staff.
“We are still most concerned about the rise of lone wolf terrorist potential, but there is also the potential growth of terrorism from the Islamic terrorist community, whether al-Qaeda-, Isis-, Hamas- or Hezbollah-inspired,” Bratton said. “Unfortunately, the department has fewer resources than it did a few years ago.”
“What he said was in line with what the experts said [NYPD] the law enforcement community believes,” a high-ranking source at the NYPD told The Post. “He’s not wrong.”
“While the recent events outside [NYPD] continues to present challenges to recruitment efforts, we continue to focus on the positive outcomes that occur when someone joins this organization,” an NYPD spokesperson told The Post. “Year to date 2023, we have hired over 1,400 individuals in addition to the approximately 2,000 individuals we are hiring in 2022.”
Categories: Trending
Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
