PBA Head Comes Out Against Anti-Violent Crime Program, Calls For More Police Hires
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – The president of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association on Tuesday issued sharp criticism of the city's plan to reduce surging gun violence.
He said more officers are the answer to prevent New York City from turning into "gun city," CBS2's Marcia Kramer reported.
Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner Bill Bratton, who were at a medals ceremony on Tuesday, desperately want the city's new anti-violence crime initiative to work to bring down a murder rate that increase by nearly 20 percent last month.
But will operation "Summer All Out" work?
"It's a Band-Aid approach. We've done it before. The summer time comes, we pull everyone out that are doing sensitive, important jobs and put them out in the street," PBA head Patrick Lynch said.
Lynch says the answer to the city's crime problem is to hire more cops -- at least 2,000 at a clip every six months, not the 330 that will be added as part of the new anti-violence initiative.
Lynch also said the solution to stopping the proliferation of guns on the street is to allow cops to stop, question and frisk in a constitutional, lawful way.
"The perps realize we don't have enough cops and the cops that are out there are reluctant to put their hands on because they'll be second guessed if there's no gun recovered. So we have to allow them to do it," Lynch said.
However, Bratton vehemently feels that stop, question and frisk is not the answer.
"Let's get over the issue of stop, question and frisk and how impactful it is or isn't. In 2011 we did about 685,000 (stop, question and frisks)," Bratton said. "In that year, rapes, robberies, burglaries, grand larcenies were all up. Overall, crime was up by 1.5 percent."
But after the stop, question and frisk reduction?
"Last year, 2014, we did about 48,000 stops. Murders rapes robberies assaults, burglaries, grand larcenies were all down. Overall, crime was down by 4.1 percent," the commissioner said.
But Lynch isn't the only one who thinks the city needs more cops to get guns off the street to reduce the surging gun violence.
"That's an indication on how important it is to increase the head count in the NYPD," said Michael Palladino of the Detectives Endowment Association. "We need more officers. One-thousand is conservative. I'd say if we had 2,000 or 3,000 more police officers on the job today we'd be in much better shape."
On Wednesday night the first boots will be on the ground for operation "Summer All Out." The mayor and the police commissioner are eager to let New Yorkers know it's coming. They are expected to attend a roll call to publicize the program, Kramer reported.
