NYPD Commissioner Confirms Arrests, Tickets Slowdown
The curb on minor arrests, tickets comes after attacks on cops in the city.
— -- New York City Police Commissioner Bill Bratton confirmed Friday the NYPD was the midst of a work slowdown and, ABC News has learned, he summoned every borough commander to a meeting over it.
"We’re coming out of what was a pretty widespread stoppage of certain types of activity, discretionary type of activity by and large," Bratton said in an interview with NPR.
He based the conclusion on arrest and summons data in the three weeks since two patrolmen were shot and killed in Brooklyn. Criminal summons went from over 4,000 in a typical week to 327 last week, ABC station WABC-TV reported.
"The commissioner gave an NPR interview today in which he acknowledged that there had been a noted slowdown in certain enforcement activity on the part of officers,” department spokesman Steve Davis said.
"He categorized the areas of slowdown as 'discretionary' enforcement. He did state that the NYPD has been reviewing enforcement activity and it appears to be trending back up at this point but did not get into numbers," Davis said.
The slowdown also comes amid a rift between the police unions and Mayor Bill de Blasio but Bratton does not attribute the slowdown to any one thing. Rather, a source familiar with his thinking said it is a combination of factors, including the traumatizing shootings of officers, the union war with the administration, even cold weather.
Bratton summoned every borough commander Friday to what a source called a “professional management” meeting. We’re told this was no dressing down though but the commissioner made clear a problem exists and he wanted solutions.