ON HIS LAST day at the helm of the largest police force in the country, Commissioner William Bratton ended his 46 years as a police officer with a parting thought: Police reform will happen from within.
Incoming NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill is inheriting historically low crime numbers.
But he’s also facing years of bumpy relations with the community, controversy over the department’s use of broken windows-style policing and the waning aftermath of a federal corruption investigation.
As an officer who came up through the ranks, heralded as the “architect” of the latest iteration of community policing, many say Jimmy — no one calls him James — is uniquely qualified for the job.
New York City police commissioner Bill Bratton stepped down from his post on Friday, and gave a parting snub to his critics in a New York Times op-ed.
"There are police reformers from outside the profession who think that changing police culture is a matter of passing regulations, establishing oversight bodies and more or less legislating a new order. It is not," Bratton wrote.
A bill introduced by City Council Member Dan Garodnick to require the NYPD to publish its patrol guide online will be heard for the first time by the City Council’s Committee on Public Safety next week.
At a news conference held at City Hall Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2016, activists announced that city officials, along with Eric Garner’s mother, Gwen Carr, and community organizations filed a legal action supporting the release of a summary misconduct record of NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo, the officer who held Eric Garner in a fatal and prohibited chokehold in July 2014.
Pull back the curtain!
So says a group of elected officials and activist groups that will file briefs Tuesday in support of a two-year legal battle to get the city to release the disciplinary records of the cop who fatally choked Eric Garner back in 2014, organizers said.
The effort is being mounted by Garner's mother Gwen Carr, members of the City Council, Public Advocate Letitia James and Communities United for Police Reform, a nonprofit dedicated to greater police accountability.
A hotly contested measure that would obligate cops give their name, rank and command during most routine stops now has enough backers it could theoretically override a veto by Mayor Bill de Blasio—if his ally Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito would ever let it get a vote on the City Council floor.
Homeless New Yorkers and their advocates want New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio to own up to his promise to them.
Last Thursday, outside of City Hall, members of Picture the Homeless, Communities United for Police Reform, the New York Civil Liberties Union, the Justice Committee and FIERCE (an organization that caters to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer youth of color in New York City) demanded that police abuse against homeless people end and that the mayor adopt cost-effective housing solutions by using city-owned lots to construct housing.
Utah, a state where even regular beer is considered too intoxicating, has made possession of heroin or cocaine a misdemeanor rather than a felony. Mississippi has reduced its prison population by 15 percent with new legislation.
Several states have decriminalized marijuana for recreational use. More than a half-dozen states have passed laws restricting the use of cellphone-tracking technology by the police.