Responding to a Daily News report that found minorities were overwhelmingly targeted for quality-of-life summonses, the de Blasio administration defended the “broken windows” crimefighting tactic Monday — but said it should be used in a “respectful” way.
A spokesman for the mayor credited broken windows — which calls for aggressively enforcing quality-of-life offenses to prevent more serious ones — with driving down crime to historic lows.
“Mayor de Blasio believes a number of the policing innovations created by the NYPD over the past two decades, including ... a focus on quality-of-life offenses, have contributed to New York City becoming the safest big city in the nation,” said spokesman Phil Walzak.
Walzak said both de Blasio and Police Commissioner Bill Bratton believe “policing must at all times be compassionate, respectful and constitutional.”
They are "committed to employing strategies and making adjustments that build a spirit of cooperation and trust between the police and the communities they serve,” Walzak said.
But in a sign of the growing friction with his base over broken windows — under renewed scrutiny after Eric Garner of Staten Island died from an NYPD officer’s chokehold during a confrontation over a minor infraction — some of the mayor’s key allies are pointing to The News’ analysis as evidence it’s time to shelve the decades-old policing tactic.
“It’s time to address the fact that this type of policing is targeting our communities,” said Priscilla Gonzalez of Communities United for Police Reform.
Around 81% of the 7.3 million people hit with violations for petty crimes between 2001 and 2013 were black or Hispanic males, according to the New York Civil Liberties Union.
While the number of summonses the NYPD has doled out is down 17% to 220,434 so far this year, there are still a dozen precincts that have seen an increase.
The biggest jump was in the 47th Precinct (Eastchester, the Bronx), which is 91% black and Hispanic and has seen a 42% increase to 5,860 summonses issued so far this year; followed by the 104th Precinct (Ridgewood, Queens), and the 43rd Precinct (Soundview, the Bronx), according to recent CompStat reports.
The biggest decreases in summonses were seen in the 19th Precinct (Upper East Side), the 20th Precinct (Upper West Side, South) and the 24th Precinct (Upper West Side, North).
A high-ranking police official said summons numbers will probably drop around the city. “Bratton says correct the condition, not do numbers for numbers’ sake. I believe him. That’s the right way to do things, so I think you’ll see less summonses issued but more of an effort to correct conditions,” the official said.
A spokesman for City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito said she is optimistic about the direction the NYPD is headed in under Bratton.
“The speaker is encouraged by steps the commissioner has recently put in place to heal divisions between the police and the communities and urges him to continue to act quickly on those policies,” the spokesman said.
But other Council members were more critical.
“Aggressive policing remains the policy of the NYPD, and it’s no longer centered around stop-and-frisk, it’s centered around aggressive enforcement of low-level offenses,” said City Councilman Ritchie Torres (D-Bronx).
“I want to see enforcement that’s specifically tied to public safety enhancements, not enforcement for enforcement’s sake,” said Councilman Brad Lander (D-Brooklyn).
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With Rocco Parascandola