Occasionally, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly jots down a memo on some NYPD stationary (we imagine it features Snoopy, or Popeye) to remind his force to ease up on low-level marijuana arrests or stop harassing journalists. But a new department-wide memo released on Tuesday and obtained by the Daily News has a much simpler message: do your job. Specifically, when someone reports a crime, cops should take them seriously and follow proper procedure. more ›

While people seem to be understandably interested in the violent arrests made by the NYPD during the Occupy Wall Street protests, lets not forget about the widespread practice of planting drugs on innocent suspects! "Flaking," as it's called, has reportedly cost the city $1.2 million to settle cases of false arrests. The Daily News reports that the settlements range from $15,000 to $300,000, not to mention the untold amounts of time and money wasted on prosecuting false cases. But hey, crime's down! more ›

Better pause production on those "Ray Kelly For Mayor" bumper stickers: nine police precincts have seen a surge in crime in recent weeks, including the 34th Precinct in Washington Heights [pdf], and the 90th Precinct in Williamsburg [pdf]. more ›

Former NYPD Police Commission Bill Bratton, who was hired under Mayor Giuliani and is widely credited with stemming the city's reputation for crime through the broken-window theory and Compstat, has been appointed as an unpaid "consultant" to Scotland Yard. Bratton was personally chosen by British Prime Minister David Cameron, who told Parliament that the UK "should be looking beyond our shores to learn the lesson from others," with regard to the widespread rioting that has gripped London in recent days. "He thanked me for accepting the engagement," Bratton told the Daily News, "I thanked him for the opportunity." more ›

Apparently last month's bust of City Island's drug-dealing barber wasn't exactly a "wake-up call" for authorities. Residents of the Laurels apartment complex were convinced that drug dealers were using their residence as a home base, despite the fact that six NYPD cops lived there. Three policemen who recently moved in, saw "cars pulling in at 2, 3, 4 o'clock in the morning," and cameras the drug dealers set up to monitor their surroundings. They took notes on license plates, makes and models and even the dealers' names. Civic Association president, former cop and onetime partner of the man who created Compstat, Bill Stanton, took the information to the 45 precinct captain. But that's where the investigation was stymied. "Nothing" happened, Stanton tells the Post, "It's like a free pass to drug dealers." more ›

It isn't your imagination, there have been an awful lot of rape stories in the news this year. Reported rape cases have jumped 16 percent this year, according to police statistics. But part of that growth is due to changes the NYPD made last year in the way it handles sexual violence. more ›

Maybe the NYPD hasn't been all wrong in issuing summonses to bikers for breaking laws that don't exist. After all, they keep cyclists in bike lanes where they belong. But what would happen if a cyclist NEVER deviated from the bike lane? Watch this hilarious video to find out. more ›

The Clinton Hill housing projects have seen more than their fair share of violence in their neighborhood, and this year seems to be no different, with four murders committed just in the last few months, not to mention how lovely "Prostitute Park" is this time of year. As the mercury rises, so does the crime rate, and Clinton Hill complex residents are particularly wary this year, the Daily News reports. "As it gets hot, The Devil comes out," says one city worker who has lived in the neighborhood for 18 years. "It's dangerous out there. The elderly can't sit outside and you've got to go out in the morning and be back by 3 and stay in your house." more ›

After claiming to be fired for failing to meet the demands of "unrealistic and illegal quotas," a former police officer stationed in the Bronx will file a lawsuit again the NYPD for wrongful termination, the Daily News reports. Vanessa Hicks was initially stationed in the 40th precinct, and said she became a cop because she "wanted to do something to help my community, to make a difference." Didn't she know that the definition of "difference" is "20 summonses, one arrest" per month? more ›

The NYPD has released its weekly crime statistics for the last week of March, which means we now have crime statistics from the first quarter of 2011 to mull over. The good news? For 2011, crime is down with only 88 murders reported so far (compared with 111 this time last year)—thirty-one of the city's 76 precincts have yet to even see a murder this year. Shootings are down too, with only 271 reported so far, compared to 315 last year. The bad news? One area that hasn't seen anything close to a decline is rape. This year there have already been 340 rapes reported, a 24 percent increase from last year and a 32.8 percent increase from 2009. more ›

The 2010 murder rate, as we've discussed, was up 13% last year overall. But disturbing new statistics from the NYPD reveal that the murder rate involving African-American victims increased last year by 31%. At the same time the percentage of white murder victims decreased by 27%. more ›

Yesterday, NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly announced the formation of a new band committee to study and scrutinize how the NYPD records crime statistics. And while many treated the glorified press release as a sign of humbleness and progress from the police chief, others aren't quite as convinced that anything meaningful will come of the study: “My take on it, at a minimum, is that it is a defensive ploy, because so much has come out. There’s a lot of very incongruous information that they have placed out there...There’s stuff there that belies their conclusions,” Eli Silverman, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told the Times. more ›

As of November 7th, overall crime in NYC has dropped 1.26% from a year earlier. But violent crime—the murders, rapes, assaults and robberies—are all on pace to increase, and a professor emeritus at John Jay College of Criminal Justice says the discrepancy is caused by the NYPD's manipulation of statistics. Eli Silverman, who co-authored a report which found that more than half of the city's cops under-report crime to satisfy the top brass, says non-violent crime is "down" because it's easy to downgrade or under-report those crimes. Murder and rape are not so easily shrugged off. more ›

Continuing a trend that has been going on all year, the murder rate has continued to steadily increase throughout the city, and has climbed 13.2 percent overall from this time in 2009. There were 341 murders at this point last year compared with 386 through Sunday; Queens is the borough with the largest increase, up to 73 murders compared with 58 a year ago. There's been an 18.3 percent increase in the Bronx; and its increased 12.2 percent in Manhattan, and 7.4 percent in Brooklyn. more ›

On April 24th the NYPD will conduct a test for any lieutenants wishing to become captains. However, apparently only 537—about 30%—of the departments lieutenants have signed up for the exam. The Post reports that many cops say they can earn as much money as a lieutenant in their current position, and don't have to deal with the added pressure of the higher ranking job. Former cop Gene O'Donnell believes this doesn't bode well for morale in the organization. "The middle level is not inclined to take a test to rise in the organization, and that's an indicator that they plan not to make policing a career and will leave." more ›

Brooklyn’s crime statistics for the first quarter are looking none too good. Three months into the new decade felonies are way up, the Daily News reports, with almost 70 percent of Brooklyn police precincts seeing an increases in robberies, burglaries, grand larceny or auto theft of twenty percent or more. Last week Mayor Bloomberg blamed rising city crime rates on budget cuts, but Ft. Greene Councilwoman Letitia James gives an alternate explanation. more ›

Backing up longstanding rumors of NYPD quotas, a cop claims police officers are required to issue 20 summonses and make 1 arrest per month so commanding officers appear to maintain low crime rates in their precincts. "At the end of the night you have to come back with something," Officer Adil Polanco told ABC. "You have to write somebody, you have to arrest somebody, even if the crime is not committed, the number's there. So our choice is to come up with the number." more ›

Someone in the NYPD bureau responsible for preventing police corruption leaked the identity of an officer who told investigators about a Bronx lieutenant's alleged shady doings, according to the cop's lawyer. After officer and former police union rep Frank Palestro sent what were supposed to be anonymous tips to Internal Affairs, he found a mousetrap with his name on it in the 42nd Precinct and an Internal Affairs call log containing his cellphone number in his locker. "The log was sent back to the precinct by [Internal Affairs] and I think it was done deliberately," said attorney Eric Sanders. more ›

Officer Frank Palestro, the latest cop to call foul on corruption in the NYPD, has gotten serious flak from his fellow police and the union, though he maintains he was just doing his duty. The union delegate and nine-year police veteran was outed after secretly reporting Lt. Susana Seda for behavior such as telling cops to write summonses for traffic violations they didn't witness, refusing to take complaints and tampering with a gun at a crime scene. Since then, he's been transferred so he won't have to deal with the wrath of his peers in the precinct. "I was the [Patrolmen's Benevolent Association] delegate, and now I'm labeled a rat for doing what I was supposed to do," said Palestro. "This will stay with me for the rest of my career." more ›

After a study and testimonies suggested this month that NYPD stats are all but made up, a cop-friendly civic group says the force needs to win back the public's trust. The Citizens Crime Commission commended the NYPD for its "terrific work" but urged it to release internal audits that they hope will prove CompStat departments aren't staffed with fiction writers. "There is no doubt that crime is way, way down," said Richard Aborn, president of the group. "But why have this cloud hanging over the department?" more ›

Believe it or not, Mayor Bloomberg is insisting that the NYPD's crime statistics are accurate—well, most of the time. "There's always going to be some fudging of the numbers, but it is tiny," the mayor said. "I have an enormous amount of confidence in the data." He also suggested that a study by two criminologists, which showed police precincts routinely fudge their data, may have been biased. According to Bloomberg, it was "paid for by one of the unions, so you've got to start wondering whether it was an independent study." more ›

Judging from comments on our site and a NY Times reaction piece, New Yorkers didn't seem much surprised by "shocking" new allegations that NYPD crime statistics are fudged, cooked and patched. And yet many still think the city is safe and getting safer; regardless of the stats, the Times finds quite a few people who trust the force to serve and protect. “The N.Y.P.D. lays their lives on the line for us every day,” said a senior minister at the Metropolitan Community United Methodist Church in Harlem. “But they’re human. Mistakes are made. I know that people pad books. They pad books in the banking system. I’ve even known ministers to pad books in the church. It just needs to be investigated.” more ›

Days after a Brooklyn cop and a Queens politician accused the police of cooking its crime statistics, a survey of more than one hundred retired NYPD higher-ups showed that cops—who are under constant pressure to produce happy-looking stats—have routinely fabricated or manipulated their data, since the crime analysis system was put into place in 1995. And the statistics they produce are the very same that Bloomberg quotes when he says the city is safe, and getting safer every year. “Those people in the CompStat era felt enormous pressure to downgrade index crime, which determines the crime rate, and at the same time they felt less pressure to maintain the integrity of the crime statistics,” said John A. Eterno, one of the researchers and a former NYPD captain. more ›

A day after a Brooklyn cop accused police officers in Bedford Stuyvesant's 81st Precinct of under-reporting crimes and turning away victims in an effort to improve crime statistics, a Queens politician says he's heard the same allegations from other officers—but they won't testify for fear of retribution. more ›

A Brooklyn cop has accused the NYPD of under-reporting and refusing to investigate crimes in order to keep crime statistics down. Officer Adrian Schoolcraft alleges that cops in the Bedford-Stuyvesant's 81st Precinct have deliberately recorded felonies as misdemeanors and turned some victims away so crime rates at Ralph Avenue stationhouse appear lower. "I wanted to become a police officer, chase the bad guys, and I thought the NYPD was the best police department in the world," said the Texas native, who joined the NYPD in 2002 because he wanted to serve after the Sept. 11 attacks. "I never thought it would turn out like this." more ›

Now that former NYPD commissioner William Bratton is leaving his post as LAPD commissioner to be CEO of a NYC security company, there's plenty of speculation that he could return to the public sector—even back as NYPD commissioner. Bratton told the Daily News, "Oh sure. I'm only 61. That's a possibility down the line. Those that know me know I never close any doors. Well with some exceptions: I've closed the door on politics to show my sanity. I'm not crazy." The News explains why another Bratton era might happen, "A source familiar with Mayor Bloomberg's thinking said Bratton would be on the short list for commissioner if Kelly moved on to another post, most likely a federal one." Bratton left the NYPD in 1996, apparently because then Mayor Rudy Giuliani was jealous of the credit that Bratton was getting for NYC's efforts fighting crime (example: this 1996 Time cover). Of course, credit for NYC's plummeting crime rates also goes to Jack Maple, the NYPD deputy commissioner behind CompStat (Maple died in 2001). more ›

William Bratton, the former NYPD Commissioner who introduced CompStat and helped oversee a dramatic reduction in crime (and then was dismissed when Rudy Giuliani got jealous), is now dealing a different kind of scourge: The paparazzi in Los Angeles. An LA City Council member has proposed restrictions on paparazzi and even convened a regional "paparazzi task force," with testimony from celebrities. Bratton, who has headed the LAPD since 2002, feels it's a "total waste of time," saying, "If you notice, since Brittany started wearing clothes and behaving; Paris is out of town not bothering anybody, thank god; and, evidently, Lindsay Lohan has gone gay, we don't seem to have much of an issue." more ›