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Q&A
Officer reassignments to transit district command and impact on local precincts
1:51:29
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136 sec
Council Member Farah N. Louis raises concerns about officers being reassigned to transit district command and its impact on local precinct operations. Commissioner Jessica Tisch explains the NYPD's approach to these reassignments and overall staffing strategy.
- Confirmed pulling of officers from other commands to work in transit
- Recent surge in transit resources aimed to correct past mistakes
- New approach: pulling from field training teams and administrative assignments
- Goal is to put less strain on resources of numbered commands
- Overall strategy described as 'numbered command first' approach to uniform staffing
Farah N. Louis
1:51:29
Officers and multiple precincts have raised concerns about being reassigned to transit district command often abruptly.
1:51:38
What is the justification for these reassignments and are they primarily due to budgetary constraints or staffing gaps in transit and how are these reassignments impacting local precinct level operations and morale particularly in neighborhoods already experiencing shortages?
Jessica Tisch
1:51:57
So for many of these issues all touch on the same thing which is the overall uniform staffing at the NYPD, which we know is down over 10% over the past four years or no.
1:52:17
Four or five years.
1:52:20
For the transit deployments, yes, we have pulled cops from other commands to work in transit.
1:52:30
The most recent surge in resources to transit, we aimed to correct some mistakes of the past where we are now pulling largely from our field training teams, meaning officers newly out of the academy as well as officers previously working administrative assignments in nonoperational commands.
1:52:55
And the idea there was to put less strain, less pull on the resources of numbered commands.
1:53:03
The same priority that we've placed on numbered commands, be they in transit, housing, patrol in terms staffing, we are also doing that with our numbered squads for detectives.
1:53:19
So that has meant from time to time pulling detectives out of niche or specialty units and putting them instead into numbered squads.
1:53:30
It's a numbered command first approach to uniform staffing at the police department which is exactly what the police department and the City Of New York need now, especially given the uniform staffing numbers that we're seeing.