The decision by the Appellate Division to dismiss the case against a teenager in possession of a loaded semiautomatic gun may be as dangerous as the weapon itself.
In the court’s opinion, the situation did not support the officer’s actions. Yet he rightly observed and questioned a youth who actually had a gun, and it was recovered. Loaded.
Whether in the hands of hardened criminals or in the hands of misguided minors, illegal guns are equally deadly.
‘FRISK’ KID FREED BY COURT SHOT A MAN MONTHS AFTER RELEASE: DA
The public, and too often the police, face the consequences of these weapons — as off-duty Police Officer Nelson Vergara did early Sunday when he returned home from work, only to be caught in a dispute between two groups, one armed with a 9mm semiautomatic. Vergara was shot twice, but survived.
He is the eighth New York City police officer shot this year. Detectives Kevin Brennan and Kevin Herlihy were shot two weeks apart, Detective Brennan at point-blank range in the head by a wanted murderer, and Detective Herlihy in a subway station during evening rush hour by a man, fleeing police, who one day earlier had shot a woman in the head.
Police Officer Thomas Richards narrowly escaped death when he was fired upon and struck by a 9mm round deflected by the spare ammunition magazine on his gun belt.
On Easter, four Emergency Service Unit officers encountered a firestorm of bullets from a man who had three guns in his apartment. Detective Peter Figoski was not spared last December. He dedicated his life to reducing crime in Brooklyn’s 75th Precinct, in neighborhoods decried by critics as being “over-policed.”
Those critics take pains to point out that police stops have increased during this administration. But the NYPD has markedly reduced homicides over the last 10 years and is on pace this year to record another historic low.
There were 5,430 murders in New York City in the last decade, compared to 11,058 the decade before. That’s 5,628 lives saved. Police recovered 8,263 weapons in stops in 2011, but some say that isn’t sufficient.
If fewer people are carrying guns because of police stops, we’ll take it. Through necessary enforcement — of which stops are one element — we are doing everything we can to ensure that more citizens don’t face the barrel of a gun, as the officers shot this year have had to do.
The youth at the center of the decision was stopped and questioned by a police officer who was assigned to West Tremont Avenue in response to gang-related shootings in the area, around the corner from where Officer Vergara was shot.
Five days earlier, in the 42nd Precinct, a detective monitoring CCTV cameras inside the Morris Houses saw one young man hand a firearm to another, who tucked it into his pants.
Both were arrested, and a loaded .38-caliber handgun and a bullet-resistant vest were recovered from a 17-year-old.
Meanwhile, in three separate gun buybacks held with Bronx clergy, police have collected 2,527 firearms.
Community collaboration will continue, but it alone is not enough. And The Bronx is not unique.
Today, 838 new police officers are graduating and they, like their predecessors, will be assigned to neighborhoods most afflicted by crime.
The oath they take requires them to uphold the Constitution of the United States and perform their duties to the best of their ability, and they are eager to do so.
This decision — handed down the same day Officer Vergara was released from the hospital — compromises that ability, their safety and the safety of those they are sworn to protect.
Ray Kelly is the commissioner of the New York City Police Department.