The disbanding of the anti-crime unit combined with the Defund the Police movement is feeding the recent uptick in bloody violence that left a 1-year-old dead a day ago and another 17 shot in New York City, the NYPD’s chief of department said Tuesday.
“The disbanding of anti-crime obviously has a huge effect,” Chief Terence Monahan said on 1010 WINS radio. “Those are our best cops out on the street, grabbing guns. So, there’s a feeling that it’s safe to carry a gun on the street. So, we are looking for ways to change that mentality out on the street.”
Monahan also bemoaned the recent Defund the Police movement, claiming criminals have caught on that police are less likely to go out and make arrests following the “animosity” created by the George Floyd protests.
“There is a feeling on the street that the police are handcuffed, that they are not out there as aggressively as we were in the past,” Monahan said. “The new law that was passed by the City Council has cops hesitant. They are fearful that they may be arrested if they take some proactive-type enforcement.”
“All the rhetoric of Defund the Police, get rid of the police, abolish the police, that’s got to end, that has to stop. We need to find a middle ground of cops and communities, working together to handle a lot of these issues here.”
Monahan’s comments came after 17 people were shot on Monday alone and just two days after little Davell Gardner was caught in the crossfire at a barbecue and killed just two months shy of his second birthday.
The anti-crime unit was scrapped on June 15 by Police Commissioner Dermot Shea, who said the move was a “seismic” shift culturally in the department and was “closing on one of the last chapters on stop, question and frisk.”
The plainclothes cops were tasked with taking drugs and guns off the streets, but the unit was involved in a number of high-profile encounters, including the fatal arrest of Eric Garner and the death of Bronx cop Brian Mulkeen.
Since the members were reassigned, shootings have surged by 210 percent from the same time last year — with 221 more victims over the same period, police data shows.
At the same time, gun arrests were nearly cut by two-thirds, as cops only made 89 collars for firearms compared to 270 last year, the data shows.
In response, Monahan said the detectives bureau was bolstered by roughly 250 cops, who were reassigned from the now-defunct anti-crime unit, to help close the cases.
“We have to identify the shooters, and we have to get them in … but that takes time to make sure that we’re proving that we need boots on the ground focusing on guns and narcotics units.”
In addition, the department has added officers to its gun suppression unit and moved units that were previously on protest details back on the streets, the chief said.
“We’ve asked them to get out on the streets, target the individuals that we know are part of these gangs that are doing the shootings,” he said.