Solo police patrols didn’t work — but please keep trying, Mr. Mayor

Mayor Eric Adams desires a higher NYPD presence on subway trains and platforms.
Paul Martinka

Give Mayor Eric Adams credit score for making an attempt a brand new tactic to struggle crime — and save the town cash within the course of — by rolling out single-officer patrols on the subway Tuesday. Give him much more credit score for ending the experiment the very subsequent day when it proved harmful.

Adams is aware of crime is the town’s prime precedence, and he have to be past annoyed with New York’s soft-on-crime legal guidelines, prosecutors and judges. So he resorted to solo patrols, hoping it could spare the town the price of further officers whereas extending police presence.

Alas, on the very first day of this system, a homeless man attacked a uniformed detective after being noticed smoking on a Brooklyn prepare platform. The person allegedly reached for the cop’s gun a number of occasions earlier than being subdued. The result might’ve been horribly totally different.

Nearly immediately, the NYPD then scrapped this system. Sensible transfer.

In rolling out solo patrols, Adams famous that he’d accomplished them himself a long time in the past as a younger transit cop. Effective, Mr. Mayor, however that was then — that is now.

As we speak’s unhealthy guys now not concern tangling with police. Cops say Alex Eremin, the suspect within the Brooklyn assault, has a historical past of assaulting law enforcement officials. (Why Eremin wasn’t sitting in Rikers after assaults in February and Might is the actual scandal.) Police within the metropolis now are sometimes vilified and face a number of latest legal guidelines tying their arms and empowering criminals and the mentally ailing. They want at the least one associate as back-up.

Whereas solo patrols across the subway have been accomplished up to now, it’s now not secure for officers to sort out hostile suspects on their very own.

Christopher Sadowski

Police unions warned that solo subway patrols have been harmful. Appears they weren’t unsuitable.

Adams and the NYPD should maintain making an attempt. Transit crime, in spite of everything, is up 54% year-over-year. Sure, precinct cops have been displaying up in subway stations as a part of their patrol duties — a welcome change. However with police retirements hovering, Hizzoner wants to contemplate including new Police Academy courses, whilst he seems to be to maintain a lid on metropolis spending.

He and Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell confirmed agility in making an attempt a brand new tactic after which ditching it rapidly based mostly on real-life situations. There are different issues to attempt, after all, however with out assist from Albany, prosecutors and judges, he’s bought a tricky struggle forward.