If you were a precinct commander and you had a problematic sector or even a single block that was causing you problems, you would have been brought to the podium at the infamous NYPD Compstat meetings and your crime or quality of life conditions would have been analyzed. The executive staff would ask you to explain the problems and dive into the programs you are using to “fix’ the problems. Conditions corrected! You would articulate well, the issues, the response, the strategies and tactics used and then be hailed a “hero” in the Compstat world for getting the crime and quality of life to a manageable and livable state. But low and behold, a year later the same sector is blowing up with the same problems 365 days removed. At the next Compstat you would get your professional ass kicked and they would call out the fact that you failed to honor the last step of the 4 tenants of crime fighting as articulated by the legendary Jack Maple. They are:
1. Accurate and timely intelligence that is clearly communicated to all personnel
2. Rapid concentrated and synchronized deployment
3. Effective strategies and tactics
4. Relentless follow up and assessment
Relentless Follow-up and assessment.
I remember being at the corner of West 4th St and 6th Ave, topside of the West 4th St subway station, on October 31, 1993 and being a young Sergeant in the NYC Transit Police Department. The Greenwich Village Halloween parade is a bucket list item. It’s the largest Halloween parade in the world and NYC’s only nighttime parade. The floats are imaginative and wild. Anyone who wants to enjoy the rush of festive crowds, see the unbelievable and maybe even challenge your predisposed beliefs, this is the parade for you. Puppets and drag queens! While assigned to one subway staircase that serpentines barriers around the corner onto West 4th St so subway riders can enter the train station, Deputy Inspector Kasprzak told me, “Sarge, these barriers are not to move one inch, if you lose the top of this staircase we will never get it back”. I didn’t even know it at the time but I was using Jack’s 4 tenants cited above. 1. We told the cops we couldn’t lose an inch (as directed by the boss) and I shared that with the troops, 2. We communicated with the NYPD cops in the street and the NYC Transit Authority personnel the mission, objectives and plans, 3. We discussed how we would “hold the line” and how we would measure success and, finally 4. I checked the chalk marks on the ground to ensure the barriers were not inching closer to the stairs and buildings, what seemed like every 30 seconds. We held the line! Deputy Inspector Kasprzak told me we lost that staircase every year previously. He may have been telling me that just to make me feel good. But, I do know this, we didn’t lose the corner. It was a win. We never gave it up. Not an inch. We checked it every 30 seconds.
That brings me to NYC in the last few weeks. Even though the current administration, since taking over in 2014, has been riding the wave of effective police strategies and tactics going back 27 years and keeping crime down, the last set of policy changes (Bail Reform), COVID and it’s subsequent prisoner releases and most recently the fake protests where a blind eye has been turned on lawlessness, have set NYC on a course that will take years to fix and in the interim lives will be lost and countless victims will be damaged. I don’t know the current NYPD executive team personally; I expect they are frustrated too. Heck, they have each called out the reforms and the people responsible publicly. But, this I do know; Relentless follow-up was ignored and the price will be paid, sadly. They lost the corner!
