Congratulations to NYPD Commissioner Jessie Tisch and the mayor who picked her six months ago, Eric Adams, and, most of all, to the tens of thousands of women and men of the New York City Police Department, for bringing down to the lowest level ever the number of shootings and homicides in the five boroughs. Thank you to all who wear the blue for making more than 8 million of us safer.
For the first five months of this year (Tisch was sworn in last Nov. 25) there were 264 shootings and 112 homicides. Not only are those figures back to the pre-COVID range before the big spike that came along with the pandemic, but both are below any previous year as far back as crime stats have been kept.
Before now, the Jan. 1 to May 31 record low for shootings was in 2018, with 267 shootings. As for homicides, there were 113 in both 2017 and 2014.
And the trends are happily going down, as this past May saw 54 shootings and 18 homicides. The best May ever before was in 2019, with 61 shootings and 19 homicides.
The next challenge for the cops and Tisch is to keep at it and push the numbers down when the weather heats up, as summer is traditionally when crime gets worse. The NYPD is ready with a summer violence reduction plan and the new Quality of Life Division to deal with non-dangerous enforcement annoyances that bother everyone.
We got here with hard work and what Tisch calls precision policing and always, always, always looking for illegal guns, which cause so much bloodshed. Since Adams took office in 2021, the NYPD has seized more 22,000 illegal firearms which includes ghost guns, that despite being untraceable, can kill just the same as regular guns. War on illegal guns? You bet there is and the NYPD is winning the war.
Tisch wants more cops, as does just about everyone running for mayor. But the raw numbers of uniformed officers is not the only answer. It is how those cops are used efficiently. And that is where Tisch has excelled. Let her next six months (and perhaps beyond?) be just as productive.
We can’t think of anything we’d rather the commissioner do. Actually, there is something. And it’s not so much about Tisch, than about the commissioners who predated her. The City Charter, New York City’s constitution, is explicitly clear on the matter of the NYPD’s deputy commissioners.
The Charter’s Chapter 18 is the Police Department. Section 431 is the commissioner. Section 432 covers the deputies, which says: “The commissioner shall have the power to appoint and at pleasure remove seven deputies, one to be known as first deputy commissioner.”
The NYPD’s website lists a first deputy commissioner and a dozen other deputies, for a total of 13, almost double the seven permitted under the Charter.
Maybe there is some kind of phony distinction between “appointed” deputies (capped at seven) and “designated” deputies (with an unlimited number allowed). Or maybe it’s just title inflation for people who can be assistant commissioners. Or maybe the Charter needs to be amended. But in any case, the Charter, which is supreme to any local law, regulation or rule, must be obeyed and it says seven and seven is seven, not 13.
