NEW YORK — Rookie cops scheduled to hit the streets later this month will jump right in to the fight against theft, robbery and violence that has plagued much of the city, NYPD brass said Friday.
Newly-minted cops from a class of 700 scheduled to graduate from the police academy Oct. 17 will be sent to commercial strips plagued by larceny — such as Fordham Road in the Bronx, Jamaica Ave. in Queens, and 86th St. in Brooklyn.
They’ll also go into a subway system where seven people have been murdered this year and numerous straphangers have been beaten in random attacks, and to housing projects where gangs battle each other.
Cops also promise a focus on repeat offenders they say are too often returned to the streets under the state’s bail laws. They noted that in the Upper East Side’s 19th Precinct, 43 suspects have been arrested for 438 crimes in the neighborhood this year — and nearly 600 times for offenses elsewhere in the city.
“We will not take our foot off the gas,” Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell said at One Police Plaza. “We will continue to employ effective strategies to suppress violence, interdict and seize illegal guns, and address all other crime categories.”
When former Police Commissioner Bill Bratton took over in 2014, he did away with Operation Impact, a program that sent rookie cops into crime hot spots. The program was criticized by civil rights lawyers and some police officials because it forced the young officers to write summonses and stop, question and frisk people.
This time, the rookie cops sent to the streets will be “closely supervised and trained,” said Chief of Department Kenneth Corey.
And the new officers won’t be just standing around, he promised. “Make no mistake — they’re not out there as scarecrows,” Corey said.
The NYPD also plans to create more narcotics investigation teams, move more cops from desk jobs to patrol duty, and assign officers to watch the bridges connecting upper Manhattan to the Bronx — a common escape route for teens who pull robberies in one borough and escape to the other.
They also promise to do a better job tracking repeat offenders.
“We’re not just playing defense anymore,” Corey said. “We’re going to start visiting our recidivists at home. We’re going to knock on their doors, sometimes, with probation, sometimes with parole, if either of those apply ... We know who you are. We know where you live.”
Home visits are not new, and in the past some people just out of prison or jail have described door knocks by police officers as harassment.
But Corey said the focus will be on those who have pending cases, are out awaiting trial and “continue to be arrested.”
Crime is up 33% this year — despite a decline in murders and shootings.
The rise has come even as cops report making more arrests so far this year than in any year since 2001 — 141,239 to date.
And they’ve also seized more than 5,600 guns.
Police blame New York’s 2020 bail reform law for much of the rise in crime, and say too many criminals charged with grand larceny are being released to the streets without bail. They note that the 38,732 grand larcenies recorded so far this year are 41% of the total felonies that comprise the crime rate.
They cited the case of one repeat offender, Jacob Poole, 29, who has served two prison terms for grand larceny.
Recently, police say, Poole has been repeatedly busted for petty larceny — shoplifting.
Poole, also known as Jessica Poole, was arrested this week for a string of thefts in lower Manhattan, with bail set at $10,000.
Chief of Crime Control Strategies Michael Lipetri said bail for Poole, who has made a “complete mockery of the system” with about 30 missed court dates in the past, should have been set in August when he was busted for 18 alleged thefts at Duane Reade and CVS stores.
The Manhattan District Attorney asked for $10,000 bail at the August hearing, but a judge ordered Poole let go on supervised release.
But Poole’s freedom seems to have ended with the most recent arrest. Poole was held in Rikers Island on Friday night on grand larceny and petit larceny charges, and also has a warrant for violating parole, records show.
