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The New York City Council is expected to vote next week on a bill that would require NYPD officers to file paperwork documenting every interaction they have with the public, ranging from arrests to merely giving a lost tourist directions to the subway. The officers would also have to include racial, gender and age information about the civilians with whom they interact. The bill, called the How Many Stops Act, was introduced last summer by current public advocate Jumaane Williams and is expected to easily pass.
Critics of the bill say it will keep cops off the streets by burying them in an avalanche of paperwork. One of the most vocal critics of the bill is former NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton. He appeared on 710 WOR’s Len Berman and Michael Riedel in the Morning program and eviscerated the City Council for even considering the bill.
“It is nuts, and it’s based once again in the issue of race,” Bratton fumed with Berman and Riedel. “This effort is intended to put even [more] additional handcuffs on the NYPD. Now the City Council, in its wisdom battling all the racial-biased policing of the NYPD- a police force that is 59% minority in this city- the City Council and Jumaane Williams do not trust the NYPD and its minority police to police fairly without racial bias. It’s absurd!”
Bratton was just getting started, as he broke down specifically why the NYPD feels the bill comes up short. “What type of message does that send to the rank-and-file or leadership of the NYPD that the political leadership of this city does not trust them- and probably never will- because of their own racial bias. There’s also a phenomenal cost to this… there is going to be a further burden having to train 33,000 offices on this new legislation, it’s going to be an increased burden in terms of the amount of time spent filling out all these forms. They want the cops to get closer to the community; meanwhile they’re putting up roadblocks that prevent them from getting closer.”
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