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The NYPD has its fourth top cop in the past eighteen months, as outgoing Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tisch is now officially the Police Commissioner. Tisch will have a lot of problems to resolve as the head of the nation’s largest police force, from lack of support in City Hall to public perception of growing crime, but there is one problem that she will try to stem that threatens to compound all the rest.
The New York Police Department is apparently short by over 2,000 detectives. Many of the missing detectives chose to take early retirement in the face of declining morale, and many of these detectives have not been replaced for a growing number of reasons. Scott Munro is the president of the NYC Detective Endowment Association. He appeared on the WOR Morning Show to explain how the overtime regulations are making early retirement a much more appealing option than staying on a thankless job.
“I’m very concerned [and] the union’s very concerned,” Munro told host Larry Mendte. “Right now, we have, like I said, 2,900 people that are very experienced, whether they work in crime scenes, whether they work in the squad, whether they work in narcotics, whether they fly helicopters, whether they’re emergency services units. We have some legislation in- in fact, I’ve had conversations with Governor Hochul, with some of the Senators in the Assembly, and now I’m going to go after the City Council and start speaking with them and try to explain to them that we’re going to be losing our experience.”
Munro says bail reform laws have exacerbated the morale issues that have many detectives choosing early retirement. “Until they fix that bail reform, sure, cops are disgusted. Police officers, detectives- any ranks, sergeants, lieutenants- they’re out there working many hours away from their families, not having probably the best quality of life… it’s a lot of stress for our detectives, and I’m going to try to alleviate that. That’s what I’m working on… so they don’t have to retire in their last year, because a lot of them don’t want to.”
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