The ‘How Many Stops Act’ would have negative consequences for the NYPD

Mayor Adams was right to veto the How Many Stops Act, and now the City Council must vote to uphold that veto.

I can see how many council members didn’t fully understand what they were signing onto when they approved this bill.

I was an assistant district attorney for 42 years, and I had to read it several times to really appreciate this bill’s practical impact and harmful effects.

WHAT POLICE WILL HAVE TO REPORT

The act would require, among other things, that police officers fill out a form every time they speak to a witness or possible witness to a crime.

If the officer approaches someone on the street and asks if he or she saw anything in relation to a crime, the officer has to fill out a form.

We are not talking about “stops” in the traditional sense, where police detain a person. Those are already covered by another mandatory police report, commonly known as the stop-and-frisk report, which has been around for decades.

The new bill requires reporting when the officer approaches people on the street and asks them questions for any “law enforcement or investigative purpose.”

Yes, as supporters say, it doesn’t require a form if the officer just says “Hello” or “How ya doin’?” But pretty much anything else to do with investigating crime, community policing, conditions in the neighborhood, or fears people in the community might have will require a form.

Think about it. Every time there is a serious crime in a neighborhood, the police do a “canvass,” knocking on doors and asking people in the street if they saw or heard anything.

An officer doing a canvass can talk to dozens of people in just a few hours but may only get relevant information from one, if any. Under this bill every interview, productive or not, will require a form.

The officer must either stop to fill out the form during his interview or take notes on the race, gender, age of the person interviewed, the reason for this particular interview, the circumstances that led to it, whether the encounter was based on a radio run, information from another police officer, witness or other and whether a summons was issued, force used or arrest made to complete the form later.

If a patrol car responds to the scene of a shooting and the officers start asking people on the scene if they saw anything, the officer must fill out a form for every person questioned, even if they don’t answer.

A police officer saying good morning to a storekeeper would not trigger a report (it’s deemed a “casual conversation”), but if the officer knows the store owner’s business had been burglarized and asks her if she has any information about the burglary, the officer has to fill out the form even if the owner has no new information.

And every subsequent time the officer asks the owner anything related to the burglary requires a new form.

If the officer greets a mother pushing her baby carriage and asks how she’s doing, God forbid she tells him her car was stolen because the officer must fill out a form.

If the officer walks up to a woman walking alone on a dark, deserted street at 2 a.m. (he has a credible reason to approach — her safety) and asks if she’s safe, the officer must fill out a form.

Conversations with confidential informants about crimes in the neighborhood? Fill out a form.

In all these examples, the people being questioned are not being detained in any way.

They are free to walk away from the officer at any time and refuse to answer questions, yet a form is still required.

LOST PATROL TIME

Public Advocate Jumaane Williams’ claim that the form only takes seconds to fill out is almost laughable.

There is not a police-department-generated form on God’s green Earth that takes seconds to fill out. But let’s assume for argument’s sake the form takes one minute to complete.

There are about 30,000 uniformed police officers, detectives and sergeants who are most likely to interact with the public.

If just half of them fill out only one form a day, and it takes one minute to complete, that is 15,000 minutes — or 250 hours of police time wasted each day.

If it takes two minutes, 500 hours; three minutes. 750 hours. Each day.

In the recent capture of the serial stabber in Queens, the police interviewed more than 1,000 people.

Every one of those interviews would result in a How Many Stops form being filled out in addition to the regular police reports.

That’s 1,000 forms — 1,000 minutes of police time, or almost 17 hours, filling out a meaningless form. And that’s on just one investigation.

DEPARTMENT MORALE

The effects of this nonsense are predictable. After a while the officer will waste time filling out the form, not complete the form (becoming subject to disciplinary action) or, even worse, stop asking questions. None are good.

You cannot underestimate the harm that will be done to police morale for so little benefit.

It is one thing to require officers to fill out a report every time they detain or frisk someone, as they must do now.

But requiring these forms to be completed on so many investigative — and initially social — interactions with the people of this city is so demeaning, especially when you’re doing it because you believe your police force is racist.

You ask them to run toward danger and risk their lives and safety every day, and then you treat them this way? How do you think those police officers feel?

And when does the officer complete



Source link