Being a police officer isn’t easy, and with the radical left coming down hard on law enforcement and calls to “defund the police,” the environment has made it nearly impossible to work. Swarms of officers are retiring and disappearing from the ranks, including many good law enforcement members in the state of New York. The NYPD lost about 15 percent of their entire force in 2020, about 5,300 uniformed officers, after the death of George Floyd and the protests that followed.
According to a recent NYPD report, 2,746 officers retired and 5,346 quit in the year 2020, which is an astonishing 75% increase over the year before. Between May 25 and June 24, 2020, approximately 272 officers left the force in one month. In comparison, 1,509 officers quit and 1,544 filed for retirement in 2019. This year, over 830 officers have walked away.
Reports also show that shootings across the city have more than doubled in comparison from the same time period last year. In the last week of April 2021, NYPD responded to 49 people killed or wounded in 42 incidents, which is three times the number of shootings from the same week. In 2020, there were nine people shot in seven incidents.
Last weekend’s most recent wave of violence included a total of 31 people wounded from 28 separate shooting incidents from Friday to Sunday, including one victim who was shot in broad daylight while sitting in his car in Manhattan’s Upper East Side. New York City experienced more shootings than Chicago last weekend as gun violence continues to surge. According to the Chicago Sun-Times during the same weekend, 21 people were wounded and four more were killed. In the weekend prior, 22 people were wounded and five were killed.
The number of people shot in New York so far this year has climbed to 416, which is a 76 percent increase from last year.
In March, the New York City Council voted on various police reform bills, including one that would eliminate giving qualified immunity to the NYPD. This would give citizens the chance to sue law enforcement officers for excessive force ur unlawful searches. They also passed a bill that NYPD would have to issue a quarterly report detailing the race and ethnicity of suspects on all stops, including the vehicles seized, arrests made, related use of force incidents, the number of summonses issued, and vehicle searches performed.
Former NYPD Commissioner Bernard Kerik spoke out against the bills, arguing that the city is treating them poorly and that politicians are accusing them of being unable to do their jobs. He announced that he would no longer recommend the NYPD to people who are considering a career in law enforcement.
“No police officer should work in a jurisdiction where they do not have the support of those they work for. Beginning today, I will no longer recommend young people consider the NYPD as a career,” Kerik tweeted.
Police Benevolent Association President Pat Lynch also spoke out against the bills, adding that the Mayor and City Council are trying to abolish the police by keeping their pay absurdly low and exposure to lawsuits incredibly high. He adds that City Hall has demonized them at every opportunity and has taken away the tools they need to do the job they’ve signed up for, which is to keep communities safe.
Democratic City Council members are attacking cops and letting criminals have open season on the city while staying safe, hiding behind their screens, and thinking up new ways to give criminals a free pass. Hundreds of innocent New Yorkers have been shot this year and the City Council is more worried about proposing bills that attack law enforcement officials. The radical-left agenda is all talk and no accountability.
