Overtime pay for more New York City Police Department (NYPD) officers in the city’s subways reportedly jumped significantly between 2022 and 2023.
City records apparently show an increase from $4 million to a whopping $155 million, the Gothamist reported Thursday.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul speaks, joined by New York City Mayor Eric Adams (R) and the newly appointed ATF Director Steve Dettelbah, as she delivers remarks about their joint effort to combat gun violence at the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) office on August 24, 2022, in New York City (John Lamparski/Getty Images).
The outlet continued:
The new spending was part of a push by Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul to reduce crime and crack down on New Yorkers sleeping in the transit system – in part by flooding the subways with uniformed NYPD officers working overtime shifts.
The influx of officers corresponded to a 2% drop in what police call “major” crimes in the subway, including robbery, rape and murder. But the most marked effect of adding officers was a skyrocketing number of tickets and arrests for fare evasion. Police officials said they count that as a success.
In October 2022, Fox 5 New York reported transit officers were going to start working longer shifts as the number of violent attacks in the subway system rose.
Incidents such as slashings and shovings had put “New Yorkers on edge,” a reporter for the outlet said:
The Gothamist article comes as a July report said New York City police officers were rushing toward the exit as crime plagued their communities.
“Meanwhile, New York City police officers reportedly suffered 32 percent more injuries so far in 2023 than in 2022 as rampant crime bears down on their communities,” the Breitbart News article added.
In November, two men were accused of violently attacking a New York City officer on a subway platform for asking that they stop smoking inside the building, according to Breitbart News.
“Smoking is prohibited in subway stations, so two police officers who happened to be there asked them to stop and leave, authorities said.” That was the moment the suspects began attacking one of the officers during an incident that was recorded on video:
The Gothamist report said NYPD chief of Transit Michael Kemper explained that more than 1,000 additional officers patrolled the subways daily throughout 2023.
“That’s on top of the 2,500 transit officers already working in the system in the NYPD’s $250 million transit bureau, he said,” the article stated.
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