5 ms·

The NYPD Tapes

72 points by SuzyQT 16y ago

hga 16y ago
Highly recommended reading in conjunction with this article: http://www.amazon.com/Arrest-Proof-Yourself-Ex-Cop-Reveals-Arrested/dp/1556526377/ http://www.amazon.com/Arrest-Proof-Yourself-Ex-Cop-Reveals-A... E.g. note the item on page two of the Village Voice article on "points".
lutorm 16y ago
Anyone else thinking "The Wire"?
CWuestefeld 16y ago
the true value of this "activity," the tapes indicate, was that it offered proof that the precinct commander and his officers were doing their jobs Apparently cops have their own value of kloc metrics.
- hga 16y ago
  Indeed. And that's why when a cop harasses someone, e.g. trying to provoke them into something arrestable, it's often "nothing personal", they're just trying to get enough points to keep their superiors happy, maybe get promoted, etc.
percept 16y ago
I didn't read the full article but I imagine this illustrates the darker side of CompStat. Along the same lines, some book recommendations: _Armed and Dangerous: Memoirs of a Chicago Policewoman_, by Gina Gallo _Cop in the Hood: My Year Policing Baltimore's Eastern District_, by Peter Moskos The second title covers the real-life setting for "The Wire."
- javanix 16y ago
  If you want the real setting for "The Wire", read " The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood" by David Simon and Ed Burns. The depiction of one of today's most derelict inner-city neighborhoods is heartbreaking and disconcerting.
My2Cents4U 16y ago
Welcome To The New World Police State
look_lookatme 16y ago
Haven't read beyond the first page of the article yet... saving for later. But I'll share an experience of mine. I lived in the 79th precinct, adjacent to the 81st. It's less dangerous, but not much -- still Bed Stuy and very block by block. I was there for about 6 months in late 2007. The area is tense at times -- much of New York's prosperity over the last two decades hasn't trickled down to the people living there aside from landlords selling their buildings to gentrifies or speculators. There was an incident around this time where an unstable young man was shot because he had a comb the police mistook for a weapon in the dark. I wouldn't have been surprised if it had escalated into riots. Gentrification is welcome by some, protested by some, and many are indifferent to it, I think. There are very few nice places to eat or socialize or even get groceries, but there are a ton of bodegas and fried chicken/pizza places and dollar stores. It can be a very rough place, which is too bad as I got to know some very nice people on my block. Certainly there are institutional problems in the NYPD, but also I have the suspicion that many rookie cops eventually get rotated into areas like this -- Bushwick, Bed Stuy, East New York and this contributes to much of the stuff you will learn about in these tapes. The penis jokes, the confusion on what to report and not gracefully handling tension within the communities -- I wonder if it is inexperience. Comparisons to The Wire are natural, but in the time I lived in Bed Stuy, the only similarity I really observed was that the NYPD guys never seemed to interact with the people of the neighborhood as if they too were part of that community. Never said hi while walking their beats, never stopped to talk to the kids or the corner boys, they mostly walked in twos or threes, chatting with each other. I think for the people that live there and the cops that work there, there is us and them and not much in between.
- smallblacksun 16y ago
  It's hard to blame the cops for not interacting with the community, though. I lived in a similar neighborhood in Oakland, and saw 75 year old grandomthers calling the cops "pigs" to their face. Some of the hostility toward the police is justified, much of it isn't. But whether it is or isn't justified, it exists, and it's hard to blame cops for not going out of their way to be sociable with people who, more likely than not, hate them because they are police.
  - 16y ago
hristov 16y ago
Yeah this is the reality of police work after Guliani. Guliani discovered that the best thing for a politician to do is to reduce crime so he tells his cops "reduce crime or else" and the easiest way to do it is to cook the numbers. The funny thing is that sometimes cooking the numbers works. That is if you create a perception of lower crime you get gentrification and a lot of middle class people move in and crime may actually go down. But nobody should confuse the talk of politicians with actual reality, new york is much more crooked and crime ridden than any of those "tough on crime" politicians would admit. Some times that crookedness bubbles up to the surface, for example couple of summers ago when cranes started falling from the sky and killing people and destroying entire buildings. I have to say that I feel bad for these cops. I was hoping that being a beat cop was one of those rare fields of endeavour where one could do their job well as driven by their own conscience and their own initiative and sense of self worth and not have to go by some ridiculous metric, but alas even the police departments have been invaded by modern MBA thinking. So apparently even in the police force it is all about performance metrics and making your numbers -- writing a sufficient number of tickets and stopping and frisking a sufficient number of random people, while making sure not to notice too many crimes. Maybe in the end of the year the mayor looks at the numbers and sees -- wow, we frisked 10 million people and brought in 5 billion dollars in fines, we must truly have a fine police force.
- siculars 16y ago
  I dunno bout you, but I actually live in New York City and although the police can be heavy handed at times, ok... a lot of the time, I can assure you that new york is a lot safer than when I was growing up in Queens in the 80's and 90's. I specifically recall leaving for university in the fall of '96 and returning summer of '98 to a completely different atmosphere. And for that I tip my hat to Giuliani.
  - jamesbritt 16y ago
    Seriously. The NYC of the '80s and '90s was much different from that of the '70s.
- jamesbritt 16y ago
grinich 16y ago
Here's the non-paginated version: http://www.villagevoice.com/content/printVersion/1797847 http://www.villagevoice.com/content/printVersion/1797847
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

72 points by SuzyQT 16y ago

hga 16y ago

Highly recommended reading in conjunction with this article: http://www.amazon.com/Arrest-Proof-Yourself-Ex-Cop-Reveals-Arrested/dp/1556526377/ http://www.amazon.com/Arrest-Proof-Yourself-Ex-Cop-Reveals-A... E.g. note the item on page two of the Village Voice article on "points".

lutorm 16y ago

Anyone else thinking "The Wire"?

CWuestefeld 16y ago

the true value of this "activity," the tapes indicate, was that it offered proof that the precinct commander and his officers were doing their jobs Apparently cops have their own value of kloc metrics.

hga 16y ago
Indeed. And that's why when a cop harasses someone, e.g. trying to provoke them into something arrestable, it's often "nothing personal", they're just trying to get enough points to keep their superiors happy, maybe get promoted, etc.

percept 16y ago

I didn't read the full article but I imagine this illustrates the darker side of CompStat. Along the same lines, some book recommendations: _Armed and Dangerous: Memoirs of a Chicago Policewoman_, by Gina Gallo _Cop in the Hood: My Year Policing Baltimore's Eastern District_, by Peter Moskos The second title covers the real-life setting for "The Wire."

javanix 16y ago
If you want the real setting for "The Wire", read " The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood" by David Simon and Ed Burns. The depiction of one of today's most derelict inner-city neighborhoods is heartbreaking and disconcerting.

My2Cents4U 16y ago

Welcome To The New World Police State

look_lookatme 16y ago

Haven't read beyond the first page of the article yet... saving for later. But I'll share an experience of mine. I lived in the 79th precinct, adjacent to the 81st. It's less dangerous, but not much -- still Bed Stuy and very block by block. I was there for about 6 months in late 2007. The area is tense at times -- much of New York's prosperity over the last two decades hasn't trickled down to the people living there aside from landlords selling their buildings to gentrifies or speculators. There was an incident around this time where an unstable young man was shot because he had a comb the police mistook for a weapon in the dark. I wouldn't have been surprised if it had escalated into riots. Gentrification is welcome by some, protested by some, and many are indifferent to it, I think. There are very few nice places to eat or socialize or even get groceries, but there are a ton of bodegas and fried chicken/pizza places and dollar stores. It can be a very rough place, which is too bad as I got to know some very nice people on my block. Certainly there are institutional problems in the NYPD, but also I have the suspicion that many rookie cops eventually get rotated into areas like this -- Bushwick, Bed Stuy, East New York and this contributes to much of the stuff you will learn about in these tapes. The penis jokes, the confusion on what to report and not gracefully handling tension within the communities -- I wonder if it is inexperience. Comparisons to The Wire are natural, but in the time I lived in Bed Stuy, the only similarity I really observed was that the NYPD guys never seemed to interact with the people of the neighborhood as if they too were part of that community. Never said hi while walking their beats, never stopped to talk to the kids or the corner boys, they mostly walked in twos or threes, chatting with each other. I think for the people that live there and the cops that work there, there is us and them and not much in between.

smallblacksun 16y ago
It's hard to blame the cops for not interacting with the community, though. I lived in a similar neighborhood in Oakland, and saw 75 year old grandomthers calling the cops "pigs" to their face. Some of the hostility toward the police is justified, much of it isn't. But whether it is or isn't justified, it exists, and it's hard to blame cops for not going out of their way to be sociable with people who, more likely than not, hate them because they are police.
- 16y ago

hristov 16y ago

Yeah this is the reality of police work after Guliani. Guliani discovered that the best thing for a politician to do is to reduce crime so he tells his cops "reduce crime or else" and the easiest way to do it is to cook the numbers. The funny thing is that sometimes cooking the numbers works. That is if you create a perception of lower crime you get gentrification and a lot of middle class people move in and crime may actually go down. But nobody should confuse the talk of politicians with actual reality, new york is much more crooked and crime ridden than any of those "tough on crime" politicians would admit. Some times that crookedness bubbles up to the surface, for example couple of summers ago when cranes started falling from the sky and killing people and destroying entire buildings. I have to say that I feel bad for these cops. I was hoping that being a beat cop was one of those rare fields of endeavour where one could do their job well as driven by their own conscience and their own initiative and sense of self worth and not have to go by some ridiculous metric, but alas even the police departments have been invaded by modern MBA thinking. So apparently even in the police force it is all about performance metrics and making your numbers -- writing a sufficient number of tickets and stopping and frisking a sufficient number of random people, while making sure not to notice too many crimes. Maybe in the end of the year the mayor looks at the numbers and sees -- wow, we frisked 10 million people and brought in 5 billion dollars in fines, we must truly have a fine police force.

siculars 16y ago
I dunno bout you, but I actually live in New York City and although the police can be heavy handed at times, ok... a lot of the time, I can assure you that new york is a lot safer than when I was growing up in Queens in the 80's and 90's. I specifically recall leaving for university in the fall of '96 and returning summer of '98 to a completely different atmosphere. And for that I tip my hat to Giuliani.
- jamesbritt 16y ago
  Seriously. The NYC of the '80s and '90s was much different from that of the '70s.
jamesbritt 16y ago

grinich 16y ago

Here's the non-paginated version: http://www.villagevoice.com/content/printVersion/1797847 http://www.villagevoice.com/content/printVersion/1797847

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]