James O'Neill decides to leave the safest big city

 

NY Post

James O’Neill formally stepped down as NYPD commissioner in a City Hall press briefing on Monday afternoon, leaving after three years in the post for a private-sector gig.
 
“I came into this job with one mission, and that was to fight crime and keep everybody safe,” said O’Neill. “And we did it, and we continue to do it.”
 
Despite speaking frankly about the stresses of helming the nation’s largest police department for three years since Mayor Bill de Blasio tapped him in September 2016, O’Neill said that he doesn’t leave the department easily.
 
“I’m gonna miss it,” said O’Neill, who took a moment during his remarks to name each of the Finest who died of line-of-duty injuries on his watch. “I love being a cop.”
 
Long-swirling whispers of O’Neill’s eyeing the door resurfaced Monday morning, but were confirmed this time as the real deal, first by department sources and soon by City Hall.
 
O’Neill would say only that he’d received an offer of a private-sector job he “couldn’t pass up” — but law-enforcement sources told The Post that he has a gig lined up in California.
 
Ahead of the briefing, de Blasio acknowledged in a statement that O’Neill was calling it a career, and named Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea as his successor atop the department, effective December 1.

Commissioner O'Neill orders NYPD to tow thirty cars while brazenly violating new placard rules for silly private football game

NY Daily News

Angry upper Manhattan residents accused the NYPD of unsportsmanlike conduct for towing their cars to free up parking for the department’s flag football championship.

The alleged offensive interference with the local motor vehicles came in the hours before Sunday’s NYPD flag football championship contest at Columbia University’s Baker Field.

Police, citing traffic concerns and accessibility for the disabled, towed 30 cars on W. 218th St. between Broadway and Indian Road prior to the law enforcement Super Bowl pitting the 40th Precinct against Midtown South.

But one Inwood resident said most of the newly-created spaces on the west side of Broadway were instead filled by cops going to the game.

“There were mostly civilian cars with placards on their dashboards or notes about the flag football game,” said local man David Thom, 44. “This was removal of cars for personal vehicle parking for officers.”

While the cars were relocated rather than ticketed or taken to a tow pound, it still outraged some locals who emerged to find the police had called an audible on their parking spaces.

“How can they do that?” said Anna Dominguez, 52, who lives in the area but was not towed. “You think you’re gonna leave your car here Sunday and everything is gonna be fine — and then you come back and it’s gone. Just because the NYPD wanted space for a game? They’re taking advantage of their power.”

 Some cops left the notes in the cars to explain why they were illegally parked in crosswalks, in front of hydrants or in no parking zones.

Mayor de Blasio recently vowed a crackdown on placard abuse. But NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill said Tuesday there was no abuse in this case.

“This was a special event,” O’Neill said. “This was the flag football championship. The cars were relocated. Nobody was towed and nobody got a ticket.”

O’Neill did suggest the 34th Precinct could have done a better job getting word out about the towing.

“But there are special events all throughout the city, every day,” O’Neill added.

What a dick. Although he does reveal that the city permits too much privatization of the streets.

Look how many people showed up for this "championship game"



So this is strike one according to the Mayor's new placard violation laws. Right?

NYPD officers ran prostitution and gambling ring

From AM NY:

A retired police detective and his wife are accused of running a massive prostitution ring and illicit gambling business with the help of seven active NYPD members and 40 civilians, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said on Thursday.

Ludwig Paz, 51, a retired detective from the NYPD’s Vice unit, allegedly ran the day-to-day operations at seven of eight brothels spread out across Queens, Brooklyn and Nassau County. Using his knowledge of the department’s vice protocols when investigating prostitution cases, Paz set up new policies for accepting clients in order to help root out possible undercover cops, according to Brown’s office, and paid his contacts within the NYPD for information that enabled him to thwart raids.

Among the active NYPD members who are accused of helping Paz and his wife, Arelis Peralta, are Brooklyn South Vice Det. Rene Samaniego, 43; Sgt. Carlos Cruz, 41; Det. Giovanny Rojas-Acosta, 40; Sgt. Cliff Nieves, 37; Sgt. Steven Nieves, 32; Officer Giancarlo Raspanti, 43; and Sgt. Louis Failla, 49.

NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill said the officers “tarnished the NYPD shields they wore,” and betrayed the trust of all 8.6 million New Yorkers.

Between August 2016 through September 2018, the prostitution ring — with brothels located on Gates, Foster and Fourth avenues and 42nd Street in Brooklyn; on Liberty and Onderdonk avenues in Queens; and on Front Street in Hempstead — netted over $2 million in revenue, per the district attorney’s office.

Are ticket quotas a thing of the past?

From the Daily News:

NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill vowed to discipline any supervisor who puts quantity before quality when it comes to summonses, it was revealed Friday.

“This department does not and will not use quotas for enforcement activity,” O’Neill said in a message distributed to every command citywide on April 28. “Supervisory personnel who use quotas or encourage or reward numbers for the sake of numbers may be subject to department discipline.”

O’Neill said he will also bring the hammer down on supervisors who “punish members who fail to meet a quota, or who threaten to retaliate against any member who reports the use of quotas.”

“Using quotas demonstrates a lack of understanding of today’s NYPD, and my expectations of you as leaders,” he added, encouraging cops to report any allegations of quota demands to the department’s Internal Affairs Bureau. “We are interested in quality, not quantity.”

The NYPD has always maintained that quotas are not used while enforcing the law — although police whistleblowers have testified otherwise for years, claiming cops were ordered to write a specific number of tickets a month — and were punished when they didn’t hand out enough.

City cracking down on license plate covers

From the Daily News:

Mayor de Blasio and the city’s top cop vowed Tuesday to crack down on drivers, including police officers, who cover their license plates to block enforcement cameras.

The Daily News reported that misplaced or covered license plates have let motorists violate traffic laws and dodge tickets in at least 144,852 cases over the past two years.

“If people do that, we are going to catch them and we are going to penalize them,” Mayor de Blasio told reporters during a press conference at police headquarters. “This is another area where we are going to deepen enforcement and there will be more consequences. So if someone has one of those covers I'd advise them to get them off real quick because the NYPD is coming.”

Bye, bye, Bill (not that one)

From NBC:

NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton is stepping down as the city's top cop and will be replaced by Chief of Department James O'Neill in September, Mayor de Blasio announced Tuesday.
De Blasio lauded the commissioner's contributions to New York City since taking over the job in January 2014 and praised the man who will replace him, a veteran cop with more than 30 years on the force who grew up in the city and whose experience he said will advance the work of neighborhood policing.

Under Bratton, the city already has made plans to shift toward that strategy, one predicated on building trust and working relationships between police and communities. O'Neill has been heavily involved in those efforts, and de Blasio said neighborhood policing would be in place in 51 precincts as of this fall.