NYPD Report Confirms Manipulation of Crime Stats
March 25th, 2013Via: Reuters:
A New York Police Department whistleblower’s report that his precinct was systematically underreporting crime – an act that resulted in a suspension and time in a psychiatric ward – has been validated by an internal department investigation.
The report, completed in 2010 but not made public, comes amid growing scrutiny of the NYPD and its declining crime statistics. Those stats have helped build a narrative that New York City has become, as Mayor Michael Bloomberg likes to say, “the safest big city in America.”
In September of 2009, Officer Adrian Schoolcraft of the 81st Precinct in Brooklyn met confidentially with NYPD investigators and provided evidence – including secret audio recordings he had made – that more than a dozen crime reports had been manipulated.
He charged felonies had been downgraded, crime reports taken were never filed, and in still other cases, crime victims were discouraged from filing complaints at all.
Weeks later, on Halloween night, he was taken from his apartment in handcuffs to the psychiatric ward of Jamaica Hospital, where he claimed he was held against his will for six days.
