Chair Feliz on Bronx resource allocation and need for 580 additional officers
Feliz notes 40% of city murders and shootings are in the Bronx despite roughly equal officer counts, arguing more police are needed there. Gerber says Bronx is leading the city in crime reduction, additional mobile field forces are deployed as needed, and the 580 cut officers were never banked on.
Yeah, I mean, in the Bronx, again, if my math is correct, 40% of the murders that this city has seen this year have been in the Bronx.
About 40% of the shooting incidents and shooting victims that the city has seen this year also in the Bronx.
So what explains that?
Division of resources.
And it seems like we also need to, obviously public safety is a shared responsibility.
There's a lot of factors that play a role.
Obviously we need good schools, opportunity, good jobs, but it seems like we need more police in the Bronx based on the numbers.
I mean, Chair, I would say, first of all, as you know, overall Bronx is leading the city in crime reductions, which is welcome news.
To your point, right, in terms of murders and shootings in the Bronx, these are the numbers, right, assigned to the borough commands.
When you have a spike in shootings, right, we are going to send in more cops, right?
That's not accounted for here.
So, for example, you have a spike in shootings in a precinct, we're going to be sending mobile field forces there, sending specialty teams there.
And that's sort of the precision policing and deployment that we talked about earlier.
It's not just these resources.
We will move resources across the city, right, as necessary to address changing crime conditions.
Based on the historical issues that the Bronx has had related to crime, on average, though, how many police officers would you say we have, including those assigned, but also those additional resources?
On average.
I'm not sure that's a question we can answer right here, right now.
We can try to, we can do some math.
And again, and Chair, just to be clear, the reason why it's a hard question to answer is that it literally changes by the day, right?
You could have a mobile field force over here one day and over there a different day.
And that's true for special teams as well.
So, I mean, it's going to involve some math and some analysis, but I think we can try to come up with some sort of approximation for you and get back to you on that.
Okay, sounds good.
And I think, you know, obviously, again, public safety is a shared responsibility, but police officers play a big role.
This might support the argument that we need those 580 additional cops, that new class that was canceled right before we...
Voted for the budget.
So we'll next hear from Councilmember Nurse, then Hanks, then Caban, and then Long and then Morano.