Post by onthejob on May 27, 2014 17:32:47 GMT -5
Nassau police urged to restore plainclothes officers
May 27, 2014 by NICOLE FULLER / nicole.fuller@newsday.com
A group of Nassau civic leaders and two Democratic legislators yesterday called on the police department to reverse the recent transfer of 45 plainclothes officers to patrol, saying the move jeopardizes public safety.
Pam Dempsey, Wantagh Civic Association president and former Bronx prosecutor, who said she moved to Nassau for its low crime, said: "Messing around with how a police department relates to a community is not right."
The reassigned officers include POP, or problem-oriented police, who work closely with residents and 12 from the Gang Abatement Program, which operated in plainclothes in Roosevelt, Uniondale, Freeport and Hempstead.
Dempsey and a half-dozen civic association members from Seaford, Merrick, Bellmore and Baldwin joined legislators Dave Denenberg (D-Merrick) and Laura Curran (D-Baldwin) outside the police department's Seventh Precinct to decry acting Police Commissioner Thomas Krumpter's recent order designed to curb the department's spiraling overtime costs. The move will save the department $4.4 million this year, and the officers will return to plainclothes in 2015, officials said.
Denenberg criticized County Executive Edward Mangano, a Republican, and Krumpter for failing to control police overtime for the last three years, in part by not hiring enough officers. The force is currently about 2,100 officers. A police academy class of about 140 is set to graduate this year.
"Losing special patrol is losing cops on the street," Denenberg said. "To ask the sector cars to do everything is an impossible job . . . It's not good enough to say we have the same number of sector cars."
Mangano's spokesman, Brian Nevin, called Denenberg's news conference "nothing more than a campaign stunt." Denenberg is running for State Senate.
"Acting Commissioner Krumpter is . . . temporarily reassigning officers for the remainder of the year and not asking residents for any additional property taxes," Nevin said in an email and added, " . . . 100 officers in the Bureau of Special Operations (BSO) and Criminal Intelligence Rapid Response Team (CIRRT) -- which was formed in the past 2 years -- continue to operate within all precincts, performing plainclothes investigations."
Police spokesman Insp. Kenneth Lack referred to his past statement, when he said the change "will have a positive impact on the budget and will reduce overtime opportunities in the patrol division," adding, "We will continue to monitor crime trends on a daily basis and adjust accordingly."
May 27, 2014 by NICOLE FULLER / nicole.fuller@newsday.com
A group of Nassau civic leaders and two Democratic legislators yesterday called on the police department to reverse the recent transfer of 45 plainclothes officers to patrol, saying the move jeopardizes public safety.
Pam Dempsey, Wantagh Civic Association president and former Bronx prosecutor, who said she moved to Nassau for its low crime, said: "Messing around with how a police department relates to a community is not right."
The reassigned officers include POP, or problem-oriented police, who work closely with residents and 12 from the Gang Abatement Program, which operated in plainclothes in Roosevelt, Uniondale, Freeport and Hempstead.
Dempsey and a half-dozen civic association members from Seaford, Merrick, Bellmore and Baldwin joined legislators Dave Denenberg (D-Merrick) and Laura Curran (D-Baldwin) outside the police department's Seventh Precinct to decry acting Police Commissioner Thomas Krumpter's recent order designed to curb the department's spiraling overtime costs. The move will save the department $4.4 million this year, and the officers will return to plainclothes in 2015, officials said.
Denenberg criticized County Executive Edward Mangano, a Republican, and Krumpter for failing to control police overtime for the last three years, in part by not hiring enough officers. The force is currently about 2,100 officers. A police academy class of about 140 is set to graduate this year.
"Losing special patrol is losing cops on the street," Denenberg said. "To ask the sector cars to do everything is an impossible job . . . It's not good enough to say we have the same number of sector cars."
Mangano's spokesman, Brian Nevin, called Denenberg's news conference "nothing more than a campaign stunt." Denenberg is running for State Senate.
"Acting Commissioner Krumpter is . . . temporarily reassigning officers for the remainder of the year and not asking residents for any additional property taxes," Nevin said in an email and added, " . . . 100 officers in the Bureau of Special Operations (BSO) and Criminal Intelligence Rapid Response Team (CIRRT) -- which was formed in the past 2 years -- continue to operate within all precincts, performing plainclothes investigations."
Police spokesman Insp. Kenneth Lack referred to his past statement, when he said the change "will have a positive impact on the budget and will reduce overtime opportunities in the patrol division," adding, "We will continue to monitor crime trends on a daily basis and adjust accordingly."