NYPD union calls for end of COMPSTAT crime tracking system
NEW YORK (WABC) -- The president of an NYPD union is calling for dramatic changes at the nation's largest police department and says other recent decisions have led to an "inevitable" spike in crime.
Captains' Endowment Association President Chris Monahan sent a letter to Commissioner Dermot Shea and Mayor Bill DeBlasio calling for the end of COMPSTAT, the NYPD system for tracking crime data and arrests.
"I believe COMPSTAT to be the primary driving force that is undermining police/community relations in New York City," Monahan wrote. "COMPSTAT puts pressure on precinct and division commanders to go into minority neighborhoods for targeted enforcement (precision policing) by way of arrests and summonses. This inherently creates tension between black and brown communities and the police, because their subordinate officers are expected to produce activity."
The demand comes just days after Shea disbanded the controversial Anti-Crime Unit, which was made up of 600 plainclothes officers whose mission included removing illegal guns from some of the city's most dangerous neighborhoods.
But critics, including protesters who are still taking to the streets, said the unit policed neighborhoods too aggressively. Even Shea said the Anti-Crime Unit was a leftover vestige of the "stop and frisk" era.
In his letter, Monahan called the Anti-Crime unit "our precinct commanders' single most effective tool in combating street crime," and because it ended, "our precinct commanders should not be 'called on the carpet' at COMPSTAT to address the inevitable spikes in crime, some of which are already taking place."
Data shows shootings soared in the city just this past weekend.
Eyewitness News has reached out to the mayor's office and the NYPD for comment.
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