Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. As 2022 comes to an end, one of the biggest things this year will be remembered for is Eric Adams first year as mayor in the context of crime in New York City, obviously, and his background as a former police officer and former police reform advocate. We know murders and shootings are down compared to 2021. Subway crime is up compared to last year, but no higher than pre-pandemic levels. Other crimes, including retail robberies, are up substantially.

Other recent stories include a settlement in court, stopping police from detaining people just to check if they have outstanding criminal warrants against them. Also, the Civilian Complaint Review Board recently was given the power to investigate complaints of racial profiling. NY1 got a document that showed police commissioner Keechant Sewell reduced or dismissed dozens of penalties against police officers that were recommended by the review board because she said they were manifestly unfair to those officers, in her opinion, so there's a Keechant Sewell story this year, of course, as well as an Eric Adams story.

Adams recently appointed a chief of department, that's the highest uniformed official, who has faced discipline for misconduct in the past himself. A New York Times story last week noted that NYPD officers are leaving in droves, as the headline put it, it used the word droves, for better pay in smaller towns. We will have The New York Times reporter who has covered those stories in just a minute, but how do all of these items and more add up to a year one legacy for Mayor Adams?

Let's start by going back to just after Adams declared that he was running for mayor in the fall of 2020. He was on the Max & Murphy podcast from The Gotham Gazette, and he was asked by Ben Max if his campaign focus on fighting crime means he would be asking the NYPD to be more aggressive.

Mayor Adams: No, it's actually two things. One, they need to do their job. To not do your job is an insult to the people of this city. Too many officers of all ethnicities have called me and they're outraged by what their colleagues are doing. They stated that they are being harassed in their precincts when they respond to jobs or they go to jobs. They're basically saying, "Why are you responding to jobs right now? We don't want you to do anything because we're angry about legislation that has come out of Albany. We're angry about bail reform. We're angry about the chokehold bill."

The overwhelming number of police officers are saying, We want to do our job," but you have this small pocket of officers who are intimidating and actually harassing other officers. Where the police leadership has failed to respond is identifying those officers and moving them out of preventing the public safety of the city. Second, we have to understand that I have never attended one community meeting in this city as a police officer or as a lawmaker where residents did not say, "I want cops on my block."

Brian Lehrer: Then Brooklyn Borough President and candidate for Mayor, Eric Adams, in November 2020. With us now, is Chelsia Rose Marcius who covers breaking news and criminal justice for the metro desk of The New York Times with a focus on the New York City Police Department. Chelsia, thanks for coming on. Welcome to WNYC.

Chelsia Rose Marcius: Thank you so much, Brian, for having me. It's good to be here.

Brian Lehrer: There's a lot that we could talk about, but to the clip that we just played, and what Eric Adams said at the beginning of it, do you think he would say today that the NYPD is doing its job better than when he took office?

Chelsia Rose Marcius: It's a good question, Brian. I absolutely think he would say yes, they are doing better. Partially, I would venture to guess that he would say that because the NYPD has been under him, so to speak, for about a year now, since he took office. It's part of his administration's legacy or will be to see that they're performing well, and I think he would want to take some credit for that.

Brian Lehrer: How do you think he would answer today the question that was originally posed that set up the clip of how aggressive to make the NYPD compared to before and how he might characterize what he's done in that respect?

Chelsia Rose Marcius: I think his tough-on-crime messaging has really come through both in his mayoral campaign and as well as during his administration. I think that he feels that they are necessarily aggressive in my estimation. I think that he wouldn't use the term aggressive though. I think he would use terms like-- It's again, necessary for their own protection and for public safety to do what they do. He would say that in most circumstances, again, this is in my estimation what he would say, is that they are overall acting in good faith. Now, that is obviously contested by a lot of people, but I think he is overall very supportive of the department and of officers who he feels are doing the right thing overall.

Brian Lehrer: Maybe that's reflected in one of the stories that I mentioned. I think this was an NY1 story originally, that they saw a document that showed police commissioner Keechant Sewell reduce or dismiss dozens of recommended penalties against police officers, penalties that were recommended by the Civilian Complaint Review Board because she said they were "manifestly unfair to those officers in her opinion."

Do you take that as a sign that they are trying to liberate, if that's the right word in their point of view, police officers from behavioral constraints that the de Blasio administration may have put on them?

Chelsia Rose Marcius: Yes, I think that's a really good point, Brian. I think that could very well be the case. This mayor and Keechant Sewell under him as the first female commissioner of the department and third black commissioner of the department, they want to show that they are supportive of these cops and that they have their backs, as opposed to former Mayor Bill de Blasio who is often accused of not having their backs during his administration.

I think that perhaps it is one of those indications that she is not going to be an overt disciplinarian, Keechant Sewell is, and also Mayor Adams, that they feel that they want to be fair to these officers as well. That is again, in their estimation. There were a lot of people that would argue against that, but I do think that they really want to show their support for the rank and file.

Brian Lehrer: Are there particular police behaviors that it's possible to say, I've actually not seen this written up, but is it possible to say that there are particular police behaviors that Adams and Sewell are saying either loudly or quietly, "Go ahead. You can do that now."

Chelsia Rose Marcius: Nothing specifically that I have heard, Brian, that they would have said, "You can do this now," quietly or whatever. It's a really good question. I think it's something that we need to keep our eye on going into next year based on Sewell's announcement about a week ago or so.

Brian Lehrer: You did write a story for The Times just the other day, Police Officers May No Longer Hold People to Check for Warrants. What were they doing, and why can't they do it anymore?

Chelsia Rose Marcius: Legal Aid had brought forth a suit against the city saying that the NYPD when they stopped people who they believed had committed some sort of crime, including having illegal weapons on their person or in their car, that these officers after resolving the intention of the stop, so they would stop somebody, believe they committed a crime, perhaps searched them and said, "You know what? We can't find evidence of that." Instead of just letting them go, they would then, some at least, would then go and run what they call a warrant check just to see if they had any outstanding warrants.

Now, Legal Aid said initially that this was a violation of the Fourth Amendment, which has to do with search and seizure practices. What the settlement was about was saying that the NYPD can no longer check for warrants once the intention to stop has been resolved. If you find that somebody doesn't have illegal weapons or hasn't committed the crime that they believe that they had, now you can't go do a warrant check after the fact.

Brian Lehrer: You reported in that story that Mayor Eric Adams, a former police officer, has lauded stop and frisk in his crusade against crime. While he has acknowledged the department abused residents in the past, he said the practice is still a necessary tool for officers on the streets. I know they have different definitions of stop and frisk. There is considered to be a legitimate. Obviously, there are sometimes reasons to stop and frisk somebody, but under the Bloomberg administration, there are hundreds of thousands of stops a year. The overwhelming majority of them produced nothing and were done on flimsy grounds. How has Adams adjusted stop and frisk after de Blasio?

Chelsia Rose Marcius: I will first say that the warrant checks were likened to stop and frisk. Some officers would say that they have totally nothing to do with each other. What are you doing? Saying that, "Why is Legal Aid saying that?" I would say that the warrant checks in Legal Aid's original suit was like, "This is not constitutional. This is violating that Fourth Amendment rights." We found that stop and frisk was deemed unconstitutional as well for the same Fourth Amendment violation. I'm not saying the warrant checks were found to be unconstitutional. They have not been found to be unconstitutional, but that was the link behind them.

I think under Mayor Adams, he is supportive as part of his anti-crime messaging to do these just stopping and frisking people when absolutely necessary like you said. A lot of the abuse of stop and frisk before was targeting people of color. That was part of the accusation and that they were doing these unnecessary stopping and frisking of folks. Really what he wants to say is you do it when it's absolutely necessary. You do it within the framework of what the officer's patrol guide allows and you don't abuse it. You don't go after people just on a whim or on a very unfounded belief that, "Here is a person over there, we feel like stopping and frisking them." [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: In this case, searching for outstanding warrants. Like, "We stopped you because you fit the description of the guy who just robbed that bodega, but now we realize that you're not the guy who just robbed that bodega, but oh, while we have you, we're going to search the database to see if there are any warrants out against you." That's where it crossed the line, right?

Chelsia Rose Marcius: Exactly. I will say that some officers I spoke to after that story, they had said running these warrant checks is also a matter of officer safety, that you need to know who is in front of you, that you need to know what they have done if they are wanted because an officer could be in danger. The NYPD, even though they want their officers to be safe as a result of this settlement, they are changing and they already have changed the patrol guide, and training on the new regulations around warrant checks is going to be enforced next year that they're going to start that training for officers.

Some people can see the officer's side that there are concerns for their safety but on a level of how the department functions, is it fair to keep somebody longer to do all of these sorts of checks if that was the reason for the stop in the first place?

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, have you seen a change in your contacts with the NYPD during the Adams administration as it concludes year one, or any of your observations or questions about how they've been approaching reducing crime in New York City? Obviously, this is not just an NYPD function. That's one of the biggest sources of debate in the city. How much do the police stop crime? How much is it for other things like housing and mental health and community investment? We're talking about the NYPD as former police officer, Eric Adams concludes his first year as mayor of New York. (212)-433-9692. Fabio in Vermont, you're on WNYC. Hi, Fabio.

Fabio: Hi, Ryan. Happy Hanukkah. I have a very simple comment. Eric Adams single-handedly is responsible for the loss of four or five congressional seats for Democrats in New York with his anti-crime crusade. I'm using the word crusade appropriately. That's all I have to say.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Thank you very much. Of course, other people would say that though he certainly talks about crime centrally, it had to resonate with people as Republicans ran for congressional seats in New York and maybe use Eric Adams, a Democrat, as cover for their campaigns when maybe their opponents weren't speaking quite the same language as Adams, Adams and those Democratic members of Congress or candidates for Congress. Maybe not putting things the same way. Maybe that wound up giving some of the Republicans cover, but it also needed to strike a chord. It's complicated.

In fact, Chelsia, one of the recent articles in The Times-- Actually, this goes back to last summer, but by your colleague Emma Fitzsimmons, the headline was, Eric Adams Can't Stop Talking About Crime: There Are Risks to That. The subhead was, the mayor says he has never seen crime at this level, but shootings and murders are down this year. Some see his comments as fear-mongering. From your perspective as an NYPD reporter and how that cover intersects with covering the mayor, why can't he stop talking about crime?

Chelsia Rose Marcius: He hasn't been able to stop talking about crime for a while now. We really heard him ramp up his talking points on this during his campaign. I think he is a former captain in the NYPD. He is close to this issue in a lot of different ways as his background and also it was his primary focus for when he became mayor. I think that both of those things really have a lot to do with why this is such a focal point for him.

He also is taking a lot of credit for, as we said before, that crime in a lot of respects, not all respects, as you pointed out, but shootings and shooting victims and incidents, which are two different things. The number of shootings and the number of people who are shot have gone down. We looked at the November stats and a lot of different crime categories went down.

With the NYPD stats, how they do that is they compare this year in November to last November. We did see those decreases. That's something that Mayor Adams is saying, "See, you know what? Under me as mayor, I can get this done. We have seen these decreases and we've seen him talk about that in a lot of different press conferences.

Brian Lehrer: Daniel in Washington Heights, you're on WNYC. Hi, Daniel.

Daniel: Hi. I have a statement and a question. I've been told by the police here up in Washington Heights from the 34th Precinct, that they are on a work stoppage and they make no bones about it. I'm a business owner, and they say, "If you have a problem and you see something, you want a response, tell us if it's a group that's involved, not an individual, and we will respond."

Also, I was just told by one of our elected officials less than a week ago, and I've never read this anywhere, that the 34th Precinct is less 60 cops. We need 60 more cops. Yet we have, what? $5 billion annually being given to this NYPD? I think Mayor Adams has done a terrible job. I wonder if she knows anything about this.

Brian Lehrer: [crosstalk] I think it's more than $5 billion. I think it's more than twice that. When you say that you were told that they would do something if it was a group as opposed to an individual, what do you mean by a group? What did your source mean by a group?

Daniel: There were cars in our park here. Up at Bennett Park, there were cars. These people were out there at 2:30 or 3:00 in the morning with their cars parked on--

Brian Lehrer: Gunning their engines, that kind of thing?

Daniel: Yes. The cops wouldn't respond. They had a PA system practically, and the cops would not respond. Then the next day when we saw the sergeant outside the bodega, he told us how to get the response. To me, it's absurd. To say yes, to tell them that there's a giant group doing this, and then they come with the cops. He was saying, "Oh, we're busy with Dyckman because Dyckman gets rough." It's gotten very rough after dark out here. There's a lot of stuff that's not being responded to. [crosstalk] That's the work stoppage. I'm concerned about the low amount of cops and why with all this money we don't have the 34th Precinct fully staffed. Thank you, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Daniel. Thank you very much. All right. Fund the police at the 34th Precinct says Daniel in Washington Heights. That is the most uptown precinct, the 34th. Is this the first you are hearing as a police beat reporter about that allegation that they're down 60 cops in the 34th?

Chelsia Rose Marcius: It is the first time I'm hearing that. Now, what's interesting about the 34th Precinct, I was actually at a police community meeting up there over the summer. At the time, they had said-- I believe this was July at the time they had said that they had one of the lowest number of different sorts of crimes in most of Manhattan. I think there was one precinct that had lower numbers than the 34th. I don't know when these 60 officers they had lost those or what period of time, or I'm sure that was a gradual thing.

Brian Lehrer: Or if that's even true or that's just word that's going around.

Chelsia Rose Marcius: Right. It could very well be, but they seem to be effective in policing that area, at least over the summer. Now, I don't know what the current numbers are for the 34th is, but to Daniel's point, just in general about police, and not having enough officers, or that's the feeling among many folks including Daniel it sounds like, is that we have seen this year a very high number of officers who are leaving the department.

We have over 1,200 officers that have under five years on the job who are quitting and that's before they're even eligible to receive pension benefits. That is one of the big pools of joining the police department is that you get a pension.

Brian Lehrer: At a relatively young age if you join in your 20s. That was your story in The Times, people may have seen it about NYPD officers leaving in droves with that word in the headline or that term, leaving in droves for better pay in smaller towns. How much is in droves?

Chelsia Rose Marcius: We do have that 1,200 number. I think it's 1,225 to be exact of these younger police officers who have under five years in the job that are leaving. We also have about 3,200 who have left through November, and we're not even through the end of the year yet because they do these statistics monthly. That's quite a lot. It's the most since 2002. I will point out that there was a hiring spree after September 11th, 2001 because so many officers were leaving, quitting the department for, of course, obvious reasons.

We expect the number of total retirees or people who have left to be a bit higher because they're hitting their 20-year mark of the department that's about retirement age. There is that. I do find that 1,200 number even more interesting because it's an indication that these folks are not just retiring, they're young and they are leaving for various reasons. One of that is pay. You have also just generally low morale.

It could be to Daniel's point, if that's true, you have 60 officers who have left the 34th Precinct. That does put the pressure on other officers who are there to work longer hours and perhaps not see their family or friends as much. It becomes difficult for them. These are some of the points that the police benevolent association, the officer's union, would point out and other officers who I've spoken to, especially since that article came out as a matter of fact.

Brian Lehrer: Is the total headcount of the NYPD down with that number of officers that in droves number leaving more than 1,200, or do they just replace them with new cadets, or are they having trouble recruiting?

Chelsia Rose Marcius: Yes, it is down. It's about 34,000 right now, which of course is a huge department. Some people say that's certainly big enough to patrol the city, but the city is very complex and complicated to patrol, arguably. They are recruiting, but they have had trouble. They're not meeting the recruitment numbers over the last few years to make up for some of these losses.

I do see, you can even see that the NYPD has a Twitter profile that is dedicated solely to recruitment. If you look at their social media campaigns, they are really pushing this messaging to folks who might want to become officers, "Hey, join us." They are getting a little better with getting some of those numbers up in terms of recruitment. Still, some of these recruiting classes have fallen short of their goals

Brian Lehrer: We will leave it there with Chelsia Rose Marcius. She covers various things for The New York Times Metro desk, but with a focus on the NYPD as we've talked about some, but not all of the stories this year pertaining to the NYPD and former police captain, Eric Adams, first-year as mayor. Obviously, this topic goes on with its many facets into year two. Chelsia, thanks so much for joining us today. We really appreciate it.

Chelsia Rose Marcius: Thank you, Brian. It was a pleasure to be here.

Copyright © 2022 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.