Ex-NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton says the city needs more cops to crack down on subway mayhem and other crime, noting there were thousands more officers when he was first in charge in the 1990s.
Bratton, who served as Gotham’s police commissioner under Mayors Rudy Giuliani and Bill de Blasio, said there were 38,000 officers when he was first commish and that the figure is now down to under 34,000, even after Mayor Eric Adams added two graduating classes in November to boost the force.
“There’s an area that is desperately short of enough police,” Bratton said of subway patrols, speaking on 770 WABC radio’s The “Cats Roundtable” program. “They’ve attempted to deal with that … by overtime, by surging,” or flooding a transit zone with officers as needed.
“The problem with that: One, it runs up the overtime bill. Two, it wears out the cops. And three, the cops [assigned] through overtime and surging are not familiar with the subways,” Bratton told host John Catsimatidis.
Bratton oversaw the transit police unit before he was commissioner.
National Guard soldiers also now assigned to the subway by Gov. Kathy Hochul are only “uniformed mannequins” who “don’t have any real powers,” Bratton added.
The former commish’s call for more cops on the beat comes during a rash of horrific subway violence that included a string of stabbings and the horrifying Dec. 22 torching death of a New Jersey straphanger on a Brooklyn F train in Coney Island.
Some critics of Manhattan’s new $9 congestion driving toll are even using the subway violence as an argument against the unpopular commuter tax. They are suggesting the toll should be scrapped because the alternative to taking to the roads — using mass transit — is too dangerous.
Meanwhile, Bratton gave new NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch a vote of confidence, saying he’s “very encouraged” that she’s clearing out the bad apples in the scandal-ridden department. She is the fourth commissioner during Adams’s three-year tenure.
Bratton said Tisch “has what it takes to get New York back under control,” though she will face headwinds, particularly the pro-criminal laws backed by the left-leaning City Council and state Legislature.
“Our City Council, our legislature up in Albany, they are so far to the left it’s a wonder they haven’t fallen off the Earth. It’s going to be very problematic going into 2025,” Bratton said.
But he said more officers combined with creative use of modern technology can drive down crime, despite the city and state’s defendant-friendly laws.
“The reality is you need more trained police officers in the subways who can effectively take advantage of the many new technologies that are down there,” Bratton said.
“But once again, it comes back to ‘Keep it simple, Stupid: More cops!’ ” the ex-commissioner said. “That’s the ingredient. It’s what helped to turn it around in the ’90s. We had a lot of cops to work with … We 1736108509 have a police commissioner and a leadership team that have a lot of great ideas, but they don’t have enough cops.”
A City Hall rep told The Post on Sunday that the mayor’s top priority is upping the number of police officers to 35,000 in the coming years.
The NYPD added in its own statement, “Increasing the number of police officers is key to further decreasing crime in New York City.
“That’s why Mayor Adams and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch are aggressively adding more officers to the NYPD.
“This week alone, 600 additional police officers will hit the streets and the subway system; and later this month, a new class of at least 1,000 more recruits will enter the academy,” the department said. “These much-needed police officer increases are just the beginning, because additional resources are central to the strategy to drive down crime and strengthen safety across every neighborhood.
The NYPD currently has 33,745 uniformed officers, the department said.
