Memo to NYPD critics
A little perspective, people
By BOB MARTIN
Last Updated: 12:42 AM, March 14, 2012
Posted: 10:56 PM, March 12, 2012
The NYPD has been in the news frequently of late, with much debate on two department practices — the monitoring of Muslim groups, including in locations outside New York City, and stop-and-frisk.
Among those upset by the monitoring are New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and the head of the FBI’s Newark office, Michael Ward, who told Congress last week that “it’s having a negative impact.”
Conversely, a large segment of the population is all in favor of this tactic and supports Police Commissioner Ray Kelly in his effort to gather intelligence in hopes of preventing another 9/11-type attack.
Clockwise from top left: Slain Officer Peter Figoski and wounded PO Kevin Brennan; Auxilary Police Gene Marshalik and Nicholas Pekearo, killed five years ago tomorrow.
Memo to Christie, Ward & Co.: If you promise to keep the terrorists — who have twice used Jersey as a staging area for attacks on the World Trade Center — on your side of the Hudson, we’ll keep the NYPD on ours.
Then there’s stop-and-frisk — police officers’ stopping and patting down mostly minority males in the search for illegal weapons. Many see this as both a needless harassment and a racist reaction. Others strongly believe, however, that this policy has taken thousands of illegal guns off our streets, saving the lives of countless New Yorkers.
Department figures show a decline in homicides of more than 50 percent in the last decade — meaning 5,628 lives saved, also mostly minority males.
Memo to the critics: If you can get the city’s young men to stop shooting each other, the police and innocent bystanders, I’m sure Ray Kelly will halt stop-and-frisk.
While debate on these topics will continue, there is one subject that almost all should be able to agree on: The “open season” on cops has got to end.
Four NYPD officers have been shot in the last two months, starting with December’s fatal shooting of Police Officer Peter Figoski in Brooklyn. This was followed by the handgun assaults on Officer Kevin Brennan, also in Brooklyn, and Detective Kevin Herlihy and Officer Thomas Richards in Manhattan.
The four shooters in these cases had a number of things in common. They were minority males who were unafraid to carry and use illegal firearms. Two of the suspects were wanted for killing members of their own community.
If only these four had been “tossed” (police slang for stopped and frisked) before they had their violent encounters with the cops and their neighbors: A gun taken from a suspect in a stop-and-frisk is a gun that will never again kill a citizen, or a cop.
Tomorrow marks a sad anniversary in city history: On March 14, 2007, deranged gunman David Garvin, a white male, pumped 15 bullets into Greenwich Village pizzeria worker Alfredo Romero Morales, then gunned down in cold blood Auxiliary Police Officers Nicholas Pekearo and Yevgeniy “Gene” Marshalik.
These unpaid, unarmed, young men had volunteered to be Auxiliaries for one reason: They wished to serve their city and keep their community safe. If only David Garvin had been tossed before his rampage.
Deputy Inspector Bob Martin retired from the NYPD after a 32-year career. He’s working on a book about the Greenwich Village shootings.