The New York Police Department keeps on giving the middle finger to the community it allegedly serves. It's latest war against oversight is a doozy. It's cutting off open access to local station crime reports. Via DNAinfo New York:
The NYPD has ordered the city's 77 police precincts to stop giving out any information to the media about crimes taking place in their neighborhoods, cutting off a long-standing source of information for New Yorkers. According to a terse NYPD edict transmitted citywide, precinct commanders were instructed: "Any requests by media to view complaint reports be referred to the office of the Deputy Commissioner For Public Information." The NYPD's public information office, known as DCPI, typically disemminates only select major crimes such as murders, sexual assaults and grand larcenies, but often does not include lower level neighborhood crimes. Those complaints could traditionally be found at the precinct, a reliable source for information of interest for residents. According to sources, the latest media restriction was sent last week to the precinct supervisors from their borough commanders, who received the transmission from the NYPD's Chief of Patrol James Hall.
So to get access to info about a crime in New York City – any crime in New York City (population 8.3 million) – a person has to call their public affairs office. And beyond that, it means media folks might not even know a crime happened unless the police tell them or a witness or victim contacts the media.
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