NYPD: FIGHTING TERROR - AND CRIME (crime stats up)

November 21, 2001 -- NOW it begins. The Post's Murray Weiss is reporting a 24 percent jump in New York City shootings, despite the much-noted plunge in criminal activity after the World Trade Center attacks. This troubling news comes in the wake of a story that seems right out the recent history books - with a 5-year-old boy dead in The Bronx from drug-dealer crossfire.

As mentioned on the Post's front page crime has begun to rise slightly in the past month. Units manning checkpoints and looking for terrorists have increased in strength with a correlating drop in the manpower of other units taking on the criminal element. You could call it both a windfall for the city's felons and another price to be paid by its law-abiding citizens.

I'm not at all encouraged about the future in regards the NYPD. Though the cops I talk to seem to enjoy the appreciation they are receiving from the city, as well as the whole country, there are significant structural problems in the department that are getting difficult to paper over. The salary is low, living expenses are high, and the surrounding counties pay far better. So the city constantly loses officers from all ranks. In addition, there were particularly large classes of officers that graduated from the academy in the early '80's. These men and women are rapidly approaching retirement as their pensions kick in. And with NYC being Al Sharpton headquarters, there is little incentive for them to stay. So thousands of years of LEO experience will go with them. I have been told that there is a widespread awareness that one mistake by a cop will lead to his being thrown to the wolves by the city's politicians. They know that the current "era of good feelings" will not last, and the "civil-rights" mob will be back on the prowl as soon as it is politically expedient to do so.

So along with the financial problems, this tiny insignificant spike in crime may be a watershed event for post-Giuliani New York.

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