Beat Cop to Top Cop. John F. Timoney

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СКАЧАТЬ NYPD, police officers assigned to police precincts worked rotating shifts, three in all, around the clock, each week a different shift. Thus, an officer never became “too comfortable” in any one shift. Clearly, however, working weekly rotating shifts was difficult, and some officers would take almost a week to recover from the graveyard shift.

      In the mid-1970s, police human resources experts began to make arguments for “steady shifts,” particularly in reference to the graveyard shift. The NYPD responded by creating a “steady late shift” (graveyard shift), and a second rotating shift for 8:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M. and four P.M. to midnight. In other words, a police officer would work one week of 8:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M., followed by a week of 4:00 P.M. to midnight. These new working “charts” seemed to please most. Now you had individuals who worked the graveyard shift because they chose to.

      However, the unintended consequences of a good idea were realized some years later as scandal after scandal erupted within the NYPD. The vast majority of times these scandals involved officers working the steady graveyard shifts. Not only did these officers have the power to do good, they also had the power to do bad. And there was plenty of time to do either, since the police radio became quiet after 1:00 or 2:00 A.M. Additionally, there was less supervision on these shifts. While sergeants and sometimes a lieutenant were assigned to these shifts, it was very unlikely that a police officer would run across a captain or other high-ranking official at 3:00 in the morning. At 3:00 in the afternoon it was, however, always possible to encounter a high-boss, even one from another precinct or headquarters unit.

      With this power and lack of supervision, some of the officers on the graveyard shift began to fall into cliques. Often, they seemed to develop a Lord of the Flies mentality with their own mores and code of conduct, with informal leaders and followers. It sometimes appeared to me that these officers even looked “different” from the regular officers who worked during the daytime hours. They seemed pale and tired, either from working their second job during the daylight hours or, more likely, from spending hours sitting in a courtroom waiting for their case from the previous night to be called.

      Some years later, in the mid-1980s, police human resources began to argue for “steady shifts” for all shifts. Thus, a police officer would work steady 8:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M., or 4:00 P.M. to midnight, or midnight to 8:00 A.M. Human resources argued that such a system would be beneficial. Productivity would increase. Morale would increase. Sick time would go down. These arguments were bought hook, line, and sinker, and the “steady shifts” were implemented.

      A few years later, in 1990, Inspector Mike Julian, assigned to the Research and Planning Division, conducted a short study on the benefits of these shifts. None of the supposed benefits was evident. In fact, it could be argued that the direct opposite happened. Productivity, in terms of arrests, went down. You started to find police officers who were scheduled to get off work at 4:00 P.M. going home to watch their children while their wives went to work at night. Stories were legend of police officers not getting “involved” in anything near the end of their shift (from about 2:00 P.M. on) for fear they would get “stuck” with an arrest that would interfere with their babysitting responsibilities. Other police officers found second jobs that they worked prior to coming in for the 4:00 P.M. to midnight shift. And so it went. In some instances, the police job became the “second job.”

      The most detrimental effect of the “steady shifts” was a loss of camaraderie. Officers on one shift literally did not know officers who worked an opposite shift. In addition, there was a loss of familiarity with the ways in which the character of a specific geographical area could vary depending on the time of day or the day of the week.

      Take, for example, the 47th Precinct. This was a mainly residential precinct with a large working and middle-class African American population. There was also an Irish section in the northwest part of the precinct called Woodlawn. During the day, the precinct was a typical quiet residential area. However, at night, when people were home from work, it looked quite different. Then on the weekends, there were bars and clubs that were very active in the evening and early-morning hours. Finally, two large hospitals brought outsiders into the area either as patients or visitors. At night, the air was permeated by the sound of ambulance sirens as they raced to and from the hospital carrying shooting and stabbing victims. Depending on the time of day or the day of the week, an officer might find himself investigating a stolen trash can cover or questioning a person with multiple gunshot wounds in the hospital emergency room.

      Years later, in 1994, when I was the chief of department, I was conducting roll call at the 47th Precinct. The difficulty with the steady shift was well illustrated when a very young officer informed me that he had been out of the police academy for only one year and was working a steady shift of 8:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M., with weekends off. There were two immediate problems with this. First, the notion of a new police officer working banker's hours seemed incredible to me. In the past, a police officer would have had to have ten years under his belt before ever being considered for a steady day shift. Second, and more important, when I asked the police officer if he had ever been in the precinct at 11:00 P.M. on a Friday or Saturday night, he replied that he had not. That was an eye-opener. Here we had a police officer whose training was one dimensional. He knew only how to deal with a quiet residential precinct; his most serious encounter during the course of a shift was to issue tickets to parked cars for not obeying the alternate side parking regulations so the sanitation workers could clean the streets.

       The Strike

      In January 1971, a court ruled against the police union, the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association (PBA), in a case regarding pay and work conditions. The ruling led to an immediate wildcat strike that began in the 43rd Precinct and spread to other precincts in the Bronx and then to all of the precincts throughout the city. Police officers refused to go out on the streets for a full five days. Normally, such an action might have been effective in persuading the city to come to the bargaining table and do the right thing. Unfortunately, this strike was one of the great lessons of all time for most police officers. When things that can go wrong do go wrong, it is referred to as Murphy's Law. In the case of this police strike, another law was at work—“O'toole's Law”—which stated that Murphy was an optimist!

      A few things made the 1971 strike a complete disaster and affected the way police officers would react in future labor disputes, all to the benefit of the city. First, the PBA is one of five police unions, and it represents only uniformed police officers. Another union represents detectives; another, sergeants; another, lieutenants; and another, captains and those with higher ranks. Thus, the additional four unions’ membership was available to fill in for the striking police officers. Second, uniformed police officers who were still on probation, over a thousand in all, did not have to take part in the strike or job action since they could have and would have been fired. Third, there were some police officers (a few very brave officers) whose conscience did not allow them to take part in the job action.

      When we began the job action, the city reacted immediately and put all the detectives, sergeants, lieutenants, and nonparticipating police officers on twelve-hour shifts, with no days off. Under normal conditions, the 44th Precinct put on the streets about ten two-officer cars, a few foot beats, and a few special posts. During the strike, they were able to deploy about twelve sector cars and fill all the foot patrols and special posts, which meant more officers than normal were working the streets. At the same time, the temperature for that week never went above twenty degrees. Not only was there no crime, there were no people on the streets to “miss” their regular police officers.

      The job action lasted five days, and we returned to work with our tails between our collective legs. But the city was not finished with us. The city invoked the New York State Taylor Law, which forbids police officers from striking. We responded that it hadn't really been a strike, since all officers had shown up for work, stood roll call, and then merely stayed in their station houses during their shifts. The city's position that it was a strike was upheld, and we were docked two days’ pay for every day we did not hit СКАЧАТЬ