Police stations get ‘friendlier’
Looks like cameras will be allowed in NYPD precincts after all — on ATMs installed in stationhouses to make them more “public friendly.”
The city is planning a $1.25 million initiative to make four Brooklyn precincts more welcoming with new furniture, fresh coats of paint, ATMs and other unspecified amenities, the mayor and other officials announced Thursday.
If the plan is successful, city officials hope to make similar changes across all five boroughs.
The department recently updated its Patrol Guide to inform cops that video recording is prohibited at police stations, and people who refuse to stop recording will be charged with criminal trespass.
As for ATM cameras, they would focus on a narrow field of view, and the NYPD would make sure they're positioned where they “won't jeopardize security and privacy,” said Phil Walzak, the NYPD's top spokesman.
The city is still working out who will provide the ATMs, and whether customers would be charged service fees for withdrawing cash, according to officials.
“It's going to change how people interact with the NYPD,” said Mayor de Blasio, who joined elected officials, faith leaders and community activists at the 71st Precinct stationhouse in Crown Heights to announce the initiative Thursday afternoon.
Hizzoner addressed the recent wave of videos showing members of the public cursing out and mocking police — including one inside a Harlem precinct.
“Like so many New Yorkers I've been very, very troubled by some of the videos I've seen recently,” said de Blasio, who didn't take questions from reporters at the event. “The folks that do that, they're not helping us move forward — they're not helping us heal the wounds.”
Making precincts more “public friendly” squares with the new policy to charge people who film inside stationhouses with disorderly conduct, the NYPD said in a written statement.
“We are prioritizing investments to make NYPD precincts inviting and safe places, while continuing to build trust and strengthen relationships with the people we serve. The policy of now allowing members of the public to film inside of precincts has been a long standing policy. It (is) now memorialized as part of the Patrol Guide.”
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams praised the station overhaul plan.
“Everyone that enters a precinct is not a bad guy and they should not be treated like bad guys,” Adams said. “They are people not perpetrators.”