So long to solo patrols
After officer is attacked, one-day old plan is ‘modified’
The NYPD is already retreating from its plan to conduct solo patrols in the city’s mass transit system — after a solitary cop was assaulted in a Brooklyn subway station by a man who repeatedly tried to grab his service weapon, police officials said Tuesday night.
Mayor Adams announced his solo patrol plan early Tuesday, over the objections of the city’s largest police union — but later Tuesday night, after a conversation with Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch, he agreed to put two officers on every train patrol, a PBA spokesman said.
Adams spokesman Fabien Levy said that solo patrols weren’t being abandoned, just modified.
“What’s going to happen is that they’re going to be in eyesight of each other,” Levy said.
The change came after a 10-year NYPD veteran was assaulted at the Pennsylvania Ave. No. 3 station in East New York just after 6:45 p.m.
“Lynch and Mayor Adams have spoken regarding this evening’s assault on a transit police officer performing solo patrol,” the PBA said in a statement. “The mayor indicated that the deployment plan will be modified so that there [are] two police officers on every train patrol.”
The officer was doing a solo patrol and noticed a 24-year-old man smoking a cigarette on the southbound platform, a police spokesman said. The cop told the man to put out the cigarette, and the man refused, then threw himself down the station stairs.
When the officer approached him to offer aid, the man grabbed the cop and pulled him down the rest of the staircase, police said. They struggled, and the man made several attempts to grab the officer’s gun before the cop subdued him, on his own, an NYPD spokesman said.
The suspect, who has a history of assaulting NYPD officers, was taken to Bellevue Hospital for evaluation.
The officer went to New York-Presbyterian Hospital Brooklyn Methodist with a wrist and knee injury, police said.
“What we are asking of the officers is that they spread out to increase visibility but maintain eye contact that they can look out for the passengers as well as looking out for each other,” NYPD Deputy Commissioner for Public Information John Miller said Tuesday.
“Tonight’s incident is another reminder that there are a small number of people who demonstrate they have no respect for the law. A police officer should be able to instruct someone to put out a cigarette and the transit system without being confronted with force and having to make an arrest.”
Adams and the NYPD devised the solo patrol plan as a way for officers to cover more ground in the city’s transit system. Only certain train stations would be patrolled by lone cops, none during the overnight hours, Adams said.
“For many years we had a version of what was called single patrol. I did it as a police officer,” Adams, a former transit cop, said at a press conference Tuesday. “I wouldn’t have anyone do a job that I wouldn’t do.”
The solo patrols began Monday night, Adams said during an afternoon press conference in Brooklyn, where the NYPD demolished 100 dirt bikes seized during a crackdown on reckless motorbike riders.
“For many years we had a version of what was called single patrol. I did it as a police officer,” Adams, a former transit cop said. “I wouldn’t have anyone do a job that I wouldn’t do.
“We are looking at how to better utilize our resources,” he explained. “We’re looking at the stations, and if we find one where a single patrol is doable we’ll do that.”
Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell said the single patrols will help the department “cover more ground by patrolling more subway cars per tour.”
“We’re always looking to improve the way we work,” Sewell said.
Adams also urged commuters to always be on alert. “While I was out I saw women passengers in isolated areas, standing alone. That is just unsafe,” he said.
When pressed about the comment, Adams added that all commuters, not just women, should steer clear of areas where no one else is around.
“People should not be in an isolated area,” he said, adding, “When I ride the subway system, I look for the zebra stripes. I get in the conductor’s car, or the motorman’s car, so what I’m asking all passengers to do are the things that I learned as being a passenger, a former transit police officer.”