Moonlighting cops benched
Off-duty NYPD cops who patrol in uniform inside city stadiums and other high-risk public venues have been sidelined.
The venues and the NYPD could not come to an agreement over liability issues and now the Yankees and Madison Square Garden will use private security guards instead.
The NYPD wanted the teams and companies that employ the off-duty cops — and not the city — to be responsible if someone sued the officers or the cops got hurt.
After numerous extensions, the existing contracts with the venues expired Friday.
The paid-detail program began in 1998 and allows officers a sanctioned way to moonlight in order to earn extra cash.
The NYPD keeps a database of available officers and assigns the cops to the gigs. They are paid $45 an hour and up depending on rank, with a minium assignment of four hours.
The officers patrolled Citi Field, Yankee Stadium and Madison Square Garden, and had also been hired by Rockefeller Center, retail chains and banks.
Police officers were noticeably absent at Yankee Stadium Saturday. Dozens of moonlighting cops usually patrol the ballpark. Private security was expected to take their place.
A spokesman for the Mets, who will play Wednesday at Citi Field, declined to discuss security arrangements.
Madison Square Garden, which uses only a handful of off-duty officers, was ready last week to bring in a private security company staffed by former cops, sources said.
A Rockefeller Center spokeswoman refused to comment on whether it was going ahead with the paid-detail program.
The Barclays Center in Brooklyn uses its own employees for security.
On-duty officers will continue to patrol outside the stadiums and other sites.
Security expert Manny Gomez, a retired NYPD sergeant and FBI agent, said the city will ultimately lose in the new scenario.
“I don’t think it’s a smart move for them to have done this,” said Gomez, who runs MG Security Services. “You had private entities paying for NYPD security. Now the NYPD is going to have to figure out how to protect these venues.”
The NYPD said it revised its contract “to more clearly address issues of legal representation and indemnification by the employing entity. Such indemnification clauses are commonly included by private security vendors in such service engagements.”
It would not comment on how many officers are enrolled in the program.