By Thomas Tracy, Elizabeth Keogh
New York Daily News
NEW YORK — The NYPD has ordered officers to avoid hanging out in groups and making chitchat with one another while on patrol, according to an internal memo.
The rules, dated Tuesday, marked a revision to the Police Patrol Guide to ensure cops do not waste time on the job — with emphasis on supervisors’ responsibility.
“Police officers and supervisors will be held strictly accountable for these provisions,” the order reads. “Patrol supervisors are required to ensure that members of the service are not congregating, or engaging in unnecessary conversation, absent police necessity when visiting members of the service.”
The order is meant to “enhance officer safety, deployment strategies and optimize presence in the field.”
While campaigning last year, Mayor Adams, a former NYC Transit cop, said he was “disappointed” with the way NYC subway cops had been deployed throughout the system.
“Cops should not be sitting around fare gates on their phones,” Adams said at the time. “I don’t think police officers are lazy, I don’t think they’re soft. I believe the right leadership would deploy them in the right manner to cover more ground.”
While on a bike ride earlier this month, Adams pulled over to scold a police commander when he spotted nearby cops hanging out together on the sidewalk, video posted to Twitter shows.
https://twitter.com/JCColtin/status/1555947565782294528
“They should not all be congregating together,” the mayor, who’s about eight months into his term, told the supervisor.
Hizzoner and Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell have had several conversations about how to more “effectively deploy our officers” and agree there is room for improvement, according to an Adams spokesman.
“This is a tactical problem that could possibly pose a risk to both the officer and to members of the public,” he said of the issues the Patrol Guide revision is attempting to address.
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