Rich Welsh| We have another self-purge going on in the New York City Police Department (NYPD). So far this year, over 1,500 NYPD officers have either retired or resigned because they just can’t take the bullschtein anymore. At this rate, it’s gearing up to be the largest exodus of cops since the stats have been around.
From January this year through May 31, 524 NYPD police officers have resigned and 1,072 NYPD officers have retired, according to NYPD pension stats that were obtained by the New York Post.
The 1,596 officers leaving the force is a 38 percent jump from the same time in 2021, when about 1,159 officers said enough is enough. In 2020, 1,092 or 46 percent left the NYPD.
These numbers should be alarming, but the people who run the city have already shown they have disdain for the police and for the residents who suffer the consequences of how the ruling class treats the police. They don’t care because no matter how much they attack cops as a scapegoat, they will always have security for themselves.
For years now, the mayor and city council have attacked the police. I started noticing it when former Mayor Bill de Blasio told people they could not react when street thugs poured water over their heads. YouTube became flooded with videos of jackasses pouring water over the heads of police officers on the street. They used water bottles, super soakers, buckets of water, etc. And the cops had to stand there and take it. It was a huge moral killer. The only redeeming thing about watching those incidents was the pride you felt when those NYPD officers continued to act professionally through it all. De Blasio and every City Council member who didn’t stop him, should be ashamed of themselves.
De Blasio defunded the NYPD by 1/6, cutting $1 billion from a police department that is charged with protecting the number one terrorist target in the world.
The Democrats hit NYC with a bail reform from January to June 2020. Cash bail was eliminated for most misdemeanors and non-violent felonies, allowing criminals back out on the streets for the police to handle that extra load on top of a city gone violent with George Floyd protests since the Democrats in charge did absolutely nothing to stop them from destroying the city.
One police officer who decided to get out after 6 and a half years on the job said the exodus is due to complete frustration among the rank and file cops in the NYPD:
“The city is out of control … especially since bail reform,” according to a former NYPD police officer. The saying going around the department these days is “get out while you still can.”
The officer who asked to be identified as Joe said that the job just kept getting worse and worse:
“The last few years so many people had been leaving and manpower was so low that you’d go to work and you’d answer 25 to 30 jobs a day and you’re burnt out by the end of the day,” he said. Joe added, “There was no time for law enforcement” because it would be “radio run, radio run, radio run all day long.”
Folks, this is what happens when you elect Democrats. A survey done in November 2021 showed that more than half of NYPD officers say they wish they’d never joined the force because woke policies are destroying NYC.
Thanks to bail reform, “they were back in the precinct picking up their property the same day.”
“Residents would ask, ‘Why does this keep happening?’ and I would have to explain to them, ‘This guy is going to be locked up tonight, but tomorrow night he’s going to come down your block again, he’s going to be on the same corner, you’re going to see him in the same stores. I wish there was more we could do. But we can’t,’” Officer Joe said.
Police officers in the NYPD usually work for 20 years or more in order to collect their full pension. Full pension pay is about half of their finally average salary, meaning overtime and such not counted.
What’s going on is cops are leaving the force before their actual exit dates. They’re able to do this by using accrued time off like vacation and/or personal time they have saved up. That’s how bad it is for NYPD cops. They can’t wait to get out.
“Last year, the number of cops who quit before becoming eligible for their full pension was the highest in two decades. This year we are on pace for the highest ever recorded,” according to one source.
Officer Joe realizes he will only get a prorated amount for his pension and he doesn’t care. He said he knows at least 4 other NYPD brothers who have left the city to join the various departments in Long Island, NY.
“Cops who made the move before me said, ‘It’s a decision you have to make. You can’t turn this job down. The quality of life is better, they treat you more like a human being than a number,’” Joe said. He went on, saying that the current advice is to “take other tests, explore all options, look out of state, Florida, Texas, Arizona….My friends were all going to the Port Authority, Nassau, Suffolk, MTA.”
In November 2021, Florida began recruiting frustrated NYPD officers, offering a $5,000 relocation bonus and the cops who took the offer love the way they are being treated in the Sunshine State.
So what can be done to fix the problems in the NYPD? Not a whole lot at the moment, which means things are just going to get worse.
“It will take 20 years to fix this mess,” Joseph Giacalone, a John Jay College of Criminal Justice professor and a former NYPD sergeant said.
“The city is bleeding blue and only the cop haters will be celebrating… There’s no way to stop it. Activists, abolitionists, and their pandering politicians have done so much damage to the profession that it will take a generation to fix, if at all.”
