EXCLUSIVE
Cops backing off busts in South Bronx to avoid lawsuits
Cops in some crime-ridden South Bronx neighborhoods have all but abandoned aggressive or intuitive policing — to avoid getting sued or otherwise derailing their careers, officers admitted to The Post.
The dangerous hands-off approach in the NYPD’s 42nd Precinct is reflected in official crime statistics, which show that shootings are up dramatically there.
“Usually, when you have people peddling hard drugs, you have guns nearby, inside a car or an apartment,’’ a precinct cop said.
But instead of being “proactive’’ in such cases, “I try to minimize incidents where I can get in trouble,” the officer said.
“It’s kind of sad, but it’s career preservation.”
Another law-enforcement source said it’s not just a few cops in the precinct who are taking this tactic.
“It’s everybody — 100 percent,” the source said.
Law-enforcement sources said the alarming situation is the result of a spate of civil-rights lawsuits, which recently led a detective to file a $175 million notice of claim against the city on grounds that it’s too eager to settle such cases.
It also comes against the backdrop of a nationwide outcry against aggressive policing. Scores of NFL players have being kneeling during the national anthem at games to protest police brutality.
Cops throughout the 42nd Precinct, which covers the Morrisania section, are steering clear of encounters that could land them in court or in front of the city’s Civilian Complaint Review Board for alleged brutality, a law-enforcement source said.
“Police officers are afraid to do their job because they’re afraid of being sued and possibly arrested and prosecuted,’’ the source said. “Basically, the Bronx DA has made it open season on officers in the 42nd Precinct, emboldening perps to go out and commit these violent crimes.”
Last month, Bronx DA Darcel Clark announced a probe into police-misconduct allegations in a shooting case she dropped against a teen, Pedro Hernandez, who spent more than a year on Rikers Island.
Several precinct patrol officers recalled incidents in which they didn’t bust suspected drug dealers who were taunting them while recording with cellphone cameras.
In one case, a cop said, neighbors were “leaning out their windows, shouting at us to go away.”
“In the past, we’d stand our ground, start issuing summonses. But we just moved on,” a cop recalled. “It was hard, to be honest.”
The NYPD’s most recent stats show shootings in the precinct have jumped 64 percent, from 14 to 23, so far this year compared to the same period in 2016.
Citywide, shootings have fallen 23 percent in the same time period.
Murders have tripled, from two to six, in the 42nd, while the citywide murder rate fell 24 percent.
The 42nd’s commanding officer, Deputy Inspector Ernest Morales, was grilled on the stats at a Sept. 14 meeting at Police Headquarters — during which a shooting took place in his precinct, sources said.
Neither the NYPD nor the Bronx District Attorney’s Office returned requests for comment.
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