Backing up longstanding rumors of NYPD quotas, a cop claims police officers are required to issue 20 summonses and make 1 arrest per month so commanding officers appear to maintain low crime rates in their precincts. "At the end of the night you have to come back with something," Officer Adil Polanco told ABC. "You have to write somebody, you have to arrest somebody, even if the crime is not committed, the number's there. So our choice is to come up with the number."
Following in the footsteps of other officers who came forward with allegations of crime stat manipulation, the five-year veteran said quotas have compromised police work. "I'm not going to keep arresting innocent people, I'm not going to keep searching people for no reason, I'm not going to keep writing people for no reason, I'm tired of this," he said. "Our primary job is not to help anybody, our primary job is not to assist anybody, our primary job is to get those numbers and come back with them?"
The station obtained audio recordings of officers in Polanco's 41st Precinct in the Bronx that seemingly defend his allegations: "If you think 1 and 20 is breaking your balls, guess what you're going to be doing. You're going to be doing a lot more, a lot more than what they're saying," said one officer. "Next week, 25 and 1, 35 and 1, and until you decide to quit this job to go to work at a Pizza Hut, this is what you're going to be doing till then," said another. NYPD spokesman Paul Browne told ABC: "Police Officers like others who receive compensation are provided productivity goals and they are expected to work."
Polanco says the quotas force officers to arrest and fine individuals on trumped up charges, like five adolescents who say they were just racing each other when they were jailed overnight for "engaging in tumultuous and violent conduct that caused public alarm" and given summonses for "unlawful assembly." The whistleblower claims cops who don't meet the quotas lose overtime and days off, or are re-assigned far from their homes.
