What’s in a NYPD Uniform?

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC, #read the blueprint. That's what we're inviting you to do in the Brian Lehrer show reading project, read the blueprint. What's this? Well, Mayor Eric Adams, as many of you know has urged the public to not just talk about the most hot button items in his blueprint to end gun violence, but to read the actual blueprint in its entirety. It's just 15 pages, 13 if you take off the cover sheet and the table of contents. Its large font print, it's clearly sectioned with headings for the different proposals, very easy to read.

We've decided to take up the Mayor's challenge in a big way and invite you to read along. We've tweeted out a link to the blueprint to end gun violence on our Twitter feed and we've posted the link on our webpage, that's brianlehrershow.org. We're inviting you to check it out for yourself, tweet any comments you have, #read the blueprint, and then join in a wide-ranging conversation we'll have about it on the show next Thursday.

Meanwhile, we're diving into some of the specific sections on the show between now and then, and we'll have another one of those segments right now. This one is about maybe the most controversial thing in the whole rollout, Mayor Adams plan to create a new unit targeting guns to replace the so-called Anti-Crime Unit that Mayor de Blasio disbanded last year after a series of abuses. Mayor Adam says this unit will be different. One of the main ways is that it won't be a plainclothes unit per se. Here he is speaking on NPR last week after his meeting on guns with President Biden.

Mayor Eric Adams: This is not a plainclothes unit. This is going to be a unit where officers are going to be wearing a modified police uniform so they are readily identified.

Brian Lehrer: Modified police uniform. What does that mean? Can it really be different from plainclothes units that have become infamous for everything from Bloomberg stop and frisk, to the killing of Amadou Diallo when Rudy Giuliani was mayor, to Eric Garner under de Blasio? Let's see what we can learn from Keith Ross, adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a retired NYPD officer, including time as a plainclothes officer himself. Professor Ross, thanks for coming on. Welcome to WNYC.

Keith Ross: Good morning. Thank you very much for the invitation. I'm happy to be here.

Brian Lehrer: Would you just start by introducing yourself in this context to our listeners just a little bit. When were you on the police force and what kinds of plainclothes work did you do?

Keith Ross: I joined the police department in 1997. I retired in 2018. For approximately, I would say, about three years, I was in a plainclothes unit. This unit was referred to as a conditions unit. It was not an anti-crime unit because anti-crime units, at least historically, tended to target felonies and specifically violent felonies. What our purview was was more quality of life offenses with pretty much a focus on drug sales, drug possession, and prostitution-related offenses. That was usually the kinds of arrests that we would affect.

Brian Lehrer: Have you ever heard the term before that Mayor Adams used in that clip modified uniforms?

Keith Ross: Well, I want to have to be honest, I have not read the blueprint yet, [chuckles] but from what I've been reading, it sounds like this "modified uniform" will basically be police officers in plain clothes. However, their outermost garment, I'm assuming a jacket a windbreaker type thing, will readily identify them as being a member of the NYPD.

If I remember correctly, on the front should have both their name and their shield number. My understanding is at all times they're supposed to wear this windbreaker. That's what I've gotten so far. I want to be completely transparent. Since I'm a retired police officer, I am not privy to any internal memorandum that might be distributed within the NYPD.

Brian Lehrer: I should say that the word modified is not in the blueprint. It's something that he's been saying as in that NPR clip. What's the point of that difference? What's the point on the street of wearing an NYPD windbreaker as opposed to a full blue uniform?

Keith Ross: That's a great question one I'm not sure I can fully answer because again, I'm not really privy to what exactly these units are going to do. Now, I understand that what Mayor Adams wants to do is that they are going to target gun violence, but are they targeting gun violence proactively or reactively? Is this a unit that's basically going to be responding to 911 calls for shots fired or ShotSpotter notifications, which is basically gun detection software that's utilized in many major cities New York City included, or are they going to be proactively looking for people that they at the very least reasonably suspect to be armed and dangerous?

Brian Lehrer: Well, let's pick it apart as we try to understand what the difference will be if a police officer is wearing, say, an NYPD windbreaker as opposed to a full NYPD uniform. I assume it won't be as easy as quickly to identify that person as a police officer, and that's for some kind of reason. In your experience on the force, you were there for the Bloomberg stop and frisk era, what was the point of plainclothes in that? I assume that was in the definition that you just gave us for Proactive Anti-gun Policing.

Keith Ross: Absolutely. The basic theory is that plainclothes officers are more difficult to detect by the "bad guy."

Brian Lehrer: That's simple. Do you think it contributed to the excesses of Bloomberg's stop and frisk? Usually what we hear about is the numbers that when it got to 600,000 700,000 stops per year, and they were only producing like 75 guns, tell me if I have those numbers right. I think they may actually be right. That just a lot of people were basically being harassed for no reason. Did plainclothes contribute to that or however you see that? I don't want to put words in your mouth.

Keith Ross: Well, here's the thing. A lot of people, including my students, have a negative take on what stop question and frisk or what's normally referred to as Terry stops. When we're talking about Terry stops or a stop question and frisk, where a police officer reasonably suspects another person of either just recently in the past is or is about to commit some crime, that police officer can forcibly stop that person and question them on their present conduct.

If they see something that in their training and experience appears to be something of a weapon, this could be a firearm, this could be what is legally considered to be a deadly weapon and or a dangerous instrument, that police officer can frisk or conduct a pat-down of the area where the police officer reasonably suspects that weapon to be.

Now, on the surface, this is a good crime-fighting tool. It is a quality crime-fighting tool. I think what happened, and this is a difficult topic to unpack because it doesn't just exist in a vacuum. When you talk about this era of broken windows policing, which we're referring to which was brought in the '90s by Mayor Giuliani and then Police Commissioner Bratton, it was a qualitative tool utilized to lower crime.

I would say, in my estimation, sometime in the 2000s, there was a shift between utilizing tools like this in a qualitative manner to a more quantitative or statistical manner. I apologize. I didn't hear you, sir.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, I asked quotas.

Keith Ross: I'm not going to use the word quota, because the NYPD will tell you that there are absolutely no quotas in the police department. If there were that would be a violation of the Taylor Law, which is civil service law, which would allow police officers to strike. What I would say was that there was an unwritten productivity goal that had to be met on a month-to-month basis. If that productivity goal was not met, there could be disciplinary action taken. How's that for an answer [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: That's a pretty clear explanation at least to my ear, but let's get back to the uniforms. What role did being in plainclothes play, if any, in the excesses of stop and frisk, would it have been ever any different if these same people were stopped with these same level of suspicion by police officers in uniform, or is it all irrelevant?

Keith Ross: I don't really think the issue is with rank and file police officers to be quite honest. I think the issue was with the administration and with police executives micromanaging the statistics, micromanaging the numbers on a year-to-year basis, on a month-to-month basis, on a week-to-week basis, on an officer to officer basis. When people bring this idea up that, and believe me, I do agree with you that there were points where crime-fighting tools like stop question and frisk, were definitely being abused.

I don't think it was just a random police officer waking up, getting ready to start his or her shift, and stating, "I think today's going to be a day where I feel like violating someone's rights. My feeling is that there was pressure from above placed on the rank and file to produce. To produce these statistics, to produce these numbers so that it could be reported that crime is falling, precinct by precinct, borough by borough, sector by sector.

Brian Lehrer: All right, listeners, as we continue with Keith Rossm adjunct professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, a retired NYPD officer, including time as a plain closed police officer himself. As we try to understand what might be different as Mayor Adams says, he's not going to have a plaincloths unit like Giuliani had like de Blasio had. He's going to have what he calls a modified uniform unit. Is this going to be any safer for the public at large and will it be effective? 212-433 WNYC.

Listeners, have you ever been on either side of a plainclothes interaction, listeners, between police and civilians? Were you an officer yourself who's been in plainclothes at any time, including now or in the past? 212-433 WNYC, or were you ever stopped and frisk during the Bloomberg years or at any other time? 212-433-9692. Any anyone have experience on either side of this equation with anything that could be called a modified uniform, Adam's term? 212-433, WNYC 433-9692.

Professor Ross, how much can you say, or how much would you say the fact of plainclothes played a role in some of the most well-known deaths at the hands of the police in the last few decades in New York. Amadou Diallo in 1999, innocently trying to enter his own apartment building in the Bronx. Sean Bell shot in his car just before his wedding in Queens in 2006, Eric Garner, on Staten Island in 2014, all plainclothes officers involved. How much would you say plainclothes played a role in any of those incidents?

Keith Ross: Well, I know I have had conversations with colleagues, and a lot of times what they'll tell me is that statistically speaking the occupation of policing is not really a dangerous occupation. That there are occupations that definitely present more danger to its workers. If I grant a person that I think then we can at least all agree that being a police officer presents itself as having a major potential for danger. When you as a police officer perceive this major potential for danger, your senses can get a little bit heightened.

Now, obviously, I do remember the Amadou Diallo incident. Definitely a tragedy and I don't know too much about that. The Sean Bell incident, I was a police officer and that actually happened in one of the housing developments that I used to work at, or actually a little bit off of it. That was in the South Jamaica, almost called it South J, excuse me. I think the club was called Club Kahuna. My understanding is that there were pieces of that investigation that were omitted, or at least partial testimonies of the police officers that were responding.

For Sean Bell, I believe that it was widely reported that there were three people in that vehicle, including Mr. Bell. I also understand that there might have been four people in that vehicle with one running out of that vehicle and leaving the scene. That's my understanding. The Eric Garner case is one that's really-

Brian Lehrer: I don't want to re-litigate all these cases overall. My interest is in the uniforms. Encounters on the street develop quickly, for you as a police officer in many cases. How much does history tell us that when people don't see the person approaching them as a police officer, it creates danger for both parties?

Keith Ross: I have to be honest with you, especially in this year alone and last year alone. I don't even know if the uniform really presents any difference as far as the potential for danger between police and citizen goes. To be quite honest with you, just to address something that I believe you had mentioned before, this idea of this "modified uniform," how effective will it be?

I think when it first gets presented to the element that these police are targeting, it might come as a shock, but very quickly, everyone is going to understand that as soon as they see some sort of blue nylon windbreaker or whatever, this jacket that these neighborhood safety team officers are supposed to be wearing, it's almost going to be like the police officer was in full uniform cap included.

Brian Lehrer: That's the major point that I'm trying to get at. What advantage does the difference between the full uniform and the windbreaker or plainclothes fully and the windbreaker give to the police both in terms of getting guns off the street and in terms of preventing unwanted violence in the encounter?

Keith Ross: Good question. I don't know if there's really going to be much difference. An encounter can go bad really quickly, whether in uniform, whether in plainclothes. As to the effectiveness of this modified uniform, again, I don't really know what these units are going to be doing. By saying you're going to get guns off the street, I get that part, but my question is, how do we do that? What kind of unit is this going to be? Is this going to again, be a reactive unit where it just to these jobs? Is it going to be conducting surveillances? A lot of questions and I don't know how [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: On the table. Yes.

Keith Ross: I just don't know operationally how they will be deployed.

Brian Lehrer: This is WNYC FM HD and AM New York, WNJT FM 88.1, Trenton, WNJP 88.5, Sussex, WNJY 89.3, Netcong, and WNJO 90.3, Toms River. We are New York and New Jersey public radio, few more minutes with former policer and now John J College of criminal justice professor, Keith Ross. Let's get a couple of callers in Alicia, in Queens you're on WNYC. Hi, Alicia.

Alicia: Hi, Brian. How are you doing? I just want to say I agree with everything that the professor says, and I'm glad we are having this conversation, but the fact is that nothing is going to change from the previous way. This was utilized plainclothes was utilized to the new way unless we have clear cut regulations, very specific regulations and that people are held accountable when they violate those regulations. It has to be zero tolerance for violation of the regulation, or it won't work.

Brian Lehrer: Alicia, thank you very much. Michelle in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Michelle.

Michelle: Hi. Thanks, Brian. I'm calling about a story connected to my son when he was in high school. He and a couple of friends got arrested on the Lower East Side. I think they hadn't really done anything but maybe they had been drinking and got a little sassy or something. They ended up on the ground two of them and then my son went over and said, "What are you doing?" He thought they were thugs starting a fight and then they arrested them and handcuffed them and put them in the car.

This is the part that really gets me. My son said to one of the guys, "What are we being arrested for?" The cops said, "Don't worry. We'll think of something when we get there." Then they proceeded to also insult two of the kids that were in the car that were talking Russian. They denigrated them for being Russian and then they also referred to the young woman in a really horrible way. The reason I know this is all true is because my son recorded it on his cell phone.

Brian Lehrer: Well, it sounds really horrible obviously. For the purpose of this segment, I'm curious, Michelle, if you think the officers being in plainclothes played any role in the way that played out.

Michelle: Say that again.

Brian Lehrer: I wonder if you think or if your son thought that the fact that the officers were in plainclothes played any role in the way this incident played out?

Michelle: Well, it might have been that if they had been in a uniform that people might have stopped and tried to find out what was going on. That's a whole other choice at that point. My son thought it was a bunch of thugs starting a fight with them. They had no-- Yes, I do think if they had had uniforms on, they would've reacted differently. These kids didn't do anything. They might have been drinking a little bit but they were basically out on crossing the street.

Brian Lehrer: Michelle, thank you very much. One more. Craig in New Orleans formerly from Manhattan. Hi, Craig. You're on WNYC.

Craig: Hello. Yes, I actually plan on coming back to New York. I have a job now there. This is about 10 years ago or 11 years ago. It was actually the night after my birthday which is why I remember it. I was biking on Central Park West around two in the morning because I'd had a big dinner. Couldn't go to sleep, it was hot. Then a car approaching south across the street. Two big Burley guys jumped out, didn't identify themselves. They were in plain clothes and told me to get off my bike. I didn't know what was happening. I thought I was about to be accosted or assaulted. No one else was around and I made a momentary decision about whether or not I should try to steal my bike and get in the park.

Then I saw a dog tag around one of the officer's collars which suggested that he might have been a police but they still didn't identify themselves. I got off the bike. They asked me if I had anything in my pockets. I was wearing a tank top and a pair of tennis shorts. I didn't have much to conceal. I told them I had my cell phone, they took my driver's license, ran a check. One of them made small talk with me and I asked him why they stopped me. He said because there were a rash of car break ends on Central Park West. I just scoffed at them because I had nothing to conceal anything, no weapon or any place to put anything that I would've presumably been stealing.

He asked me where I lived and I said, "Well, your officer has my driver's license." I lived in Murray Hill, so not far. Then he told me he hadn't seen me around there before. I asked him if he had to have seen me around, does that mean that I couldn't have been there? Then right around that time, there was a white young couple that was walking by and I said, "Well, have you seen them? Why are you not stopping them?" I filed a complaint with the Civilian Review Board.

They found that they were justified for doing it but they were cited for not having filed a complaint or a report of having stopped me, which convinces me that the numbers, as high as they were, were still an undercount because I was one of the 5% of the people who even bothered to file a report. This was extremely terrifying. The very idea that there's absolutely no recourse for unidentified men to do things like this to people.

I'm an older per middle-aged person now. I had a little bit of my wits and control about me but I just think about when this happens in real black and brown neighborhoods with young boys and not knowing what's going on and the police being able to assert anything that happened. I was just really disturbed to call. I wanted to call in when your guest was saying that when the police have probable suspicion to stop someone.

I said I was on a bike with no way of concealing anything. I don't understand what was suspicious about me and probable for someone to stop me and make an assessment that I was a danger in commission of a crime or anything like this. This is just an extremely disturbing policy. As you can, I'm getting emotional about it because I don't know if I was going to die or get assaulted that night and I wouldn't have had any recourse under the system now to have any redress. Even with the complaint that I filed, nothing came of it. I do not like this policy. We all know that it was racially motivated in that it over police and harass people and I don't want to see this coming back as a standard policing tool.

Brian Lehrer: Craig, thank you very much for your call and sharing that really disturbing incident. It sounds like it's hard to talk about to this day and good luck in your return to Manhattan. We just have a minute left in the segment. Professor Ross, anything you wanna react to in that series of calls or just a last word on since there is so much unknown still, as you've been pointing out with the little that the mayor has told us so far about what the modified uniforms in these new units are going to be and the role they're supposed to play. What should we look out for? What should we monitor for quality?

Keith Ross: I'm not exactly sure what you mean by what should we be monitoring, as a citizen?

Brian Lehrer: Yes, as the press or a citizen who might find himself in Craig's position where you're accosted by officers who you don't know if they're the muggers or they're the police or anything as we re-enter some kind of world like that.

Keith Ross: Well, hopefully in the future with these modified plainclothes units that there is some training that when a person is stopped if they should have the jacket on, so that should readily identify them as a police officer and not just some "a bad element about to commit some crime against that person". Again, when we talk about stuff like this, I do think police tend to do a good job with this. Is it 100%? No occupation is 100% but they need to try and deescalate the situation or at least explain to a person why they are being stopped.

I think on the citizen side of things if you are stopped, and this is really difficult because, for a lot of people, they have never really had personal police encounters or real police contact. They need to learn to once they've ascertained that it's a police officer to remain calm. Answer the police officers' questions and only answer those police officers' questions. You don't really have to volunteer too much other information. If they ask your name, give your name. If they request your ID and you have ID on you, you can give them your ID. If you don't have ID, state, "I do not have my ID on me." There is no law that states at least in New York City that you must carry ID. Not illegal to not carry ID.

Hopefully, things start getting better. When I say things starting to get better, the police-citizen contact. When your producers approached me and they had told me that really what you wanted to discuss was uniform. I had to really think about, "Well, what does the uniform signify?" I'm hoping, my fervent hope is that at least for citizens when they see the uniform, they don't see racial bias. They don't violence. What they should see is security. That's what my fervent hope in the next 10, 20 years.

Brian Lehrer: Keith Ross, adjunct professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a retired NYPD officer including time as a plainclothes police officer. Thank you so much for joining us.

Keith Ross: Thank you for having me.

 

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