NYC desperately needs to hire more cops to combat subway crime, says ex-NYPD boss Bill Bratton

Ex-NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton says the city needs more cops to crack down on subway mayhem and other crime, noting there were thousands more officers when he was first in charge in the 1990s.Bratton, who served as Gotham’s police commissioner under Mayors Rudy Giuliani and Bill de Blasio, said there were 38,000 officers when he was first commish and that the figure is now down to under 34,000, even after Mayor Eric Adams added two graduating classes in November to boost the force.“There’s an area that is desperately short of enough police,” Bratton said of subway patrols, speaking on 770 WABC radio’s The “Cats Roundtable” program.“They’ve attempted to deal with that … by overtime, by surging,” or flooding a transit zone with officers as needed.“The problem with that: One, it runs up the overtime bill.

Two, it wears out the cops.And three, the cops [assigned] through overtime and surging are not familiar with the subways,” Bratton told host John Catsimatidis.Bratton oversaw the transit police unit before he was commissioner.National Guard soldiers also now assigned to the subway by Gov.

Kathy Hochul are only “uniformed mannequins” who “don’t have any real powers,” Bratton added. The former commish’s call for more cops on the beat comes during a rash of horrific subway violence that included a string of stabbings and the horrifying Dec.22 torching death of a New Jersey straphanger on a Brooklyn F train in Coney Island.Some critics of Manhattan’s new $9 congestion driving toll are even using the subway violence as an argument against the unpopular commuter tax.

They are suggesting the toll should be scrapped because the alternative to taking to the roads — using mass transit — is too dangerous.Meanwhile, Bratton gave new NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch a vote of confidence, saying he’s “very encouraged” that she’s clearing out the bad apples in the scandal-ridden department.She is the fourth commissioner du...