NYC mayoral hopeful Scott Stringer sets ambitious goal of hiring 3K cops: We need to make people feel safe
New York City mayoral hopeful Scott Stringer is setting an ambitious — and potentially unattainable — goal of hiring 3,000 cops to backfill the depleted NYPD ranks and assign officers to each subway train as he ramps up his campaign to challenge Mayor Eric Adams.The pro-law enforcement platform from the city’s former comptroller was spelled out in a 12-page safety plan shared with The Post, detailing how Stringer aims to address the general unease in the Big Apple stemming from the surge in crime under the current administration, including the recent violence underground.“It’s time it must be done, we need to make people feel safe,” Stringer told The Post.“This is why we need a mayor who has vision but also competence and experience so I am being very clear as we launch this campaign we are not proposing pie in the sky,” he pledged.But recruiting thousands of cops would be a high bar for anyone who ends up in City Hall — as candidate applications for the NYPD academy have plummeted over the last eight years, The Post previously revealed.
The police force has lost thousands of cops over the last few years, bringing the current headcount to just under 33,500 — the lowest since the 1990s.At the same time, the Adams administration has had to surge cops onto the streets to combat gun violence and into the subway system to combat random attacks.
The vast majority of those assignments have been mandatory extra time, sending overtime skyrocketing.And just two days ago, Gov.
Kathy Hochul put even more on the NYPD’s shoulders, pledging in her State of the State address to put a cop on every subway train every night — a plan cops have said is near impossible at current staffing levels.Stringer argued that the forced extra work has driven morale to historic lows, prompting cops to put in their papers in droves.“They can’t do this round-the-clock police surge bulls–t,” he said.His other keys to recruitment, though, appear to steal a page from ...