Legalized jaywalking: Its the latest handcuff slapped on NYPD cops

New York City streets are getting a little bit more dangerous today, as the City Council’s legalization of jaywalking has come into full effect.In September, the lawmakers, in a veto-proof 40-8 vote, killed the fine for jaywalking.Mayor Eric Adams ran out of time to veto the bill, and so as of the end of March, it’s officially law.The decriminalization won’t do much to change New Yorkers’ lives — few people faced ticketing for jaywalking even before the change.But it will take yet another tool out of NYPD’s arsenal for solving problems.And it represents yet another blow in the uber-progressive council’s war on minor, so-called pretextual enforcement tools — tools that are vital to keeping the city safe.Councilmen justified the decision by saying jaywalking summonses were issued in a racially discriminatory manner.They also claimed they were lifting a burden off of the NYPD.“Police officers have told me they prefer to spend their time on real safety concerns, not handing out jaywalking tickets,” Council Member Mercedes Narcisse, decriminalization’s lead sponsor, told NPR last year.But NYPD officers weren’t spending their time handing out jaywalking tickets: Public data show just 650 summonses issued for jaywalking between January 2020 and October 2024.Why were any summonses issued at all? Because, as Deputy Transportation Bureau Chief Thomas Alps testified last year, enforcement is needed at some highly dangerous intersections.“They’re looking at data,” Alps said.“They’re saying, ‘there [are] fatalities happening here, there [are] pedestrians getting struck and injured, this is where we need to do it.’”In other words, jaywalking enforcement was part of a “problem-oriented policing” approach.NYPD officers identify hot spots for problems — in this case, dangerous intersections — and use the tools at their disposal to suppress the risky behavior driving those problems.Alps explained how the 115th precinct, in Jackson Heig...