New York Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell has announced a set of innovative deployment strategies to reimagine the NYPD’s robust coverage of the city’s subway system across all of its portals, platforms and trains.
The new initiatives redefine the mission for officers and surge their ranks – beyond the additional layers of NYPD presence already in place throughout the transit system. The measures deploy officers to move cohesively through the entire system – particularly on subway cars, to engage with riders and to observe and document all they see to create timely, intelligence-driven responses.
“Safety throughout the subway system remains a top priority for the NYPD,” said Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell. “This comprehensive new approach is centered on having more police officers on train cars talking with riders and listening to them because NYPD officers do not just respond to crime in our city – they prevent it and deter it.”
Under the initiative, hundreds of additional NYPD officers from the Transit Bureau will work in tandem with Patrol Service Bureau officers and other personnel to be present across the subway system, from both their street-side and underground positions. Special units will continue to augment this coverage as well, in each sector, on each tour, every day.
These officers will focus on engaging directly with riders with the mission of driving down crime upticks and also improving the ridership experience.
Department commanders will wield overtime strategically, with an imperative to flood those zones most acutely in need or more uniformed presence. Those commanders will also be directing the patrols from the above-ground precincts to integrate the coverage of transit stations in their areas of responsibility. Officers in some administrative jobs will be flexibly shifted into underground deployments when necessary.
Read more at the New York Police Department
