Still Free

Yeah, Mr. Smiley. Made it through the entire Trump presidency without being enslaved. Imagine that.

Monday, January 05, 2015

Question: Did We Need To Have Those Numbers In The First Place?

So the NYPD has been doing a work slow down:
The number of arrests plummeted by 56% for the week ending Sunday, from 5,448 during the same time period a year ago to 2,401.

The number of people slapped with criminal summonses for offenses like drinking in public fell 92% for the same week from 4,077 to just 347.

Just 749 motorists were hit with moving violations, compared to 9,349 a year ago — a 92% drop.

And the number of parking summonses issued fell by a whopping 90% from 16,008 to just 1,191.

In Brooklyn's 84th Precinct, home base for two hero police officers who were executed by a cop-hating maniac, a grand total of just two tickets were written for moving violations.

Not a single parking or criminal court summons was issued.

If this is the case, and all hell hasn't broken loose as a result then the public should be able to demand an answer to the following question:

Were any of these activities (arrests and summonses) actually necessary for "public safety"?

Because if while these declines were/are going on there is no statistically significant uptick in crime, then certainly we can surmise that the purpose of those arrests and tickets were for reasons other than public safety.

In fact we could very well ask if whether these arrests and summonses are purely for the collection of monies for city coffers. That is, just like what bothers me about the Eric Garner situation, are folks being arrested fined and killed for "crimes" that exist for the sole purpose of raising revenue for the state?