NYPD to replace disbanded anti-crime unit with ‘Neighborhood Safety Teams’: report

The New York Police Department has plans to establish “Neighborhood safety teams” to combat street crime in what is likely an effort to restore an improved version of the department‘s disbanded anti-crime unit.

The plainclothes anti-crime unit, which sought to prevent gun violence in the city, was disbanded in June 2020 after several high-profile police encounters — including the May 2020 death of George Floyd and the 2014 death of Eric Garner at the hands of an officer assigned to the NYPD task force.

“Neighborhood Safety Teams will be responsible for addressing violent street crimes, specifically targeting perpetrators who carry and use illegal firearms,” a memo from NYPD Chief Ken Corey obtained by The New York Post states.

The teams, which will be made up of plainclothes and uniformed officers, will replace uniformed Public Safety Teams and work to take illegal firearms off the streets of New York, the Post reported.

Officers assigned to the new squad “will perform duty attired in a hybrid plain-clothes/uniform, and their name, rank, and shield number will appear on their outermost garment at all times so that the public and other officers can identify them as members of the service,” Corey wrote in the memo obtained by the Post. – READ MORE