Members of the NYPD’s disbanded plainclothes anti-crime unit will be reassigned to uniformed patrol duties “effective immediately,” according to an internal memo obtained by the Post.
Police Commissioner Dermot Shea announced the “seismic” shift Monday afternoon that affects roughly 600 cops.
An email obtained by the Post Tuesday addresses the new assignment of all anti-crime officers, but appears to have been sent to commanding officers within Patrol Borough Brooklyn South, specifically.
In the email, precinct heads are directed to ensure that all cops assigned to anti-crime duties would instead be designated as “response autos,” meaning that they patrol in uniform, in marked vehicles.
The memo also states that anti-crime personnel will have the opportunity to select their top three assignment preferences: the detective bureau, as precinct neighborhood coordination officers, field intelligence officers or patrol duties.
Commanding officers must collect the responses and submit them for review by Wednesday morning, according to the memo.
The decision to disband the unit comes nearly six years after one of its plainclothes cops killed Eric Garner with a chokehold, sparking the rallying cry of “I can’t breathe” for the Black Lives Matter movement.
Shea said Monday that the decision is “in the realm of closing on one of the last chapters on stop, question and frisk.”
“When you look at the number of anti-crime officers that operate within New York City, and you look at a disproportionate, quite frankly, percentage of complaints and shootings — and they are doing exactly what was asked of them,” Shea said.
The department, however, will still deploy plainclothes cops in Gotham. The NYPD would not say how many cops would continue to patrol in plainclothes.
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