Second part of draft plan to change NYPD released

With an April 1 deadline approaching, Mayor Bill de Blasio and NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea unveiled Friday the second part of a draft plan to change the department and make it more transparent, accountable and representative of the city’s ethnic diversity.
The 26-page document comes a week after the city introduced part one of the plan and is a melding of broad aspirations for racial justice and decriminalization of poverty with practical proposals such as giving city residents a leg up in the application process to join the NYPD to boost diversity.
At a news conference with Shea, de Blasio said one priority of the plan was to stop the criminalization of the poor.
"What has often been called the school-to-prison pipeline — that reality of folks being born poor, lacking opportunity, finding many, many challenges in life materially, and then on top of it ending up involved in the criminal justice system," explained de Blasio.
In the draft plan, de Blasio and Shea also backed the idea of boosting the five-point credit given to city residents on the police entrance examination to 10 points, a move that would move those residents further up the Civil Service list from which candidates are selected to join the department.
In unveiling five major policy areas, de Blasio called the latest draft plan a "signature moment" and the result of months of discussions with community leaders and other stakeholders to draw the NYPD and communities closer and addressing inequities of the past.
"You cannot ignore the emotions that are out there," said Shea.
The combined draft plans are the result of an edict by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo last year at the time of the protests and riots surrounding the death of George Floyd under a cop's knee in Minneapolis that commanded all police departments in New York State to come up with plans for reform by April 1 of this year.
The city draft needs to go to the City Council for approval before submission to Albany, Shea had explained previously.
The increase in the residency points would be aimed at ultimately increasing the number of police who live in the city apparently without the need to change any law or collective bargaining agreements.
Currently 51.8% of cops live outside New York City, including 33% in Suffolk and Nassau counties, NYPD spokeswoman Sgt. Jessica McRorie has said.
Police Benevolent Association head Patrick Lynch said in the statement that the residency credit doesn’t solve the problem of cops being able to afford to live in the five boroughs.
"This isn’t complicated, if you want more city residents to become police officers — and remain city residents once they take the job — you need to pay them a fair market wage," Lynch said in a statement.
In other proposals aimed at cops, the plan calls for the city to be able to suspend police facing disciplinary charges without pay longer than the current 30 days and in egregious cases allow for the reduction or forfeiture of pensions when there is death or serious injury. Such changes require a change in state law and collective bargaining, said veteran cops. Lynch said the idea was union busting and could potentially be used against other municipal workers.
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