Budget cut-bolstered attrition set the Big Apple up for a “dramatic turn for the worse” as police officers have turned in their badges in staggering numbers.
A microcosm of the managed decline seen at the national level, New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ (D) succession to Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) in putting leftist agendas ahead of basic safety and operations measurably set the city back decades.
As resources were reallocated to accommodate the out-of-control influx of illegal aliens, disenchanted and disgruntled members of the NYPD continued resigning in droves, even as they were short of the requirements to receive full pensions, according to the NYPD pension data.
Reporting on the numbers through Oct. 31, 2023, the New York Post detailed that 2,516 officers had quit, “the fourth highest number in the past decade and 43% more than the 1,750 who hightailed it in 2018, before the pandemic and crime spikes hit the city.”
Of those, 1,040 were short of their 20 years of service for full pensions, a 104% increase from 2020, but down from the 1,524 the year prior.
Many departures were attributed to “inhumane amounts of forced overtime,” said Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Hendry who contended to the newspaper, “The workload is a leading factor driving people away from the job. If the NYPD is going to survive these staffing reductions, it cannot just keep squeezing cops for more hours.”
A graduate of the 2004 Police Academy told the Post anonymously, “I keep in contact with the guys that I was in the police academy with and we all have the same notion. I think maybe 95% of us are planning on leaving.”
Making matters worse, as part of Adams’ goal of 5% budget cuts to make up for hundreds of millions spent covering the expense of putting illegals up in hotels, the next five Police Academy classes were reportedly canceled. As a result, the force was expected to drop to around 29,000 officers through attrition by the end of fiscal year 2025, a size unseen since the mid-90s.
“We’ve been working an average of about 13 to 14 hours a day with a lot of the protests happening in the city. Enough is enough. I’ll have maybe one day off for the week and I’m so tired from work I don’t want to do anything,” the 45-year-old veteran lamented.
Even younger officers found themselves burning out as a 28-year-old with only four years on the job expressed, “the job is unbearable now” and he’s “looking to leave sooner than later.”
“The cops who left can’t believe they ever worked there,” said Queens native Spero Georgedakis, a former Miami SWAT officer who works to relocate NYPD officers to departments in Florida.
After getting 60 fed-up cops moved in the last two years, he detailed their sentiments as “afraid to make arrests” because of public backlash and assaults on cops increasing over 25% this year, according to a Post report from October, as well as a feeling of “shoveling sh*t against the tide” because of soft-on-crime policies that allow for recidivism.
Joseph Giacalone, a retired NYPD sergeant and John Jay College of Criminal Justice adjunct professor told the Post, “When you look at the number of resignations, you need to ask yourself why would the mayor ever consider making cuts to hiring in the NYPD? As the numbers continue to dwindle, things will take a dramatic turn for the worse.”
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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