De Blasio Hired More Police to Head Off Political Fallout, Sources Say
(DNAINFO) Murray Weiss, Jeff Mays and Trevor Kapp — Mayor Bill de Blasio’s change of heart to allot funds to hire 1,300 more police officers was partially spurred by a fear he’d never make it to a second term if the public believed he wasn’t doing enough to halt a steady uptick in crime citywide — including atroubling rise in murders and shootings, sources said.
De Blasio, who was elected on a wave of anti-stop-and-frisk sentiment, had repeatedly dismissed both the rising crime numbers and the call for more officers, telling reporters earlier this month that the uptick in crime would be easily “overcome.”
He argued that the city’s force of 34,500 police officers had been freed up to focus on serious crime because the city reduced stop-and-frisk, shrank low-level marijuana arrests and added gunshot detection technology.
But with the number of shootings so far this year up more than 6 percent, and the number of murders jumping by double digits, the mayor found himself increasingly squeezed by the crime stats — as well as by pressure to hire more officers from Police Commissioner Bill Bratton and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark Viverito.