City Council Aims To Reduce The NYPD s Footprint With Sweeping New Police Reforms
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The New York City Council announced on Friday that it plans to introduce a comprehensive bill package that would reduce the NYPD’s footprint in the city and improve police discipline and increase accountability.
Among the 11 proposals: stripping the police commissioner s final authority in disciplinary matters, ending qualified immunity for officers who commit misconduct, and giving the council the power to deny a mayor s choice for commissioner.
“Some of these issues, as I’ve been researching them, go back generations,” said one of the package s co-sponsors, Brooklyn Councilmember Stephen Levin. “So the police commissioner’s final authority on discipline that goes back 80 years.
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As the city s most impoverished borough, the Bronx has seen its deep-rooted problems exacerbated by the pandemic. It currently ranks as the state s unhealthiest county, with heart disease and obesity afflicting many in the borough. While the Bronx s unemployment rate stood at 4% in December 2019, it has soared as high as 24% during the pandemic, leaving scores of Bronx residents jobless.
But it doesn t mean all of the Bronx s successes have been obliterated. Construction of new residences remains strong across the borough, though other large-scale projects including the construction of four Metro-North stations along an existing Amtrak line and the Kingsbridge National Ice Center remain in limbo for at least five years.