NEW YORK — The hostility toward New York Mayor Bill de Blasio that led police officers to stop enforcing laws on minor crimes and traffic violations will continue even after arrests and summonses start to climb, union leaders said.
Although labor leaders denied that police had stopped working, criminal summonses fell to 347 for the week ending Jan. 4, compared with 4,077 in the same week last year. In Manhattan, police and traffic agents issued just 104 parking tickets. In the same period a year ago, they handed out more than 4,200.
What police Commissioner Bill Bratton described as “a pretty widespread stoppage” appeared to be ending after more than two weeks. For the week ended Sunday, officers made 4,690 arrests, compared with 2,401 in the previous week. That’s still below the 7,508 in the same period a year ago.
“The overall takeaway is that the officers are going back to work,” Bratton told reporters Monday. “Crime is continuing to go down in the city in every borough, the subways, the housing developments.”
Although de Blasio has heaped praise on the department for keeping crime low, union leaders say they lack his support. There’s no consensus on how the rancor might let up.
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