Some precincts in the NYPD have quotas to fill and the Patrolmen's Benovolent Association allegedly sanctioned the quotas.

At the same time NYPD whistleblower Adrian Schoolcraft was secretly recording his supervisors in a Brooklyn precinct, an officer named Adil Polanco was doing the same thing a borough away in the Bronx.

Polanco, short in stature and a native of the Dominican Republic, and Schoolcraft, a native of Texas, come from different backgrounds, but they have a lot in common, particularly the belief that the NYPD's obsession with numbers distorts a police officer's job. Polanco, who was also making recordings to document what he saw as wrongdoing in his precinct, tells the Voice that many of the same things that Schoolcraft observed in Brooklyn's 81st Precinct were also taking place in the 41st Precinct in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx. He claims that supervisors constantly harangued cops to hit quotas for arrests, summonses, and stop-and-frisks, even when it meant harassing innocent civilians who were doing nothing wrong.

He claims that supervisors ordered officers to downgrade crime complaints and refuse to take complaints from civilians in order to manipulate crime statistics.

"It happened all the time," he says. "The reason was CompStat. They know what they are going to be asked for in CompStat, and they have to have a lower number—but not too low."

A sergeant whose voice is heard repeatedly on the tapes was indicted, along with an 81st Precinct officer, for filing false arrest paperwork. Sergeant Raymond Stukes and Officer Hector Tirado claimed they had seen a man illegally selling untaxed cigarettes from out of a backpack. That man turned out to be an undercover Internal Affairs officer. During one roll tape, dating back to December 8, 2008, Stukes tells his cops, "You gotta commit a felony to get fired from this job. How simple is that?" He goes on to suggest that cops who don't hit their numbers will be punished, and essentially tells them to do stop-and-frisks ("250s" in police parlance) solely for the purpose of making a number. "This job is so easy," he says. "Just keep the hounds off. A parker. A 250. Someone walking down the street. So what? I did a 250. What's the big deal? He doesn't want to give you his information? Who cares? It's still a 250." Previously, the Voice withheld the names of Stukes and other lieutenants and sergeants from publication in the series, but Stukes's indictment by a Brooklyn Grand Jury makes what he said on the tapes a matter of public interest. The Stukes indictment confirms the existence of a practice that Schoolcraft had complained about: that officers were being asked to make arrests when they had not actually seen the misconduct. But the motive for Stukes's alleged behavior remains a mystery. Police sources surmised that either he saw the arrest as another quota number, or he was simply cutting a key corner in the arrest process.

In one conversation, a Patrolmen's Benevolent Association delegate tells Polanco: "Twenty and one is what the union wants. . . . This is what the job is coming down to."

Later, another delegate tells cops in a roll call, "Things are not going to get any better. It is going to get a lot worse. If you think getting one and 20 is breaking your balls, guess what you're going to be doing? You're going to be doing a lot more. A lot more than what you think. This was all dealt with in the last contract."

This delegate is later heard to say: "This is not coming from me—this is coming from higher up. The unions agreed on it. We're unionized here. This is what we pushed through. And let's be smart about it. You gotta be smart about it."

In addition to Polanco and Bienz, two more police officers have come forward to make similar allegations, Schoolcraft's lawyer, Jon Norinsberg, says. Norinsberg requested that the Voice withhold the names of the officers. The officer alleges that as recently as last April, precinct supervisors were issuing actual quota numbers, and threatening to fire officers who didn't meet those quotas. This officer also alleges that the practice of downgrading complaints was a common occurrence.

The second officer, who labors in a Bronx precinct, claims that the downgrading of crime reports is a consistent practice that he called "shitcanning," Norinsberg says. Like Schoolcraft, this officer found reports that were questionable and followed up with victims. He claims that his precinct commander would file legitimate crime reports as "unfounded" so they wouldn't appear on the all-important precinct crime statistics.

Link:
http://www.villagevoice.com/2010-08-25/news/nypd-tapes-5-the-corroboration/5/