not expect there to be a dangerous downside. You really had to believe that the number of police officers does not matter. You had to subscribe to the theories coming out of the 1960s that there was little the police could do about crime because the police did not address the underlying causes of crime: poverty, racism, unemployment, homelessness. There was also the notion, since the Knapp Commission, that police officers should not deal with drugs, disorderly bars, and other so-called quality-of-life issues. Enforcement in these areas, it was assumed, only bred corruption; there was no nexus between low-level quality-crimes and “real crime.” Finally, there was the idea that low-quality-of-life enforcement, especially in ethnic minority areas, was an example of being judgmental and unfair. Enforcing minor violations such as open-container drinking, illegal social clubs, and low-level drug use (marijuana) was wrong. The police needed to be more sensitive to other cultures rather than engaging in strict enforcement. And there was the recognition that enforcing low-level quality-of-life violations was labor intensive and therefore distracted police from real crime. For example, if a police officer made an arrest for violation of the marijuana law, it meant that that police officer had to come off the street and be stuck in the station house, and then in court, when he could have been more viable out in the street.
Only with a mind-set like this could five thousand police officers be laid off without a whimper. Worse still, in addition to the five thousand laid-off officers, another five thousand officers were lost through attrition over the next five years. By 1980, the NYPD had only about twenty-one thousand police officers on payroll, as opposed to the thirty-thousand officers it had had in the mid-1970s. During all of this time, I do not remember any high-ranking police official speaking out against or resigning in protest of these layoffs. They, too, had bought into the idea that cops don't matter—that crime and disorder are beyond the ability of the police to affect.
With this thinking, is it any wonder that by the end of the decade New York City had the highest crime rate in its history? The police leadership failed to understand the direct connection between low-level, quality-of-life violations and serious crimes. They didn't understand that the failure to break up and arrest a small group rolling dice on the corner could prevent a homicide later that night when the loser of the game took back his money at gunpoint. They didn't understand that not dealing with unlicensed social clubs could lead to the deaths of eighty-seven people in a fire at one of those very clubs. They didn't understand that two seemingly harmless marijuana dealers could engage in a turf battle, guns blazing, at 5:30 P.M. in Bryant Park, killing a woman who was waiting for a bus to take her home after a hard day's work.
By the summer of 1977, I had spent a full eight years in the 44th Precinct and was ready for a change. I had worked very hard making hundreds of arrests while somehow managing to earn a bachelor's degree in American history from John Jay College. I then moved on to Fordham University, where I earned a master's degree, also in American history. Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep and the lines in my face were well earned. I had given serious thought to becoming a high school history teacher and, in fact, I did some per diem teaching at Pleasantville High School in Westchester County. That experience convinced me to stay in the NYPD.
Blackout
If the 1965 blackout was a romantic dream, the 1977 blackout was a nightmare.
In June 1977, I was transferred from the 44th Precinct to the Organized Crime Control Bureau, Narcotics Division, working out of the Bronx Narcotics Office located at the 50th Precinct in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. Our job was to investigate drug dealing, whether it was low level, medium level, or high level, within the borough of the Bronx. However, the fun part was that once you had initiated a case, usually with an informant, you went wherever that case took you. Early on, one of my “Bronx cases” took me to the Lower East Side of Manhattan and the Williamsburg area of Brooklyn, where I’d spend the better part of the next two years on it and other offshoot cases.
However, a month after my assignment to Bronx Narcotics Division, we had an interruption for about a week to assist in quelling the three days of rioting that surrounded the citywide blackout in July 1977. The power went off in the city around 7:00 or 7:30 P.M., while it was still daylight. As darkness descended, so did the marauding gangs who were looking to take advantage of a vulnerable city. Within hours fires were set and looting was taking place. Brand-new cars were driven through showroom windows of dealerships along Jerome Avenue in the Bronx. Similar episodes were taking place elsewhere in the city, especially in Brooklyn.
The police commissioner, Michael Codd, went on the radio that night and declared a citywide emergency and ordered all off-duty police officers to report to their precincts. This was easy for me since I both lived and worked in the Riverdale section. When we reported to our precincts, we were given little instruction, other than to go out into the streets and “help out.” We were really just showing the flag, with no real clear purpose in mind. Many arrests were made, but the mayhem continued well into the morning hours.
The next day the various staffs at headquarters would coordinate much more effectively the police response the following night. Or so they thought. I, along with my partner, George Kennedy, and a group of other officers, were shipped to Brooklyn while the Brooklyn narcotics officers were shipped to the Bronx. This didn't seem very effective to me; it seemed like a waste of time. Especially when it took my partners and me almost three hours to reach the precinct to which we were to report, getting lost in Brooklyn along the way and appearing twice at the same precinct—though not the one we were supposed to report to.
On the third day of the blackout we were redirected to report to the Bronx, in my case the 44th Precinct, which would have made sense from the beginning. Slowly but surely, there was a strong and visible police presence throughout the city, and things eventually returned to normal. But there had been a lot of damage, especially to the psyche of the city. People complained about the wanton lawlessness and vandalism surrounding the blackout. Just twelve years prior, in 1965, the city had faced a similar blackout but the citizens responded en masse, volunteering to assist and direct traffic in intersections. The 1965 blackout brought the city together in ways unimaginable. Romances began the night of that blackout, and, in fact, it even inspired a movie. While the 1965 blackout was a romantic fairy tale, the 1977 blackout was a horrific nightmare, during which storeowners were shot, businesses were burned, and the police response was inadequate.
There were a lot of reasons for the poor police response in 1977. The city had not seen serious civil unrest or a riot since the late 1960s. The police officials who had mastery of tactical and personal deployment had moved on, and the quiet seven-year interlude had provided no opportunity for “practice.” It was evident to me that there will always be a certain amount of chaos at the beginning of a major incident or flare-up. How long the chaos lasts largely depends upon planning and practice. The NYPD at the time had not really planned and certainly did not practice how to respond to such civil unrest. Numerous efforts were made to address these shortcomings over the next two decades. It was not until Ray Kelly became the police commissioner in 1992 that the police response to civil disorder was finally mastered.
In 1977, a young congressman by the name of Ed Koch was running for mayor. Koch had been troubled by the blackout, the uncivil way that many responded to and took advantage of the residents of New York City. He was upset with the inadequate response of the NYPD. His blunt style of confronting people who were rude, uncivil, and criminal was refreshing, and many in the city rallied behind him. Koch won the election and took office in January 1978. His wagging tongue and finger and his heavy New York accent became recognizable parts of his persona. The bluntness was charming, even endearing. Finally, it looked like someone was in charge at City Hall who was ready to restore order and civility.
Issues of civility and policing were important concerns in the early months of his administration. With the police response to the prior summer's blackout still in his mind, Koch asked a simple question: How many police officers are working in the city on any given day? The brass at One Police Plaza didn't have a clue. As a matter of fact, they didn't even have an
