If you visit New York, it may be common to see a couple of NYPD officers talking to each other while at a traffic stop or on patrol. New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a former police officer, is fed up with seeing that. An internal memo is said to have gone around the department saying officers should stop hanging out in groups and avoid making “chitchat,” as the New York Daily News points out. It’s a slight revision to their Police Patrol Guide, ensuring cops “do not waste time on the job” and “enhance officer safety, deployment strategies and optimize presence in the field.”
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“Police officers and supervisors will be held strictly accountable for these provisions,” the order reads. “Patrol supervisors are required to ensure that members of the service are not congregating, or engaging in unnecessary conversation, absent police necessity when visiting members of the service.”
In a recent video on Twitter, Mayor Adams is seen talking to a commander about how he didn’t like seeing officers bunched up in a quiet area. “How about scattering out, so we ensure safety and deploy personnel? We have not been deploying our personnel correctly.”
During his campaign, Adams voiced disappointment in how cops were bunched up throughout the subway system. Soon after he took office, Mayor Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul enacted a subway safety plan to increase the number of patrol officers and help the city’s ridership. Although there have been some concerns these measures have unfairly targeted people of color.
“Cops should not be sitting around fare gates on their phones,” Adams said at the time. “I don’t think police officers are lazy. I don’t think they’re soft. I believe the right leadership would deploy them in the right manner to cover more ground.”
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