…By putting rookie officers with more veteran officers. This should have been a no-brainer years ago. Partnering dumb with dumber — both right out of the police academy, both sometimes clueless white boys from Long Island — was never a brilliant idea (though even then it did help reduce crime). Rookie cops faced with quota pressure who could not distinguish class differences in the ghetto led to a lot of unwarranted stops, questionably legal marijuana arrests, and political backlash that hurt the NYPD. It also reinforcing the idea that foot patrol was just something to be endured before you got to become real police.
The story in the Daily News.