Mayor Eric Adams wants the NYPD to walk patrols on city subways alone to cover more ground — which would end a safety protocol put in place in the wake of the assassination of two police officers nearly a decade ago.
“We are determined to single patrol,” Adams said Friday morning. “What that is going to allow us to do is now utilize our resources in the omnipresence that we have been talking about.
“When we made every patrol a dual patrol, we cut our department basically in half,” he added.
Adams said the move was not a budget decision but came from Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell’s internal review.
The partnered patrols were initiated in 2014 to add a layer of safety for cops after NYPD Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos were ambushed in broad daylight while sitting in a marked police car on a Brooklyn street corner.
Solo transit patrols were abandoned because they make it harder for cops to protect straphangers and ourselves,” PBA president Patrick Lynch said. “They’re even less effective now that criminals know there are no consequences for fighting cops and resisting arrest.”
One cop said the mayor’s characterization was a bit misleading and believed it was a clear move to cut down on overtime in transit, where cops can log 40 to 60 hours of extra pay each month.
“They’re really not single [patrols] since they’re across the platform in view of their partner,” the source said. “They can’t stand next to each other and be on the same platform.”
They added the change was aimed at reducing cops clustering on subway platforms.
Indeed, moments after the mayor’s unrelated press conference in the Bronx, a Post reporter spotted at least seven cops huddled together at the Third Avenue–149th Street station.
Other rank-and-file cops were “pissed” and taken by surprise by the mayor’s comments.
“The NYPD continues to assess conditions in the New York City Transit System and will continue to adjust deployments as appropriate,” an NYPD spokesperson said.