It was a glorious day in Rockaway Beach yesterday – with the sun and blue sky blatantly defying meteorologists who had forecast a Fathers Day washout.
After thousands of beachgoers headed home and residents had settled into their beds for a short summer nap, the neighborhood suddenly felt as if it had been thrust into an apocalyptic cop movie from the 1970's.
Police helicopters circled the neighborhood; a woman apparently had been shot in the leg and the suspect was on the loose.
For about ninety minutes, the search took over the night; an entire neighborhood was dominated by the noise of the helicopter with its spotlight training down on several streets.
The suspect was apparently caught and the silence slowly returned but it was an unsettling way to end the weekend.
Take this story and multiply it across dozens of neighborhoods where shootings are up for the second year in a row. In the wake of those scary nights, it would be a smart practical and political move by Mayor de Blasio to go ahead with the City Council's plan to increase the size of the police force.
While adding 1,000 new cops doesn't automatically solve any problems, it's an easy way for City Hall to show that crime is on its mind – and that the mayor did something when things got a little scarier. The city's last Democratic mayor before de Blasio – David Dinkins – still wonders if he would have been re-elected if only he had expanded the size of the NYPD a little sooner.
The Wall Street Journal's Josh Dawsey reports today that the mayor and the City Council are close to a handshake deal that would get more cops hired if police overtime is somehow capped. It's a no-brainer of a move that may get a little pushback from police unions depending on the overtime limits.
Regardless, de Blasio must remember that all of his other policy proposals are put in jeopardy if New Yorkers don't feel safe. Let's keep those scary movies set in the 1970s.
Bob Hardt