When the City Council recently proposed hiring 1,000 cops at a cost of $94 million, NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton said the city would do just fine with the cops it has (by hiring more civilians and temporarily moving officers with desk jobs back onto the streets). However, on Monday Bratton said that upon further analysis, the city actually could use another 1,000 cops. He testified at a City Council oversight hearing that the officers are needed in part to cover shifts as 35,000 officers are retrained on the use of force in the wake of Eric Garner’s death. Mayor de Blasio said earlier this year that the city can’t afford more cops, and it’s unclear if Bratton warned him about his public reversal. A spokesman for de Blasio would only say, “The mayor and his team would review staffing and expenditure proposals received from every commissioner and department when the regular budget process begins next year.”
