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The New York City Police Department (NYPD) is structured into numerous bureaus and units. As a whole, the NYPD is headed by the Police Commissioner, a civilian administrator appointed by the Mayor, with the senior sworn uniformed officer of the service titled "Chief of Department". The Police Commissioner appoints a number of Deputy and Assistant Commissioners. The Department is divided into ten bureaus, six of which are enforcement bureaus. Each enforcement bureau is further sub-divided into sections, divisions, and units, and into patrol boroughs, precincts, and detective squads. Each Bureau is commanded by a Bureau Chief (such as the Chief of Patrol and the Chief of Housing). There are also a number of specialized units (such as the Operations Unit and CompStat) that are not part of any of the Bureaus and report to the Chief of the Department.
Contents
- Leadership
- Office of the Police Commissioner
- Office of the Chief of Department
- Structure
- Patrol Services Bureau
- Overview
- Police precincts
- Emergency Service Unit
- Aviation Unit
- Harbor Unit and Scuba Team
- Mounted Unit
- Auxiliary Police
- Transit Bureau
- Housing Bureau
- Transportation Bureau
- Highway Patrol
- Traffic Enforcement District
- Detective Bureau
- Special Victims Division
- Major Case Squad
- Anti Crime Unit
- Real Time Crime Center
- Strategic Response Group
- Technical Assistance Response Unit
- Movie and Television Unit
- Crime Scene Unit
- Popular culture
- Evidence Collection Teams
- School Safety Division
- Cadet Corps
- Paid Detail Unit
- Chaplains Unit
- References
Leadership
The Department is headed by and under the control of a civilian Police Commissioner, who is appointed by the Mayor of New York City. The current Police Commissioner is James P. O'Neill.
The Department's executive staff is divided into two areas: civilian and uniformed. The civilian staff are responsible for support services and departmental management, while uniformed officers investigate crimes and conduct law enforcement operations.
Office of the Police Commissioner
Office of the Chief of Department
Structure
The following is the Department's hierarchy (with rank insignia): As of February, 2017:
Patrol Services Bureau
Overview
The Patrol Services Bureau is one of the most visible units of the NYPD. The Bureau plans, directs, and coordinates the Department's uniformed officers in law enforcement patrol operations. Under the Chief of Patrol, there are eight Borough Commands, each headed by an Assistant Chief, with the exception of Patrol Bureau Manhattan South, which is currently headed by a 3-star chief. While each of the boroughs has at least one Patrol Borough Command, the boroughs of Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn have two commands due to their sizes. The Borough Commands exercise authority over the various seventy-seven Police Precincts.
Police precincts
Each patrol borough is composed of precincts. Each precinct is responsible for safety and law enforcement within a designated geographic area. Police units based in these precincts patrol and respond to emergencies.
Staten Island now has four precincts: the 120th, 121st (new as of 2013), 122nd, and 123rd. There are plans to begin construction in 2014 on a new building for the 120th precinct.
Queens South began operating a satellite for the large 105th precinct in the southern part of the precinct next to the Rosedale LIRR station in July 2007. This building was, until then, the quarters for the Queens South Task Force, the Queens South Auto-Larceny Unit, the Queens South Anti-Crime Unit, the Queens South Evidence Collection Team, and the Detective Bureau's Queens Major Case Squad.
Emergency Service Unit
The Emergency Service Unit, a component of the Special Operations Division, provides specialized support and advanced equipment to other NYPD units.
Members of "ESU" are cross trained in multiple disciplines for police and rescue work. The ESU Canine Unit helps with searches for perpetrators and missing persons. The Emergency Service Unit also functions as a Special Weapons and Tactics Unit (SWAT) and NYPD hostage negotiators assist and secure the safety of hostages. The Emergency Services Unit works with other departments such as the FDNY with water rescues, suicide-jumpers, structural collapse rescues, and vehicle accidents. The ESU also has jet skis and numerous Zodiac inflatable rafts assigned to units throughout the precincts of NYC.
Aviation Unit
Founded in 1928, it claims the distinction of being the oldest police aviation unit in the world, but there is a competing claim from the London Metropolitan Police Service ("The Met"). Based in Brooklyn, the Aviation Unit responds to various emergencies and tasks, supporting other units of the N.Y.P.D. Among its capabilities are the deployment of divers for water rescues. From a standing start, the unit claims it can be anywhere in the five boroughs within 15 minutes, but this has been disputed and is dependent on weather conditions and air traffic congestion.
Since 9/11 the department has undertaken a major overhaul of the Aviation Unit. Once equipped exclusively with Bell helicopters, it recently re-equipped its fleet with four Agusta A 119 Koala helicopters, and three Bell 412 helicopters. And more recently the department purchased four brand new Bell 429 helicopters, replacing the Agusta helicopters. The centerpiece is a $9.8 million "unmarked" helicopter, which can fly at night without lights. However, this function will require approval from the Federal Aviation Administration and local Air Traffic Control on a case-by-case basis, due to the hazards it could present in the heavily congested New York air corridors. The department has also purchased a state-of-the-art helicopter flight simulator, so officers can practice flying without actually having to take up a helicopter. In 2011 the department said they had .50 caliber machine guns capable of shooting down light planes.
Famed US cyclist Mile-a-Minute Murphy claimed to be the first police officer able to fly a plane in the US (possibly the entire world) as of 1914 as a member of the NYPD. He envisioned the use of airplanes to fight crime around the same time, though the Aviation Unit came into being 11 years after Murphy retired.
Harbor Unit and Scuba Team
On March 15, 1858, five members of the New York City Police Department rowed out into New York Harbor to combat piracy aboard merchant ships lying at anchor. The NYPD Harbor Unit has existed ever since, protecting life and property. With hundreds of miles of inland waterways to cover, the unit operates over 36 boats from four bases.
For underwater work, the department used to contract with private diving companies when weapons or other evidence had to be recovered from the bottom of New York's many rivers and waterways. In the early 1970s, however, the Harbor Unit formed a specialized scuba team that today numbers around 30 officers. Unlike many police dive units, whose members dive only part-time, NYPD divers are assigned to the unit full-time. (The exception are some scuba-trained officers in regular patrol units who are detailed to the team temporarily during the busy summer months.) In addition to the normal duties of evidence recovery, the Scuba Team's mission has expanded since 9/11 to include a counter-terrorism role. For air-sea rescue work, the Harbor Unit keeps two divers assigned to the Aviation Unit 24 hours a day, seven days per week, all year round. These divers will work with their counterparts in the FDNY, who arrive at incidents by fireboat or rescue company.
Mounted Unit
The NYPD Mounted Unit was created in 1858 and is used today in the Patrol units. The unit has 80 human uniformed officers and supervisors and approximately 75 horses.
Auxiliary Police
The NYPD has a reserve police force known as the Auxiliary Police. NYPD Auxiliary Police officers complete a training Academy designated by the NYS Municipal Police Training Council as "part time peace officer" training course. In accordance with New York State law Auxiliary Police Officers are equipped with Police batons. They also carry Police radios and in accordance with NYC administrative code they carry handcuffs. They assist the Police Department with uniformed patrols and provide crowd and vehicular control at special events, accidents, and fire scenes.
Transit Bureau
The NYPD Transit Bureau is a part of the NYPD that patrols and responds to emergencies within the New York City transit system. Its responsibility includes the New York City Subway network in Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens. However, there are certain units that have citywide responsibilities such as the Homeless Outreach Unit and the Vandals Task Force.
The Transit Bureau is divided into Transit Borough Commands. These Borough Commands generally follow the boundaries of the City's geographical boroughs, although there are some notable exceptions. Since there are no subways on Staten Island, there are only four Transit Boroughs: Queens, Bronx, Brooklyn, and Manhattan. Each Transit Borough is further divided into Transit Districts.
As a general rule, each Borough is commanded by an Inspector while Transit Districts tend to be commanded by Captains. The NYPD Detective Bureau investigates all crimes that occur in Transit. Each borough office has assigned detectives from the Detective Bureau similar to the Precinct Detective Squad. As of June 15, 2006 all detectives assigned to investigate transit crimes fall under a unified command [Central Robbery Section] of the Detective Bureau's Special Investigations Division.
Housing Bureau
The Housing Bureau is responsible for providing the security and delivery of police services to 420,000 residents, employees and guests of public housing (projects) throughout New York City. They are stationed in Police Service Areas (PSA), which are almost identical to police precincts, with nine PSAs in total located throughout the five boroughs. Officers often do interior patrols, making sure illegal activity does not take place in the halls, stairways, or the roof.
Transportation Bureau
The Transportation Bureau's responsibilities include traffic enforcement, traffic management, and highway safety.
Special units within the New York City Police Department Transportation Bureau include the Highway Patrol, Traffic Management Center, Traffic Operations District, Citywide Traffic Task Force and the Traffic Enforcement District.
Highway Patrol
The New York City Police Department Highway Patrol is a specialized unit under the auspices of the NYPD's Transportation Bureau primarily responsible for patrolling and maintaining traffic safety on limited-access highways within New York City. The NYPD Highway Patrol's other duties and roles include collision investigations, advanced driver and radar training for NYPD officers, field sobriety testing, dignitary and parade escorts, hazardous material and truck traffic enforcement, anti-drag racing programs, and anti-terrorist checkpoints at key bridges and intersections in the city.
The Transportation Bureau also included the Transit Division from 1997 to 1999. That division was upgraded to bureau status, as it once had from 1995 to 1997 and again in 1999.
Traffic Enforcement District
NYPD Traffic Enforcement has many duties including directing traffic, enforcing parking regulations, towing vehicles, providing highway assistance, and enforcing laws related to roadway construction. The men and women in Traffic Enforcement are referred to as Traffic Enforcement Agents (TEAs), and wear uniforms similar to the uniform worn by School Safety Agents, although with a distinctive white uniform cap. There are four levels of Traffic Enforcement Agents with each level handling different duties. Level 1 agents focus on parking regulation enforcement, Level 2 agents focus on directing traffic, Level 3 agents focus on towing vehicles, and Level 4 perform a variety of duties, including specialized enforcement such as street construction permits or truck weight regulations. Only TEAs of Level 4 status have peace officer powers, which allows them to carry handcuffs and make warrantless arrests. TEAs of Level 1–3 status have the authority to issue summonses for parking and moving violations, but no other authority. Older Traffic Enforcement vehicles are dark blue or black with white decals and newer vehicles are white with light blue decals. Like School Safety Agents, non-supervisor TEAs wear badges that are oval with an eagle on top, in contrast to the shield worn by police officers and the seven point star worn by Auxiliary officers.
Detective Bureau
Special Victims Division
The Special Victims Division created in 2003 oversees all the borough Special Victims Squads. The Special Victims Division is part of the New York City Police Department Detective Bureau and investigates the following types of cases:
Additional sub-units of the Special Victims Division are listed below:
The television series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit describes fictionalizations of some of the Special Victims Division's cases.
Major Case Squad
The Major Case Squad, which is a unit within the Special Investigation Division of the New York City Police Department Detective Bureau, is located at One Police Plaza in Manhattan. It handles the following cases:
Unlike the fictional Major Case Squad as depicted in Law & Order: Criminal Intent, the squad does not investigate homicides.
Anti-Crime Unit
Anti-Crime Unit is a unit that is located in all precincts, transit districts (TD), and housing police service areas (PSA). These officers perform patrol services work in their respective command. They are generally tasked differently from a typical uniformed patrol unit. Unlike uniformed patrol units whose main goal is to provide a visible presence in the streets in an effort to deter crime, Anti-Crime Unit specializes in undercover operations and tries to avoid detection in an effort to spot criminals during criminal activity in order to arrest them. Anti-Crime officers, unlike patrol units, are not required to handle typical radio runs, such as accidents, disputes, and general policing calls that uniformed officers are called on for a majority of their jobs. Anti-Crime officers are typically tasked with finding felony suspects, such as those possessing weapons, or committing recurring crimes in the area. If a certain crime is spiking in an area, such as burglary, Anti-Crime officers will be tasked with finding those responsible, usually through following the suspects.
To find street criminals it is important for Anti-Crime officers to not be easily spotted. Anti-Crime officers therefore typically (though not always) wear plainclothes that match the clothing common to the area. They will always patrol in unmarked vehicles, that cannot be identified at first glance. Some vehicles are simply street appearance editions of standard police vehicles such as the Ford Crown Victoria, Chevrolet Impala, and Ford Taurus. However, they can also use vehicles that are not typically vehicles used by law enforcement, including Honda Accords, Jeep Cherokees, and others. These officers sometimes work in uniform depending on the nature of their assignment.
In the past, Anti-Crime functions were conducted by the city-wide Street Crimes Unit. However, after several police involved shootings where the cops had their trials conducted in the media, although they were all acquitted at trial, a notoriety gained from its reputation of aggressive tactics, it was disbanded and replaced by Anti-Crime units that serve the same purpose but fall under the command of the special operations sergeants, lieutenants, or captains in their respective precincts.
Real Time Crime Center
Located on the second floor of Police Headquarters, at One Police Plaza, the Real Time Crime Center is essentially a data warehouse and search engine operated by a staff of detectives that assists in providing relevant and timely information to officers conducting an investigation. The computer network stores facts about convicted persons, suspects, encounters, nicknames and items of seemingly trivial value whose correlation could assist in an investigation. The computer network's control room can display real-time satellite and surveillance camera images and hosts a wireless link to police vehicles equipped to generate sketches at crime scenes and transmit them for comparison to stored data.
Strategic Response Group
The Strategic Response Group are organized within each borough and specialize in rapid mobilization. The Strategic Response Group responds to citywide mobilizations, civil disorders and major events with equipment and trained teams. Maintain order by implementing effective crime and crowd control strategies.
The Strategic Response Group conducts daily counterterrorism deployments in conjunction with other Department units based upon current intelligence and threat assessments. Identify and suppress terrorist surveillance of targets through mobile deployment teams. Respond quickly and decisively to terrorist incidents or threats.
The Strategic Response Group can be deployed to precincts and zones as designated by the Chief of Patrol to supplement patrol resources or other Department initiatives.
Technical Assistance Response Unit
The Technical Assistance Response Unit (TARU) provides investigative technical equipment and tactical support to all bureaus within the department, in addition they also provide assistance to other city, state and federal agencies. The unit also deals with several forms of computer forensics. The unit is based in NYPD headquarters at One Police Plaza.
Movie and Television Unit
Founded in 1966, the NYPD Movie/TV Unit was the first of its kind in the country. Because of its relationship with the NYPD, the unit has the greatest knowledge on how to assist productions, particularly with complex shooting situations, in a city that is dense with vehicular and pedestrian traffic. In addition to this expertise, their services are free to productions filming in the city.
Whether it conducts filming on bridges, highways, or busy intersections, the unit controls traffic to ensure that companies can get shots that may otherwise be impossible. Also, the city's many police related shows, such as Law & Order and Third Watch, generate "crime scenes" which are supervised by the Movie/TV Unit. The unit's responsibilities do not end there; the unit also monitors child work permits, stunts, prop firearms, placement of equipment, pedestrian safety, and parking.
While filming on busy New York City streets presents countless challenges, the unit has, over the years, developed a strong working relationship with the film industry. The unit makes an effort to ensure that New York City remains a popular location for filming.
Until the election of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in 1994, the unit occasionally assisted with pornographic productions. But Giuliani put a stop to this as part of his effort to clean up the streets of New York City. In 1997, porn producer Michael Lucas filed a lawsuit against the Police Department and Giuliani citing discriminating practices used by the Movie/TV Unit against porn productions. The lawsuit was dropped in September 1998 when a district judge granted a motion to dismiss on behalf of the NYPD.
Crime Scene Unit
The Crime Scene Unit (CSU) is a unit within the Forensic Investigations Division of the New York City Police Department Detective Bureau.
The Unit is responsible for forensic investigations of all homicides and sexual assaults, as well as other crimes as deemed necessary by an investigating supervisor. Members of the Crime Scene Unit assist the precinct detectives in the processing of a crime scene as well as determining the proper routing of evidence between the NYC Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, the NYPD Police Lab and the NYPD Property Clerk.
The Crime Scene Unit is composed of NYPD detectives (or occasionally police officers that are awaiting their promotion to detective), not civilian technicians like crime scene units in other parts of the U.S. Generally these detectives come from an Evidence Collection Team which is operated at the borough level. The Crime Scene Unit covers all of the boroughs of New York City, but is staffed with less than 1% of the total number of detectives in the NYPD.
The Crime Scene Unit has many tools to process a crime scene, including the materials needed to develop fingerprints, cast footwear and tire impressions, follow the trajectory of bullets fired through windows and the chemicals necessary to observe blood under special lighting conditions that would otherwise be invisible to the naked eye. The unit is also trained to process a crime scene in a hazardous environment, for example following a nuclear, biological or chemical attack.
Popular culture
The CSU is the primary focus of the CBS TV drama CSI: NY, and has been occasionally featured on both CSI: Miami and CSI: Cyber. CSU is also featured on Law & Order, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and Law & Order: Trial By Jury, though it is not the primary focus of these series.
Evidence Collection Teams
The Evidence Collection Teams are tasked with the collection of evidence at crime scenes in their respective boroughs that are not determined to be at the level necessary to require the Crime Scene Unit. Each patrol borough (Manhattan South, Manhattan North, Bronx, Staten Island, Queens North, Queens South, Brooklyn North, and Brooklyn South) has their own Evidence Collection Team under the control of the respective borough commander. The Evidence Collection Teams are staffed by police officers, sergeants and usually headed by a Lieutenant.
The Evidence Collection Teams were started in Manhattan South by Lt. James Robert (Ret.) to take some of the pressure off the Crime Scene Unit and the precinct detective squads by forming a forensic unit to bridge the gap between precinct latent print officers and the Crime Scene Unit. The Evidence Collection Team processes crime scenes pertaining to burglaries, robberies, assaults where the victim is not likely to die, felonious larcenies and other crimes as directed by the duty captain.
Many of the police officers that originally started in the Evidence Collection Team have gone on to transfer to the Crime Scene Unit and become detectives. This transfer is difficult, due to the change from the Patrol Services Bureau to the Detective Bureau, as well as the fact that there are over 150 members of the various Evidence Collection Teams usually vying for one or two slots in Crime Scene.
Although Crime Scene is expected to handle many of the newsworthy or high-profile cases in the city, quite often the Manhattan South Evidence Collection Team is called out to jobs in the Midtown Manhattan area that involve celebrities and wind up on the cover of national newspapers. Recent examples of this include the shooting involving Remy Ma (the rapper) as well as the incident involving Sean "Puffy" Combs and Jennifer Lopez in December 1999.
School Safety Division
The School Safety Division is the school police force for New York City Department of Education schools. The agency is a division of the New York City Police Department, and is one of the largest law enforcement agencies in New York City.
Cadet Corps
The New York City Police Department Cadet Corps is a form of internship with the New York City Police Department. The program is open to New York City residents who are enrolled in college and have completed 15 or more credits. Residents who have not yet completed a 15 credit requirement are able to join under certain circumstances.
Paid Detail Unit
The Paid Detail Unit is a program within the New York City Police Department allowing private corporations to hire NYPD police officers for security duties. The program was introduced in 1998, allowing off-duty officers to wear their uniforms while earning money in second jobs at sports venues, financial institutions and other places of business.
Chaplains Unit
The Chaplains Unit is made up of the police chaplains of the New York City Police Department. The chaplains wear the uniform of the NYPD, with added insignia of their faith group, but do not have police powers. There are currently nine chaplains of the NYPD made up of seven Christian chaplains, one Jewish chaplain, and one Muslim chaplain.