Mayor de Blasio, Police Commissioner Bratton Announce CompStat 2.0

February 23, 2016

Video available at: https://youtu.be/nYamSw2Rby0

Police Commissioner William Bratton: Are you all ready? Welcome. 21 years ago next month, CompStat – the now-world famous system – was born here at One Police Plaza, initiated by Jack Maple and Chief of Patrol Lou Anemone. It transformed this department, this city, and, in many ways, helped to transform American policing. 

The CompStat system, as initially conceived, was an accountability management system to hold percent commanders accountable for crime in their precinct. And the intent was to share crime information throughout the department, so the leadership of the department, working with precinct commanders, could focus additional attention and resources on identified, growing crime problems and trends – stop a pattern or trend at three or four incident rather than 20 or 30 over a period of time.

CompStat over the years has evolved from the original – really, pushpin maps that we were working with – acetate covers – on through the Hewlett Packard computer that was the first device that attempted to collate large amounts of information, to the incredibly sophisticated computer systems that we now use. The evolution also includes the recent expansion of technology into our police cars and into the hands of every police officer in the NYPD. In March of this year, two years after we announced the initiative, we will be issuing the last of the 36,000 smartphones that were specifically created for this department and custom designed. One of the features on that smartphone will be our officers will have access to the CompStat information that, up until now, has largely been shared within the confines of headquarters at CompStat sessions once a week in this building. 

Today, we are announcing the next evolution of CompStat – CompStat 2.0 as it’s been named by Jesse Tisch, our Deputy Commissioner for Information and Technology, and as designed by her and her team here at Police Headquarters. CompStat 2.0 has the ability to take all of our CompStat information that’s discussed in our CompStat meetings, all of the information, with few exceptions, that’s shared with our police officers, and now share it with both you, the media, and to the public, most importantly. The ability of somebody in their neighborhood to go on a computer, to bring up the CompStat information and see what is happening in their neighborhood in literally real time, specifically as it relate to the major crimes in their neighborhoods. 

What we’re going to do today – Mayor de Blasio will speak in a moment. Jesse Tisch, the Deputy Commissioner, will explain the system and give some examples of it. Additionally, the smartphone technology I referenced – those 36,000 smartphones – we are farther ahead than any police department in American on that technology and will begin to share it with all of our colleagues in American policing. We’re going to give you four examples of how that smartphone technology is evolving into an essential tool, much the same as the walkie talkies every officer carries – an essential tool in how they go about dealing with crime in the city in a contemporary way, and by that I mean in the 21st century with 21st century tools.

I want to compliment Jesse Tisch and her people on this evolution, on this development – a remarkable accomplishment. And I certainly want to thank Mayor de Blasio and the funding that’s been provided to acquire this – along with Cy Vance and the District Attorney’s office. 

With that, before introducing Jesse to explain and give a demonstration on the system, let me please introduce to you Mayor Bill de Blasio. 

Sir?

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you so much, Commissioner. And, Commissioner, this is, I know, the kind of thing you love to do – take the approaches that are considered innovative and cutting edge, and then go even farther. This has been a hallmark of your leadership – looking for the next great innovation, looking for the way to make this the most modern and effective police force in the entire country. And you and your team continue to prove day-in and day-out that we can go farther, we can do things even better than before. And this is the brilliance of the NYPD – that ability to constantly innovate and improve. 

I want to thank you for your leadership. And I want people in this city to know, this is another step towards being the strongest, best police force for the 21st century anywhere in this country, anywhere in the world, in fact, because we’re using technology in new and better ways, and ways that are going to help the people in this city to see the work of the NYPD every single day.

I want to thank all the leaders of the NYPD who are present, including, of course, Chief Jimmy O’Neill, Chief of Department. And I want to thank the officers who are with us. We had the opportunity to meet all of them. I want to thank all of them for what they do for this city. They’re also on the frontline of using this new technology, and they’re helping us to ensure it’s working best for our officers. So, we have officers here from the 7-3, 6-1, 1-9, and 6-7 Precincts – we thank them all. 

And someone who’s been supportive of these important innovations, and has really been a strong voice in the City Council to make sure NYPD had all it needs to keep innovating – the Chair of the Public Safety Committee in the City Council, Vanessa Gibson. Thank you for your leadership. 

I want you to know that this is part of why the NYPD works so well – this constant focus on going farther. You know, you saw the statistics over the last two years – major crime down almost six percent because of the work of these good men and women. Safest January ever since we’ve been keeping records – this last January, the safest we’ve ever had. February – we’re off to a great, great start – great numbers and great progress – reducing murders, reducing shootings. NYPD is getting stronger all the time, and CompStat – history will show CompStat was the beginning of this great turnaround that’s now been going on for well over 20 years and is making such an impact on the everyday life of New Yorkers. 

22 years ago, Commissioner Bratton, working with the brilliant Jack Maple, started us on this road that changed all of our lives for the better, but it would not be in keeping with their spirit and their approach if we weren’t trying to constantly go farther and innovate more. So, the theory that undergirded CompStat – figure out the trends, figure out the patterns, figure out how to apply your resources where they were needed most – we’re going to go even farther now that we have CompStat 2.0.

As you know, CompStat has been pick up on all over the country. It’s now considered the best way to do things. And now, I imagine when police forces all over the country see this new approach, they’re going to want to follow it as well. We want people to know what’s going on in their neighborhoods. We want them to see the efforts of the police to address problems. We want that transparency. We want them to see the good news too – the way police continue to drive down crime in the neighborhoods. CompStat 2.0 is part of our larger commitment to making the NYPD the most technologically advanced force in the world – that’s so important for the protection of our officers, that’s so important for fighting every-day crime, it’s so important for fighting terror. All of these pieces come together in our focus on technologies. So, as of today, 25,000 of our officers have smartphones – almost 70 percent of the force. As you heard from the Commissioner, by March, that will be everyone – 1,300 police cars have tablets. It allows everyone in the force to be on the same page – the same information, the same suspect descriptions instantly – instantly transmitted across the whole force – that’s revolutionary. That’s going to allow us to get bad guys who eluded us in the past. That’s going to allow for a much safer city. 

You know, what officers have tried to do in the past with limited information has been extraordinary – the effect on crime, the driving down of crime, without all the tools our officers deserved. Now, with these new tools, they’ll be able to go much, much farther. And it’s going to help in the relationship between police and community too, because one of the things we’re emphasizing under the new neighborhood policing strategy is the constant communication between community members and the police who serve them. We want community members to get to know the police. We want community members to feel free to call the police officer they know with tips, with ideas on where there might be problem so we can stop crime, in many cases, before it happens. This is going to facilitate that as well.

I want to offer my congratulations to Deputy Commissioner Tisch, and all of those who have worked on this initiative. We’re going to see the fruits of your labor, and your team’s labor, very soon as this becomes a city that’s even safer because our officers have the very best technology.

Quickly in Spanish –

[Mayor de Blasio speaks in Spanish] 

Thank you, Commissioner. 

[…]

Commissioner Bratton: I might digress for a moment and talk about this device. I came into policing in 1970. In 1970, the Boston Police Department was just beginning to field test what we call walkie talkies. They look like something out of World War II – the size and they weigh about three pounds. In my precinct, if you wanted to call for assistance if you were out on post, you’d have to go find a call box, open the call box, and inside the call box was a two-piece phone – mouth piece and something like out of the 1920s. When you’re making a call, you hoped that somebody would not come along and slam the door on your head while you had your head in the box. If they wanted to find you when you were on your post, they would light the little red light on the top of the call box. And you would be reminded by the sergeant at the end of roll call – watch the lights, boys, watch the lights. Meaning if we wanted you to give you a call, you would respond to that call box and get your call. Then these came along – 1971. We only had about four of them in the police precinct for normally about 30 of us going out on roll call and about 20 of us on walking posts. We would run like hell out of the station so we wouldn’t get assigned one of these walkie talkies. One, it weighed about three pounds. And two, they could find you with the walkie talkie. How far we have come – there is no police officer in his right mind that would leave and go on patrol without this device today or increasingly without this device here. So in 45 years – how far we have come.

Mayor: That’s right. Thank you very much. Excellent. Well, I just want to thank the Commissioner and thank Jessie. This is just extraordinary progress. And those examples Jessie – I want to commend you and all the officers. I hope all of you will tell the people of New York City about the exceptional work of our officers. But look at how quickly in each case a perp was caught who might have been missed in the past. Look at the immediate change this is making, which I think is extraordinary. We are going to take questions on the topic on this announcement and then we’ll take other police-related questions after that.

Question: Commissioner Bratton, in 1971 [inaudible] put you in the car, chasing 9-1-1 calls, instead of walking the beat in the neighborhood. Does this represent the future of policing [inaudible]?

Commissioner Bratton: Sure, I’ve been around so long – I’ve gone through four revolutions in the evolution – and the idea of being here in the NYPD in 2016 as we finish the initial implementation of the issuance of these phones. But what you heard here today was not just the pride we have, and creating and developing all the specialized apps, and we will be taking it to American policing – because everything we have, we’ll be sharing – but the creativity to which the officers are putting its use. The idea of being able to program it so they get alerts about burglar alarms in progress. In every instance I think, the officers had tremendous amounts of information about the call before it was ever dispatched. In our busy precincts that are so busy that what you run out of is air time. You in this room understand air time. You only get so much of it on the 6 o’clock newscast. In a busy precinct, there’s only so much time that can be spent sending it out. This will revolutionize certainly the operations of the NYPD, but these devices will as this began to revolutionize it in the 70s – this certainly will – officer safety, public safety, as well as officer job satisfaction that they have tools to work with.

Mayor: Yes – note from a public point of view too – for the public now to have this level of transparency. NYPD is very comfortable offering this transparency because they are doing a great job, because they want the public to be their partners. They have no problem with people knowing when something’s going on, so we can work with the community to address it. But on top of that – of all the amazing things that Jesse just said. Think about that one point that just two years ago, these professionals did not as a general rule have an email that people could reach them or they could reach people with or a phone number that went right to them. Think about all the ways that hindered there work, whereas that powerful example of the domestic violence victim who can call an officer she trusted directly and this time the arrest happened that didn’t happen in the past. We’re seeing examples of that through this extraordinary neighborhood policing strategy – where individual residents are saying I want the officer I know to know about someone who has committed a crime, might commit a crime, might have a gun. That information’s invaluable to our police and now have the tools to actually get that information with.

Question: Do you feel comfortable about the level of transparency [inaudible] rapes along a bus route [inaudible]

Mayor: I’ll says as the civilian here – I think it’s very important for the public to see what’s going on and to also see the efforts that NYPD is making to address the situation. Now, we also have to be clear. There could be different types of situations in each case. If we all know – it could be a stranger rape, it could be unfortunately a domestic situation. There’s all sorts of different permutations and we’re going to always explain to people what we’re dealing with in each situation. But I think information is power for everyone – certainly for our residents to know what’s going on so they can be part of the solution. And we want them to share information. One thing I think will happen is the more they see, the more they’ll tell the police. The more they’ll share with police the information they have and that will make for better policing.

Commissioner Bratton: All of you who routinely cover the police department are familiar with our plan of action on the five T’s that inform that – the strategies – terrorism, trust, technology, training, and the issue of the new tactics enabled policing. There’s actually a sixth T that basically embraces all of those, and that’s transparency. Because everything we’re doing is about opening about the department to the greatest degree possible in a very timely fashion. As Jessie indicated, the public will actually be getting the information that’s discussed every Thursday morning here at the CompStat room up on the eighth floor a day before it’s actually discussed by the police leaders. Those police leaders will be getting it and they’ll be working on it but the department looking at it in total will literally be almost simultaneous with the public. So, the transparency that we’re attempting to bring to you in the media and certainly to the public is in many respects unprecedented because the technology that we’re requiring, the training we’re giving to our officers, and the basically, the trust that we’re trying to build with the public that there’s nothing to hide here. It is what it is. Crime goes up, it goes down, but it will go down a lot faster if everybody is aware of it, and everybody is sharing information about what is happening. 

Mayor: Amen, amen. Yes?

Question: [Inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: Well, actually, dispatch function’s going to be changing anyway. We will be later this year opening the brand new state-of-the-art 9-1-1 facility up in the Bronx that when you match that system up against what we have in Brooklyn, you’ll see the evolution over the last 15 years in 9-1-1. One of those evolutions is the mapping of our police cars, where we can see every police car in the city, where it is in real time. Dispatchers will soon have that capability, so even as they’re taking in 9-1-1 calls, they’ll be able to see well what is the actual closest police car to that call and is it available. Even as the cops are getting the information that she’s looking at – actually almost before she’s looking at it. And it’s no, you’re only beginning to see with these four stories – the blending of – think of the blending – ShotSpotter, officers arrived, shell casings, smart phone, get information on warrants, go downstairs, knock on the door, if there’s a warrant for the person answering the door, they get in the apartment, live rounds on the table, get a search warrant over the smartphone again, make an arrest, two guns recovered. The blending of the technology that we’re requiring – just the two years the investment that the mayor, the City Council are making in this department. There’s never been a time in the history of the department where so much is being invested in giving our cops the tools to work with. It’s that simple.

Mayor: Amen.

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor: I’m not speaking – I want that advice to come from P-D. I want to make a broader point and let the Commissioner and his team answer that very specifically. But I do want you to understand, the amount of change happening here is extraordinary. And what’s happening with neighborhood policing. We’ve heard these stories and they’re incredibly moving. The way our officers have bonded with community members, thus leading the community members to want to get them tips. We’ve heard stories of arrests that wouldn’t have happened. We’ve heard stories of guns taken off the streets that wouldn’t have been taken off the streets if it wasn’t for that kind of communication. So, where it’s appropriate, and an officer makes the decision to share their phone number with someone and say I want to hear from you – that’s because the officer has made the assessment that that’s going to lead to a valuable interchange of information. And that’s going to again that to me thinking like any other professional – information’s power. If someone who has knowledge of a situation gives you that tip in time, it can make a world of difference. You can speak to how you want it handled.

Commissioner Bratton: Next phases of what we’re talking about would be the complainant actually being able to give be given a complaint number by the officer at the scene of the report and then being able to get a copy of that complaint number  by going online, saving the trip down to the station house to get it – same for accident reports. So the spin-offs if you will of this technology as far as customer satisfaction being able to get a report very quickly for insurance purposes, having contact information with offices who we mail our cell phone. Our neighborhood coordinating officers, as you know, are out of there. And one of the benefits that they’re able to give to the public is the accessibility through those devices that we’re talking about.

Question: [Inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: Well you’ve already seen the stories that we just relayed about the speed of the process. Understand that we don’t go to full implementation until March, some point in time. But just think of the rapidity of designing and issuing these phones. In March of 2014, at a Police Foundation Breakfast, Jessie and I announced that we were going to start developing this technology. And literally on the second anniversary of that announcement, we’ll be issuing the 36,000 phones. We’ll probably have some gold-plated, some kind of metal for the officer.

Mayor: That will make it kind of heavy for the officers.

Commissioner Bratton: But still, he’ll be happy. The speed of it though and then what she talked about – the fingerprint technology. The ability with that device – in the field for an officer to confirm that you are who you say are. The speed of that instead of bringing a person all the way back to the station house. We’re also already begun at looking at FaceTime and Skype on these devices, so the officers might never even have to go to traffic court or summons court. He may be able to literally be called from court, go online, engage in a dialogue face-to-face and save all of that time sitting around traffic court waiting to basically deal with the summonses. The revolution that is beginning is truly only just beginning, as it relates to these devices.

Mayor: Let me just add to that. Key point – so that means officers who can spend more time on the streets protecting the people of this city. By the way, for taxpayers, that’s an incredible step forward – not having our officers tied up, sitting in a courtroom when they could be out doing their job. I mean that is an amazing innovation in many, many ways. Just one informational note, Deputy Commissioner Tisch made the point – that very powerful example with the domestic violence case. Remember what she said – the officer instructed the woman involved to call 9-1-1 and call him. So whenever there might be a crime in progress, of course, 9-1-1 is the go-to as always, and will be. But the point is this gives a whole another ability to communicate something – in that case allowing the officer to act so quickly.

Deputy Commissioner of Information Technology Jessica Tisch, NYPD: Can I just give – I just to answer your question a little bit. I don’t have numbers to back up clearance rates. But just to get a sense of the usage of the phones, okay. So, 25,000 phones – distributed. Yesterday, 5,329 cops swiped their ID card on the back on their smartphone to use one of the custom-designed apps. Those 5,000 plus officers looked at 26,693 9-1-1 jobs. That means that’s how many they reviewed. They – I’m sorry – 28,941 9-1-1 jobs. They viewed 2,079 wanted fliers. I give you – they ran 36,000 searches or queries of databases. It’s huge. It’s staggering usage of this mobile platform.

Question: [inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: Bullshit. Bullshit is my response to that – quite clearly. The idea of CompStat – O’Neil and Dermont spent too much time pushing quality not quantity. If any of my cops out there still think we’re pushing for the summonses, etcetera, I’m sorry – we’re pushing to reduce crime. They never talk about number of summonses, etcetera. They talk about what’s going on on the collaboration between the various units. So, that officer, one of 36,000, that may be his impression. He’s entitled to that impression. But those are not the practices, policies, procedures that I’m putting into this organization. So he’s entitled to his opinion. I don’t share it quite clearly.

Mayor: Others related to CompStat, and then we’ll go to other police topics.

Question: [inaudible]

Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce, NYPD: You’ve seen from the 19th precinct what happened – the bank robbery. Major case detectives were on the scene, got the pictures out immediately and forwarded that. These cases – when you expedite them – these investigations by patrol, they don’t come to me, so I have more time to work my cases and other cases I do catch. I can’t explain how well this has happened. Right now we have a 77 percent clearance rate on our homicides. This plays into that, getting information out immediately, taking pictures of crime scenes, uploading them and sending them out. So, it’s really facilitated my job tremendously.

Question: How does 77 percent compare to whatever 10 years ago was?

Chief Boyce: 77 percent is – nationwide it’s 62 percent, so we’re 15 percent higher than everyone else in the country, and we’re proud of that. And I push that forward. That is facilitated by this technology. Back – if we go back – there’s a lot of living former Chiefs of Detectives around, and I don’t want to embarrass them. We’ve done a lot better in past years because of that.

Question: [inaudible]

Deputy Commissioner Tisch: Are you talking about CompStat 2.0 or the phones?

Question: [inaudible]

Deputy Commissioner Tisch:: Okay. So we load it every – we’re going to load it every Wednesday to update all of the crime numbers, so every Wednesday it might be down for an hour or so while we load the week’s crime numbers, and that all of that information lives on the website for the week, so you can populate whatever charts and graphs and mapping you need. 

Question: [inaudible]

Deputy Commissioner Tisch: About staffing? No it – because we have – because we’re using the same technology to give the information to the public as we use ourselves at the NYPD this didn’t require any extra headcount, it’s just something we had to tailor for the public, but the same staff does it.

Question: [inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: The first part of the question I didn’t hear.

Mayor: Louder, the first part was –

Question: [inaudible]

Mayor: Not on statistics. We’re not talking about individuals cases – 

Commissioner Bratton: No, in other words, there’s certain information that’s not shared with officers out in the field on the CompStat that some of the investigations – that even in CompStat itself there’s certain information that’s not discussed in that general room of 200 people. So, when I talk about exceptions but – other than that, so much of what you see, no place has as much transparency both to the officers in the field as well as now to you in the media and the public in the day to day. On the second question that you asked – I’m sorry –

Mayor: Would people be looking at their phones all the time?

Commissioner Bratton: That becomes an issue of concern in general. We certainly are concerned about that – people walking down the street, into intersections looking at their devices. With the officers the encouragement is – of necessity they’re going to have to look into their devices much the same as if they’re writing reports. But what we try to drive home is that both officers in the car, one of them not be engaged in using those devices. And it’s a feature – it’s one of the major concerns that we would have would be going forward. I’m going to ask Chief of O’Neil to expand on it because it’s the subject of a number of discussions here at headquarters on that issue.

Chief of Department James O’Neill, NYPD: Hey, Rich, I’m just going to give you a real specific example on this. So, I had the opportunity to stop at KCH, Kings County this morning to visit with Bill Redden who’s being released – I think he was released at 1 o’clock this afternoon. So, he was excited about being released from the hospital, and then we started to talk about the phone, he got even more excited. And I asked him about that – so you’re driving around, you’re in at 8-1 anti-crime, what some of the issues are. He goes – this is the way we do it – I drive and Andy uses the phone. That’s the way we do it. And they use it every day, and they use it successfully. So there are some tactical issues, and we push them out to everybody to make sure that if you’re together one person looks at the phone, and if you’re by yourself you have to be careful how you’re using it.

Mayor: On – yes, please.

Question: [inaudible]

Mayor: The cost? Of which piece?

Commissioner Bratton: A lot.

Mayor: The technology? Yeah, a lot is the answer.

Deputy Commissioner Tisch: The mobility platform which is the 36,000 phones and the tablets in every police vehicle – that’s being funded by $140 million grant we got. It’s forfeiture funding, half from the Mayor’s Office and half from D.A. Vance’s office.

Mayor: Okay, last call on CompStat.

Yes?

Question: [inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: We have a number of initiatives underway in precincts using some technology that’s out there. What is the one that we’re – I always mispronounce the name –

Deputy Commissioner Tisch: IdeaScale?

Commissioner Bratton: IdealScale, which allows a precinct commander to literally set up in his precinct a mechanism where people in that precinct can join a network – a network contained within the precinct to engage in discussions with the precinct command about issues of concern that they’re identifying. Others chime in and vote in that, yes, this is something of concern. The precinct commander then sends his resources out, they take a photo of the condition as it exists, and then the condition as its been addressed and rectified. So, in addition to what we, the department, are putting out in terms of the device, the creativity of our personnel, whether it’s a percent commander engaging a use of that system, or the officers – the idea of the bank robbery issue that was discussed there, the ingenuity of one of those officers to knowing how that smartphone would work to have the alarm go directly to his device, not waiting for it to go through 9-1-1, was creativity. That’s not something we taught him. That’s something that basically he engaged in with his own creativity. That, however – that’s a learning for us because as Jesse gets all of these, she’ll be building that into her training in notices and alerts to officers as they go forward. Here’s all the things that this phone is capable of, but, as we evolve it, there will be many that we had never anticipated. I’d be willing to bet – probably never anticipated that one – he did. And we have a lot of very smart cops out there and they’re going to make a lot of great use of these devices. 

Mayor: Okay. Now, any police topics? 

Yes?

Question: [inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: Very much so – we had people monitoring that trial every day, as you might expect, and immediately, upon that statement being made, we initiated an Internal Affairs investigation that has become very extensive. We are reviewing very intimately everyone that was in their class to – and we will be interviewing every officer that was in their class to validate, or not confirm, the statements made by those officer during the trial. So, that is the subject I’ve been briefed a number of times on – the progress of that. We [inaudible] investing too much in training to improve it because it is so critical for the officer’s safety – themselves – but also the safety of the public. So, under no circumstances will we tolerate any instructor in the New York City Police Department short-circuiting the process, whether it’s the instructions itself or the testing to validate that the officer has the skills necessary to safety patrol this city. So, literally, within a half-hour of that testimony being made, Internal Affairs was initiating their investigation, and we’ll be happy to share it with you once we bring it to closure. 

Question: [inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: Not all. Shootings and murders are down, so you’ve lost interest in them. When was the last time any of you reported on that? They’re down dramatically, as Jesse just referenced. If it bleeds, it leads – that’s your business. Right now, the stabbings, the slashings, the cuttings – you have a tendency to conflate it because it is very confusing. What’s a stabbing, versus a cutting, versus a slashing? But it deserves attention – people are concerned about it – that we’ve had a number of incidents. But, once again, it’s a matter of while being concerned about it – and people have a right to be – putting it into perspective. And, in terms of putting it into perspective, and we discussed this in our crime briefings in the morning, as we discuss shootings, murders, stabbings – one of the areas that we look at – Bob Boyce can give you a little breakdown in the sense of over these last two months what’s actually been going on from the larger number – the overall increase of about 19 percent. But, as we do, we tend to break it down with a higher degree of intimacy. So, I’m not faulting you at all. We want your attention to this because the arrests that we’re making often times are a result of you putting out our videos to the public. So, in some respects, we’re in this together. This is not something we’re trying to downplay or diminish anything that creates public fear or concern. We want to work with you and work with the public to very quickly dispel that. Much the same as the shootings and the murders, which captured so much attention over the last two years – things have been very quiet on that front. So – very appropriate to focus attention on what is disturbing the public. 

Mayor: I just want to – quick addition before – I want you to hear from Chief Boyce, and then we’ll do any follow up. But look, I fully understand many New Yorkers are concerned about this, and I share that concern, and we’re doing everything that we can to make sure people are safe every day, which is why, again, crime is down, murders are down, shootings are down, gun arrests are up, arrests for knives and summonses for knives are up as well. But the thing that, I think, Chief Boyce can help to point out here is – I think what people are very concerned about is could something happen to them randomly? Could something happen sadly with an emotionally disturbed person? The facts presented – there’s been over 500 of any type of stabbing, slashing, cutting, etcetera in the course of this year. Only seven were identified as anything that apparently could even be random, and that’s very important for people to understand. What are the others? Criminal fighting a criminal, someone gets in a fight with someone else, someone’s committing some other kind of crime and they use a weapon – but what has really gripped New Yorkers is could it be randomly something that happens to me? Thank God, the answer is it’s very, very rare, and, in the few cases it’s happened, most have those folks have already been caught. Who did that?

Chief Boyce: Good afternoon, everybody. Lisa, to answer your question, 567 slashing and stabbings this year versus 470 last year – up 97, almost 100 – so, it’s a cause for deep concern – a little over 20 percent increase. Now, we look at these things – domestic violence is not the issue, it’s up very slightly, but it’s not the overall issue. The overarching – one of the issues we saw was in the Bronx. 56 of that 97 that are up came out of the Bronx – on the streets of the Bronx – and I say streets because that’s where it is – that’s 68 percent of the increase. So, we speak to deployment, we look at things, and we put more people out on the street. One of the things we looked at initially – things come into us and it’s described as random. We drilled down [inaudible] 11 came in as random, we drilled down – it was actually seven.

Question; [inaudible]

Chief Boyce: Exactly – a very small number, but a number nonetheless that we have to investigate. Of that seven, we made five arrests. With the help of the media and the people of New York, we put out pictures, we make the arrests. One of those individuals [inaudible] we arrested – two incidents where he slashed someone – one in the Bronx and one in Manhattan. We have Francis Salud, he is an Asian male who slashed a male – black – out of [inaudible] from a prior robbery. Angel [inaudible] you remember the machete attack in the Bronx in Mott Haven? We go through these things, and [inaudible] who slashed a 51-year-old lady on the train in Lower Manhattan. All these folks were identified through CrimeStoppers – so, that’s how we got them. We have two outstanding we haven’t made. We’re still working those cases now. That’s the young lady who was stabbed with a needle in Midtown north. We brought someone in – we thought it might be him, it wasn’t – and we continue to work the case. Any other cases – the Jewish male stabbed in the 7-1 – that’s a hate crime. So, very small numbers when you look at randomness. Most of these things are born out of arguments in the street. I had four in the Bronx on the weekend, all in the [inaudible], a lot of them had to do with alcohol. So, again, we’ll drill down, we already have two people identified in those. 

Question: [inaudible]

Chief Boyce: That was not random. We don’t believe right now – that women you're talking about, I think, in the 4-7 Precinct you’re talking about?

Question: Yeah –

Chief Boyce: Yeah, that young lady is uncooperative with us. We get that from time to time. We have pulled video at that location. We see cars pull up – people run off. It looks like something had happened just prior to that. Hopefully, we’ll bring her back in and she can tell us exactly what happened. That particular young lady was stabbed once before and she was uncooperative as well. So, this is the type of things detectives – when they go out, they pull video, they do their canvases for witnesses. We find out what really happened as far as we can with an uncooperative witness. That number is as of this morning. We do a daily of everything that happens in the city to the Chief of Department’s office.

Mayor: Marcia?

Question: [inaudible]

Mayor: I want to be clear, Marcia –

Question: [inaudible]

Mayor: No, there’s no – I want to be clear. You –

Question: [inaudible]

Mayor: I’m assuring them right now, this is the finest police force in the country. You’ve just heard ample evidence of it. So, Marcia, you just have to hear this whether you like it or not. This is the finest police force in the country. They have driven down crime for years. Right now, they’re in the middle of continuing to drive down murders and shootings, and, as you heard, the thing that scares people, which is a random slashing by an emotionally disturbed person, thank God, is very, very rare. But in the few instances where it’s happened, they caught people – in almost every case. And they’ll continue to do their great work. I did not say wait for new cops, I said – you asked the question, what would be additionally assuring to people? That 2,000 more cops that will be on the beat in the course of this year should be another cause for reassurance. But the number one reason to be reassured is we have the finest police force in the country and we have the numbers to prove it.

Yes?

Question: [inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: We have, as you know, as part of our reengineering of the department, among the many new units we’ve created was a centralized Force Investigation Division – 60 or 70 detectives that work for the chief – the First Deputy Commissioner. We have not had the briefing on that shooting. I was at the scene. I visited the officer in the hospital over the weekend.  I think we’re slated to have the Force Investigation Division briefing on that shooting tomorrow. It took a little longer to provide the briefing they give to me and the senior leadership because of the – basically covered a larger area, a large number of shots. We potentially have the ability on the second officer who was shot with bullet fragments, possibly, from a ricochet, based on the location of that officer to make some type of determination – was he in fact in the potential line of fire of the suspect, or was he in a position where he would have been hit by a ricochet from one of our rounds? That’s the intimacy of the investigations that are done that in terms of we now have the ability to virtually recreate the incident and identify where the officers were at the times of the shootings. Try to anticipate before the week, we may have some additional clarification not only for the officers involved, but for you in the media as to exactly what happened at that scene. 

Question: [inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: Some of those fragments can’t be taken out – the placement – and, in any event, a fragment is not going to be definitive other than the type of jacketing or the type of fragment – the ammunition that the individual had in his weapon versus the ammunition that our officers carry. But I understand, Jimmy, you visited the [inaudible]. Most of it is still in him, is that correct?

Chief O’Neill: Yeah [inaudible].

Commissioner Bratton: But what we’ll look to do is, as we do the recreation – where was he standing versus where his partner was standing? Could he have conceivable actually been shot by a ricochet from the suspect? And this is important in terms of charging that suspect. We can certainly charge the suspect in the first officer, but as to as charging him for the shooting of the second, it’s going to really rely on our ability to create the evidence to support that charge.

Question: [inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: The question is – the smartphone being able to help and moving toward the prediction of crime. I think you’ve heard me talk about frequently that we’re into the predictive policing phase in the evolution of policing, and in this department we’re currently experimenting with about three or four different predictive technologies, if you will – algorithms that would help us on potentially predicting where a crime may occur at what period of time. All this information that’s gathered up by CompStat will help to inform those algorithms, but the phones themselves will not necessarily be in a position to develop that predictive capability. But what we are engaged in, and the phones are very helpful with – is the precision policing that we’re talking about. The idea of as crime become less in the city, we are able to track it much more precisely. So, for example, the ShotSpotter system that’s going to be shortly in 30 square miles in the city – it gives us the shots as they’re fired. The officers get that information instantly and are able to respond, and, sometimes, the suspect is still there. So, that quick – [inaudible] creativity of those officers who went up to the roof, got the shell casings – those shell casings will be turned in for DNA analysis. But, in this instance, the use of smartphones – very creative on their part – is there somebody in that building that’s wanted on a warrant – maybe on a gun warrant. So, there’s almost a predictive tool in itself with short-circuiting an investigation by doing it right there.

Mayor: Alright, we’re going to do two more – one, two, thee. Okay, three more – go.

Question: [inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: Yeah, that’s the issue this morning. Bob, are you up to speed on that?

Chief Boyce: She was smoking a cigarette in the back of the bus – [inaudible] Avenue. The bus driver asked her to stop – she wouldn’t. He then started to clear the bus – pulled over at 96th Street. As he was clearing the bus, he stepped outside. She then drove the bus four blocks and was waved down by a dispatcher. The bus, then – she was stopped. We took her for a psychiatric review [inaudible]. That’s pretty much the story. 

Question: [inaudible]

Chief Boyce: After the psychiatric review, we’ll review that and see if it bears that way. 

Question: [inaudible] 

Mayor: Haven’t spoken to him – have no idea what motivated it, because there was no truth in it. I leave it to you to draw your own conclusions, but I think Commissioner Bank’s letter speaks for itself. 

Question: [inaudible]

Mayor: Look, we’re doing policing here – policing here. Sorry, we’re doing policing only. 

Unknown: Last one here.

Mayor: Hold on – hold on, everyone. You call it, Steve. You get one draft pick. 

Unknown: [inaudible]

Question: [inaudible] 

Commissioner Bratton: We’re living in an extraordinary era that is informed by phenomenal bouts of information, and the whole issue of encryption that John Miller and I had an op-ed piece that the New York Times was kind enough to put in this morning that I think makes our position very clear as it relates to the Apple issue. But on the larger encryption issue – that we’re into a new frontier in many respects – that there’s a lot of unresolved issues around the security of devices, etcetera. But as we continue to go forward on that – that we’re going to continue to always be looking at it from the public safety perspective, trying to ensure to the best of our ability that we have access to information that’s going to help us not only after the fact, but certainly before the fact, try to stop something from happening. 

Question: [inaudible]

Chief Boyce: Well, first we’ll start with the rape in the 1-2-1 Precinct that happened on Forest Avenue. This individual we identified – this happened Friday night at about 6 o’clock. They were closing their location, he knocked on the door and said he was looking for work. The young lady let him in where he went to sexually assault her. He kept saying, I will shoot you, I will shoot you. We had video we pulled down Saturday morning from that. We put it out and Special Victims worked all weekend on this with the help of the 1-2-1 squad. They saw the video and they knew this male to be Maurice Scott, a 28-year-old male. He has nine priors. So, we arrested him this morning. He was picked out of the lineup and he’s been arrested for rape-one, as well as robbery. So, that’s where we stand with that case now. As far as the baby homicide, it is not a homicide yet. They’re doing the autopsy as we speak now, but I will give you a scenario on it. The mother of the child dropped off the baby to her downstairs apartment. The babysitting – she’s used this woman six times in the past. The baby was then brought up Sunday at about 10 o’clock not breathing. It was rushed to the hospital. There is some contusions on the baby’s face. Again, the detectives have been working since Sunday night to find out exactly what happened with this. We put together a timeline. We found that the babysitter had taken the child with her boyfriend to Manhattan and we’re getting video there of exactly her whereabouts there. So, we’ll know more after the autopsy this morning. Again, the one lady we are looking at, she has nine prior arrests, none of which were for any kind of violence, but it’s something that we have to go forward.

Mayor: Thanks, everyone.