The New York City Police Department was established in May 1845, which along with the Boston Police Department, was among the first modern police forces in the United States. At the time, New York City's population of 320,000 was served by an archaic force, consisting of one night watch, one hundred city marshals, thirty-one constables, and fifty-one police officers. Peter Cooper, at request of the Common Council, drew up a proposal to create a police force of 1,200 officers. John Watts de Peyster was an early advocate of implementing military style discipline and organization to the force.The state legislature approved the proposal which authorized creation of a police force on May 7, 1844, along with abolition of the nightwatch system. Under Mayor William Havemeyer, the NYPD was reorganized on May 13, 1845, with the city divided into three districts, with courts, magistrates, and clerks, and station houses set up. The NYPD was closely modeled after the Metropolitan Police Service in London, which in turn used a military-like organizational structure, with rank and order.
In 1857, a new Metropolitan police force was established and the Municipal police abolished. The Metropolitan police bill consolidated the police in New York, Brooklyn, Staten Island, and Westchester County (which then included The Bronx), under a governor-appointed board of commissioners. Mayor Fernando Wood and the Municipals, unwilling to be abolished, resisted for several months.
Throughout the years, the NYPD has been involved with a number of riots in New York City. In July 1863, the New York State Militias were absent to aid Union troops, when the 1863 Draft Riots broke out, leaving the police who were outnumbered to quell the riots. The Tompkins Square Riot occurred on January 13, 1874 when police crushed a demonstration involving thousands of unemployed in Tompkins Square Park.Newspapers, including The New York Times, covered numerous cases of police brutality during the latter part of the 19th century. Cases often involved officers beating suspects and persons, using clubs, who were drunk or rowdy, posed a challenge to officers' authority, or refused to move along down the street. Most cases of police brutality occurred in poor immigrant neighborhood, including Five Points, the Lower East Side, and Tenderloin.
Beginning in the 1870s, politics and corruption of Tammany Hall, a political machine supported by Irish immigrants infiltrated the NYPD, which was used as political tool, with positions awarded by politicians to loyalists. Many officers and leaders in the police department took bribes from local businesses, overlooking things like illegal liquor sales. Police also served political purposes such as manning polling places, where they would turn a blind eye to ballot box stuffing and other acts of fraud.
The Lexow Committee was established in 1894 to investigate corruption in the police department. The committee made reform recommendations, including the suggestion that the police department adopt a civil service system. Around the turn of the century, the NYPD began to professionalize under leadership of then Police Commissioner, Theodore Roosevelt. The NYPD also began to emphasize training, and took advantage of technological innovations such as fingerprinting.
The economic downturn of the 1970s led to some extremely difficult times for the city. The Bronx, in particular, was plagued by arson, and an atmosphere of lawlessness permeated the city. In addition, the city's financial crisis led to a hiring freeze on all city departments, including the NYPD, from 1976 to 1980.
This was followed by the crack epidemic of the late 1980s and early 1990s that was one factor that caused the city's homicide rate to soar to an all-time high. By 1990, New York set a record of 2,262 murders, a record that has yet to be broken by any US major city. Petty thefts associated with drug addiction were also increasingly common.
Tags: NYPD nypd police audio shooting car chase suspect
