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The NYPD’s move to use some detectives as “scarecrows” in the city’s worst crime-riddled neighborhoods to try to curb skyrocketing crime is creating an even more dangerous situation for Big Apple residents, union officials say.
The seasoned officers have been forced to trade in their suits for the department’s basic blue uniforms and stand at assigned posts, mostly overnight, the Detectives’ Endowment Association told The Post.
But even as crime-weary residents in some of the targeted hot spots hailed the move, the union said it’s just robbing Peter to pay Paul.
“We are down hundreds of detectives city-wide,” fumed DEA President Paul DiGiacomo.
“Caseloads are as high as 500 per detective in some precinct squads,’’ he said. “Now we are being put into uniform to stand on fixed posts while crime continues to rise.
“Narcotics detectives, Special Victims detectives, homicide detectives, organized-crime detectives are being used as scarecrows instead of being allowed to make the cases that keep criminals off our streets,’’ he said.
“This is just plain dangerous.”
The NYPD said in a statement Tuesday, “This is part of our enhanced supplemental deployment which has been in effect since February 11, 2022.
“Detectives are a part of this deployment.”
The move puts 36 detectives a day on the street, or 252 per week, the union said.
The additional manpower comes as major crimes in the city so far this year have soared nearly 37 percent, according to the latest NYPD data.
The precincts where the detectives are being deployed include Brooklyn’s 75th, 73rd and 67th and The Bronx’s 43rd, 48th and 44th, the union said.
Residents in the 73rd Precinct in Brownsville said Tuesday that they are relieved over the added police presence.
“I get up in the morning, and when I leave for work, I’m not sure if I’m going to get back home — somebody just got killed here last week for no reason,’’ said Willy Willie, 48, who moved to Brownsville four months ago and works at the Brownsville Market Deli & Grill.
“We need more detectives on the streets to stop the crime because it’s gotten unleashed,” he said. “People have no respect, people are killing each other with guns — we need people to feel more secure.”
Another local, Maime Gray, 62, said that adding the detectives-turned-beat cops “makes sense.
“There’s too much going on — too much shooting, the guns especially,’’ Gray said.
“This is the worst to me because they let people out of jail. That’s what I think … when it started.”
Mother-of-three Regina Johnson, 67, said she hopes the cops can help deter drug use on her block.
“If the police were here, we wouldn’t have crackheads sitting around here all day,” she said. “They are just sitting outside at noon — what are we supposed to do?”
But a detective said he agreed with DiGiacomo that he and his colleagues are being stretched too thinly.
“If they’re putting [detectives] out in the street, how are they going to investigate their cases and make arrests, all these burglaries and robberies and shootings?” the cop said.
“How are they supposed to do their work?”
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