PHOTO: Police Commissioner Bill Bratton indicated that he will be piloting a new department initiative in the eight precincts that comprise Patrol Borough Queens South. Photo Courtesy of William Alatriste for the New York City Council
The city Police Department has indicated that it plans to roll out a new strategic and tactical command—SATCOM—initiative in the eight precincts that comprise Patrol Borough Queens South that will reflect the department’s sweeping reengineering efforts.
Police Commissioner Bill Bratton last week detailed the project that he hopes will make the agency more efficient by directing all personnel—with the exception of Transit—to report directly to borough commanders instead of unit bosses.
“So it’s one-stop shop,” PBQS Chief David Barrere said in June at a 102nd Precinct Community Council meeting. “Your complaint is coming right to the top. We just chopped up the bureaucratic red tape—the buck stops with me.”
This type of SATCOM initiative is not new to the NYPD. Indeed, Bratton piloted it in Patrol Borough Brooklyn North during his first tenure as commissioner under Mayor Rudy Giuliani in the mid-‘90s, but Commissioner Ray Kelly discontinued it in 2003.
“We’re looking for geographical accountability,” Chief of Department Jim O’Neill said in a New York Daily News report. “We do that by giving the local detective squads, the local narcotic and gang squads, and put them under control of the patrol borough commander. No one knows better than the precinct commanders and patrol borough commanders what we’re looking to do in specific neighborhoods.”
O’Neill, a 32-year law enforcement veteran, has previous SATCOM experience, having served as commanding officer of SATCOM Detective-Narcotics Operations
By Michael V. Cusenza
michael@theforumnewsgroup.com
