Is New York police's 'virtual work stoppage' a boon for critics?
What if a major US city's police department drastically reduced the number of arrests it made and fines and citations it issued, and no one noticed?
Such seems to have been the case in New York City last month, as police officers apparently began a deliberate work slowdown - labelled a "virtual work stoppage" by the New York Post, which first reported the numbers (independently confirmed by the BBC).
For the week of 22 December, citywide traffic tickets dropped 94% from the same period in 2013. Court summons for low-level offences, like public intoxication, also dropped 94%. Parking tickets were down 92%. Overall arrests were down 66%, as well.
The proximate cause of the slowdown, according to the Post, was the murder of two New York police officers - Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu - by a gunman who had taken to social media earlier in the day to cite police abuses in New York and Ferguson, Missouri, as his motivation.
Other police concerns appear to be at play, including the the department's rocky relationship with New York Mayor Bill de Blasio.
"Police sources said Monday that safety concerns were the main reason for the drop-off in police activity, but added that some cops were mounting an undeclared slowdown in protest of de Blasio's response to the non-indictment in the police chokehold death of Eric Garner," the Post reporters write.
The New York Daily News found that the two police precincts where the murdered officers worked issued only one ticket or criminal summons in the seven days following the attack, down from 626 made during the previous week.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio is said to be facing an "open rebellion" in his city's police force
The massive drop in law enforcement has prompted a mix of concern and - perhaps surprisingly - hope among some police critics. The hope is revealed as some commentators wonder whether the public at large will start viewing the previously high levels of police activity as unnecessary for keeping the city safe.
They've used the opportunity to push back against the "broken windows theory" of law enforcement, in which low-level crimes are vigorously prosecuted as a way to prevent the occurrence of more major infractions. The principle has been a staple of New York City policing since Rudy Giuliani became mayor in 1994, but has been criticised as leading to a disproportional punishment of minorities.
Several writers point to a particular line in the Post piece - that police are now "turning a blind eye to some minor crimes and making arrests only 'when they have to'" - as prime evidence of ongoing police overzealousness.
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