Summons Slowdown Eliciting Ire of Police Chief James Tuller

The NYPD ticket-writing slowdown is resulting in such a huge loss of income for the city that three-star chief James Tuller wants to see his cops writing at least 15 summonses each month.

This quota, which police officials would rather call a “productivity goal” has annoyed police in return.

Moving violations, like running a red light, using a cell phone or driving without a seatbelt, have dropped by 44% during the week ending on September 11th, as compared to the same time last year. For the 28 days previously the numbers of moving violation tickets were also down by 36.3% throughout the city, as compared to last year.

The 70th Precinct, which is in Kensington, was particularly hit hard. Here, as well as in Midtown Manhattan and the 122nd Precinct in Staten Island had a 79% reduction in summonses for the above named moving violations.
Due to the pressure coming from Chief Tuller, many commanders have been placed in an awkward position. As one policeman put it,

"Most precinct commanders don't care about summons 'productivity.' Their careers are based on crime reduction," he said. "The bosses can push a precinct C.O., but you still gotta get a cop to write them."