History of the New York City Police Department
Established in 1845, the Municipal Police replaced the inadequate night watch system which had been in place since the 17th century, when the city was founded by the Dutch as New Amsterdam.
[1][2] At the request of the New York City Common Council, Peter Cooper 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.
[3] However, because of a lengthy dispute between the Common Council and the Mayor of New York City regarding who would appoint the officers, the law was not put into effect until the following year.
[1][5] The NYPD was closely modeled after the Metropolitan Police Service in London, England which used a military-like organizational structure, with rank and order.
The Metropolitans included 300 policemen and seven captains who left the Municipal police but was primarily made up of raw recruits with little or no training.
The division between the forces was ethnically determined, with immigrants largely staying with the Municipals, and those of Anglo-Dutch heritage going to the Metropolitans.
The opera buffa climax came in mid-June when [a] Metropolitan police captain ... attempted to deliver a warrant for the mayor's arrest, only to be tossed out by a group of Municipals.
Wood knuckled under and disbanded the Municipals late in the afternoon of July 3, leaving the Metropolitans in possession of the field.
The next Sunday, peace was maintained by the State Militia, but a week later, on July 12, German immigrants in Little Germany rioted when the Metropolitans attempted to enforce the new reform liquor laws and close down saloons.
A blacksmith was killed in the skirmish, and the next day, ten thousand marched up Broadway with a banner proclaiming Opfer der Metropolitan-Polizei ("Victim of the Metropolitan Police").
[10] Newspapers, including The New York Times, covered numerous cases of police brutality during the latter part of the 19th century.
Most cases of police brutality occurred in poor immigrant neighborhoods, including Five Points, the Lower East Side, and Tenderloin.
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.
[12] The committee made reform recommendations, including the suggestion that the police department adopt a civil service system.
[14] Around the turn of the century, the NYPD began to professionalize under leadership of then President of the Police Commission, Theodore Roosevelt.
[16] In the 1910s, the NYPD began to deploy female matrons, who had entered precincts at the close of the previous century, to conduct undercover investigations.
Their duties included investigating irregular medical practitioners, confidence tricksters, fortune tellers, abortion providers, and LGBTQ people.
[23] Frank Serpico wrote about corruption he encountered in his time as a police officer in this era in a book, which was later turned into a movie and television series.
This was followed by the crack cocaine epidemic of the late 1980s and early 1990s, which was one factor in the city's homicide rate soaring to an all-time high.
[citation needed] The NYPD Counter-Terrorism Bureau was founded in 2002 as a result of the tragedy and the threats to attack the city that followed.
[34] In June 2020, the statewide Eric Garner Anti-Chokehold Act, which made the use of "a chokehold or similar restraint" a class C felony punishable with up to 15 years in prison, was enacted.
[37][38] In the second, in December, two NYPD officers, Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, were shot to death in an ambush in Brooklyn.
In response to the shooting of Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, the NYPD responded with a city-wide slowdown of policing in December.
[42] In 2021, the NYPD ended the department's longstanding law enforcement of previous marijuana crimes other than driving under the influence.
Although they often officially retained the "matron" rank and salary, contemporary newspapers and court records frequently referred to them as "policewomen", "police officers", and "detectives".
[46] November 13, 1923, Governor Walker appointed Sylvia Daly Connell, a widow with two children, the first woman Deputy Sheriff in New York State.
In 1994, Joyce A. Stephen became the first African-American female captain, and an Action Plan on Women's Concerns was prepared and submitted to the Police Commissioner.
She was criticized for accepting the position in front of a mural depicting Assata Shakur, a fugitive convicted in the 1974 murder of a New Jersey State Police officer who is heavily reviled by the law enforcement community.
