Just months after downplaying the city's need for additional cops, Police Commissioner Bill Bratton suddenly reversed course Monday — saying he could use at least 1,000 more.
"How many cops do we actually need? I can be very comfortable in saying to you that we need more. That's quite clear," Bratton told reporters after testifying before the City Council on revamping NYPD training following the chokehold death of Eric Garner as he was arrested on Staten Island.
During more than two hours of testimony, Bratton said he wants "in excess of 1,000" extra cops, in part to support an initiative that will cost up to $30 million annually to retrain all 35,000 officers.
Earlier this year, however, he declined to support a council bid to boost staffing, citing fiscal issues.
He said during city-budget negotiations in April that his priority was a pay raise for his current force, rather than more officers.
Bratton claimed his about-face came after the department completed a staffing assessment that showed a need for the extra bodies.
"We had a very good summer in this city, in large part due to the significant amounts of overtime that allowed me to put thousands of additional police officers into housing developments, into areas of the city that were having shootings and murders . . . That does reinforce the idea that we need more police," he said.
Asked about Bratton's comments, mayoral spokesman Phil Walzak said the city was open to revisiting the issue, but not until next year's fiscal budget comes up for discussion in 2015.
"Keeping New York City the safest big city in the country is a core priority for Mayor de Blasio, and this administration already began, in last year's budget, the work of increasing NYPD force levels through civilianization," in which civilians are hired for law-enforcement desk jobs, Walzak said.
Earlier this year, Hizzoner, too, was dismissive of the council's offer to add 1,000 cops, saying, "I believe we can get the job done with the personnel and the resources we have now."
Melissa Mark-Viverito, who pushed hard for the extra cops in her first budget as council speaker, welcomed Bratton's change of heart.
"Many of us continued to believe that more personnel was necessary to accomplish many of NYPD's goals," she said. "So today is a step forward."
PBA chief Patrick Lynch said that while 1,000 extra officers would help, the NYPD has 6,000 fewer cops than it did on 9/11.
During his testimony, Bratton also emphasized that the cops involved in Garner's death may have violated departmental policy, but didn't break the law.
"Chokeholds are not illegal. They're not against the law," he declared. He also said he'd refuse to support a move by the council to make chokeholds illegal.
Instead, the commissioner said, all cops would be reviewing a video on restraint techniques.
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