DANBURY, Conn. – A Connecticut town about 50 miles northeast of New York City, with a fraction of the population and crime, is reaping the benefit of officers bolting from the New York Police Department in record numbers.
It’s an ongoing story about NYPD officers leaving the department en masse due to a myriad of problems in the Big Apple, from woke policies and laws to abhorrent treatment of New York’s “finest.” NYPD is suffering through its highest rate of resignations in the past two decades, Law Officer reported. The total number of officers who have resigned through November is about 3,200, which is also a 20-year high. Not since the post-9/11 days have cops left NYPD like they are now.
Yet NYPD’s loss is Danbury, Connecticut’s gain. The city with just under 88,000 residents recently hired nine police officers, six of whom came from NYPD, according to the New York Post.
Danbury has a fraction of the crime rate found in NYC and better pay for its officers. The newly sworn officers with the Danbury Police Department will make an annual salary between $63,900 and $74,400 per year, according to a job listing for the city at PoliceApp.com. By comparison, NYPD’s starting salary is $42,500, and increases to $85,292 after five and a half years of service.
Furthermore, the cost of living in Danbury is substantially less. A one-bedroom apartment in NYC runs about $3,925 while it goes for approximately $1,863 in Danbury, according to the site Zumper.com.
The group of “new” Danbury officers comes with “nearly 30 years of experience,” according to DPD’s facebook post welcoming their new police personnel.
Needless to say, the crime rate in Danbury is not what it is in New York. The Connecticut community experienced one murder and a total of 97 violent crimes in 2019, according to the most recent FBI crime data available. Conversely, New York City, with a population of 8.5 million, saw 335 murders and 49,124 violent crimes in the same year, the data shows.
A police officer working the streets in Brooklyn told The Post on Sunday that NYPD cops are going just about anywhere they think they can find a better life.
“It’s sad how people are going to small-town police departments to make more money,” the officer said. “It’s embarrassing.”
Another veteran NYPD officer with more than 20 years on the job said he doesn’t see the trend slowing down anytime soon.
“There’s going to be a lot more [leaving] because they’ve been without a contract for seven years,” the officer said. “Morale is horrible.”
“Instead of [higher-ups] trying to help police, they’re worried about stickers on your phone,” the same officer noted, referring to the recent move by the NYPD to mandate officers place stickers on their work phones to help the public see if they are actually doing their job while on duty or looking at their personal devices.
“You lock somebody up, and they’re out the next day,” the source added, lamenting the ongoing problem with New York state’s lax bail-reform laws, which have been a disaster as it relates to the growing crime problems.
“What’s the purpose of being a police officer out here?”
