NEW YORK – For the third consecutive year NYPD departures are soaring as nearly 1,600 NYC police officers have either resigned or retired in 2022. The department is on pace to suffer the largest exodus of officers since statistics have been available, the New York Post reported.
According to NYPD pension statistics obtained by the news outlet, 1,072 police officers have retired and 524 have resigned as of May 31.
Hence, the 1,596 departing cops is a 38% spike from the same period in 2021, when 1,159 officers left, and a staggering 46% climb from 2020, when 1,092 left the force by the same date—a year that saw resignations dramatically increase due to George Floyd riots, Law Officer reported at the time.
NYPD rank and file have consistently listed reasons for leaving as anti-police hostility, bail reform, and rising crime left unchecked by politicians.
“The city is out of control — especially since bail reform,” said one former Queens officer, who asked to be identified only as “Joe.” The mantra now is “get out while you still can.”
Things just continue to get “worse and worse,” the former officer declared, according to the New York Post.
“The last few years so many people had been leaving and manpower was so low that you’d go to work and you’d answer 25 to 30 jobs a day and you’re burnt out by the end of the day,” Joe said, adding, “there was no time for law enforcement” because it would be “radio run, radio run, radio run all day long.”
The “system” simply made things exasperating, the officer emphasized. Even when he made an arrest, “they were back in the precinct picking up their property the same day.”
Finally, Joe, along thousands of other NYPD officers over the past few years, had enough and left.
