Search This Blog

Monday, March 26, 2012

Sergeant Robert Borrelli says NYPD manipulating crime stats

Whistleblower Sgt. Robert Borrelli taped a conversation with a theft victim to back up his accusations that his precinct was fudging crime statistics.

In an exclusive interview, a 19-year veteran of the NYPD describes widespread manipulation of crime reports at the 100th Precinct in Queens. The sergeant says when he blew the whistle on the routine fudging of crimes, the department retaliated and transferred him to a midnight shift at Bronx Central.

We’ve spent weeks talking to this Sergeant and examining hours of audio tape and numerous crime reports he gave to us.

Proof, he says, that the Rockaway precinct where he was a supervisor has been downgrading felonies to make crime look low and top brass look good.

Sgt. Robert Borrelli says the N-Y-P-D has left him with no choice but to go public after months of ignoring his allegations of routine misclassification of crimes at 100th Precinct in Queens.

He says the pressure there to manipulate crime reports has become unbearable:

” I just couldn’t take it anymore. There came a point I finally broke and I’m like you know this has to stop,” said Sgt. Borrelli.

So, last May, Sgt. Borrelli started handing over dozens of crime reports to the NYPD’s Quality Assurance Division, whose job it is to ensure the accuracy of crime stats.

The reports, he claims, amounted to smoking gun evidence of intentional, routine downgrading of crimes.

“They’re constantly changing the classification to downgrade crimes so they’re not tracked it goes under the radar according to the FBI crime stats,” said Sgt. Borrelli.

In other words, I asked, trying to bury the serious crimes? “That’s correct,” said Borelli.

For example, an incident from last August in which an angry customer fired four shots at a cab driver, a clear case of felony assault.

“I was the supervisor on the scene,” said Sgt. Borelli. “I made the determination what we had, I appropriately charged the proper crime attempted assault-1. It was later on changed, believe the following morning, someone lined it out and changed it to reckless endangerment.”

No comments:

Post a Comment