NYC Law Enforcement Around 2001

[Vic20]

I'm hoping someone might give me advice to help make my novel ring true. The plot (tangentially) involves drug dealing in New York in 2001, and the cops pop up to make arrests as well as investigate an assault. I'd like to know how zealously the NYPD or other enforcement agencies prosecuted importing marijuana and selling it in bulk to small-time dealers. I'd also like to be able to lay out a fairly complicated set of circumstances which lead to the eventual death of a character who's been assaulted by a hitman, to see how far the police would go in their investigation.

Any ideas of where to look for procedures and/or police culture around the turn of the millennium? Or does anyone here have direct experience - on either side of the law in NYC?

 

[Brigid Barry]

Question: is it before or after 9/11?

 

[CMBright]

Question: is it before or after 9/11?

That was 2001, wasn't it?

 

[Brigid Barry]

That was 2001, wasn't it?

Yes. Which is why I'm asking if your OP's question is before or after.

eta: oops, not the OP. sorry about that!

 

[Maggie Maxwell]

That was 2001, wasn't it?

Yeah, so the before or after question is a big one for OP's book. There's gonna be a MAJOR difference in the overall mood of the city and police force in that time. Before would probably be the safer option, because after, there's not going to be as much mental energy to focus on smaller crimes versus cleanup, funerals, and general mourning.

 

[Brigid Barry]

Sad to say, the race of the characters will make a difference as well.

 

[ChaseJxyz]

Yeah, setting this in NYC in 2001 means you will have a big, 9/11-shaped elephant in the room that people are going to be constantly thinking about. Perhaps they may even expect 9/11 to be a plot point in your book. If you don't plan on including 9/11 at all, or being set in a post-9/11 NYC (where things are going to be VERY different), then this is going to be an expectation pretty much every (American) reader is going to have of your work and it will really alter how people process it.

If 9/11 has nothing to do with it, couldn't you do 2000 instead?

Regardless, "stop and frisk" was happening at the time, so there was a lot of racial profiling going on (I know that sorta implies that there is no longer racial profiling going on, but there still is, because acab, but stop and frisk was a uniquely horrible way to do racial profiling). A lot of resources wasted on terrifying innocent black and brown people.

Also: NYC has ridiculous gun laws. It currently has a very low murder rate because of that, so you'll have to look into which laws kicked in at which times.

Who got taken out by the hitman? A pretty young white girl? The son of an investor? A sex worker? A """""""thug""""""? The police ALWAYS have varying degrees of giving a shit depending on the "value" of the person who was assaulted/killed, so, y'know, keep that in mind, too.

Also keep in mind that whatever you're seeing on Law & Order is copaganda and in no way reflects the actual attitudes and procedures (and case closure rates) of real PDs/DAs. Unless you want to also make a piece of copaganda, then probably ignore everything I just said and make whatever it is you want! As long as you make the cops the good guys and "the bad ones" are few and far between (and always get brought to justice/disciplined properly), then they (and, sadly, many Americans) won't find a problem with your story.

Fun fact: Saw 1 (diegetically) happened on 9/10/2001, so, uh, that's probably why no one really went after Jigsaw!

 

[Vic20]

Thank you all for your interest!

As is likely predictable, 9/11 does happen - but the assault takes place weeks beforehand.

The assault victim is an older white male, a recluse, badly beaten in his apartment. He has nothing to do with the drugs subplot. An existing health condition makes him too frail to recover, and he dies in the hospital weeks later (after 9/11). His neighbors have a good idea of what might have happened, but as I have it now, from their first appearance on the scene, the cops are frustratingly lax about pursuing leads.

 

[ap123]

I'm neither a cop nor a drug dealer, but I am a lifelong NYer. You know all those articles that came out in 2020/2021 about NY being over? NYers like me yawned and turned the page. The one exception to NY is NY was 9/11. A couple weeks before and a couple weeks after you found a very different city. Before, at the time of your character's attack, likely would have been aggressive pursuit of the dealer/attacker. Giuliani days, he was working hard to turn the city into Disneyland, aggressively going after crime and could be a crime with the broken windows policies and stop and frisk. Chase is absolutely right, whether or not your dealer is black or brown will weigh heavily. But a couple weeks after 9/11? Everyone was focused on 9/11 and terrorism. We were still in shock and mourning, and movement around the city was tightly controlled/heavily guarded.

It also will vary depending on where this all takes place. Manhattan? Brooklyn? Bronx? Queens? Staten Island? Neighborhood? Wealthy co-op along Central Park, 6 story walkup on the lower east side, semi-attached house in Marine Park or fancy house on Todt Hill on Staten Island?

 

[Lakey]

I will add to @ap123’s excellent comment that this was Giuliani’s time as mayor. Before 9/11, one of the accomplishments he liked to trumpet around was getting rid of the “squeegee men” — guys who would hang around at certain traffic lights, clean the windshields of stopped cars, and then beg for payment for that service. He portrayed them as emblematic of a general disorder in the streets, and subscribed to a sort of “broken windows” theory that cracking down on petty crime like squeegee guys and subway fare-hopping would lead to a better and safer environment. “Stop and frisk” policies were in the same vein—giving the police free rein to crack down on anyone or anything that they felt had something criminal about it. These are racist theories and were racist in their application. But white folks on the Upper East Side who didn’t like to see black people hovering around their Mercedes Benzes when they were stopped at traffic lights thought it was great.

And that gets to ap123’s other point that what neighborhood, and what demographic, you are talking about will have a big impact on the way New York, and New York policing, is experienced by your characters. For instance, I spent a lot of time in Greenwich Village in the late 80s (when I was in high school nearby, and a young lesbian looking for community) and again during the time you are talking about (when I was in law school at NYU, living on campus). I’m a white lady and I never had any trouble with the police, even when Washington Square Park was a prime site for drug dealing and solicitation and when the police were cracking down on it hard. My black classmates tell a different story.

 

[Alessandra Kelley]

I will add to @ap123’s excellent comment that this was Giuliani’s time as mayor. Before 9/11, one of the accomplishments he liked to trumpet around was getting rid of the “squeegee men” — guys who would hang around at certain traffic lights, clean the windshields of stopped cars, and then beg for payment for that service. He portrayed them as emblematic of a general disorder in the streets, and subscribed to a sort of “broken windows” theory that cracking down on petty crime like squeegee guys and subway fare-hopping would lead to a better and safer environment. “Stop and frisk” policies were in the same vein—giving the police free rein to crack down on anyone or anything that they felt had something criminal about it. These are racist theories and were racist in their application. But white folks on the Upper East Side who didn’t like to see black people hovering around their Mercedes Benzes when they were stopped at traffic lights thought it was great.

And that gets to ap123’s other point that what neighborhood, and what demographic, you are talking about will have a big impact on the way New York, and New York policing, is experienced by your characters. For instance, I spent a lot of time in Greenwich Village in the late 80s (when I was in high school nearby, and a young lesbian looking for community) and again during the time you are talking about (when I was in law school at NYU, living on campus). I’m a white lady and I never had any trouble with the police, even when Washington Square Park was a prime site for drug dealing and solicitation and when the police were cracking down on it hard. My black classmates tell a different story.

To be honest, my in laws and their families all lived on the upper east side at the time and they detested Giuliani.

They shook their heads when the nation made him out to be some sort of hero of 9/11, rather than the screw-up who ran around the streets that day like a chicken with his head cut off because all the emergency communications were down because he had put the emergency response communication center in the World Trade Center(!) AGAINST ALL THE ADVICE OF HIS SAFETY EXPERTS(!!) because, I dunno, it sounded like a cool idea or something.

Seriously, they despised the man, before and since 9/11.

 

[Alessandra Kelley]

As for law enforcement in NYC, the only time I was close to the police was just a bit before 2001, when then-President Clinton and the First Lady were going to a party nearby and the streets were blocked for their motorcade. We, along with it seemed everyone else in the area were out on the sidewalk for a look. There were police snipers on the roofs and I heard one cop on the sidewalk right in front of me say out loud to another that he wished the snipers would take out Clinton.

That is my experience of law enforcement in NYC around that time.

 

[Al X.]

I was almost going to suggest using TV crime show dramas as a model (e.g. Blue Bloods, Chicago PD) then I realized exactly why I don't take elements from the NCIS series when I talk about NCIS, because those shows are so bogus beyond belief that they wouldn't stand up in print.

That said, you MIGHT consider looking at some reality crime documentaries based in NYC (freely available on Youtube) to get an idea. Of course they are dramatized, but the basic procedures, and general answers to the questions you might pose might be gleaned. I suppose written documentaries are available too, but I'm too lazy to look.

 

[jclarkdawe]

You have the 9/11 split, but you also have where in New York City you're talking about. The Bronx would be very different from Staten Island, for example. Even within each of those boroughs, you'd see differences between the different neighborhoods. Race would also play a significant factor. NYC police is huge. There are over 50,000 employees and 35,000 of them are uniformed officers. It makes over 200,000 arrests per year. Compare the NYPD with any other police department and you'll see how huge it is.

Further, a patrol officer and a detective might operate very differently.

However, overall police procedure is somewhat the same no matter where you are. Several police officers have written fiction and nonfiction books on police work. Several NYPD officers have written about various aspects of working in New York. There are also some books by NYFD, which give some understanding of the neighborhoods. This site -- https://www.paperbackswap.com/NYPD-COP-BOOKS/list/15936/ -- has a reading list of NYPD stories. I can't vouch for the quality of the list.

Jim Clark-Dawe

 

[ironmikezero]

Writing about LE in New York City, unless you are intimately familiar the city, its diverse melange of cultures and attitudes prevalent at the time of your story, will be challenging to say the least. Even the NYPD is a subculture all its own--one that does not suffer fools gladly.
It can be done, but your research must be comprehensive and meticulous to the extent of your abilities. Read what you can as Jim has suggested; generally ignore what TV fiction would have you believe (factual documentaries may have some value). Look for the truth. Seek out people who were on the job at that time, be candid with them about what you're trying to do, and listen if they are willing to share their experiences with you (be not offended should they decline). Such first-hand perspectives are invaluable to a writer in crafting appropriately plausible ambiance and a sense of inherent credibility (it may be fiction, but this matters nonetheless).
Remember that people in LE read a great deal of this genre--get the details right . . . yeah, it matters.

 

[Vic20]

Thank you all for your advice.

Full Disclosure: I lived in NYC from 1998 to 2001, and was quite close with a woman who sold pot. The 'drug dealing' in my story is quite mundane, and I know it's authentic, right down to events surrounding a supplier getting busted.

My bigger concern is the beating. An eccentric, reclusive, older white male is brutally attacked in his Upeer East Side apartment and found by a neighbor hours later. The neighbor calls the cops, and the victim is taken to the hospital. At first there are no clues, but gradually more than one fellow tenant begins to piece together that it's a case of a hit man getting the wrong guy. The person who ordered the hit (another fellow tenant) almost confesses to the neighbors in a fit of guilt, but when they call the cops back, the cops seem shockingly unconcerned, taking down the info and leaving without acting right away.

The 9/11 attacks happen about a week later. The victim dies, from a combination of the beating and a longstanding degenerative neuroligical condition, a few days after that. As I have the story now, the cops never follow up. This seems like a gaping plot hole, but I kind of need the guy who ordered the hit to escape justice and live on with his guilt for the purposes of the plot.

So, is it plausible for the cops to dawdle for a week, and then to become so overwhelmed by 9/11 that the case just gets buried?

 

[Vic20]

As for law enforcement in NYC, the only time I was close to the police was just a bit before 2001, when then-President Clinton and the First Lady were going to a party nearby and the streets were blocked for their motorcade. We, along with it seemed everyone else in the area were out on the sidewalk for a look. There were police snipers on the roofs and I heard one cop on the sidewalk right in front of me say out loud to another that he wished the snipers would take out Clinton.

That is my experience of law enforcement in NYC around that time.

Funnily enough, I was in the vicinity of the presidential circus more than once while I lived in New York (same era). Living across from the Millennium Hotel in Times Square, we once had snipers on our roof while Pres. Clinton spoke at an event.

 

[cmhbob]

So, is it plausible for the cops to dawdle for a week, and then to become so overwhelmed by 9/11 that the case just gets buried?

I would buy that, especially with 9/11 thrown in there. Sure, NYPD didn't lose nearly what FDNY lost. But it was all hands down at the pile for weeks, and everyone who wasn't working the pile had tons of investigatory stuff relating to the attack. I suspect there were lots of calls about suspicious bearded brown men to follow up on, and a homicide with no apparent leads would be lower priority anyway.

And back when I was a college cop, I had occasion to work an event when Mrs. Clinton was just FLOTUS and working her "Takes a Village" tour. It was very interesting to see how laid back SS was for that event vice what I expected for POTUS.

 

[jclarkdawe]

It sounds like your murder occurred in the 19th Precinct. I don't know exactly how it is set up to investigate murders. If there are enough murders in that Precinct, then there is a dedicated squad of murder detectives. If the number of murders is not that high, then it would go to the detectives squad for the precinct. NYC also has homicide squads that cover each borough. I'm not sure who would be the lead.

However, cops are very invested in the murder cases they are assigned to. They don't like to leave them unresolved and remember them for decades. Here's where I don't know NYPD well enough to tell you which detective would feel responsible, but whoever that detective(s) is/are, he won't forget, even with 9/11.

But you have an advantage here. 9/11 was an exceedingly chaotic response by by NYFD and NYPD. Many engine companies for NYFD responded without orders, as did many NYPD officers. It's not unreasonable to assume that the detective assigned to this murder responded to the Towers. Now in real life, among the 23 NYPD officers who died on 9/11, and the more numerous officers who died as a result of conditions that day, are none from the 19th Precinct. However, this is something that can be fudged.

I can see if the officer assigned to a murder died, that the Precinct could lose track of the murder with the mess after 9/11.

Jim Clark-Dawe

 

[CMBright]

I have to echo the comment about "forgetting" an unresolved murder.

If the cop thought it was just the equivalent of a mugging gone wrong, I could see a cop forgetting about it in the chaos that followed your date. Unfortunately, especially if the victim was not someone "important".

I could also imagine a cop quietly persuing the case for years or decades or until the statute of limitations run out while none of the characters/reader "see" the cop's actions, maybe he went over his case notes book from the week before everything when things went back to "normal" after that day. With the reminder and no need to interview again, would the cop contact any of the witnesses again?

No human life is actually unimportant. Plenty of Americans act as if some people are more important than others.

 

[ironmikezero]

If the M.E. ruled the victim's death a homicide, notwithstanding other complications, a statute of limitations would not apply. The assigned detectives would have an "open" case on their hands until it is solved or handed off to their successors. It would not be unusual for a detective to keep investigating for the duration of a career--or to some degree, even well into retirement (it happens). Most large LE agencies/ departments have cold case squads or the equivalent where contact with retirees is fairly routine. Unsolved homicides are typically priorities. A homicide case/investigation might be postponed due to unrelated yet impactful circumstances, but it will at some point be addressed and thoroughly investigated to the extent possible.

 

[Vic20]

Got it. Thank you all. This is excellent.

My story ends a month or two after 9/11. Would it be plausible if I have the detectives moving slowly before that date, while it's still an assault? I can give the guilty neighbor an epilogue after the victim's death, in which he's still free, but resigns himself to his eventual arrest, which he expects to come after the dust settles on the terrorist attacks.

 

[frimble3]

Got it. Thank you all. This is excellent.

My story ends a month or two after 9/11. Would it be plausible if I have the detectives moving slowly before that date, while it's still an assault? I can give the guilty neighbor an epilogue after the victim's death, in which he's still free, but resigns himself to his eventual arrest, which he expects to come after the dust settles on the terrorist attacks.

I like the open-ended ending, him living his life in fear of the knock at the door, and, presumably, some detective, hoping he can solve the case, even if the rest of the world has moved on.