Police Commissioner Bill Bratton on Tuesday challenged his predecessor, Ray Kelly, to “be a big man” and justify his claim that NYPD brass had cooked the books to show a record-low crime rate.
Hours later, Kelly returned fire — saying active-duty police sources had told him official CompStat figures were being manipulated to lowball murders and shootings. Kelly also blasted “the eroding quality of the life in the city that is obvious to anyone who lives here,” and accused the de Blasio administration of trying “to distort the reality of what [cops] face on the street.”
The war of words erupted in the wake of an interview Kelly gave last week, when he laughed in response to a question about crime statistics and said, “There are some issues with the numbers that are being put out.”
During a news conference in Times Square on Tuesday, Bratton was asked about Kelly’s remarks and seized the opportunity to unload on him.
Bratton angrily said Kelly needed to “stand up” and explain why he decided to “denigrate that hard work that has resulted in shootings being reduced significantly in this city.”
“Shame on him,” Bratton said, slowly emphasizing each word.
In a stunning shot, Bratton also accused Kelly, who recently wrote a memoir, of bad-mouthing the NYPD in order to make a buck.
“It’s amazing the comments you’ll make when you’re selling a book. Those comments were outrageous,” Bratton fumed.
“My cops work hard — very hard — to reduce gun violence in the city.”
Bratton then challenged Kelly to back up his allegations.
“Well, if you’re going to make it stand up, be a big man and explain what you’re talking about,” he said.
Bratton also shut down a reporter who tried ask a related question.
“You don’t need any follow-up on it. I’ve already basically laid the challenge down to him,” he said.
Kelly picked up the gauntlet. He released a statement Tuesday night saying that sources in the NYPD had told him that a classification called “circumstances undetermined pending investigation” has been “misapplied” to homicide cases to “manipulate murder totals.”
Kelly further accused Bratton’s NYPD of engaging “in an effort to reduce the reported number of shootings” by changing how victims are tallied. Those who suffer graze wounds “are often not counted . . . as was done previously,” Kelly sniped.
“Similarly, a victim who sustains wounds by flying glass caused by a shooting is not recorded as a shooting victim.
“Further, wounds sustained by a victim who refuses to cooperate with a police investigation have been recorded as self-inflicted.”
Kelly also told reporters that the remarks he made during last week’s interview — scheduled for broadcast next month on AM 970 radio — weren’t “meant to be personal.”
Bratton scrambled Tuesday night to have the last word. His top stats man insisted at a press conference that his boss’ numbers were sound.
“There has been no change whatsoever in how shooting incidents are recorded by the New York Police Department,” said Deputy Commissioner for Operations Dermot Shea, who also worked in Operations under Kelly.
People who suffer graze wounds or are struck by a bullet but refuse to cooperate with cops are absolutely counted as shooting victims, just like under Kelly, Shea insisted.
Likewise, victims hit by broken glass from a shooting are not counted, again just like under Kelly, Shea said.
There also has been no change in the policy of not including justified police shootings in the tally, Shea maintained.
Mayor Bill de Blasio, meanwhile, stood by Bratton, telling reporters, “I think the commissioner spoke eloquently.”
But this is not the first time Bratton has been accused of massaging stats. Some 14,000 cases were downplayed between 2005 and 2012, when he headed the LAPD, the Los Angeles Times reported in October.
The NYPD’s most recent CompStat figures show overall crime down 2 percent through Dec. 27 compared with last year, although murders and rapes are up 4.3 percent and 6.6 percent, respectively.
Additional reporting by Philip Messing