Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik is expected to shake up top brass in The Bronx, where more people have been killed already this year than in all of 1999, sources told The Post yesterday.
The move could come as early as this weekend, sources familiar with Kerik’s plan said after the new commissioner addressed more than 400 NYPD commanders at police headquarters yesterday.
During the hour-long meeting Kerik introduced himself to the brass, promised to boost their morale, get more cops out on patrol and beef up the detective squads.
Kerik said there would be “movements and changes” among top commanders, and sources later told The Post he has decided to shuffle some brass out of The Bronx because the murder rate there is up.
Through last Sunday, 143 people have been killed in the borough, compared to 137 in 1999.
Citywide, murders are up by only one – 456 victims from 455 during the same period last year.
Sources say the spike in Bronx murders is, in some ways, unavoidable because the victims often know their killers and many of the slayings stem from domestic violence.
“Nobody’s finger-pointing, but there’s a feeling that, perhaps with change, we can straighten this thing out,” one source said.
High-ranking cops at yesterday’s powwow agreed Kerik’s ideas were mostly welcome.
Kerik, flanked by First Deputy Police Commissioner Joseph Dunne and Chief of Department Joe Esposito, told the commanders he will hold precinct bosses accountable for community relations.
Kerik, the former head of the Correction Department, also said the precinct heads must do a better job with little things, such as assisting civilians quickly when they enter a station house.
He recalled when he once went, as an off-duty cop, to a station house to report a crime and had to wait while a lieutenant and a sergeant carried on a conversation.
Sources also said Kerik feels many cops, particularly at police headquarters, are doing work that civilians can handle, and that there are so many specialty units within the department that there are not enough cops on patrol.
He plans to cut by up to half of the department’s Tracer Units, which enforce quality of life violations in neighborhoods where narcotics cops have already closed down drug locations.
Sources also said he will soon choose either assistant Chief Charles Kammerdener, head of narcotics, or assistant Chief William Taylor, head of Manhattan detectives, to run the Organized Crime Control Bureau, where Chief Martin O’Boyle, is retiring.