A disgruntled cop who’s serving as a star witness against the NYPD’s use of stop-and-frisk unexpectedly praised the controversial police tactic yesterday as an essential weapon in the city’s war on crime.
Officer Adhyl Polanco testified that he “absolutely” believed stop-and-frisk is an “appropriate tool” to keep pistol-packing thugs from victimizing innocent New Yorkers.
“It’s a great tool, and we need it,” Polanco said in Manhattan federal court, adding, “Because I have no problem harassing criminals.”
Polanco also said that he’s “not in denial that Hispanics and blacks are the ones committing the crime, and I’m here asking for help — how can we make the minority people drop the gun?”
But Polanco — who’s currently on modified duty following a dust-up with a supervisor — said he took the witness stand against the city because alleged quotas for stop-and-frisks were leading to illegal racial profiling of minority youths.
The father of three, who’s of Dominican heritage, said he “grew up in the ’hood” and didn’t want to see his children harassed — or worse — because of stop-and-frisk, which Mayor Bloomberg credits for the city’s record-low crime rate.
“I don’t want my kids to get shot by a cop who’s chasing them to write a ‘250,’ ” Polanco said, referring to the official form cops use to report their stop-and-frisks.
Polanco also testified about a series of secret recordings he made in 2009 during roll calls at the 41st Precinct station house in The Bronx, where he said union delegates and police supervisors told cops to make at least five stop-and-frisks a month, along with at least 20 summonses and one arrest.
Plaintiffs’ lawyers played several profanity-laced excerpts in court, with Polanco describing how he was told the demands were “really non-negotiable” and how he believed “that it was part of the contract and the union was backing it up.”
After failing to meet the quotas, Polanco said, he was repeatedly denied days off and twice forced to issue summonses for alleged infractions he didn’t observe, including charging someone with unlicensed-dog possession “who said he didn’t have no dog.”
After making anonymous complaints to the Internal Affairs Bureau, Polanco said he was branded a “rat” and went public with his recordings — which were broadcast in a March 2010 TV news report — because the NYPD “was not listening to me.”
“They still will not listen to me. They don’t want to hear,” he said.
Polanco also detailed a December 2009 incident in which he was stripped of his gun after clashing with a supervisor at a police checkpoint when his partner suffered chest pains and had to be put in an ambulance.
On cross-examination, Polanco admitted shoving then-Lt. Andrew Valenzano when Valenzano physically blocked him from getting into the ambulance but denied shouting slurs about Valenzano’s ethnicity.
Polanco also said that while his departmental trial — on charges including perjury for the two summonses — finally concluded two weeks ago, he still hasn’t gotten the verdict.
“They know I’m innocent. That’s my belief,” he said.