"Jump out boys": Deep dive into the NYPD plainclothes unit
Despite being the centerpiece of his anti-crime plan, Mayor Eric Adams has yet to roll out his plainclothes unit. Here, for NY Focus, I did a deep dive into the history of plainclothes.
Hilariously, when I asked the NYPD for comment they referred me to the Mayor’s office which referred me to the NYPD. Mayor Transparency!
An excerpt from the story below:
On the night of May 20, 2014, Charlene Jack says she was in her Brooklyn apartment when she heard a woman screaming. She rushed downstairs and found her sister, Patrice, trying to fend off three large men. Jack asked what was going on, and one of them men told her to “shut the fuck up.” She did not. As the men continued manhandling her sister, Jack kept asking them what they were doing. Then one of the men told the others, “I don’t give a fuck, cuff her, I’m sick of her mouth…Shut the fuck up, you Black bitch.”
That’s when Jack realized the men were NYPD plainclothes officers, according to a lawsuit she later filed against the three officers and the NYPD. The officers handcuffed both Jack and her sister Patrice, even though Jack says she was not fully clothed. When one of the plainclothes officers noted that she “has no clothes on,” according to the lawsuit, the other cop commanded him to “take her just as she is.”
After the Jack sisters were handcuffed, officers began to bang on the door of the apartment where another of their relatives was staying, Jack said. “Where are the guns?” they shouted. When an officer threatened to shoot, the occupants opened the door, and the cops handcuffed them and forced them to lie on the floor, guns pointed at their heads.
The officers ransacked the apartment but found no weapons. Nevertheless, five of the young men were placed under arrest and taken to the precinct, where police separately interrogated them about guns. One of the men was charged with possession of a weapon, while Charlene, her nephew and Patrice were charged with obstruction. The charges against them were eventually dismissed.
Jack’s lawsuit against the NYPD was ultimately settled for $70,000. It is not clear whether any of the officers involved in the incident were disciplined. All three remain employed by the NYPD, and since the incident, two have been promoted from police officers to detectives.
Despite a long history of documented abuses, virtually without consequences, the plainclothes units are a key factor in Mayor Eric Adams’ plan to combat violent crime in the city. It’s not clear how he plans to stop them from committing more violent crime than they solve.
“Jump-out boys”
Until last year, more than 600 NYPD officers were assigned to plainclothes “anti-crime” units. Unlike most police officers, who wear uniforms while on the job, officers in plainclothes units dress as civilians to avoid detection.
In June 2020, at the height of the Black Lives Matter protests, then-Police Commissioner Dermot Shea announced that he would disband the department’s plainclothes anti-crime units, which had developed a reputation for overly aggressive tactics.
“This is a seismic shift in the culture of how the NYPD polices this great city,” Shea said at the time. “It will be felt immediately in the communities that we protect.”
Mayor Eric Adams pledged to “immediately” reinstate a new version of the plainclothes units, called “Neighborhood Safety Teams,” that will focus on arresting people who illegally carry guns. Bringing back a version of plainclothes units was one of Adams’ main campaign promises. The recent spate of high-profile killings, including the fatal shooting of 22-year-old officer Jason Rivera, appears to have added urgency to the relaunch of the units.
Keechant Sewell, the new Police Commissioner, told the New York Post that “plainclothes units work. They are able to be in places where they are not able to be easily recognized and if you use a surgical approach, use well-trained officers and know what their objectives are, you can get measurable results.”
But the stealth Sewell described as an asset can also pave the way for abuse. Historically, plainclothes officers have been involved in virtually all high-profile police killings. According to lawsuit data and CCRB complaints, they’ve used excessive force, conducted illegal searches to produce results, knowingly made false arrests, lied to prosecutors, and planted evidence.