9 Frightening Things About America's Biggest Police Force
The NYPD has expanded into a massive global anti-terror operation with surveillance and military capabilities unparalled in the history of local US law enforcement. - The NYPD is the biggest police force in the country, with over 34,000 uniformed officers patrolling New York's streets, and 51,000 employees overall -- more than the FBI. It has a proposed budget of $4.6 billion for 2013, a figure that represents almost 15 percent of the entire city’s budget. NYC's population is a little over 8 million. That means that there are 4.18 police officers per 1,000 people. By comparison, Los Angeles, the second largest city in the U.S. with 3.8 million people, has only 9,895 officers--a ratio of 2.6 police per 1,000 people. What has the NYPD been doing with all that cash and manpower? In addition to ticketing minorities for standing outside of their homes, spying on Muslims who live in New Jersey, abusing protesters, and gunning down black teens over weed, the NYPD has expanded into a massive global anti-terror operation with surveillance and military capabilities unparalleled in the history of US law enforcement.
Philip Giraldi: The Ubiquitous New Yorker