An anonymous survey of retired New York police officers has reportedly found rampant crime-report manipulation at the NYPD.
The survey refutes the NYPD's defense that it has just a few rotten apples, Eli Silverman, one of the criminologists who conducted the survey, told The New York Times.
"This really demonstrates a rotten barrel," he said.
The NYPD's focus on cutting down on major felonies started a "number's game" to downplay serious crimes, according to Silverman and an ex-police captain, John Eterno, who conducted the survey.
One officer said he heard a deputy commissioner tell a commanding officer to "just consolidate burglaries that occurred in an apartment building and count as one," the Times reported.
NYPD Spokesman Paul Browne reportedly called the survey junk science because it involved a very small sample of roughly 2,000 responses from retired officers.
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