Mayor Eric Adams speaks about having more uniformed NYPD officers patrol the subways during a joint press conference with Gov. Kathy Hochul at the Fulton Transit Center, Jan. 6, 2022. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
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City Hall is moving to embed NYPD members into other city agencies, even as the police commissioner and other top officials in the administration of Mayor Eric Adams are under scrutiny by federal law enforcement.
As of Sept. 3, NYPD Deputy Inspector Timothy Wilson has been assigned as “Chief of Enforcement” at the city Department of Parks and Recreation, managing 250 Parks Enforcement Patrol officers, according to an internal memo obtained by THE CITY — part of a larger initiative to place NYPD officials into local government agencies.
Wilson’s duties include “addressing illegal vending on parkland, permit enforcement, recruitment with the hopes of lowering attrition, building out the agency’s drone unit, and enhancing collaboration with NYPD to support PEP officers,” reads an Aug. 29 report from Parks Commissioner Sue Donoghue to her supervisor, Deputy Mayor for Operations Meera Joshi.
The memo describes the new NYPD chief enforcement officer at the Parks Department as “part of a mayoral initiative to embed an NYPD member in each agency with an enforcement unit to enhance interagency coordination and streamline enforcement efforts.”
More than a dozen city agencies have enforcement units, including the departments of Homeless Services, Environmental Protection, and Health and Mental Hygiene — all of which will be directed to train employees at the Police Academy facility in Queens under another Adams initiative announced in May.
A spokesperson for Adams didn’t respond to questions about which agencies are being assigned NYPD enforcement chiefs and referred questions about the initiative…
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