New York Police Department Robbed!

Apparently Seattle is committing theft.  They are stealing NYPD officers to move to Seattle and work for the Seattle Police Department. It's working.

First, let's take a look at why it is working.  For starters, Seattle has a population of 582,000 while NYC has 8 million!!!  In those cities, Seattle has only 1,200 cops.  That is one cop for every 485 people.  

In comparison, NYC has 35,000 cops.  Which works out to be only 228 people per a cop.  That is cake walk.  I had 228 friends on myspace at one point in my life (sure, they were all bands) but keeping track of less than 250 people is easy.  People have Barmitzvas that are twice that size.

So why are NYPD officers moving to home of Nirvana?  well, the starting pay for one in NYC for a police officer is $25,100.  Seattle is $47,334 (nearly double just to become an officer).

If you reach the top base salary within x amount of years?  as an NYPD, you can get a max of $59,000.  Seattle is $67,000.

Take into account the fact that the median cost of household incomes in NYC is $45,000.  That the cost of single family home in NYC is $469,000 and that this economy is going down faster than a hooker in a New York Governors office, I can see why police officers are going west.

Just for the sake of crime talk, Seattle had 24 murders in 2007.  NYC  had 496.  496 in one year!  That may not look like much when you have 8 million people walking around, but since I moved here, we had 2 murders within a 4 block radius.  24 murders in Seattle for 2007....their suicide rate is 13.1 per 100,000.  NYC has a 6.2 suicide rate.  Who needs to kill themselves when you will probably get murdered tomorrow anyway?

It costs 20% more to live here in NYC as in Seattle.  Some cops here in NYC have to work a second job just to maintain a standard of living.  

It got me thinking about what safety costs.  Sure, the NYC cops only need to police an average of 200 people per an officer in this giant city, but our murder rate is higher.  I am sure this all balances out, but when someone offers you double your salary just to move to Seattle (not to mention that they will give you an additional $5,000 moving expenses), a lot of cops must be re-thinking their commitment to this city.

You would think that the NYPD Police Commissioner would do something about it.  Perhapse raise the salary or I don't know, do something good to keep them.  But, instead, he plans on cutting the police force by 1000 cops due to shortfalls in the budget.  

So next time you get mugged at knife point while waiting on the L Train, you may not want to run to a police officer immediately after.  He will either not care because he got his pink slip that morning, or he knows that the $25,000 he makes is not worth chasing a guy down the tunnel.

I love the NYPD.  They are brave and as they say, they are New Yorks Finest.   So I think they should be treated a bit better.  Can someone give these guys a raise?  I know I prefer to pay more in taxes so they can get $40,000 a year instead of ending up as number 497 on the murdered list for 2008.