NYPD Blames OWS For Shooting Spree

The NYPD has had to expend a lot of manpower pepper-spraying and clubbing the folks in Zuccotti Park. So don't blame the cops just because shootings have gone up elsewhere while they brutalize peaceful protesters on Wall Street. The New York Post, unsurprisingly, takes their side.

Four high-ranking cops point the finger at Occupy Wall Street protesters, saying their rallies pull special crime-fighting units away from the hot zones where they’re needed. Since Occupy Wall Street took over Zuccotti Park on Sept. 17, the NYPD has relied heavily on its borough task forces, the department’s go-to teams for rowdy crowds. But such protest duty takes the special units away from their regular jobs -- patrolling public housing and problem spots and staking out nightclubs plagued by violence, supervisors said. “Normally, the task force is used in high-crime neighborhoods where you have a lot of shootings and robberies,” said one source. “They are always used when there are spikes in crime as a quick fix. But instead of being sent to Jamaica, Brownsville and the South Bronx, they are in Wall Street.”