#One cop’s provocative call to give up on stopping NYC crime

On one level, it’s just a union chief serving his members’ interests — and no one else’s. The unions wouldn’t mind if the whole force spent all its time in squad cars and station houses — working to solve crimes after the fact, rather than preventing them.

And when crime rates shoot up — hey, that becomes an argument for hiring more officers (or paying them more) to do more of the same.

That was how policing mostly worked in this town for far too long — before CompStat and the rest of the early-’90s revolution. That’s when the brass started holding commanders responsible for bringing down crime in their precincts — which meant holding sergeants, beat cops and every other step of the chain responsible, too.

The entire NYPD, including union leaders, is proud of what that approach achieved: a far, far safer city for all — including cops.

But Monahan suggests it’s time to give up — because the public, or at least the politicians, won’t support real crime-prevention anymore.

In his letter to Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner Dermot Shea, Monahan argues: “The days of ‘aggressive policing’ are over,” citing, in particular, Shea’s decision to do away with plainclothes anti-crime units.

Those officers kept weapons off the streets — but also boosted tension with the community.

At least, that’s the reason Shea gave for ending them, and Monahan’s willing to go along. But the union chief takes the logic further: Pretty much any effective policing now upsets the community (or at least those who claim to speak for it), so it’s time to drop all of it.

CompStat pushes “commanders to go into minority neighborhoods for targeted enforcement” and to boost “proactive policing,” writes Monahan. But now that gets cops in trouble — so the union chief argues it has to go.

The anti-crime units were the “single most effective tool” against street violence, Monahan notes. So how is it fair to hold anyone in blue responsible when violence soars?

Gunplay and murders are up 25 percent over 2019. The first three weeks of June saw more shootings, 125, than any June-1-to-June-21 period since 1996.

Even de Blasio is worried — but he shows no sign of reversing his course of making ever more concessions to the cop-bashers.

Maybe Monahan really is calling for surrender — or maybe he’s just trying to make de Blasio see where his own logic leads.

Fingers crossed.