LOWER MANHATTAN — The NYPD is beefing up its numbers near The Battery and Staten Island Ferry area to crack down on what some have called the "mayhem" created by illegal vendors selling tickets.
The new detail will be made up of six officers, according to 1st Precinct sources.
"We've wanted to have more of a presence Downtown, but we simply didn't have the resources for it," said a source familiar with the detail. "Now we're getting the numbers we need from other precincts."
Police Commissioner Bill Bratton, who spoke on the John Gambling Show on AM 970 Thursday, said that the new NYPD detail will be similar to police efforts in Times Square "so that we truly do have a familiarity with these cast of characters, the scammers,” the New York Daily News reported.
The increased enforcement comes after many called for a crackdown, especially after several recent violent incidents with aggressive vendors, which included a tourist getting his skull fractured after rebuffing an illegal vendor.
Statue Cruises, the only company authorized to run ferry trips to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, has long been calling on the NYPD for more officers, and upped its own private security in recent weeks to combat the issue.
Bratton also said that while the added enforcement will help, people need to vigilant to avoid getting ripped off.
“But the public really needs to be mindful of the potential to be scammed,” he said. “To the best of our ability, we try to deter that.”
