International Journal on Criminology Volume 4, Number 2, Winter 2016 | Page 10

International Journal on Criminology
Getting Started: The NYPD Hotline
Prior to 9/11 any and all NYPD-produced terrorism-related intelligence was
transferred for action to the FBI’s New York Field Office Joint Terrorism Task Force
[JTTF] where the NYPD had detailed a handful of detectives and supervisor. The
NYPD Intelligence Division had no role in and took no responsibility for followup.
While this changed in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 when the FBI JTTF was
swamped with follow-up work, the NYPD Intelligence Division had no meaningful
part in investigations beyond running down leads passed to them from the JTTF.
By mid-February 2002 the NYPD was still receiving FBI-produced leads for
follow-up with the results returned to the JTTF for their action, if any. By that time,
however, with new NYPD leadership in place, the NYPD Intelligence Division was
producing its own leads and investigations generated as follows:
-----First, leads returned to the Intelligence Division from the JTTF, when the
JTTF decided there was no worthwhile follow-up, would be pursued nonetheless by
the Division if it thought there was reason.
-----Second, leads coming directly to the NYPD Intelligence Division via
contacts it had on the street; this might be a confidential informant who learned of
something on their own or a walk-in to a precinct.
-----Third, the setting up of the NYPD CT hotline, which enabled the public
to call in suspicious activity, persons, or matters of CT concern.
Over a period of years, this hotline, located at the Intelligence Division’s
24 hour 7 days a week Operations Desk, received more than 25,000 calls from the
public. Each was pursued aggressively and many, over the years, resulted in fullscale
investigations and arrests for matters directly or indirectly related to terrorism.
The rules were simple—when a call came in, give the JTTF first rights of refusal
to follow-up; if they chose not to, the NYPD Intelligence Division would. The
follow-up would be immediate and in person, the results would be documented in
operational reports and filed, and a full investigative case initiated if warranted.
With this process, the NYPD Intelligence Division had entered a new era
of undertaking investigations with the sole purpose of uncovering terrorist-related
activity. Also, by this time the Intelligence Division was scouring the worldwide
information flow to identify organizations abroad that were known to be incubators
of radicalization or believed to be involved in terrorism.
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