The busiest cops in NYC

Just ten officers have made over 20,000 arrests

Officers round up and arrest protestors in Manhattan in 2014 / Liam Quigley

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Officer Lydell Boyd is credited with 4,508 arrests since starting with the NYPD in 1992, according to his officer profile. The vast majority of the arrests were for crimes of the pettier variety, with 4,066 arrestees processed for misdemeanor crimes. Another 436 were felony arrests. While he is named in at least one lawsuit with other officers that allege a false arrest, he’s been the subject of relatively few civilian complaints made to the city. Boyd drew one complaint for roughly every 1500 arrests.

The same can’t be said for others on the list, like Detective Waliur Rahman. He’s been named in a cascade of complaints and lawsuits since 1994 when he started with the NYPD. He’s processed nearly 1,800 arrests.

All but three of the officers on the list have been sued for false arrest at some point, with the city settling a number of lawsuits while others work their way through the courts.

Retired NYPD sergeant and adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice Joe Giacalone said that Boyd’s arrest rate was high — even for working in one of the busiest precincts in the city. But he said that it wasn’t uncommon for cops to rack up a lot of arrests when working on narcotics assignments.

“It depends on what unit you work in. You have the old [Organized Crime Control Bureau], with Narcotics, and all those other things. These guys would go out and round up 10 or 15 people at a clip. When you’re the observer on that, you witness the hand to hand, those are all your arrests,” he said.