Top NYPD Cops Under Fire Over Recent Shootings

Top cops from some of the city’s most violent precincts are facing the NYPD’s “firing squad” over an escalating wave of shootings, sources said.

A routine meeting last week turned into a thrashing session during which precinct commanders were berated for the outbreak of bloodshed.

“If you can’t do the job, we’ll find people who can!” a top department official hissed to at least one commander, according to a source.

Before the meeting, Chief of Patrol James Hall and his staff had hit the streets in Brownsville and East New York in Brooklyn to ask rookies whether they knew why they were out there, according to a source.

The newbies had been sent to the troubled neighborhoods as part of the NYPD’s Operation Impact, which puts more cops in high-crime areas.

But many of them had no idea why they were in the neighborhoods.

Hall grew angrier when he arrived at a Brooklyn street corner where an NYPD watchtower was set up — and found that it wasn’t staffed.

The “Sky Watch” tower, elevated two stories above the sidewalk, was supposed to have an officer in it at the time.

Hall waited 30 minutes before a cop showed up.

Commanders from Patrols, Detectives, Narcotics and Gangs that cover Brownsville, East New York, Crown Heights and Flatbush in Brooklyn and the North Shore of Staten Island were hauled into Thursday’s meeting at Police Headquarters.

First Deputy Commissioner Rafael Pineiro was among those who threatened to boot the top cops from their posts if the crime hike continued, sources said.

“Whenever there’s a problem, everyone always says, ‘We’ll take care of it, we’ll take care of it.’ The problem has to be taken care of before the meeting,” Pineiro bellowed, a source said.

He ripped the commanders for “mismanagement of money,” citing one instance in which two Brooklyn precincts racked up a total of 300 hours of overtime — and just four arrests.

Precincts are under pressure to control the violence before summer, when NYPD brass fear the crime wave could spiral out of control.

For the week beginning April 4, the number of shooting incidents — many gang-related — rose 94 percent over the same period last year, from 17 to 33.

Overall, shooting incidents as of April 11 are up 19 percent across the city.