NYPD Police Commissioner Bill Bratton is under heavy fire today from local politicians for his message on a radio interview that women should use the buddy system when leaving a bar and getting into city taxis to prevent rape.
City Councilwoman Laurie Cumbo has declared the remarks inappropriate and stated:
“What I want from my commissioner of the NYPD is to say that he’s going to do a full crackdown. We want to make sure that taxi cab drivers are put on notice that this type of behavior will not be tolerated, that we are going to be enforcing laws, that there will be civil and serious penalties coming down on any driver that disrespects, that rapes, that sexually assaults. I want a commissioner who’s going to come out and is going to state that, not tell us as women that we need to get a buddy system.”
Cumbo has proposed legislation that would require a panic button directly linked to police to be placed in all yellow cabs as a response to the unusually high instance of reported sexual assault in taxis in 2015.
City Council members also noted the recent gang rape of a young woman accompanied by her father in a Brownsville park. The crime emphasizes that just because a woman is not alone does not mean she is safe from rape.
