Fuzz with a Buzz

"You can never find a cop when you need one." The old saw is painfully true about New York City's cops on the beat, the problem being that there is too much beat and too few cops. In 1929, some 4,000 foot patrolmen guarded the parks and pounded the pavements of the city; today only 2,000 are making the rounds. Now the New York police have found a way to let one man cover the ground of five: the motor scooter. Police Commissioner Howard R. Leary has already checked out 575 cops on 80 Vespas and Lambrettas. And he has just asked for funds to buy 300 more. Eventually, he wants all 2,000 patrolmen to mount up.

The zippy little vehicles provide all sorts of extra benefits. The putt-putting noise daunts would-be lawbreakers; the potential speed (60 m.p.h.) and mobility enable wheezy cops to outrun juvenile delinquents, mount sidewalks or even bounce up shallow steps to bypass traffic. For surprise, two-scooter teams patrol their beats in ever-changing patterns; for instant contact, each man carries a portable two-way radio. Not long ago, a scooter cop and a prowl-car team simultaneously got word of a burglary; riding on sidewalks, the scooter man beat the car by seven minutes and nabbed the burglar in the act.

The sight of beefy cops on dainty putt-putts has already enriched the city's lingo. Greenwich Villagers call scooter police "buzzy fuzzy"; because of their blue crash helmets, scooter men endure such other names as "blisterheads" and "bubbleheads." But names can never hurt them. So effective are the scootermounted cops that after the first nine putt-putts had been issued to park patrolmen in 1964, muggings dropped by 30% in Manhattan's Central Park, by 40% in Brooklyn's Prospect Park. The lesson was not lost; four high-crime precincts were then quickly scooterized. In a recent two-month period, those areas reported the fewest crimes in New York.

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