The city’s new top sex crimes cop issued this warning Friday to perverts across the five boroughs: “We will get you.”
“We will prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law,” Deputy Chief Judith Harrison promised, taking the reins of the NYPD Special Victims Division after the ouster of its previous commanding officer.
The command shakeup was prompted in part by a blistering DOI investigation audit from March that uncovered severe under-staffing and under-training in the unit.
Harrison — a 21-year NYPD veteran who has commanded two precincts in Queens and was promoted to deputy chief in July — is replacing Deputy Chief Michael Osgood, now reassigned to Staten Island.
“I’m an empathetic person,” Harrison told reporters at a press conference Friday, when asked whether, as a woman, she brings a special sensitivity to the job.
“I do think I bring an element of compassion to it,” she said. But, “It’s not just because I’m a woman.”
“It’s all about the victim and it’s all about providing the victim with the justice he or she deserves.”
The revamps announced Friday include: tidying up dingy Special Victims facilities in all five boroughs, separating the investigation of child and adult cases and beefing up training under the state-of-the-art Forensic Experiential Trauma Interviewing technique, which brings a little neuroscience into the understanding of how victims recall traumatic events.
The “FETI” technique was first instituted under Osgood, who earned some parting praise Friday from Captains Endowment Association President Roy Richter.
“Chief Osgood is not just the expert, but the innovative creator of modern day investigative techniques and policing of sex crimes offenses,” Richter said.
“At the same time the Chief is an acknowledged advocate for the needs of victims who suffer especially devastating trauma from these criminal acts,” he said, adding that Harrison is “a very talented police commander” who “has big shoes to fill.”
“I am confident she will meet this challenge as she has excelled with others in the past,” he said.
Osgood had been overseeing the Harvey Weinstein investigation. His stormy relationship with sex crimes prosecutors in the Manhattan DA’s office was revealed when he was quoted in a New York Magazine story boasting that he’d “hidden” one of Weinstein’s accusers because he’d come to believe prosecutors were working to discredit her.
