NYPD Homicide
©1999 Doug Iannelli

The New York Division of the FBI is located in Manhattan, scant blocks from City Hall and One Police Plaza, headquarters of one of the largest metropolitan law enforcement entities in the United States: the New York Police Department (NYPD).

NYPD is made up of over 38,000 uniformed officers and 9,000 civilian staff serving an area of 320 square miles with a resident population of more than seven million plus a constant flow of visitors. The Detective Bureau is subdivided into four Detective Boroughs overseeing 73 Precinct Squads, each under the command of a Detective Lieutenant (the exception being Patrol Borough Staten Island which supervises its own Detective Operations). These 73 Precinct Squads are then spread out to work closely with the patrol officers in their Precincts to provide immediate investigative responses. There are just under 3,000 detectives in NYPD.

In this city it is the Precinct Squads in the Borough in which a body is found that take the call. Specialized Borough Homicide and Special Victims Squads bolster the efforts of the local squads, especially in the identification and investigation of pattern crimes. Together, they will investigate the case to its conclusion, as was happening in this case until the third bloodless body was fished from the New Jersey side of the Hudson.