In a new survey, New York cops say the city is less safe since Mayor de Blasio took office and that morale is almost nonexistent.

The survey asked 6,000 of New York's 24,000-strong police force to rate morale in the department.  On a scale of one to ten, the average was 2.49.

New York Post:

Roughly 87 percent of cops said the Big Apple has become “less safe” since the new administration took over at the beginning of 2014, with 55 percent of those respondents describing New York City as “a lot less safe.”

Ninety-six percent of cops also said that relations between cops and the communities they patrol have gotten worse during the same period — even as Bratton has made repairing those relationships a cornerstone of his policing strategy.

Meanwhile, 89 percent of cops polled said they would quit the NYPD if they were offered a higher-paying job in law enforcement, while 86 percent said they would not recommend the job to family members.

Police officers who work the beat said cops are so dispirited because they don’t feel like they have the support of the communities where they work — or of the NYPD brass, for that matter.

“Morale is terrible. It’s always been bad, but this is the worst [it has been],” said a cop who works in Manhattan. “Even though Bratton stands up there and tells you, ‘We’re not about numbers, we’re not about summonses,’ that’s a lot of BS.”

But a high-ranking NYPD official said that while the survey highlights areas that need improvement, it is far from scientific and was likely answered by “people on the extremes.”

“The department has not received the survey,” said NYPD spokesman Peter Donald. “When and if we receive it, we will review it.”

City Hall spokeswoman Monica Klein dismissed the survey, calling its findings “highly suspect.”

“We are experiencing historic lows in criminal activity. Murders and shootings are at their lowest in modern history,” Klein said.

A policeman's job is tough enough.  But adding to their burden are widely publicized protests referring to cops as "murderers" and openly calling for violence against them.

This sort of protests does not take place in a vacuum.  Just in the past two days, three policemen were shot and wounded in a shootout with a suspect in Chicago, and another policeman was gunned down outside his station house in Maryland.  The Maryland incident was particularly galling because the suspect opened fire on police outside the station while his brothers filmed it.  The police officer – an undercover narcotics cop – was killed by friendly fire.

Since the Black Lives Matter movement began their protests, the daily job of police officers has become more dangerous.  The Christian Science Monitor reports an increase in fatalities from ambushes on police:

Ambushes like the Sunday evening attack are not unheard of. Some 200 ambush attacks on police happen each year according to a Department of Justice study published in October 2015. 

The report showed that the rate of such ambushes had stabilized over the past decade since a decline beginning in the early 1990s. 

Surprise attacks on police officers may be happening at a steady rate, but the study also reported that the fatalities resulting from these attacks are increasing. Federal Bureau of Investigation numbers show that 115 officers died in ambushes from 2003 to 2012. According to the same numbers, 267 were injured. 

Sunday's direct attack on the police station may have been particularly bold. Most of these attacks, 82 percent, were on an officer that was alone, according to data from the International Association of Chiefs of Police. 

The escalating rhetoric against police officers is having predictable consequences.