Why cops need to sweat the ‘small stuff’

Eric Garner was a human being with family, friends, hopes, and fears. His death at the hands of incompetent government would be farce if it weren't tragedy — but not all government incompetence is a crime.

The city would compound the banal horror of Garner's death if it decided to run away from the quality-of-life policing that saves — and improves — lives.

Having a strategy and executing that strategy well are two different things. But in the aftermath of the Garner case, lots of folk have said that maybe the city shouldn't even bother with enforcement when it comes to small crimes. After all, he was arrested for allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes, hardly the crime of the century.

Many arrests are indeed unnecessary — particularly to the person being cuffed. But consider this hypothetical: Someone is arrested for jumping a subway turnstile — and, by a series of compounded errors by the cops arresting him, ends up dead on the floor.

In today's environment, the headlines would be: "He died for $2.50."

Stealing a swipe from the MTA is one of the tiniest crimes imaginable. And yet cops routinely find that the people who beat fares also pack heat.

In October, MTA security chased a guy who'd boarded a bus without paying. The perp escaped, but left behind an illegal gun.

In September, cops caught a guy asking passengers for an illegal swipe — and caught his gun, too.

The same day, police stopped another guy for illegally borrowing a MetroCard — and he turned out to have an illegal gun, too.

A year ago, cops caught a fare-beater with a knife.

Jumping a turnstile may be minor. But arresting fare-beaters is not. In February, cops stopped another fare-beater on a bus — and he shot one (in the legs).

In March, two fare-beaters punched a cop and managed to get away — with who knows what kind of weapon.

A cop arresting a stranger even for what almost seems like a non-crime has to be ready for anything.

And no, fare-beating arrests don't always go well. Last month, observers caught cops on video hitting an alleged fare-beater with a baton after he looked to be subdued.

Does that mean we stop catching farebeaters — and their guns? Of course not.

What about Garner's alleged crime — "nothing more than selling loose cigarettes," as sympathetic media accounts put it?

Well, cigarette smuggling is an interstate crime — one whose profits can fund global terrorism. Even when illegal cigarettes aren't funding Hezbollah or organized criminals, selling such smokes penalizes store owners who follow the law.

We can argue over how high cigarette taxes should be. But allowing people to openly sell untaxed cigarettes on the street makes a mockery of an elected government's right to set public policy.

That doesn't mean that Garner was selling illegal cigarettes, that officers were right to make this arrest, that cops handled the arrest well or that EMTs ably helped a sick man in distress.

But directing cops to do their job better (and getting rid of bad cops) is entirely different from saying they should do a different job — that is, not care about "small" crimes at all.

No, the cops aren't perfect.

My main personal interaction with them is being annoyed when they dangerously park in the bike lanes — something else that makes a mockery of the law.

(Many newcomers who have moved to the city in the past 10 years have the same experience, and it needlessly turns them against police.)

But cops are able to exercise discretion — and, ironically, have shown it over the past two weeks.

During the Ferguson and then the Garner protests, Mayor de Blasio's Police Department has made it clear that people can protest peacefully — including marching without a permit, technically against the law.

Obstructing traffic is a crime — but the cops haven't engaged. Where they have followed a no-tolerance policy and arrested agitators is when it came to disrupting public events (the Christmas Tree lighting and the Thanksgiving Day Parade) and deliberately obstructing major crossings.

This use of discretion seems wise, for the moment, at least.

Distinctions matter. And even in normal times, broken-windows and quality-of-life policing need regular reforms — but that doesn't mean that New Yorkers can be free to break "small" crimes that aren't so small with impunity.

Nicole Gelinas is a contributing editor to City Journal.

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