U.N. Wants NYC Cops for Peacekeeping

AP
Thursday April 12, 2007

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon asked New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Wednesday whether some of the city's police officers could be deployed with U.N. peacekeeping missions.
Recruiting police for the U.N.'s 16 peacekeeping missions around the globe has been historically challenging.

"New York City has one of the most diversified police forces around and I think the secretary-general would like to explore possibilities," U.N. deputy spokeswoman Marie Okabe said before the meeting. "Getting police to join peacekeeping operations is one of the high priorities for the U.N."

Bloomberg left the meeting without speaking to reporters. Stu Loeser, the mayor's spokesman, said his office had no comment.

New York City has recently fallen short of its police recruiting goals so it's unclear if it would have any officers to spare for international peacekeeping.

The U.N. peacekeeping department said 321 American police officers are currently involved in missions abroad, primarily training local police. Of those, 225 are in the Kosovo region of Yugoslavia, and others are in Haiti, Liberia and Sudan.