Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly recently told the City Council that he will have to lay off nearly 400 civilian workers who perform administrative duties in the department. They may have to be replaced by uniformed officers beginning with the new fiscal year starting July 1.

The layoffs would help save $20 million, but would require trained officers—the best cops on the planet—to perform such duties as filing reports and typing documents. Worthy and necessary work, to be sure. But not the sort of work we want our cops performing.

It hardly bears noting that the NYPD has been in the forefront of making New York the world’s safest big city over the last 15 years. But it is worth remembering that the NYPD’s victories in the war on crime mustn’t be taken for granted. The number of full-time cops has shrunk from slightly more than 40,000 in 2001 to just over 35,000 today. That is a potentially dangerous decrease.

True, if anybody can do more with less, it’s the NYPD. But only a fool would expect continued victories in the face of dramatic decreases in head count. Neither Mayor Bloomberg nor Commissioner Kelly is a fool. Quite the opposite.

Nevertheless, the trend is disturbing. When good times return, the NYPD budget should be made whole again, and the drop in troop strength should be brought to an immediate halt.

If Police Commissioner Ray Kelly gets his way, they will.

Mr. Kelly sent out a note to news organizations this week telling them that due to construction, media outlets will have to leave the beloved “Police Shack” at 1 Police Plaza, and there’s no more space for them.

“By July 31, the Police Department must displace our Community Affairs Bureau and various news media from offices in Police Headquarters to make room for a new Joint Operations Center,” a letter obtained by The Observer reads in part.

The Joint Operations Center will occupy the second floor of Police Plaza, which includes the Shack, and the former fire station right next door.

“Regrettably, we don’t have space at Headquarters in the immediate future” for the Shack occupants, the letter reads. They’ll have to move out by the end of July, and Mr. Kelly said that the new Police Academy, which will be partially completed in 2013, “may present” an opportunity to create space again.

“We got wind last week from police sources that this was going on,” said one shack reporter. “The finality of this letter we hadn’t expected.”

The Times, the News, the Post, 1010 WINS and Newsday are among the dailies that field reporters to the Police Shack, a dirty, grubby, mouse-infested office that has become a journalistic legend in this town.

“I think there’s an importance to talk to police officers and to be close to them and to form some relationship with them,” said another reporter at the Shack. “Without that, we just have the DCPI phone number.”

“We’re organizing,” said another. “They can claim there’s no space in the building, but that might just be a bargaining tactic.”

Here's his statement

"Under no circumstances should the NYPD or any other American authority assist President Ahmadinejad in visiting Ground Zero. This is a man who has made threats against America and Israel, is harboring Bin Laden's son and other al-Qaeda leaders, is shipping arms to Iraqi insurgents and is pursuing the development of nuclear weapons. Assisting Ahmadinejad in touring Ground Zero - hallowed ground for all Americans - is outrageous."

There were police helicopters flying formations overhead, statements from the Mayor and the police commissioner, bagpipers and horns, drummers in kilts and the impressive array of uniformed men seen too often at such funeral processions.

But even then, the appearance of a Hollywood camera crew outside St. Bernard's church--accompanied by the actors Colin Farrell and Noah Emmerich--seemed a bit much.

Mr. Farrell had been filming in New York for a forthcoming drama in which he plays Jimmy Egan, a corrupt police officer whose precinct is being investigated by his best friend, Det. Ray Tierney, played by the actor Edward Norton.

Director Gavin O'Connor, himself the son of an NYPD detective, directed Pride and Glory, in which Hernandez had agreed to appear as an extra; Hernandez played on the force's football team, as does Mr. Farrell's character in the film.

Initially, newspaper reports indicated that the funeral procession was filmed to guide filmmakers in the production of a funeral scene set to appear in the movie.

But now, attendees at the funeral are being asked to sign release forms that will allow the producers to use footage taken at the funeral in the movie.

And at least one group of them is giving the filmmaker a hard time.

The volunteer pipe and drum group asked for a fee from producers of Pride and Glory in exchange for filling out release forms from six members who were filmed during the Hernandez funeral--and they say they are getting the cold shoulder.

“When they came to us to sign waivers we said we want some sort of donation, but we have not heard back from them for three weeks,” said NYPD Sgt. Brian Coughlin, band master of the Pipes and Drums of the Emerald Society of the New York City Police Department.

Whether or not the producers were even given permission to film the funeral was initially a matter of contention between the captain of the force's football team and Hernandez's family; Mr. Farrell made international headlines after the father of the slain officer complained he had never even heard of the film. At any rate, Mr. Farrell quickly made it up to the family by inviting them to another filming location and talking to them about their son; producers of the film also paid for Hernandez's headstone and for a memorial plaque in the precinct house.

The NYPD football team members filmed over three days last year at the Abraham Lincoln High School in Brooklyn have already signed waivers for those scenes, according to Det. Ed Gardner, the general manager of the team.

But the waivers now going out from the filming at the Hernandez funeral are reopening the wound. And of about 80 members of the Pipes and Drums who performed at the funeral services, Sgt. Coughlin said, releases were needed for a half-dozen to screen the footage in the final version of the film.

At issue is the fact that the Pipes and Drums members normally require a donation from filmmakers who use footage of their performances in their films. Members of the group have played in eight movies, including The Departed, Copland, Miracle on 34th Street and Ghostbusters 2, and usually are paid between $5,000 and $10,000, Sgt. Coughlin said.

About three weeks ago a technical advisor on the movie, NYPD Det. Richard Tirelli, asked Sgt. Coughlin to get the waivers. The band leader told him that the nonprofit group wanted between $5,000 and $8,000, and then they would sign.

A spokeswoman for New Line Cinema, which is producing the film, said the Jan. 4, 2008 release date will not being affected by the release forms, but she declined to comment further.

Hernandez was mistakenly shot in the early morning of Jan. 28 at a White Castle in the Bronx by a fellow police officer.

The 24-year-old cop had been assaulted in the restaurant by a gang of youths, in a scene that was recorded in haunting images of a security videotape.

The brawl spilled outside, and a responding officer saw Hernandez pointing a gun at one the attackers, and told him to drop the weapon. Hernandez, who was wearing street clothes, did not respond, so the other cop shot him.

It was not clear whether Hernandez would be seen as an extra in Pride and Glory, but the filmmakers have said they will memorialize him in the credits of the film.

“This is Big Brother time,” Councilman Charles Barron, a former Black Panther, said in an interview.

“We’re used to this,” he continued. “This is the same thing we went through in the 60’s, where they monitored every little thing we do and they bugged our phones—where they had us under surveillance.”

(The other officials cited in the report as supporters of what the police described as a protest against the Bush administration’s policies—Bill Perkins, now a State Senator, and Larry Seabrook—are also African-American.)

But whatever institutional bonds exist from serving on the City Council apparently weren’t enough for all of Mr. Barron’s colleagues to share his sense of outrage.

Council member and former State Attorney General Oliver Koppell approved of the NYPD’s undercover investigation of protest groups, on the grounds that “aggressive advocacy can turn into violent acts.”

Councilman Peter Vallone Jr., who chairs the Council’s Public Safety Committee and is an outspoken defender of the NYPD, said the investigation was “one of the reasons we were safe throughout the Republican National Convention,” and that it was “a very good thing to do.”

Especially, he said, since the police had kept an eye on a well-known militant named … Charles Barron.

“Now, the fact that some Council members were apparently—and I’m no expert on this—apparently cited as supporting one of the rallies, I don’t think that has much to do with it one way or the other,” he said. Although any group that Charles Barron is associated with—since he has actually made threats against the police, by saying ‘We’re not the only ones who bleed’—probably should be monitored.”

Now, the two come together on NYPD Rant, an unofficial Web site for the city's Finest, where some of the afflicted cops--or people pretending to be--are vowing to get back at those rowdy environmentalists.

Commenters have posted pictures of Paul White and Matthew Roth, two honchos at Transportation Alternatives, who are supposedly going to be riding in this Friday's Critical Mass ride. (When The Observer interviewed Mr. White a couple of months ago, he said he had pretty much stopped taking part in those rides, however.)

"These lawbreaking cycle pirates must be stopped!!" writes Blue Trumpet on NYPD Rant.

Gimmelosttime adds: "Someone please hammer these 2 turds this weekend"

The cauldron of early 21st-century urban life bubbleth over.

- Matthew Schuerman

Charles Barron, who was one of three current or former Council members named in the police report, was outraged to have been the target of a spy operation. But Peter Vallone, Jr. told me, essentially, that he had it coming, saying that "any group Charles Barron is associated with" probably should be monitored.

-- Azi Paybarah

-- Azi Paybarah

On marginally related note -- Bloomberg as national figure? -- here's a guy who was yelling about "Bloomberg for President" at this weekend's St. Patrick's Day parade on Staten Island, and who was kind enough to elaborate on the theme when I asked.

His name is Jim Davis and he's an NYPD detective.

-- Azi Paybarah

Newmark: Not too much, which is good. They asked for it. They thought it would clean up the site, eliminate all of the repostings. Since we started, the volume dropped precipitously. It is back up a little, but it eliminated a lot of the scams I was worried about, because a lot of the small brokers—the new ones—they don’t earn a lot of money, and they are not getting reimbursed for advertising costs. But when I asked them, ‘O.K., well, what did you do before, how did you advertise before?’—well, there was no good answer.

I brought along a printout from some ads. You can see, here and here, there is the same ad, posted within two days of each other. Can you tell me: Was that broker paying $10 each time, or did they get around it somehow?

It looks like it’s the same apartment. I would say that broker is not making the best use of money. It’s not a broker that I have heard of, so that is a good sign. But tell me, does that price look too low to you?

$1,300 for a one-bedroom in the South Slope? No. So you are saying that it’s not a scam?

Right. I mean, I don’t know. Is it too low?

Not necessarily. About fraud, last fall the City Council released a report saying that one-third of postings that were supposedly no-fee places really did have brokers’ fees. What are you doing about that?

Well, a lot of what I did was get together with the Council, and looked at their list, and I could tell them, ‘Well, that agency is generally trustworthy, and maybe they just had a new broker,’ or ‘This one we know is problematic.’

See, it depends whether problems occur offline or online. We can handle the problems that occur online, but when they happen offline—when people bait and switch, or when they say there is no fee but then, when everybody gets ready to sign the lease, the broker says, ‘Oh, by the way, there is a fee’—we don’t have control over that.

I mean, I guess we could implement some sort of e-mail tracking system, but that is more expensive, and [it’s] less expensive keeping track of it in my head.

Do you mean that here you are, a new-media company using a high-tech platform, and you find that you do better using your noggin?

Well, we are not really that high-tech of a company. I mean, we use computers, but the interface is fairly simple. I can imagine that there may be a way to track scams using I.P. addresses or e-mail addresses, but I actually find that we have done a pretty good job ourselves and through reader feedback. We can see scams develop and address them that way.

You made a distinction between online and offline scams. Do you feel a responsibility for preventing scams that happen offline?

I don’t know if “responsibility” is the right word. I think it is the right thing to do. But we don’t have the boots on the ground to go out and investigate them. And so we cooperate with the NYPD, we are working with the City Council, we are working with the Department of State, which has oversight over licensing in New York.

We feel very strongly about civil rights—but if the right procedures are followed, we also believe in cooperating with law enforcement.

How important is New York real estate to your site?

In New York, real estate is a blood sport. It has always been that way. A few years ago, I started to notice that it was a problem, that we were getting a lot of complaints about [fraudulent ads]. So it is a special focus of mine.

New York is the only city where we have the $10 listing fee for brokers. In terms of time, I would say I spend maybe 20 to 30 minutes a day dealing with New York real-estate problems. A lot of what I do is make sure the right person is taking care of the problem.

Are there things that brokers or newspapers, with their classified apartment ads, can learn from Craigslist?

I think there are issues about using Web sites that they can learn, such as keeping them simple and fast. On a deeper level, I think it is important that you want to treat people the way that you want to be treated. That is very important for a business.

Do you have any advice for how brokers should write ads on Craigslist?

Just cut down the hype. Just be on the level, be as straightforward as possible and include all the facts, and just talk to people like they were really people.