a. The police department and force shall have the power and it shall be their duty to preserve the public peace, prevent crime, detect and arrest offenders, suppress riots, mobs and insurrections, disperse unlawful or dangerous assemblages and assemblages which obstruct the free passage of public streets, sidewalks, parks and places; protect the rights of persons and property, guard the public health, preserve order at elections and all public meetings and assemblages; subject to the provisions of law and the rules and regulations of the commissioner of traffic, regulate, direct, control and restrict the movement of vehicular and pedestrian traffic for the facilitation of traffic and the convenience of the public as well as the proper protection of human life and health; remove all nuisances in the public streets, parks and places; arrest all street mendicants and beggars; provide proper police attendance at fires; inspect and observe all places of public amusement, all places of business having excise or other licenses to carry on any business; enforce and prevent the violation of all laws and ordinances in force in the city; and for these purposes to arrest all persons guilty of violating any law or ordinance for the suppression or punishment of crimes or offenses.
b. The provisions of law and the rules and regulations of the commissioner of transportation relating to regulating, directing, controlling and restricting the parking of vehicles and the movement and conduct of vehicular and pedestrian traffic for the facilitation of traffic and the convenience of the public as well as the proper protection of human life and health may also be enforced by an employee of the police department.
c. Except as specifically provided herein, nothing contained in this section shall be deemed to limit, restrict, divest, transfer or supersede the powers or the jurisdiction of any agency as defined in section eleven hundred fifty of the charter.
d. Nothing contained in this charter shall be deemed to grant the department of traffic cognizance or control over the government, administration, disposition and discipline of the police department or police force.
Editor's note: For related unconsolidated provisions, see Administrative Code Appendix A at L.L. 1996/058 and L.L. 2006/022.