It's not like police are an inexhaustible resource.

Resources allocated in one realm means a dip in another. Using bad stats to justify a reallocation should be alarming to local residents.

Policy is not the same as law. A police department can have a policy on how to distribute resources....

Not sure about NY laws, but other states allow "Idaho stops" (treating stop signs as yields on bikes): http://www.treehugger.com/bikes/more-idaho-stop-and-why-cycl...

If you've ever commuted via bike, you probably understand how little sense it makes to stop at every sign and roll no lights.

Most auto drivers, myself included, regularly (and with impunity) break the law against driving over the speed limit. If police announced they intend to start ticketing people for even 1-9mpg speeding violations, we would all agree this was a massive "policy change."

(Note that I'm not saying that these law breaking activities are equivalent; only that there are a multitude of laws that are not enforced, and a change in enforcement is indeed a policy change.)

So why bother to fabricate reasoning behind their actions?

Exactly. No policies are changing. They're just putting more resources into enforcing existing laws.