Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly Joins 79th Pct. Meeting

Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly was the special guest at last night’s 79th Precinct Community Council Meeting in the Job Corps Building at 585 Dekalb Avenue.

President of the 79th Pct. Community Council Dr. Kim Best opened the meeting to a packed house of Bed-Stuy residents and clergy, community leaders, a handful of elected officials and 30 or so officers of the 79th Precinct.

She introduced Kelly, who was there to take questions from audience members concerning his work and agenda for New York City residents and, more specifically, the residents of Bed-Stuy.

Some of the topics raised by audience members included:

• What Kelly planned to do about the department’s practice of paying out hundreds of millions of dollars surrounding law settlements for police misconduct (most recently Stop and Frisk).

• Gun traffickers who come into the city from out of state and use local banks to make deposits. The role NYPD might play in oversight of these banks as a means to identifying the perpetrators.

Another audience member expressed anger at the NYPD’s use of Stop-and-Frisk as a policing practice for suspect searches:

“Why are your policemen using Stop and Frisk as a means to harass the innocent people of our community,” he asked? “We are not statistics. Our people are not statistics. This decision for police to do this is coming from up top, and quite frankly, I’m trying to figure out why you are here, after all of these years.”

Kelly said Stop and Frisk policy – which he referred to as “Stop-and-Question” – was working:

“Ninety-eight percent of people who were shot last year were people of color; ninety-four percent of people who were murdered were people of color,” said Kelly. “Under the first eight years of the Bloomberg administration, there were 2,839 fewer murders than there were in the eight years previous. And we’re down 6,000 police officers. The population in the city is up over a million than what it was. Something is working. Something is helping to reduce crime.

“Stop-and-Question, I understand everybody is not happy with it. But it is a valuable tool and a tactic, and I submit to you that it is saving lives. And you know who those lives are? The vast majority of those lives it’s saving are young men of color.”

Other audience statements:

• A Bed-Stuy resident gave accolades to the work of Chief Nelson and Captain Peter Bartoszek of the 79th Pct.

“We’re very lucky over here in Brooklyn North,” he said, addressing Commissioner Kelly. “I just wanted to publicly say that thank you to the department while you’re here, and let you know that they’re doing great work”

• What is NYPD’s plan for keeping crime down, in light of the fact there are now more people and fewer officers?

Another audience member asked about policing oversight, in light of a shrinking police budget.

“Fewer officers is causing a lack of police patrol in some environments because of the attention being drawn to responding to higher crimes in other environments,” she said. “What does your office plan to do to make sure that all of the areas can still get adequate protection?”

Kelly said budget cuts meant that it was unlikely any areas would see more police officers, but there were other tactics they were putting into place. He also restated the NYPD’s success in being able to bring crime numbers down, despite fewer officers and more residents:

“It’s a very difficult budget environment that we find ourselves in,” said Kelly. “Quite frankly, I don’t think we’re going to be hiring significant numbers of new police officers. 

“There’s a tentative hire scheduled for April 1st that’s up in the air. But we’ve come down 6,000 police officers. So it’s not going to be easy to increase police officers in any significant way. However, we have brought 80 additional officers here to work in Operation Impact in the 79th Pct.”

“What’s so remarkable is how crime is going down, as the headcount has gone down and the population is going up. But ultimately, it comes down to the community. We need your help, your vigilance and awareness, to call in when you know about a crime,” Kelly said.

“You can call our Gun stopper Hotline. If you report someone you know who has a gun, we give you a thousand dollars on a debit card, no questions asked,” said Kelly. “There’s always crime that’s going to happen, and we need that partnership to help us. That’s why the community council venue is an excellent one to share information. So, the community is really the key.”

Dr. Best, Marion Little, vice president of the 79th Pct. Community Council and Maressa Y. Ellis of the Police Officer Recognition Committee honored the following officers:

• Sergeant Erik Worobey
• Sergeant Robin Harry
• Officer Adam Rodriguez
• Officer David Lambert
• Officer Michael Johnston

Dr. Best and Barbara Biggs-Glover, chair of the Women’s History Month Awards Committee together honored the following women:

• Reverend Gwendolyn Dingle
• Reverend Barbara Williams-Harris
• Reverend Damele Elliot-Collier

City Councilmember Tish James:

“We need to continue to keep pressure on this governor to keep our centers open, and to take away from homeless people who are a part of the advantage program who may lose vouchers to continue to be housed,” said James. “I need for you to reach out to governor Cuomo regarding the senior centers affecting over 80,000 seniors in the City of New York, 110 centers, 35 in Brooklyn, more than any other borough. State assembly restored it; the state senate restored it. Now Governor Cuomo has to accept it.”

“There’s a millionaire’s tax in Albany that the governor would like to repeal at the end of this year. He wants that to expire. And I say that millionaires can clearly afford to keep that tax in place,” said James. “The budget is a moral document that reflects our priorities. If you care about seniors, children, summer jobs, we need to tell the governor to keep this tax in place. We can avoid all of these cuts, if we keep in place the millionaire’s tax.

District Leader Robert Cornegy:

Project Safe Surrender: Any one with a C-Class Warrant can have their warrants vacated at no cost on April 22-23, at Antioch Baptist Church. C-Class Warrants include quality of life crimes, such as loitering, disorderly conduct, unlicensed dogs, spitting, trespassing, etc.  There also will be services available at Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church for those who have been unable to secure jobs or access services in the community because of the summons.

President of Community Board 3, Henry Butler:

• CB 3, with James and Vann, acquired funding for the total reconstruction of Nostrand Avenue. Construction will start in late fall (from Flushing to Atlantic), and will take about 2 years to complete
• CB 3 received funding approval for an elevator at the Utica Avenue train station
• The next CB meeting will be April 4, at BSRC

Karen Cherry, from office of Congressman Ed Towns:

Chase Bank has set up a 5-day event to help struggling homeowners, March 31- April 1, 8:00 am – 8 pm at the Brooklyn Bridge Marriott. Chase associates will be on hand to help people who have mortgages with Chase and who are in foreclosure. There is free parking available at the Adams Street garage. For more information, contact Ms. Cherry at 718-272-1175. Will email the information or make flyers for your block association

Sam Pierre, Brooklyn Dir. of Community Affairs in the Office of the Mayor.

DYCD is cutting its summer youth employment programs down, from 80,000 youth jobs to about 19,000 for this summer.

“This will leave a lot of young people out of work and give the police department a lot more work to do,” said Pierre. “We need to bring the community together, get involved, to take back our youth so that they are not in trouble. We need the church, the community centers, this is what we’re encouraging everyone to do.” For more information, call Mr. Pierre at 212-788-7446, spierre@cityhall.nyc.gov