Police meet neighbors in person, safely

A Build the Block Neighborhood Policing and Safety meeting for 76th Precinct Sector D / Public Service Area (PSA) 1 was held in the beginning of August on Coffey Street for residents to discuss public safety and other issues in the neighborhood and surrounding area.

Officers Clarke and Conti are the Neighborhood Coordination Officers (NCOs) for Sector D and were at the meeting. NCOs have been given more time and opportunity to collaborate with residents in identifying and solving local quality of life conditions and crime concerns.

These NCOs are assigned to the community each day, so they learn the neighborhood, its challenges and potential and the people who live there.

There was a maximum of 20 people and social distancing protocols were in place. In this meeting, there were six attendees and various topics were brought up.

Officers Ingoglia and Patel who are the PSA1 NCO officers for Gowanus and Red Hook led the meeting and took most of the questions.

Issues that were brought up included a trespassing at 507 Columbia Street, an issue with a vacant area at 38 Bush Street and concern about cars driving where they shouldn’t on closed streets.

At the end of the meeting was a man said at 40 Centre Mall from 7:30 to 1:30 to 2:00 a.m. there are people playing loud music. He added sometimes the noise goes down but then comes back on.

Jackie Rivera Rinaud brought up the recent surge in gun violence and asked how they were addressing it.

Patel said that if there is something happening in a certain building, they will increase their presence there for the next two to three days so hopefully there is no retaliation.

Ingoglia said everything is a case by case basis. He said a lot of times they might have solid information but might have to go through other channels to build a case since he said the DA is not going to go just based on what the cop says. It was also added that district attorneys are now declining to prosecute cases.

Another issue that was brought to the forefront was the Black Lives Matter movement and how the cutting back on police cost is affecting Red Hook.

The PSA1 officer added that they defunded the overall department, but it didn’t change in the precinct. Only certain units were disbanded.

The school safety officers are now under the Department of Education.

A discussion on the shooting increase then ensued.

The PSA1 officer said it is because there is now no anti-crime unit. He said when the plain-clothes anti-crime unit cops were around, their job specifically was to take guns off the street, and to arrest people for major crimes.

A 78-year-old woman said parents should be better taking charge of their children and believes that is an issue.

A Sector D officer said the pandemic has also factored into the increased violence

Rivera added that she is concerned with guns in the streets and is scared to go outside. She works from home now as The Justice Center is closed.

She said that their peacemaking program is awfully hard to operate virtually. Doing it at the Justice Center is much different than doing it virtually.

A sector D officer said that The Justice Center helps keeps kids out of trouble more than anybody he has ever seen.

A  PSA1 officer said that cops sometimes stop the wrong person or find somebody who fits a description and get aggressive. He said there is a lot of things that he sees on social media or TV that cops do that he disagrees with.

He added that he was raised to treat people with respect, which is what he has done since he started in Red Hook, and that the cops are here to protect people in the community they serve.