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Neighborhood policing to expand to more Brooklyn precincts

August 3, 2016 By Mary Frost Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Neighborhood policing is expanding to more Brooklyn precincts, including the 84th, which encompasses Brooklyn Bridge Park (where police officers are shown in the above photo), Brooklyn Heights and DUMBO. Eagle file photo by Mary Frost
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Mayor Bill de Blasio and outgoing Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said on Tuesday that 12 more NYPD precincts and New York City Housing Authority Police Service Areas (PSAs) would join the neighborhood policing program.

Five of these are located in Brooklyn. They are: 60th Precinct – Brighton Beach; 69th Precinct – Canarsie; 84th Precinct – Brooklyn Heights; 88th Precinct – Fort Greene/Clinton Hill and PSA 1 – Coney Island.

Neighborhood policing — the modern version of the cop on the beat — is meant to build stronger partnerships between police and their local communities. Neighborhood Coordination Officers (NCOs) work closely with the community to identify and manage local concerns, the officials said.

In the plan, the same two officers are assigned to the same sector each day, and given special training and resources.

The program rolled out in May 2015. De Blasio and Bratton announced the expansion during National Night Out in the 114th Precinct in Astoria.

The expansion will bring NCOs to a total of 51 percent of the citywide commands.

“When New Yorkers know their local officers and trust their local officers, we are all safer as a city,” de Blasio said in a statement. “If we want to keep all New Yorkers safe, policing must be of, and for, and by the people — and neighborhood policing is bringing us closer toward this goal each day.”

Bratton said that Neighborhood Policing is the “direction in which American policing is headed; as I have often said, the community and its officers need to see one another.”

Chief of Department Jimmy O’Neill, who will take Bratton’s place as commissioner in September, has been shepherding the NCO program since its inception.

“This is a crime-fighting model that is improving neighborhoods, incrementally on a small scale, block by block,” O’Neill said in a statement. “It’s all about our communities personally knowing their local cops, and trusting those cops to help them and their neighbors lead better lives.”

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, a former police officer, said the expansion was welcome news. “This is not a cosmetic change, this is a meaningful deployment of trained personnel that will help every community be a safer place to raise healthy children and families.”

State Sen. Marty Golden, also a former officer, applauded the expansion, as did state Assemblymember Joseph R. Lentol.

The NYPD launched NCOs in four original precincts in May 2015. Since then, the program has expanded to 32 total precincts.

Other commands in the expansion include: 9th Precinct – East Village, Manhattan; 28th Precinct – Harlem, Manhattan; 41st Precinct – Woodstock/Hunts Point, Bronx; 103 Precinct – Jamaica, Queens; 114th Precinct – Astoria, Queens; PSA 4 – Lowest East Side, Manhattan and PSA 9 – Pomonok, Queens.

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