Brooklyn DA Wants To Tackle Local Crime By Targeting Guns And Gangs

Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson wants residents of the 88th Precinct and all of Brooklyn to know that his office is serious about preventing, not just prosecuting, crimes.

That is why he has created a Crime Strategies Unit — to “track these young men [who are at risk] and prevent them from committing crimes and being arrested” — as well as a Violent Crime Intervention Unit — “targeting guns and gangs.”

“I’m not just your DA, but am also your neighbor,” Thompson said to a room of Clinton Hill and Fort Greene residents at the Tuesday, March 17 meeting of the 88th Precinct Community Council. “We are doing all we can, including working with the NYPD, to keep our families safe from gun violence.”

Thompson illustrated this commitment with the help of a map of Brooklyn with blue and red pins designating shooting incidents reported in 2014. Blue pins represented non-fatal shootings. Red pins represented homicides caused by gunfire. The stark visual showed a swath of blue across Northern and Central Brooklyn, and a cluster of red — smack dab in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill.

Thompson emphasized prevention as key to community safety. He also stated that he is “aiming for the source of guns, often from the South, in [states such as] Georgia and Virginia.”

‘”[Last year,] we caught a family in Georgia selling a whole operation of guns,” he said. “We also found a guy in Canarsie and followed his trail to Georgia, where we discovered airport workers were smuggling weapons into Brooklyn. After that, with the support of U.S. Senator Charles Schumer, now we have a push for nationwie TSA screenings of workers.”

The Crime Strategies Unit, he said, will start by focusing on our neighborhoods, covered by the 88th Precinct, which will serve as a model for taking the approach borough-wide.

As for the Violent Crime Intervention Unit, Thompson described a Brooklyn categorized according to “zones,” with Fort Greene and Clinton Hill being called the “red zone” — not red for hot areas of crime, but simply because the DA’s office decided to color-code the zones.

“Last year we indicted a Lafayette Gardens group and indicted 30 people from a Gates Avenue gang, too,” said Thompson.

“So anything that falls in here goes to a special team,” he said. Our Red Zone team is led by a bureau chief, in the form of Assistant DA Joe Alexis, who told us that crimes can range from robberies and assaults to thefts and other crimes.

What do you think of these new initiatives?