Community Policing Coming To Fort Greene and Clinton Hill

Fort Greene and Clinton Hill will be next on the NYPD’s list of neighborhoods in which they will use their community policing model starting in October, according to an announcement made by the department on Tuesday.

Community policing breaks precincts into quadrants, and groups of Neighborhood Commanding Officers (NCOs) are assigned to specific quadrants where they are tasked with getting to know the area and its residents as best they can.

“This is a crime-fighting model that is improving neighborhoods, incrementally on a small scale, block by block,” said James O’Neill, who will take over the NYPD as Commissioner when Bill Bratton retires in September.  “We’re building stronger partnerships between police and the communities we serve by identifying and managing concerns on the most local of levels, and establishing closer relationships and mutual understanding.”

NCOs will give out their contact information — department issued email addresses and cell phone numbers — to residents in order to be more readily available for a wider range of community concerns, according to the NYPD.

Some NCOs have been holding community meetings in their assigned areas to discuss crime trends and concerns with the neighborhood on a more intimate level, according to a report by Patch.

“This year, we showed this country that we could launch a groundbreaking neighborhood policing model and continue driving crime down – and today, we are continuing to expand this essential program to over half of our city’s police commands,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio. “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.”

By this fall, over half of the city’s precincts will be adopting community policing — including all precincts with public housing developments, O’Neill said.

Fort Greene and Clinton Hill fall under the 88th precinct, which has seen a seven percent drop in major crime as of July 24, compared to the same period last year, according to police statistics.