Gun Busts On The Rise As Cops Escalate Drug Raids In Sheepshead Bay

Cops are pulling more guns off the street as they respond the the growing heroin epidemic in Sheepshead Bay.

Speaking at the 61st Precinct Community Council meeting Wednesday, Captain Winston Faison reported his officers had conducted seven search warrants and recovered eight firearms since the beginning of the year. The number of confiscated weapons puts the precinct on track to overtake the number of guns (15) taken off the streets during all of last year, Faison said.

“There’s a lot of drugs in the 61st Precinct. That’s one of our major headaches. And we do attack that,” Faison said. “We are doing search warrant after search warrant.”

Pictures posted on the precinct’s twitter account reveal the dizzying firepower drug dealers are bringing into our neighborhood.

The heroin epidemic has received increasing attention from lawmakers and the public. Senator Marty Golden hosted a task force in Dyker Heights last month to determine how tackle the heroin epidemic. Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo have both introduced initiatives to make Naloxone — a drug that can reverse an opioid overdose — available in independent pharmacies. New York City police officers have also been trained to administer the drug.

The scourge is not limited to heroin. Faison reported officers frequently recover prescription pills during their searches.

“We see all types of pills. A lot of times we have to go in our computer and run the name just to figure out what it is,” he said.

Drug abuse came up several times during the precinct’s community council meeting. One woman, who asked that her name not be used in this article, said she sees drug dealers and abusers brazenly going about their business at all hours of the day near her Gravesend home.

“In the past few months, I’ve found five different labeled bags of heroin left by my home,” she told police at the meeting. “I see these guys walking along the block, making the swap, getting in their car and getting high. They are doing the drugs right there.”

Rebecca Realmuto, an outreach coordinator for Stand Against Drugs, who was present at the meeting, said heroin abuse surged after legislators introduced laws to clamp down on prescription drug abuse.

“What happened is the pills became harder to get and more expensive. And the next best thing is heroin. This didn’t come out of nowhere,” she said.

Realmuto said she’s come across heroin abusers as young as 15 years old while working to spread awareness about the drug epidemic.

“They’re getting younger and younger. We try to target youth because they are trying things and not even knowing what they are. And then they end up addicted to them,” she said. “We’re speaking to kids and parents, and trying to take away that stigma and show it’s okay to ask for help and there are resources available for you.”