Safety Tips & Other Ideas To Deter Crime In Ditmas Park

A series of armed robberies last fall at Ox Cart Tavern, Mimi’s Hummus, Lark Café, and the Stratford Deli left our community feeling shaken and vulnerable. It also sparked an impassioned conversation about class, race, police, and the effects of gentrification in our community, much of which erupted during a heated town hall attended by hundreds of neighbors.

Now, about five months later, we checked in with police, community leaders, business owners, and the victims to find out how the investigations are going and what’s being done to prevent future incidents, as well as to see the lasting effect the string of robberies has had on our neighbors.

This report is the final one in a week-long series. Today, we’re looking at what can make our neighborhood safer, on Monday, we wrote about the response to the robberies, on Tuesday we looked at the impact the crime had on our neighbors, and yesterday we turned the conversation over to you for your thoughts and suggestions.

Yesterday, we ran a poll asking you what you would most support in our neighborhood to deter crime. We asked if you would most want to see NYPD cameras on commercial corridors (like Cortelyou Road, Church Avenue and Newkirk Plaza), an increased police presence, additional educational/after-school programs and job opportunities for youth, or more surveillance cameras from businesses.

Of the 134 people who voted as of Thursday afternoon, the majority, 52 percent, said you wanted to see all of the above. Meanwhile, 25 percent said they wanted an increased police presence, and 13 percent said they’d like to see more educational/after-school programs and job opportunities for our neighborhood’s younger residents.

An influx of NYPD cameras got just 6 percent, while more cameras from businesses landed only two votes — 1 percent. Another two people cast their vote for none of the options.

With most people supporting all of these initiatives, how do you think we can go about actually seeing them come to fruition? Assuming that all of these efforts cannot happen at the same time, which one would you like to see happen first?

In light of the armed robberies, both at businesses and of people walking around our neighborhood, we also wanted to include some safety tips from the police:

• For businesses that want to increase security, owners can call the 70th Precinct for a free crime prevention survey — which means police come to a business and help owners with determining such things as where to place surveillance cameras and where a tip jar should go. To request a survey, call 718-851-5504. If you’d rather check the security on your own, the NYPD offers a list of items to look out for here.

• Individuals can register their property (such as bicycles, computers, cell phones, and more) for free through the precinct’s crime prevention department. Benefits of registering your property include the items being easier to be identified if they’re stolen, as well as the fact that police say it’s more difficult for marked property to be sold. You can find a copy of the registration form here, and if you’re interested in having the precinct offer property registration at a community function, you can call the 70th Precinct at 718-851-5504 or the NYPD’s Crime Prevention Section at 212-614-6741.

• For weekly crime prevention tips from the NYPD, you can go here; for personal safety tips, go here; for information about securing your purse, click here; to learn how to protect yourself on public transportation, go here; and you can click here to learn about safeguarding your apartment or here for information about securing your house. For other general crime prevention information, click here.

• For teens and tweens who are commuting, here are a number of things to consider to make sure you’re as safe as possible.

• The 70th Precinct also released this list of crime prevention tips to help prevent robberies.