Say It In Person At The 66th Precinct Community Council Meeting This Thursday

On Thursday, November 21 at 7:30pm, our 66th Precinct Community Council holds its regular monthly meeting at the Community Board 12 office at 5910 13th Avenue, which is, as always, open to the public.

The Commander, Deputy Inspector Michael Deddo, runs the meeting himself and usually brings his senior staff: Lt. Robert Delaney; Community Affairs officers Det. Michael Milici and Sgt. Michael Andreano. Additionally, representatives from most of the areas’ elected officials and the District Attorney’s office frequently attend, along with the Shomrim, the auxiliary police, and the 66th Precinct Community Council officers.

Commander Deddo starts each meeting off with a summary of what the precinct has been up to for the past month, then he opens the floor to the public. The biggest news at the last meeting, on October 17, were the 8 robberies on the same night in the 66th, 62nd, and 72nd precincts. D.I. Deddo said two out of three perps had been caught.

Although the 66th Precinct Community Council meeting usually draws at least 30 people, months go by without a large public turnout, let alone many Kensingtonians. The people who do show up tend to have very specific, local, grievances. Last month, for example, a woman complained about a bar on McDonald near Ditmas that, she claimed, attracts prostitutes. She also worried about shots being fired on East 5th Street. The precinct said they’d be on it the next day.

Most unusual, two other Kensington residents spoke. A man said his 13-year-old son and friend were hassled by two teenaged boys; he also reported a store on Cortelyou that, he said, sold dope and showed kids pornography. A woman who owns a business at Coney Island Avenue at Church complained someone had parked a boat illegally at Washington Cemetery, near where she lived.

A recurring theme on the local blogs and the Kensington Facebook group is the oft-repeated refrain that the precinct keeps Kensington residents in the dark about felonies — and other — criminal activities in the neighborhood. The commenters wonder why the precinct doesn’t release a weekly police blotter to the local blogs and Brooklyn papers detailing what happens each week in the 66th, as many other precincts do. (Often those blotters highlight only one or two crimes, not a complete report of all the felonies or crimes committed during the previous week. On the other hand, some precincts publish what looks like a comprehensive report.)

If no blotter is forthcoming, then neighbors say they’d like a felony crime report of  “all the facts” in Kensington’s G (Beverley Road to Avenue F, 37th St to Coney Island Ave) and K (Caton Ave to Beverley Rd, 37th St to Coney Island Ave) sectors, looking for a heads-up on corners to be cautious around. Were D.I. Deddo to make that information regularly available, KensingtonBK would happily publish it. Still, the precinct regularly hands out tips on how to protect life and property from the latest crime  scourge — too often ignored, it seems — which could be a better guarantor of one’s safety than knowing about a crime that happened last week.

While Kensington once got a weekly felony report — posted on a previous iteration of KensingtonBK — back when D.I. John Sprague was 66th precinct commander, that was a while ago. Borough Park never did. And most likely the papers the serve our Chinese neighbors in the 66th Precinct don’t either, although D.I. Deddo said at the last meeting he works closely with the Chinese media. If Borough Park blogs post any felony information, it was and is info from the precinct’s weekly comp stat report, which is two weeks behind, and available to anyone at the precinct’s website. (The most current one is posted above.)

At the moment, Kensington Facebook group commenters are speculating about potential house robberies, based on posts that omit the time, date, and location where the burglaries occurred — in other words, details needed to make inquiries to the precinct. (The CompStat report above, covering November 4-10, does indeed show burglaries are up 66.7% — 10 this year versus 6 last year — in the precinct compared to same week in 2012.) Will these house break-in witnesses or others privy to this information show up at the Community Council meetings to tell everyone present and D.I. Deddo what they know or saw? If they do, they could confirm with the Commander where these occurred and learn his plans to curtail them.

So now it’s your turn to raise these questions face to face: Thursday November 21, 7:30pm at CB12’s office, 5910 13th Avenue between 59th and 60th Streets. The B16 bus travels from Kensington to there. Get off at 13th Ave at 56th, before it turns onto 57th. Walk up 13th Avenue just past 59th Street. If you get there early, ring the bell. Usually someone will let you in.