Last night dozens of East New York residents crowded the New Lots Public Library to discuss the relationship between neighborhood residents and the police. Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams organized the meeting with Attorney Norman Siegel, former director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, as they prepare a new public safety report for the NYPD that they hope will encourage police reforms. "If the NYPD can patrol effectively on Park Avenue in Manhattan, then they can do it on Park Place in Brooklyn," Adams argued in his opening remarks. "That’s what this is all about."
This discussion, the third of five total to be held in Brooklyn, had special significance in light of the fatal shooting of Walter Scott by a South Carolina police officer last week. At one point, Man Up! Inc. director Andre Mitchell raised his smartphone in the air, exclaiming, “All of us are armed with one of these! Those brave people [in Ferguson, Staten Island, and South Carolina] weren’t trained, but they knew in their heart that something was going on. Thank God they put their phones on video. Because somebody has to police the police!”
East New York has one of the higher violent crime rates in NYC; last year, the 75th Precinct documented 21 murders and 920 assaults. And during Ray Kelly's tenure as NYPD Commissioner, aggressive policing tactics and the widespread use of stop and frisk in East New York contributed to a fraught relationship between the community and police. The NYPD has since dramatically reduced stop and frisks following a judge's order, but the department sparked outrage again last November when Officer Peter Liang shot unarmed Akai Gurley in a dark stairwell in the Pink Houses.
(The NYPD was not invited to last night's meeting and did not send a representative; Adams's spokesman says the Borough President will bring the NYPD and neighborhood residents together in the future.)
Every so often during last night's event, Siegel interjected to pose questions to the entire group. His query on whether the NYPD should hire 1,000 new officers was met with a resounding no. Chris Banks, a community organizer, asked, “Why are we interested in hiring 1,000 new cops, when we could be investing in education and infrastructure in the community? [East New York] is already saturated [with cops]."
But when Siegel asked about a residency requirement for NYPD officers, everyone was enthusiastic. Zac Martin, visiting from Trinity Grace Church in Park Slope, suggested, “If we’re going to take 1,000 new cops, part of their training should be to walk the streets, get to know the business owners, get to know the pastors, and get to know lifelong residents.”
Adams, who served as a police officer early in his career, pointed out that 50% of the NYPD currently resides on Long Island, and that more East New York residents need to become cops in order to tip the scales. "If we don't like people who are wearing blue, we need to start having an aggressive recruitment campaign, and find the type of people we want," Adams told the crowd. "[East New Yorkers] are not taking the test. That's something we need to think about."
But many in the audience seemed incredulous at Adams's assertion, and one woman shouted, "We are taking the test! But it's that psychiatric evaluation, and it's denying our people."
Another popular suggestion from the crowd was to vary officers' shift assignments. One anonymous young woman pointed out that "if [an officer] is always in the neighborhood at night, [what they see] is very different from the daytime. If those shifts could be rotated, it might actually help them see the community in a different light."
Adams and Siegel address the crowd (Gothamist)
Many community members who stepped up to the mic shared personal stories, as well. For example, Joshua Jacob described dealing with the reality of Stop and Frisk on a daily basis. “Long hair, hood clothes: That’s what they look for," he said. "So I’m the perfect target to get stopped. I realized that my pants weren't helping me, so I pulled them up. But I don’t have the income to put on a suit everyday, so that they’ll stop stopping me. I manned up, but the police didn’t man up."
Vanita Mock spoke about her teenage son, who recently moved to East New York from Wisconsin. "In the few month’s he’s been here he’s been stopped four times by police and asked for his ID. That’s scary for me as a parent. If my son asks why he has to show ID, what’s going to happen? My son is 14, but he’s almost six feet tall.”
Mock added, “I think there needs to be some type of dialogue between the schools and the police.” The crowd agreed that friendly encounters between children and cops should be mandatory, as part of the transition between police training and hitting the streets. Raquel Dunn, who grew up on Long Island, recalled, “Out in Freeport, we had Adopt-a-Cop Day, where cops sat with the children, and did activities. We could do that in Brooklyn schools, to have children familiarize themselves with the police officers.”
Both Adams and Siegel tried to close out the night with concrete and actionable suggestions. Adams detailed his new 10,000 Concerned Brooklynites campaign, which he hopes will help activists from different neighborhoods in Brooklyn meet up to discuss their primary concerns, from housing issues, to domestic violence, to police brutality. For his part, Siegel urged everyone in the crowd to give him a call. "Because the police department has a history of doing things that are illegal, unconstitutional, and discriminatory. We can go to court, and sue them.” He added, “I love to do that.”
As everyone filed out, O’Brianna Lindo, a photographer who lives in the neighborhood, seemed hopeful that the meeting would result in some progress. “I thought it was going to be this boring process, but it wasn’t bad," Lindo said. "Just being able to talk to somebody with any type of influence, even if nothing happens, that alone is therapeutic. It can uplift people.”
But Jose Richards, a self-described “elder” in the community, remained pessimistic. “For decades I’ve been coming to these events,” he said, when his turn came at the mic. “And we talk, and we talk, and we step outside and it continues on.”
