QUEENS – The president of the 103rd Precinct Community Council retired on Wednesday after serving the neighborhood for more than two decades.
When Donna Clopton, 60, first moved to Jamaica from Ohio in 1987, the neighborhood was struggling with the crack epidemic, gangs and gun violence. She's witnessed neighbors being mugged and shot, cars being stripped and garbage illegally being dumped.
"My introduction to Jamaica was some guy getting shot near the driveway," she said. "We heard the gunshots and we looked out and this guy is lying in the driveway next to my house."
“I never saw something so bad,” said Clopton, who works as an infection control nurse who for many years dealt primarily with HIV-infected patients.
Soon after settling down in her home on 148th Street, she formed a block association, hoping to organize residents to advocate for the neighborhood.
Then she met with Community Affairs officers at the 103rd Precinct, where she learned about the community council, an organization established to foster communication between police and local residents.
She started attending its monthly meetings and, In 1990, she became the council's corresponding secretary and, three years later, its president.
Over the years, Clopton, who is planning to move back to Ohio for her retirement, has become an invaluable liaison between the local precinct and the community, residents and police officials said.
“People who are afraid to make complaints directly to the police officer or to the precinct will go through me,” said Clopton, adding that many times people would call her in the middle of the night. “And I have no problem with that.”
Nowadays, crime in the neighborhood has significantly decreased. During her post, her goal has also been to bring police and the community together.
"You can’t blame all blacks for the actions of one and you can’t blame all police officers for the actions of one," she said.
Clopton also teamed up with Detective Alvin Stevens, who used to work at the 103rd Precinct, to start the Explorers program in Jamaica in the late 1980s, which sought to give local youth an opportunity to learn about police work.
About 70 teens participated in the program since its launch. At least nine of them became police officers, Stevens said.
“I hate to leave, but it’s time,” said Clopton Wednesday during a farewell party attended by dozens of friends, local residents, police officers and elected officials, including Queens Borough President Melinda Katz, City Councilman Daneek Miller and Chief David Barrere, the commanding officer of Patrol Borough Queens South.
“When she told me that she was leaving, I was heartbroken and devastated,” said Barrere, who noted that Clopton worked on “bridging the gap that we don’t allow to exist [here] between the Police Department and the community.”
Clopton will be replaced by Erskine Williams, who served as vice president of the 103rd Precinct Community Council.
