CROWN HEIGHTS — A new community-policing program is set to launch this winter in Crown Heights, bringing a revised patrol scheme and specially trained officers to the neighborhood, local police said this week.
Under the program, eight “neighborhood coordination officers,” or NCOs, will be trained in the 77th Precinct, which stretches from Vanderbilt to Ralph avenues between Atlantic Avenue and Eastern Parkway. Two officers will be assigned to one of four newly created patrol sectors in the area, where they will be permanently assigned to work every day starting on January 1, 2016.
By concentrating on one sector of the neighborhood, the department hopes the officers “become more familiar” with those blocks and their residents, said commanding officer Eddie Lott at a precinct council meeting Monday night.
“Your job is, in six months to a year, you should be able to run for mayor in your sector and win in a landslide,” Lott said of the NCOs, to loud applause from the meeting attendees. “I should be able to walk into every store on Nostrand Avenue and see your card.”
The NCOs will spend about a third of their time “off the radio,” or not responding to 911 calls, to concentrate on community issues and non-emergency “conditions,” Lott said.
“We’re challenging them to think outside the box. We want them innovative. Remember, every issue isn’t addressed by an arrest or a summons,” he said.
Each new sector encompasses between 40 and 50 blocks in the precinct. Sector A stretches from Vanderbilt to Bedford avenues between Atlantic Avenue and Eastern Parkway; Sector B runs from Bedford to Kingston avenues; Sector C is between Kingston and Utica avenues; and Sector D includes the blocks Utica and Ralph avenues and Lincoln Terrace Park.
In addition to getting two new NCOs, each sector will have two patrol cars permanently assigned to the area every shift, bringing the same officers to those blocks again and again, Lott said.
The new patrol scheme in the 77th Precinct is part of a larger citywide pilot program announced this spring meant to improve relations between the NYPD and the community. It began in upper Manhattan and parts of Queens where crime is relatively low, but will now expand into higher-crime areas like Crown Heights.
“This is the real acid test to see how this works in some of the more challenging commands,” Lott said on Monday.
