QUEENS — Deputy Inspector Peter Fortune, who earlier this week took over the 103rd Precinct in Jamaica, always wanted to be either a police officer or a baseball player.
Initially, he picked sports, but after playing professional baseball for four years, shoulder surgery ended his career on the field.
So he took a police officer exam and pursued his other dream.
Fortune is taking the reins as the previous commander, Inspector John Cappelmann was reassigned after more than three years to Patrol Borough Queens South, where he is going to work on Chief David Barrere’s staff.
Fortune, 42, most recently served as the commanding officer of the 114th Precinct in Astoria, but he's had experience at the Housing Bureau's Police Service Area 5 in Manhattan, was assigned to a narcotics unit in The Bronx, and worked as the executive officer at the 105th Precinct in Queens Village, he said.
“I’m very excited to be here,” he said Thursday, adding that his main goal is to “continue to build relationships with the community and at the same time keep the neighborhood safe.”
He also said he wants to make himself available to the community, while “trying to fix whatever problem that needs to be fixed.”
“I always say, ‘The littlest problem that you might have, I take it as my biggest problem,’” he said.
Fortune also said he firmly believes in the NYPD’s new neighborhood policing program which assigns Neighborhood Coordination Officers, or NCOs, to specific areas within a neighborhood to develop relationships with residents.
The program was launched in Jamaica last October during Cappelmann’s tenure. Cappelmann later said it was one of the major factors contributing to a significant drop in crime in the area.
Since Cappelmann took over in 2014, overall crime in the 103rd Precinct fell by 16 percent, including shootings by 41 percent, murders by 43 percent and robberies by 24 percent, he said. Cappelmann stressed that his enforcement strategy targeted career criminals, gangs and crews.
“It is very difficult to leave the 103rd Precinct,” Cappelmann said. “The police officers are great here and you can see tremendous differences in the crime rates in the last four to five years.”
