MIDTOWN EAST — A new commanding officer has taken the reins of the 17th precinct after her predecessor left to replace an Upper East Side commanding officer felled in a federal corruption probe.
Captain Nicole Papamichael took the helm of the 17th Precinct in April, replacing Deputy Inspector Clint McPherson, who had run the precinct for two years until he was called in as the new commanding officer of the 19th Precinct last month.
Papamichael, a 19-year veteran of the NYPD, has served in a wide variety of roles in Manhattan and Brooklyn, including a five-year stint working as a detective with the Manhattan South vice squad, a job that sometimes had her working undercover and posing as a sex worker to lure would-be johns.
The 17th Precinct is Papamichael’s first posting as a commanding officer, but she has previously served in command posts at lower levels, including a turn as a squad commander in the Brooklyn North child abuse special victims unit and a stretch as an overnight platoon leader in the Manhattan South narcotics bureau, and running operations for Occupy Wall Street protests in the First Precinct.
Most recently Papamichael served as executive officer of the personnel bureau at One Police Plaza, which oversees any personnel movement within the bureau.
A wide range of experience gives Papamichael a thorough understanding of the many spheres of police work that make up a precinct, she said.
“I know transit, I know the detective aspect, I know the vice aspect, so I have a little understanding of how things work,” she said.
The first-generation daughter of Greek immigrants, Papamichael was born and raised in Sunset Park and continues to call Brooklyn home, although she’s since migrated south to Bay Ridge.
With crime mostly on a downturn in the 17th Precinct — robberies for the year are up slightly while auto thefts, burglaries, and assaults are down — Papamichael said she is making quality of life enforcement a priority, particularly bicycle scofflaws.
“You’re never going to have no crime, but I think we’re about as close as you can get,” she said. “Quality of life, bicycles not following the law, that’s what we’re working on.”
