71st precinct / population 98,429
Few New York neighborhoods have seen as dramatic a transformation in recent years as the swath of central Brooklyn covered by the 71st Precinct. Nestled close to Prospect Park and fast-gentrifying Prospect Heights, the area has seen a jaw-dropping decline in almost all categories of crimes since 1993. Murders are down 73 percent from the bad old days of the early 90s, with robberies and burglaries also down by 84 percent each.
Brownstones in leafy Lefferts Manor now sell for $1 million and up. New cafes and shops line the main streets, Flatbush and Nostrand avenues. Landmarks like the Brooklyn Botanic Garden draw throngs of camera-toting tourists. Overall, Prospect Lefferts Gardens, together with a part of Crown Heights , is 46th on DNAinfo.com's Crime & Safety ranking of 69 neighborhoods for per capita crime, with 149 major crimes per 10,000 residents.
Surprisingly, the neighborhoods outrank much more fashionable areas such as Brooklyn Heights and Boerum Hill and Williamsburg.
Still, pockets of serious crime remain in the precinct, which stretches from Prospect Park to East Flatbush. Burglaries rose by 22 percent in 2010 and there were 34 shooting incidents. There were also 10 murders, which put the area in 53rd place in the Crime & Safety Report ranking for that category. The neighborhoods ranked 46th for violent crimes in 2010, with 60 incidents per 10,000 residents. The good news: Even as crime bounced up citywide in 2010, it remained stable in the 71st Precinct, with major crimes dropping by under 1 percent in 2010.
22%
Increase in burglaries from 2009 to 2010
44%
Drop in reported rapes from 2009 to 2010
Photo: Getty/NY Daily News Archive
New York's Finest Gunned Down in Car Stop
Police Officer Russel Timoshenko (pictured) represented everything that is great about New York. The 23-year-old immigrant from Belarus joined the NYPD and quickly won a reputation as an aggressive and community-minded crime fighter in Brooklyn's 71st Precinct. It was a routine decision for Timoshenko and his partner to pull over a BMW on Lefferts Avenue on July 9, 2007, when its license plate appeared to belong to another car. Little did they know that inside the car was Lee Woods, Robert Ellis and ex-con Dexter Bostic, who feared getting sent back to prison. Before Timoshenko could even get to the car, Bostic opened fire, fatally wounding him in the neck. In a flash, New York lost one of its very finest.
Copyright © 2009 - 2011 Digital Network Associates dba DNAinfo.com. All rights reserved.
