Why is it so? Cops in the park
I just got back from my evening bike ride in the park. I enter at Parkside and Ocean, 2 blocks from my apartment and there are 4 police vehicles and an assortment of officers walking around.
When I got near the top of the hill at Long Meadow there was a young man taking a video on his phone and commenting about the lack of police elsewhere in the park. On my entire ride around the park I saw no other police vehicles, and only two other officers near the BBQ are at the bandshell.
What I saw in my neighborhood was no different than what I saw around the rest of the park – friends and family enjoying the nice weather and holiday weekend. The only difference is the racial makeup (and I think the PLG side of the park is more diverse than other areas in the park)
This blatant disrespect of my neighbors by the higher ups in the NYPD pisses me off.
Comments
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Really? You're going to interpret where police vehicles were parked, within the park, as evidence of racial profiling? A single instance, on a single lap, none the less? I ride in the park a lot, and I can't say that I have noticed a pattern, over time, of where cops loiter. By all means, continue your census, but I think that this may be a little premature.
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Can one loiter in a park?
I mean during open hours, isn't loitering what the park is for?
Shouldn't cops get this same privilege?
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Maybe you're on to something - since we're wildly ascribing motive, maybe the cops enjoy the atmosphere of that area more because of the people.
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Yup.
You know that tmobile commercial where the teenage girl complains to her dad that her brother is checking out her friends? ...and Dad says, you should get friends that are less hot.
?
It might be like that.
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Perhaps there's a donut shop nearby.
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Et tu, Annie Wilde? I think the OP is the latest incarnation of the individual who regularly comes here to stir up racial tensions.
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Wrong JK, never posted here before. Why is it considered stirring up racial tensions when stating facts? This isn't the first holiday weekend I've noticed this in the park.
BTW - I'm a white female who's lived in PLG for over 4 years. -
No, I'm pretty sure that you're stating unfounded conclusions while citing too few data points.
Just curious, but what does being a white girl that's lived in the 'hood a whole 4 years have to do with the validity of your observations/conclusions?
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I'll add a data point, but it feels a little irrelevant...I see NYPD vehicles hanging around the GAP entrance pretty often (I'm by there pretty often.)
carry on. please stick to op/eds without personal attacks.
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If this was around the Drummers Circle then they were probably there for the event taking place near or in Wolman Rink. I don't know what kind of event, but I did see a ton of people walking down the exit trail onto the park drive, etc. The NYPD has a quite a few police cars around that area when an event is going on. They do the same thing around the band shell on the other side, as well.
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Maybe there are more evil cigarette smokers in that part of the park.....
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It ain't cigarettes I smell people smoking in the park.
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Dank budz.
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The cops congregate there because most often there are more people, more drug deals, stabbings, rapes, shootings, and fights in that location as opposed to other places in the park. It's crime profiling.
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Whether you are aware of it or not, there have been numerous shootings and stabbings in the immediate vicinity of Parkside and Ocean Ave over the last number of years. It fact, it so violent over there that it has been designated an impact zone. Some of the recent incidents that you may or may not be aware of within three blocks of that location include:
1. A triple shooting in which a teen was killed on the corner of Ocean and Parkside in 2009
2. A fatal shooting on Caton and E. 21st in June 2010.
3. A fatal gang-related machete attack near the Prospect Park Tennis Center in April 2010. In this case an 18 year old was hacked to death with a machete during the middle of the afternoon.
4. A fatal shooting on the corner of Crooke and Parade in March 2011
5. Another fatal shooting (this time of a livery cab driver) on Crooke and Parade Place in 2010
6. A fatal stabbing on St. Paul's Place and Crooke in
May 20117. A shooting near Woodruff and Ocean in January 2011
8. Another shooting (this time fatal) on Woodruff and Ocean in 2009
Trust me, there have been many more incidents, but these are ones that I was quickly able to find after a quick Google search. Of course, the vast majority of shootings and stabbings do not even get reported, and if I included the area extended the radius a bit I could easily add another 10 similar incidents. (East 21st is especially notorious.) Keep in mind, last year the 70 precinct had 24 shootings and the majority occurred in the area just south of Prospect Park.
It's also ironic that you would post this considering that residents have complained that there is not enough "security" in the immediate vicinity of the the Parade Grounds.
(See
http://karmabrooklyn.blogspot.com/2011/03/making-parade-grounds-safer.html and
http://ayearinthepark.typepad.com/prospect_a_year_in_the_pa/2011/03/the-bloody-nexus-of-prospect-park.html )I would say all this warrants extra police presence.
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Nicely done.plg7 said:
What I saw in my neighborhood was no different than what I saw around the rest of the park – friends and family enjoying the nice weather and holiday weekend. The only difference is the racial makeup (and I think the PLG side of the park is more diverse than other areas in the park)
This blatant disrespect of my neighbors by the higher ups in the NYPD pisses me off.PLG7-
You started this thread being pissed off. Have any of our comments helped you become less pissed?Gasp, could it be that the folks on the PLG side of the park are able to enjoy the nice weather and the holiday weekend AS A RESULT of the cops locating themselves nearby?
hmmmmm.
P.S. If you'd like to find a group of people who always agrees the police are always a force of racial and economic oppression (even when they are seemingly just parked, talking to each other) I know of some writers at the Village Voice that agree with you. They pride themselves on ascribing motives based on too few data points.
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Don't be surprised if we never hear from from plg7 again (at least under this name).
Howdy, Stranger!
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