Respect between police and CH residents

daver wrote: [quote=alafairnadia]this is posted in another thread, but I'm going to reiterate:

MOD NOTE: if you've posted on the CH board and referenced another user in the last 3 days, you may or may not be under warning of getting a time out. how to figure this out: did your post referencing another user employ sarcasm, name calling, or outright meanness? did you try to cover it up with flowery language, or emotional terminology? being an asshole doesn't just require outright asshattery - you can be that jerk that hides behind 4 syllable words. YOU ARE ALL WARNED!

Honestly. I understand what you are saying, but the whole "you may or may not be under warning of getting a time out" is just ridiculous. Warn someone or don't warn them. You may or may not be annoying me right now. I may or may not be laughing at you from behind this keyboard. I may or may not be wearing pink underwear RIGHT NOW! You be the judge, rock the vote!

YOU ARE ALL WARNED!

Just a point of information:

NYC police officers are NOT allowed to live in the same precinct they are assigned to. If they get caught they are subject to diciplinary action.

You would think that it would make for better community policing if they DID live in their own neighborhood,

But the powers-that-be figured out a long time ago that living in ones own precinct "promotes corruption" because you will get to know everyone. They would rather have the community despise them than have corruption.

God forbid they should get to know everyone.

I for one genuinely appreciate those answer our calls of distress, patrol our neighborhoods, keep us safe from the bad guys, and who generally risk their lives for the protection and betterment of the community.

Recognizing that many police officers are, indeed, like kings (and queens) without crowns, or heroes without medals, I try to at least give them a warm smile of gratitude when I pass them in the subways or on the street corners. But, I will say, with all the tales of malaise and corruption, I do remain a skeptic.

That said, KWAC, you really do the cause that you champion a disservice through your posts. For many of us posters you (and Parade Rest) are the "face" of the NYPD. It may not be intended, but there is a certain arrogance and conceit that permeates your posts and I'm not quite sure that you understand the effect that it has on your audience. Most of us are well informed of the negativity that has taken hold of some pockets of the community. So your reminders are, at best, redundant and in the end only serve to further strain what, even you admit is, an already tenuous relationship between the police and the community.

The majority of posters here really love our neighborhood and check in as regularly as we do to learn about the good things going on in the hood. We want our neighborhood to be safer. We want to trust our police officers. We want you to want to service our community. Unfortunately, all your posts manage to do is rain on a parade of people eagerly waiting to hear about the efforts that the NYPD has made to help transform this community.

It is clear from your posts that you take great pride in your profession, as you should. I only hope that in future posts you can find ways -- such as talking about new community relations initiatives and generally shifting the focus of your posts from the bad guys to the good guys -- to engender that sentiment in the rest of us.

alafairnadia wrote: smiley faces go a long way!

If only people were in the habit of printing them and handing them out on the street.

<laugh>

I, for one, love the fact that someone like KWAK is posting on this board.

While this is a "privately controlled" yet "public" forum, I personally love it when people speak up and talk about how they perceive and live their life-whether others like it or not.

Variety makes the world go 'round. No one is wrong here- we just have different ways of seeing things.

That said, KWAK turns me on. Like in a policeman/civilian sorta way.

There are many ways to live a life.

King without a crown wrote: [quote=homeowner] King, seriously, as someone who works here, is there nothing nice you can say about the neighborhood? Granted, you don't deal with the most upstanding citizens on a regular, but isn't there one person that has said a nice word to you or shown you a kindness?

Actually it is quite rare that kind words or gestures from the public are shared with the members of the NYPD. Look at the posts on this board for instance. I'm willing to bet the average poster on this board it quite educated and somewhat well off, yet there is still a climate of negative attitude towards the men and women that serve the City. Now imagine the sentiment that is shared by the average criminal praying on Crown Heights/Prospect Heights Residents probably not much different then our fellow Brooklynians. With that said, the majority of the Community is hard working and decent, yet unfortunately theres limited interaction with these people and the Police.

When the police start offering kind words and gestures, then I they would get them back. Come on man. You know the police harass a certain segment of the community and that segment harass them back. They grow up with a hatred of the police and that is what we have. The police feel they give a course of relations then wonder why the police don't respond.
As example, when I asked a cop what had happened the morning they found the girl in the bag on Kingston, his response "Just n----s killing n-----s". The day a kid got shot and run over on Brooklyn, I ask a cop what happened, his response, "Mind your f 'ing business and get the f- out of here." In front of my house, I was sweeping up and stopped to talk to a neighbor, the jump-outs roll up. We go through the your not putting your hands in my pockets thing. They are heated as they can't bully me, so they tell me they are going to arrest me for an old decrepit looking roach clip that was in the pile of sweepings from the sidewalk. I'm like, you've got to be kidding, but they were serious. I call out to my nephew to go get my phone and look up my lawyers number (calling out his full name) and have him have somebody meet me at the precinct. They then pow wowed, gave me back my ID and left. One summer, the gun squad had beef with me as I wouldn't let them search my truck. They caught me dirty one day (ran a light) and had the right. They did over $2,000 worth of damage to the interior searching it. I know too many people from here who were beaten or hospitalized by the police in the 77 for no reason over the years. I can give you countless examples of how the police brutalized going back to when I was a kid and saw Arthur Miller dead in the street after getting assassinated by the police on Nostrand Ave.
I don't hold the individual officers in contempt for the actions of the NYPD, they are just doing their jobs and following their training

saw this on ny1 this am:

http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=6&aid=75392

Law Enforcement
New NYPD Program Aims To Brings Officers Closer To People They Serve
November 07, 2007

It's the motto of the NYPD: Courtesy, Professionalism and Respect. As Criminal Justice Reporter Solana Pyne explains in the following report, the department is taking steps to put a little more emphasis on the first part of that equation.

A new NYPD community partnership program is working to bring beat cops closer to the people they serve.

Starting in July, community affairs officers across the city began training recruits just out of the academy on how to be better, and friendlier while working their beat, all in response to complaints raised in meetings with communities across the city.

"Every group said that they feel that cops are detached,” said NYPD Community Affairs Police Officer Angela Breeland. “It's as though they're walking the beat and they won't even say ‘hello.’"

The new program is similar to community policing initiatives put in place during the Dinkins Administration in the 1980s, and scrapped when Rudolph Giuliani became mayor. Chief Douglas Ziegler says residents wanted programs like them back.

"Essentially the Bring Back the Officer on the Beat was all about getting to know the officer and the officer getting to know the community and so this is another way of doing that in addition to all the other tasks the officers have to do today,” said NYPD Community Affairs Bureau Chief Douglas Ziegler.

The challenges facing police in Corona are obviously different that those in East New York, but the approach to learning about the community is the same.

Police officer Stephanie Marengo says she's worked hard to learn about the diversity in Corona and Jackson Heights since she started at the 115th Precinct. Part of the challenge has been getting people to talk.

“They were just afraid to talk to you,” said Marengo. “They wouldn't come up and approach you to say hello. But when we did it to them, they were like, ‘Oh!’ They would definitely talk back.”

Officer Tamika Wilbourn says the same is true in East New York and Brownsville.

"They're surprised that an officer actually took the time out to say ‘hello,’ to smile," said Wilbourn.

Residents who spoke with NY1 said the outreach is a good thing.

“People will see how friendly cops can be, instead of seeing just people getting arrested all the time,” said East New York resident Rocko Seymour.

Police are also assigning more experienced officers to regular meetings with community groups. The program will continue with the next academy class.

– Solana Pyne

They have to write up a report every time they say hello to someone in the community? :shock:

Well, that would seem to kill the courtesy initiative there, wouldn't it?

Frankly, if it doesn't involve a heck of a lot of extra paperwork, I can't see that more friendly interaction with members of the community would be a bad thing. In the days of Officer Ted (or whoever your neighborhood beat cop was) there wasn't such a crime problem. Kids used to be taught that cops were friends that could be trusted, but it's difficult to teach that now when cops are so aloof from the community.

Plus, if the cop knows the community, the cop knows who the troublemakers are and who the law-abiding are, and I can't help but think that would make him or her more effective in his job.

All I can say is that it is difficult to go to the cops for anything when the cops treat you with such contempt. While I've run into helpful cops (the smaller the problem, the more helpful the cops; anytime I got pickpocketed, the cops were ON it!), there is that thin veneer of contempt that comes through and it makes one want to minimize any contact one has with cops.

King without a crown wrote: You sound like a real educated individual, I can't imagine why you would have any problems with Law Enforcement. Why don't you share with all the nice people what the Police Officers found in your truck, that infamous day when you were Riding Dirty?

mantic wrote: They caught me dirty one day (ran a light)

Let me rephrase this for the sarcasm.
I ran a red light and gave them boys a legitimate reason to stop me.
They found nothing.

I respect the cops and what they do and I know it ain't easy. Recently, I had very good response on my block from the 77. We had generators and lights and cars and that did seem to make an impact.
As for KWAC's assertion that all we yuppies do is complain about crime and then complain about the response, all the while sipping on our fancy coffees, I'd like to add in here. First of all, expecting the police to be responsive doesn't make one a yuppie. Second of all, people are moving into the 77 in spite of (not because of) what they hear about its policing. Third of all, find me a place that serves a cappucinno on Kingston, and I'll call you GOD. I can tell you, as a longtime resident of the 79 (Bed-Stuy), that I have nothing negative to say about that precinct. I know people are moving into my old neighborhood because they've heard such good things about the cops there. I have met many new people in the 77 who are as alarmed as I am at the slack, lackluster and downright hostile police tactics of this precinct. I am friends with an esteemed member of the NYPD who lives here and can't get a good answer out of anyone when they call the station house to see what's going on.
None of this is good.
I would also like to point out that the complaints I made earlier on this board (prospect place mugging) were about the lack of follow up on the part of the police. I'm not calling to harrass the cops about their tactics; I'm calling about the drunk guy who threatened me on my stoop and then banged on my door. I'm complaining that he was picked up, as in lifted to his feet, frisked, and then sent to wander the streets and threaten others.
I also am not just sitting behind my keyboard.
I have a busy life--you know, school, work, marriage, pets. I marched in the anti-violence march. I attend meetings. I've spoken to the C.O. of the precinct. I speak to my neighbors. The overwhelming sentiment is that we want the criminals out. I am working to find ways to provide recreation for kids after school.
Huh. I seem to be missing my point. I think we all need to be actively involved in helping our youth find outlets. I also think that a lot of Lil Bangladesh's postings about the good old days and beat cops of yore needs to be heeded. The reason there were beat cops that cared wasn't that they lived in the city, it was because they got paid well enough to walk the streets and give a damn about the residents. You put me on a beat at 25K and I bet you I'd end up protecting a dealer for enough money to send my kid to preschool. Also, the city used to pay for enough beat cops that you could see the same one everyday. Not so in these mean new days.
What I want to know though, from anyone who actually works for the NYPD is, what can we do to help you?