Hakeem Jeffries must be really dedicated to the youth vote – the state assemblyman and now congressional candidate won’t let the issue of stop and frisk and racist drug policy laws die, kinda.
Tag: Ray Kelly
What are the cops in your neighborhood up to? In the past 30 days, there have been 21 homicides in New York City – 29 less than the same period last year. Twelve of the homicides in the past 30 days took place in Brooklyn. Specifically Brownsville, East New York, Bedford-Stuyvesant and Clinton Hill – and it’s clear that more officers are on the streets of Crown Heights these days after a summer punctuated by the sound of gunshots.
Residents, elected officials and family members gathered at the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church in Fort Greene this week to remember Shem Walker’s life – an innocent Clinton Hill resident fatally shot by an undercover police officer – and discuss the implications, policy and the prevention of tragedies like this one.
The morning after residents of Crown Heights took the Police Commissioner to task for drug dealing, prostitution and quality of life issues in the neighborhood, Ray Kelly was awarding the Deputy Inspector of their local 77th precinct a unit citation at Medal Day ceremonies.
The same precinct where, according to department statistics, crime has plummeted 18%.
“If you look at statistics at this precinct, they are very, very impressive,” Commissioner Kelly had told the crowded basement of Berean Baptist Church. “If you’re the victim of a crime, you don’t want to hear about statistics, I understand that, one crime is one crime too many – but the numbers here are really an indication of the work that’s being done.”
With all the talk about statistics, it sounded like the crowd was watching The Wire.
There was an elephant in the basement of Berean Baptist Church in Crown Heights on Monday, when Police Commissioner Ray Kelly spent an hour addressing the questions of residents concerned with violence, drugs and quality of life issues on the streets of the 77th precinct in Brooklyn.
That elephant came in the form of allegations that officers from the 77th assaulted two lesbian women outside of a local nightclub while spewing anti-gay remarks. The question never came up during the meeting and the commissioner gave a terse “no comment” when confronted with it on his way out the door.