People are dying in the streets: Violence is up in parts of Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx
Thursday, June 3rd 2010, 4:00 AM
Residents in my Brooklyn neighborhood - and many others like it around the city - are grappling with a stunning rise in violent crime that must rank near the top of the list of items Mayor Bloomberg and the City Council address in these final weeks before the June 30 budget deadline.
The 10 precincts in the Brooklyn North command have collectively seen a 19% rise in murders so far this year, up to 43 killings from 36, and 91 reported rapes, up 44% from the same period last year.
Something similar is going on in the eight precincts of Queens South, where the 25 homicides so far this year are a 39% increase over last year's 18.
In the Bronx, murders are up 11% compared to last year and rapes have increased 15%.
The oft-given explanation from City Hall and 1 Police Plaza is that years of driving down crime figures mean that small increases are inevitable.
That explanation - the bureaucratic equivalent of "move along folks, nothing to see here" - provides no comfort. In some cases, it's not even true.
As my Daily News colleague Rocco Parascandola recently reported, East New York's 75th Precinct has seen sizable jumps in murders, rapes, robberies and felony assaults. And homicides in the precinct are up 20% compared with 2001, the year Bloomberg took office, suggesting nearly a decade of progress lost on public safety.
More striking than the numbers are the shocking particulars of the crimes.
Brooklyn recently witnessed the chilling spectacle of 16-year-old Al-Taya Conyers, the daughter of a correction officer, screaming "No! No! No!" and begging for her life shortly before being executed at point-blank range near the Wyckoff Gardens housing project by 18-year-old Kendale Robinson, police say.
A few weeks back, Inspector Jeffrey Maddrey, commander of the 75th Precinct, ended up in a gunfight with teen gangsters while out on a mission of mercy, searching for a lost 7-year-old.
And Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes has busted several sex-slavery rings run by alleged Bloods gang members that imprisoned girls as young as 15 and forced them into prostitution.
Alongside the big-headline stories is the dreary, ongoing toll of young men and women dying violently around the city. I track many of them on my blog, savebrooklynnow.blogspot.com.
The good news is that communities rocked by the upsurge in violence are fighting back.
There was standing room only at a public safety forum held by the Rosa Parks Democratic Club in Crown Heights shortly after shots were fired near the Washington Temple Church and lodged in the door of the house of worship.
More than 100 residents were disappointed that the new commander of the 77th Precinct, Capt. Elvio Capocci, was a no-show at the meeting; close cooperation between communities and cops is an absolute must if we hope to beat back the tide of violence.
Everybody agrees that the crucial ingredient in public safety is active, creative partnerships between law enforcement and block associations, tenant groups, pastors, merchants, principals and unaffiliated civic elders who hold neighborhoods together.
In too many places, the binding has frayed and communities are coming unglued. It's time to reestablish and broaden our police-community alliances and prepare for a long, difficult season of dialing back the violence before it spirals completely out of control.
