ASK THE DA: Project Safe Surrender

This month my office, together with Brooklyn clergy, the New York State Office of Court Administration, the Legal Aid Society and the New York City Police Department, will implement Project Safe Surrender, a community program designed to help individuals resolve outstanding summonses and warrants they have not addressed in a long time.

While helping Brooklyn residents to address their open warrants and summonses, Project Safe Surrender also assists them with re-entering society, without low-level crimes holding them back and by connecting them with vital services including housing, employment, job-training and education.

The program was first introduced in June 2009 at Saint Paul’s Baptist Church, and has successfully been repeated at the Antioch Baptist Church and more recently at the Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church.

The warrants and summonses can be resolved for cases in which individuals were charged with any one of the following crimes:  Unlawful Possession of Marijuana, Unlawful Possession of Alcohol under the Age of 21, Consumption of Alcohol in Public, Unlawful Possession of Handcuffs, Littering, Riding a Bicycle on a Sidewalk, Making Unreasonable Noise, Spitting, Animal Nuisance, Failure to have a Dog License, Unleashed Dog, Spitting, Trespass, Disorderly Conduct, Loitering, Unlawfully In the Park After Closing, and Failure to Comply with a Posted Sign in a Park.

The upcoming Project Safe Surrender event will take place on Friday, December 14  and Saturday, December 15  at The Mount Sion Baptist Church at 365 Ralph Avenue from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. There will be Resource Fair where food will be available at the Shirley Chisholm Day Care Center at 2023 Pacific Street.

For more information call 718-250-3888, or visit: www.projectsafesurrender.org.