New community policing initiative to debut in Bay Ridge, Dyker

A program that is reinventing and reinvigorating neighborhood policing will debut in Bay Ridge and Dyker Heights next month.

The 68th Precinct is the latest precinct to adopt the Neighborhood Coordination Officers initiative, which divides the precinct into four sectors, and assigns two dedicated officers to each sector who will get to know the community, set their own hours to accommodate community issues and needs, and hold their own quarterly sector meetings with residents and merchants.

To introduce the initiative, the NYPD will hold a roll-out session on Tuesday, July 31 at 6:15 p.m. at Xaverian High School, 7100 Shore Road, during which the program will be explained by brass from police headquarters and by the precinct commander, Captain Robert Conwell, and at the conclusion of which attendees will have the chance to meet their sector officers.

The officers who will be participating in the initiative have already been selected and are “in training right now,” said Conwell, who told this paper that also present at the meeting will be traffic safety and domestic violence officers.

“We’re going to hit the ground running,” he told members of the 68th Precinct Community Council, gathered at the station house, 333 65th Street, for their June meeting.

When the program was kicked off in the neighboring 62nd Precinct in Bensonhurst, Bath Beach and Gravesend in April, Chief Fausto Pichardo told attendees at the roll-out meeting, “Neighborhood policing is not a program, it’s a philosophy.”

During that meeting, Pichardo linked the ongoing roll-out of neighborhood policing citywide with the drop in crime across the city that was recorded in 2017, and urged local residents and merchants to participate in the effort.

“This is a shared responsibility,” he said. “Make no mistake about it. The Police Department does great things, but the only way we’re going to progress and do greater things is to work hand in hand with you.”

Rsvp for the roll-out session in advance by calling 718-439-4220, or by emailing Harold.Kirschner@nypd.org or Michael.Panepinto@nypd.org.

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