Cop Reassignment To Deal With Summer Shootings Proving Effective
Image: Save Brooklyn Now
Nothing will absolve the NYPD of their recent wrongs, but that doesn’t mean that real successes should go unnoticed either: One month after kicking off the Summer All Out initiative—a new policy wherein 313 cops were reassigned to Brooklyn and the Bronx to deal with the summer uptick in shootings—the NYPD is reporting that the personnel shift made a significant difference.
Between July 7, when the initiative began, and this week, there was a 25 percent drop in shooting incidents in the 10 precincts whose personnel numbers were bolstered, reports the Daily News. Shootings fell from 83 during the five weeks before the policy shift to 62 in the five weeks following the reassignment.
Summer All Out seems to have been particularly effective here in Brooklyn, where 162 reassigned cops were sent to the precincts in East New York, Canarsie, Brownsville, East Flatbush and Crown Heights, though the largest shift overall was seen in the Williamsbridge neighborhood of the Bronx where 40 new cops managed to decrease shootings from 11 to 2.
But there’s still been an 11.7 percent increase overall in shootings in 2014 so far. Police commissioner Bill Bratton recently told WNYC’s Brian Lehrer that even with those numbers, New Yorkers should stop “running around as if the sky is falling,” because the city is still “incredibly” safe. Meanwhile, 10-year-olds are finding loaded guns on Coney Island beach.
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