Double-Digit Increase in Clinton Hill Crime Rate
The Daily News reports that there’s been a big jump in crimes in Clinton Hill so far this year, a rise that’s partially being blamed on a lack of fresh blood at the local precinct. The NYPD has recorded a 24 percent increase in robberies and a 43 percent jump in car theft in Clinton…
The Daily News reports that there’s been a big jump in crimes in Clinton Hill so far this year, a rise that’s partially being blamed on a lack of fresh blood at the local precinct. The NYPD has recorded a 24 percent increase in robberies and a 43 percent jump in car theft in Clinton Hill compared to this time last year. While four officers were scheduled to leave the 88th Precinct this year, the station got no new officers from the graduating Police Academy class; an NYPD source told the paper that new recruits are being assigned to cover the Atlantic Terminal Mall rather than joining the precinct. “You get the feeling that [the attacks are] brazen, and people don’t think they will be caught,” said one resident. “If you had police either in their cars or walking up and down the street, it wouldn’t happen.” Councilperson Letitia James says the rise in crimes is “very, very scary,” and some residents are spearheading a letter-writing campaign to Police Commissioner Ray Kelly asking that the NYPD assign more officers to the neighborhood.
Clinton Hill Quaking in Crime Wave [NY Daily News]
Photo by jeffreywithtwof’s.
It is not a “white-black†thing as much as a “poor-not poor†thing
In parts of Long Island where it is all white (not Brentwood – mostly Central American or Wyndanch – mostly black), the poor white steal and beat up the not-poor white.
I say “not –poor†because I own a condo, I own a car (even though it is 10yrs old and on its last leg) and I have a 6 figure job, but you need a 6 figure job to keep up an even modest life-style with these property prices. I am also VERY far from middle class and rich…I am just comfortable.
It becomes a white-black issue because it so happens that in this area most of the poor are black and we have a lot of white people who have moved in that weren’t here during the less “picturesque†days.
At the heart of the issue it is always the same thing: education, parental involvement and opportunity. Few people (including their parents) care about these kids. They prefer to see them as future ex-cons than to invest the time and energy into helping them (big brothers/sisters, after school programs). You see most of these kids in elementary school and you can see they want to do well, want to help in school and you have to wonder, when does it change? It begins in the home. I come from a single parent home where my mom had to work 3 jobs and couldn’t be there for us, but I wanted more for myself so understood my mom did her best. My sister is a statistic. 25yrs old, HS drop out, 3 kids from 3 fathers. She was in serious need of my mom and my mom couldn’t be there.
You want to make a difference? Start an after school program. Join a BB/BS program in one of those neighborhoods and show kids people care about them. It won’t solve the problem as quickly as fighting for more police ( which could feed into “it’s the police against us†mentality) but in the long run it improves the quality of life for everyone and your soul.
I grew up in Far Rockaway from 1981-2000, WAY before it started getting “better†and trust me Clinton Hill is NOT a war zone. But we shouldn’t let it get like this. The point of this blog was to address an issue, not talk about why the people committing the crimes are doing it. Let’s focus on fixing the immediate problem, then work on fixing the root cause.
I wrote a lot of crap here, I know. I just wanted to share with you from someone who grew up like these kids or know too many people like them that you aren’t born a criminal. Hate my comment; write more comments bashing it or whatever, just make sure to also add how to address these issues.
I personally like the idea of going to the 88th to request more patrols and writing letters to the Commish. As long as you put in an hour a week to helping the kids too.
-Carlos
cruiz78@hotmail.com
(I won’t hide behind the “guest” log on)
I cannot even muster the strength to comment here. This is just an absurd conversation. There’s a spike in crime around Pratt. Everybody wants to explain it their way. People got jumped by wilding teenagers. It sucks. Really sucks. It should not happen and it is not OK.
50 yrs ago clinton hill was safe??? great, good thing im 24 yrs old and could care less. lets talk about the neighborhood in the past 15 yrs….WARZONE. and who is living out on jeff and nostrand and worried about gun shots? man you must not have been alive in the 90’s
I have been in the nabe for 4 years and can say that there has been an increase in car break ins around CLinton/vanderbilt/willoughby.
Must be some dude who lives with his mom.
same poster at 10:17…there were more shots abt 45 mins after I wrote the first post… coming more from jefferson & nostrand this time.
very scary. each time I heard police sirens, but seems like there should have been MORE! i want to hear an army coming out here to stop the violence! (yes, i realize the irony of my statement)
just writing in to report a shootout in the vic. of Madison or Monroe & Nostrand Ave. at approx. 9:30 p.m. tonight… first there were shots, then police cars arrived, then there were more shots…
sorry i have no more details, i was too scared to look out the window. i am too scared to walk the streets.
just writing in to report a shootout in the vic. of Madison or Monroe & Nostrand Ave. at approx. 9:30 p.m. tonight… first there were shots, then police cars arrived, then there were more shots…
sorry i have no more details, i was too scared to look out the window. i am too scared to walk the streets.
Count me as another white person asking other white people like 2:46 to just admit that “not safe” and “they were here first” and “entitlement” are code words–y’aal are too talking about race.
FWIW, I moved to Bed Stuy (where I have experienced no crime) from Greenpoint, a profoundly white neighborhood, where I got my car broken into twice in two years. Pinning a basic crime of opportunity on the racial character of the neighborhood and saying, like 2:46, that you shouldn’t even be in this neighborhood if you are not able to “protect yourself” is so…
…it’s just an amazingly small, frightened picture to paint of a very cruel world. It made my jaw drop to read that.
Just went to get my radio out of my car. 15 years ago, there is NO WAY I would have left said radio in the car in the first place. So a little perspective is in order. This is, after all, the city.
But the opportunity point is well taken. Don’t give the opportunity in the first place, and you’ll in all likelihood be okay.