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Yesterday’s press conference at the corner of Grand and Putnam avenues about the recent wave of violent crime in Eastern Clinton Hill (photo on the jump) must have touched a nerve: Less than 12 hours after Councilmember Letitia James and Deputy Borough President Yvonne J. Graham finished decrying the lack of resources being devoted by the city to the 88th Precinct, a traffic cop was shot at just yards away. According to a detective we spoke with this morning, the shooter fired on a traffic policeman in his patrol car between 2 and 2:30 a.m. this morning; the bullet missed its mark. The street is now closed off and the detective going door to door, in marked contrast to the shrug-like response that last week’s drive-by shooting on the corner elicited from the law enforcement community. The casual attitude taken by the precinct towards the situation was crystallized by a comment the same detective made to us. Because the corner was much worse a decade ago, he suggested, everyone should just be happy and stop complaining about it now. (This sounds remarkably similar to a comment another cop made to someone we know a couple of years ago that if she didn’t like the way things were in the neighborhood she should move out.) This from a guy, we can assure you, who lives nowhere near the neighborhood he works in. We’ll see whether this latest attack on their own gets the police to focus on this problem that has been under their noses for years. A good place to start might be the hours of videotape that the landlord of the problem building has of drug transactions going on in broad daylight. Up to now, the police have shown zero interest in viewing them. Maybe DA Charles Hynes can make the time.
Another Shooting on Grand and Putnam [Brownstoner]
Turning Up The Pressure on Grand and Putnam [Brownstoner]
Murder on Putnam: Will The Cops Show Up Now? [Brownstoner]

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  1. It’s a testament to your whit and character that your retorts are so sharp and insighful. “You moved to the ghetto; blow me” etc. It’s clear, you are an idiot. Well done. You made it all about you. It started about a community, a cop being shot, about what can be done and how – but you reduced it to being about you. How selfless. How lucky we are to have you in our community.

  2. “what happens when The What accidently gets shot? You’ll be leaving the area in an ambulance, if you are lucky enough to be alive. Let’s face it, you are an idiot. Cutting and pasting from the internet isn’t that smart. All people, rich and poor, want drugs and dealers off their streets and away from their kids. Grow up and shut up”

    OK I want to see the “Outrage” of this statement! Every one jumped to Brownstoner defense when I made the statement ” they missed you Brownstoner”! I want to put your hypocrisy out there for the world to see!

    You move to the Ghetto and now you want everything to “all right”!

    Blow me….

    The What LMMFAO!!!!!

    Someday this war is gonna end…

  3. “For the last time the average NYC cop makes 75k+ after five years with overtime.”

    And don’t forget that they don’t need to put any of that away for retirement because they have a pension coming. So, it’s more like the equivalent of a 90k job. I’m not crying for anyone with a 90k job.

  4. I’m not sure that emptying a huge apartment building with tens of apartments is really achievable. There are mechanisms by which a lnadlord can seek to evict certain tenants because of illegal activities. One thing the DA’s office does in the Bronx is go into housing court and seek evictions from even private housing if a resident is convicted of drug dealing. As you can imagine there are often collateral victims in such a case, since the lease is often in the name of other family members and the miscreant is only one of many residents. As we learned two summers ago, putting the block on lock-down pushed the dealing over to the east and to the west (Fulton Street to Washington actually seems to have just as many if not more drug dealers hanging out).

    Others may not agree but the area actually is better in terms of visible drugging and prostitution than it was two years ago. And Putnam certainly does seem to be the hipster corridor of twenty-something year olds walking from the train to their apartments along Classon. When Fulton is done and the condos in South Clinton Hill and North Prospect Heights spur greater commercial development, I have some hope that this will push some of the activity elsewhere.

    And John, I agree, the war on drugs is like fighting against the tide. Of course since most of these drugs aren’t “harmless”, society has to be willing to transfer funds from incarceration to drug treatment.

  5. “And What – since you are wrong about all but one of your checks, could you check your tired recycling of “cognitive dissonance”?”

    Nope Homeskillet! The Asshats who moved in this neighborhood recently don’t get it! They thought if they overpaid to stay here, the neighborhood would respond to them! How is that working?! The neighborhood has gotten expensive and has not improved one bit!! So now not only the Ghetto is still the same it’s now expensive to live here!! Nice going asshats!

    “Isn’t this quite close to the Entourage guy’s house?”

    The Brownstoner replied!

    “yes, 10:18, it’s right in front”

    Nice going Brownstoner, I think he wanted that information out there!

    The What

    Someday this war is gonna end///

  6. “Because the corner was much worse a decade ago, he suggested, everyone should just be happy and stop complaining about it now”

    that seems to be the attitude in the police department now, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly
    gave the same response Tuesday night on a visit to Crown Heights when someone complained about the rise in violence, although he did leave out the second half about being happy and stop complaining.

  7. whoever wrote about “The Grand Plan” is onto something. and Putnamdenizen talking the same language. It IS a great neighborhood and it can remain that way…we have to get together and work on it

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