Cop Fired on in Aftermath of Rally at Grand and Putnam
[nggallery id=”21567″ template=galleryview] 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…
[nggallery id=”21567″ template=galleryview]
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]
Judge all you want Clinton Hill haters. Stay in Park Slope so my rent won’t continue to go up every year. As far as being all worried and scared of these “dangerous neighborhoods”, I have a friend living on 86th and amsterdam in the city and she was mugged twice in her neighborhood. The crime rates are higher here, and if you can’t deal with that it’s time to move to the suburbs. Not that action shouldn’t be taken, but stop crying on blogs.
I am a black profesional who was born and raised in Brooklyn and have lived in Clinton Hill for six years now. I purposely chose to live Clinton Hill because I love the diversity, beautiful brownstones and, yes, the economic mix (including the street corner brothers who are not all drug dealing thugs). Clinton Hill is not a high crime area as some would claim but, I admit, it does have occasional disturbing violence. I wish the residents engaged in violence and illegal activity would leave or get arrested but, I figure we just have to be patient and keep up the pressure on our cops and politicians. We also have to do our part by not keeping quiet about crimes (ie. the sick and brainless “stop snitching” culture)
For those who find this too scary and who are not willing to fight for Clinton Hill please move to Park Slope, Brooklyn Heights or the upper east side where you belong. There you can enjoy the lack of diversity and plain white bread existence for which so many gentrifiers secretly crave.
As a resident of 425 grand I couldn’t disagree with 5.05 more. Having lived in this building for 4 years now I’ve seen a huge change. Jose is getting paid off by the drug dealers in 1h? Come on! I doubt that you really lived there or if you did you seem to have a problem with John. Please take it up with him, not here where we are trying to do some thing positive.
I fail to understand why anybody would not want to get rid of drugs and gun violence from their neighborhood. Perhaps if you had ever lost a loved one to either a shooting, Addiction or drug related AIDS you might think differently, Grow up and stop hating.
I fail to understand why anybody would not want to get rid of drugs and gun violence from their neighborhood. Perhaps if you had ever lost a loved one to either a shooting, Addiction or drug related AIDS you might think differently, Grow up and stop hating.
I am saddened but not surprised to hear about the latest shooting. I just moved from 425 Grand Ave a few weeks ago & I can tell you that the landlord isn’t cooperative. The politicians are all talk & nothing will happen until the people of Grand & the surrounding blocks get more involved. As someone who organized the town hall mtg & got Grand Ave completely shut down a few years ago after another drive-by shooting, I can tell you that it takes a lot of persistence, and being a pain in people’s ass. I lived on Grand Ave for 8 yrs & have seen a lot of changes but the problem still persists because of the white house & the undesirables that mostly live in 435 Grand Ave. The super of 425 & 435 Grand is getting paid to look the other way, when the drug dealers enter the bldg to do business. Some of the dirty cops in the 88th Pct. are also getting paid to look the other way. Since new management took over the apt. buildings about 2.5 yrs ago, there has been no communication or cooperation w/ the 88th or the local pols. The changes are going to take time & involve a team effort from everyone, whether you’re renting an apt. or paid $1.5M for your brownstone!!
Mrs. Hernandez, a 34-year-old mother of three, and her husband, Carlos, had spent the last four years doing battle with drug traffickers in their neighborhood. They started a block association to carry on the fight and provided information to the police. Despite these efforts – and apparently because of them – Mrs. Hernandez was killed by one of five shots that someone fired through a window of her house before dawn.
The police had not been unresponsive to the Hernandezes and their neighbors. They sent in a Tactical Narcotics Team to make many arrests, and an officer from the community patrol program worked with neighbors. But that obviously wasn’t enough.
“This is not the time to surrender to fear. The Bushwick community needs to summon its courage and redouble its efforts – with vigorous police and City Hall support.
There may be no way the police can protect everyone from random violence. But the drug terrorism that apparently took Maria Hernandez’s life is the product of organized criminal activity. It is nothing less than an armed challenge to duly constituted authority, a challenge for anyone who would serve as mayor of New York City.”
This was 1989. We could easily go back down that road. Especially with our law enforcement personnel being diverted to the “war on terrorism.”
No stupid. Got the job done means that they went to court and testified against the people who the police had in custody who were subsequently sent to prison. If a drug cartel opened up shop somewhere else, not their fault. And there aren’t too many places that are poorer than this area of Bushwick. These people were not hipster gentrifiers but Blacks and Latinos who didn’t have the option of picking up and moving. The women killed for challenging the drug dealers was Puerto Rican.
Hey 8:21 PM – STFU! Brownstoner is reporting things that would otherwise not be in the community’s forefront. That’s very helpful to me when someone gives me news that I would not otherwise had had the chance to find out immediately in my busy schedule.
==============
Brownstoner you are such a jerk. You do very little on this site other than stir up class warfare and hatred, then you whine like a child when when a little bit of hatred presents itself on your stoop in the form of a shooting. Hah. Your chickens are coming home to roost, that’s all.
Posted by: guest at May 22, 2008 8:21 PM