Tag Archives: neighborhood coordination officers

Cops and neighbors share frustration on homeless encampments

Deputy Inspector Steven Hellman, commanding officer of the 13th Precinct (Photo by Maria Rocha-Buschel)

By Maria Rocha-Buschel

While the topic of scofflaw cyclists normally dominates meetings with local police officers, on Tuesday night, those in attendance at the most recent gathering of the 13th Precinct Community Council told officers homelessness has them concerned.

A Union Square resident noted that there have been homeless encampments in the park recently, despite him having raised the issue at the meeting last month. Executive Officer Ernesto Castro said that the precinct has been to the park to break up the encampment but the problem is recurring.

“We have gone over there and taken it down but they’re just coming back,” he said.

“It is a tough situation but one point of leverage we do have is that you can’t have a mattress on the street so we can keep going back there to break it up,” Deputy Inspector Steven Hellman, the precinct’s commanding officer, added. “It’s not illegal to have a sign or just to be on the street but mattresses are definitely not allowed.”

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Stuyvesant Town residents tell cops the biggest problem is Hell on two wheels

Traffic Safety Officer Javier Alvarez and NCO officers Peter Rodriguez and Manuel Rodriguez address Stuyvesant Town residents’ bike-related concerns. (Photo by Maria Rocha-Buschel)

By Maria Rocha-Buschel

Electric bikes as well as the old-fashioned variety of two-wheelers wound up being the hot topic at the first meeting of the 13th Precinct’s Neighborhood Coordinating Officer program for residents of Stuyvesant Town.

Officers from the 13th Precinct were at the Stuyvesant Town Community Center last Thursday evening for the new NCO program and addressed the bike operations being conducted in the area.

In particular, the NYPD has been cracking down on delivery people who use e-bikes and 13th Precinct Traffic Safety Officer Javier Alvarez said that the precinct conducted over 20 separate operations last year. During that time, 135 e-bikes were confiscated and summonses were given. All the while, officers, perhaps as a warning, would post photos of the confiscated bikes on the precinct’s Twitter feed.

Alvarez said that there is some confusion among residents about what’s legal and what’s not regarding e-bikes, which are a frequent topic of discussion at the regular precinct community council meetings.

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Thirteenth Precinct to join NYPD Community Policing Program

Deputy Inspector Steven Hellman, commanding officer of the 13th Precinct (Photo by Maria Rocha-Buschel)

By Maria Rocha-Buschel

The 13th Precinct will soon be joining in an NYPD program that assigns officers to be liaisons to specific neighborhoods.

Deputy Inspector Steven Hellman, commanding officer of the 13th Precinct, announced at last month’s community council meeting that the precinct would join the Neighborhood Policing program by October and the policy is expected to be instituted in precincts citywide by 2019.

“It’s going to allow us to talk to the right people through social media and interact with the community,” Hellman said. “It’ll help with a lot of different issues like traffic and noise complaints because the officers will get to know the community on a personal basis.”

The program will break the precinct into different sectors that are each assigned neighborhood coordination officers (NCOs) who work as liaisons between the NYPD and the community. Sectors in each precinct are designed to correspond to the boundaries of established neighborhoods as much as possible. NCOs will be familiarizing themselves with the residents and problems in the neighborhood by attending community meetings and following up on previous incidents.

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