Five High-Crime Areas of NYC to Get New NYPD Neighborhood Safety Teams – NBC New York

After at least two dozen shootings across the five boroughs over the weekend, New York City Police are expanding a recently launched program to get gang members and guns off the streets, and units already they are seeing signs of success.

The department deployed another five so-called Neighborhood Safety Teams to some of the city’s toughest neighborhoods that are experiencing an increase in violence, including two precincts in Harlem and one each in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced Monday that Long Island City will have one of the teams, which are specially trained forces that go after serious crimes and illegal firearms.

“We’re going to lock up violent people, we’re going to get guns off our streets,” Adams said.

The unit will respond to the exact type of shooting that occurred just hours after the news conference, where a bystander at a bank in Long Island City became the victim of one shooting among others, the same type of violence that has plagued the city. for the past several months, leaving those living in high-crime areas desperate for solutions.

The Neighborhood Safety Teams, which replace the New York City Police’s controversial crime-fighting units, were first put on the streets of the Bronx in early March. Officers will be in full uniform and will not conduct random stop-and-frisks, which historically target Black and Latino communities.

“We’re not going to do that. We are not going to let that happen in our city, we are not going to break the law to enforce the law,” Adams said.

New York City Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell said the units are already proving their worth.

“I am proud to announce that in just the first few days of its existence, members of the Neighborhood Safety Team have made 31 arrests…including 10 for weapons possession in nine separate incidents,” Sewell said.

The mayor said he didn’t want to speculate on whether or not the arrests would have been made had it not been for the new teams, but said officers have the kind of training that allows them to focus on who they might be, where firearms commonly come from, illegal fire and sources can work without compromising the rights of people.

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