NYPD Captain Ernesto Castro begins his journey with an order: every patrolman in this barracks has a duty to visit the elderly in Sunset Park.
According to Captain Castro himself, from NYPD Headquarters 72: “Being a child who was raised by his grandmother, a is the most important thing to me. We tell the police that the aging population is the most vulnerable in society, we have to check every day. “
Faced with the COVID-19 pandemic and now with bad weather, Sunset Park Police Station 72 maintains an initiative to protect a vulnerable group: the elderly in the neighborhood.
As part of this program, every week the uniform visits different houses to ensure that the elderly population is well.
This is what Captain Castro indicates: “Officers become their children, their grandchildren. They constantly communicate with them, they make it easier for them to call their relatives in their countries, if necessary.”
And it is that in the police station number 72 they receive between 20 and 25 calls regarding missing elderly people or with some kind of problem, in just one week.
In addition to visiting the elderly, authorities ask residents of the area to report any elderly they have not seen.
Many older people are migrants and have no family in the city.
“We go from door to door, checking in which apartment the elderly person lives. We have to protect them because they are very vulnerable to crime and disease,” explains Captain Castro.
And is that a few months ago, Castro received a letter where, relatives of a 92-year-old woman, thanked him after the Police rescued that old woman who suffered physical abuse.
To report an elderly person as missing, you can call 311 or 911.
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