MESSAGE
| DATE | 2020-06-12 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] Defunding the Police is playing out well... Fudal
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https://www.brooklynpaper.com/mill-basin-residents-push-for-private-security-patrol/
Mill Basin residents push for private security patrol • Brooklyn Paper
By Jessica Parks
5-6 minutes
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Citing an uptick in crime, hundreds of Mill Basin families are pledging
their support to a proposed private security patrol for the southern
Brooklyn peninsula — and they feel so strongly about the idea that
they’re planning to cover the cost themselves.
“The program is needed because over the past five or six years there has
been a dramatic uptick in vehicle break-ins and drug dealing on many,
many blocks in our community and we want this to stop,” said Bradley
Reisman, lead organizer of the newly-formed group My Mill Basin.
Reisman and a small group of neighbors resurrected the idea for a
security patrol — which Mill Basin residents have previously called for
— on Sunday and, just two days later, a whopping 300 families had
committed to paying the estimated dues required to fund the effort.
“Our group was started 48 hours ago,” Reisman said on Tuesday. “We as a
community realize that if we want our neighborhood to return to the
peaceful existence, which we realize how much we treasured, then we need
to do this ourselves and not rely on someone else.”
Organizers allege a spike in crime over the last five to six years and
claim a private patrol would be able to pay more individualized
attention to the Mill Basin peninsula than the 63rd Precinct has the
ability to.
“The police can’t be everywhere and we don’t expect them to be,” Reisman
said. “They have their hands full and it is simply impossible for them
to keep their marked and NYPD vehicles staffed in our neighborhood just
for the sake of observing.”
Overall, petit larcenies in Brooklyn’s 63rd Precinct — which patrols the
peninsula, as well as Marine Park, Bergen Beach, Flatlands and
Georgetown — are down, according to city crime stats, but residents
stand by that crime in Mill Basin is on the rise and Reisman suspects
that, with added security in Mill Basin, cops will have more success in
nabbing the neighborhood’s carjackers, who are often long gone by the
time an officer gets to the scene.
“Naturally, when someone is observed trying to gain access to a vehicle
or residence, the police are notified but in most cases, if not all, the
perpetrator has long since disappeared before the officers show up,”
Reisman said. “Because of this, we would like our neighborhood to have a
quicker response, a more neighborhood-dedicated safety layer.”
Reisman aims to attract 1,200 Mill Basin families before moving forward
with the program. At the target level of membership, he estimates the
service would cost each family close to $500 a year to cover the
approximate $750,000 annual cost of three patrol cars.
The organizing group has even enlisted the support of local religious
establishments, according to Reisman, but neighborhood officials are not
as optimistic that the plan will pan out.
“The Mill Island, Bergen Beach and Georgetown Civic Associations had
very successful security patrol many years ago at a fraction of the cost
per family,” Dorothy Turano, district manager of Community Board 18,
told Brooklyn Paper.
The patrols, she said, fizzled out after locals lost enthusiasm and
began falling behind on dues.
“The difficulties maintaining the patrol for more than a few years were
caused by a failed effort to collect the funds and in sustaining the
volunteers,” Turano said.
Area Councilman Alan Maisel expressed doubt that many families would
agree to additional costs during a pandemic.
“Times are especially difficult for a lot of people having who don’t see
income coming in,” Maisel said, “so I am not too sure how many are going
to actually subscribe to this.”
Turano is also skeptical of the group’s infancy, and called the
politically charged flyer floating around “questionable.”
“The credibility of the unsigned “MY MILL BASIN” flyer (who are they?)
is questionable when the flyer states that an endorsement was received
from Highway Patrol 2 and the President of the 63rd Precinct Community
Council,” she wrote in an email, “and the swipe that was made at the
‘local’ State Senator without naming all of our elected officials gives
the suggestion of a political connotation.”
The flyer, which lays out the logistics of the proposal, takes a jab at
the peninsula’s politicians — including State Senator Roxanne Persaud,
specifically — for not working towards lowering the presumed spike in crime.
“Our cherished neighborhood has been victimized by drug dealing and
vehicle break-ins for the past 5 years. Our politicians (including our
local state senator) have done nothing,” reads the flyer. “It is time to
be proactive and safeguard our streets in the form of professional
patrol services before more problems arise.”
Persaud’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
--
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