Brooklyn Borough President to NYPD: Let Neighborhood Cops Talk to Reporters

BROOKLYN, NY — Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams said Thursday that the NYPD was "missing a golden opportunity" by denying Patch the chance to profile neighborhood officers.

Top members of the NYPD, including incoming commissioner James O'Neill, have said the department's community policing model is a valuable way to build a better relationship with the public and drive down crime.

Under community policing, precincts are divided into four quadrants. Two cops, known as Neighborhood Coordination Officers, or NCOs, are assigned full-time to each, and tasked with being a constant point of contact between the department and locals.

But this month, the NYPD declined to let Patch interview the NCOs working in the 72nd Precinct, where major crime is collectively up 11 percent so far this year — even though we said our goal was only to introduce the NCOs to the community.

No explanation for the denial was provided. A subsequent email asking if the ban applied to NCOs in other precincts wasn't returned. A second request to interview NCOs sent to the department this week — billing it as "a neighborhood service so that people can know who their NCO is" — was also ignored.

(Despite the NYPD's interview ban, local precincts have been sharing the names and contact information for their NCOs, which Patch has been publishing as they're received.)

When told about the situation, Adams, who spent more than two decades as a member of the NYPD before entering politics, said he disagreed with the department's approach.

"I think that the new police department is a police department of engagement," he said, adding that the NYPD should "allow NCOs to feel comfortable, particularly around our local press."

"Walk with them, go on patrol and let everyone get into the spirit," he continued. "These closed doors [are] not the way we want to go."

Top photo courtesy of Giacomo Barbaro/Flickr