KEEPING WATCH
Cops to install 100 security cameras in Jewish nabes
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
The Police Department will
install 100 new security cameras
in Brooklyn neighborhoods
with large Orthodox
Jewish populations in response
to a string of anti-Semitic assaults,
Mayor Bill de Blasio announced
on Friday.
“An attack on the Jewish
community is an attack on all
New Yorkers,” said de Blasio
in a statement. “These new security
cameras will increase
the NYPD’s visibility into these
neighborhoods, and help our offi
cers on the ground keep New
Yorkers safe.”
The city surveillance blitz
will target street corners in
Williamsburg, Crown Heights,
and Borough Park, where Jewish
residents endured a string
of assaults over Hanukkah in
December, which were followed
by attacks on New Year’s Eve
and New Year’s Day.
The city will roll out the fi rst
wave of 30 cameras by March,
and will work with community
representatives to identify ideal
Mayor Bill de Blasio visiting Chabad Lubavitch in Crown Heights.
Photo by Ed Reed/Mayor Bill de Blasio’s offi ce
spots to install the remaining
70, according to offi cials.
In response to the Brooklyn
attacks — along with a brutal
machete assault on a Hasidic
family upstate, and a shooting
at a Kosher grocery in New
Jersey — politicians have been
scrambling to stymie the onrush
COURIER L 32 IFE, JANUARY 17-23, 2020
of hate crimes, with both
de Blasio and Governor Andrew
Cuomo deploying more
city and state law enforcement
to patrol the borough’s Orthodox
neighborhoods.
But a group of Brooklyn legislators
claimed they weren’t
satisfi ed by the response, and
demanded Cuomo direct federal
resources in the form of the
New York National Guard to
protect the religious areas.
One of those lawmakers,
Borough Park Assemblyman
Simcha Eichenstein, went even
further and introduced legislation
to undo parts of the recently
enacted bail reforms by giving
judges the ability to set cash
bail in hate crime cases.
UP IN FLAMES: A fi re engulfed the bottom fl oor of a four-story apartment
building in Gravesend on Monday morning. Citizen
Gravesend inferno injures fi ve
BY ROSE ADAMS
A Gravesend blaze ravaged
a Benson Avenue apartment
building on Monday
morning, injuring fi ve people.
The fi re broke out in the
fi rst-fl oor apartment of a
four-story building on the
corner of 24th street at 9:06
am, and spread to the apartment
above and throughout
the ground fl oor through
an open door, a Fire Department
spokesman said.
About 60 fi refi ghters
rushed to the scene, where
they struggled to quench the
inferno. Firefi ghters smothered
the blaze at 9:52 — almost
an hour after the fi re
started.
First responders transferred
fi ve victims — one of
whom is a 3-year-old girl —
to a nearby hospital, News 12
reported. Two of the victims
were transported in serious
condition, but none of the injuries
are expected to be lifethreatening,
the Fire Department
spokesman said.
The fi re comes exactly
one week after a 63-year-old
man died in a fi re at the Marlboro
Houses, a public housing
complex located less
than a mile away.
An ongoing investigation
will determine the cause
of the fi re, the spokesman
said.