18
BRONX TIMES REPORTER, MARCH 25-31, 2022 BXR
Mayor expands Neighborhood
Safety Teams, touts success
Members of the Neighborhood Safety Team leave to go on patrol.
BY DEAN MOSES
Mayor Eric Adams and Top
Cop Keechant Sewell did a victory
lap on March 21, one week
after NYPD’s Neighborhood
Safety Teams hit the streets.
Neighborhood Safety Teams’
primary purpose is to tackle
gun crime, and that is exactly
what they have been doing according
to Mayor Adams who
joined unit members late Monday
afternoon at the Bronx’s Police
Service Area 7 located on
East 156th Street and Melrose
Avenue.
The mayor cited that on
March 18 the new unit responded
to a 911 call of a woman
who had received a gunshot
wound on 143rd Street. Adams
gushed that the teams not only
cuffed the shooter but also recovered
a .38 revolver that had
been defaced. However, Adams
declared that this has not been
an isolated incident.
“It’s six days since we
launched this program with the
Police Commissioner’s leadership.
We have made 31 arrests
and 10 guns removed from our
streets, six days, more than a
gun a day was removed from
our streets,” Adams said.
Adams reaffirmed that the
NYPD’s Neighborhood Safety
Teams uses investigative procedures
to zero in on known dangerous
individuals and gangs,
as well as social media to see
who is showcasing a gun in
their posts.
“So, they are specializing in
understanding how to go and
remove guns off our street,” Adams
added.
Police Commissioner
Keechant Sewell joined the
mayor in championing what
they say are great strides and
also thanked the men and
women wearing the shields.
“Dedicated NYPD officers
are doing exactly what we asked
them to do right out of the gate.
They are relentlessly confronting
crime and disorder with laser
like precision,” Sewell said.
It is with this success in mind
that the mayor announced that
he is expanding the unit to five
additional districts. The new
teams will be assigned to Manhattan’s
25th and 28th Precincts,
Brooklyn’s 69th Precinct, the
114th Precinct in Queens, and
Staten Island’s 120th Precinct.
“We are not going to surrender
our city to violence,” Adams
said confidently. He also underscored
that it’s not just stopping
the flow of illegal guns in
the city but also the creation
and distribution of ghost guns,
which have become an increasingly
dangerous issue.
“We’re going to stop the river
of violence that is feeding this
sea of violence. And this team
is damming one of those rivers
with their activity. And we’re going
to expand these teams to five
of the precincts to protect our
streets and our community. We
are going to grow and continue
to evaluate, determine that we’re
making the right fit to have the
right officers that are performing
this dangerous assignment
but have the right mindset to
do so,” Adams said, applauding
the life-saving efforts this team
is making by being on the front
line to take down shooters.
Adams and Sewell stand
firmly behind the Neighborhood
Safety Teams as the transformative
change necessary to dam
the river of violence. He also
pleaded with Washington and on
the federal and state levels that
the city needs help to get rid of
illegal guns and remove violent
people off the streets.
“We’re not going to be reluctant.
We’re not going to be fearful
of getting it right because we
must. The number of gunshots
we’re seeing, the number of innocent
people being shot, due
to the failure of stopping the
flow of guns in our city,” Adams
said.
Members of the Neighborhood Safety Team in the Bronx. Photos Dean Moses
Top Cop Keechant Sewell.