Chelsea cops making impact with compassion
Left to right: Wilfredo Falman Jr., NCO Ricardo Roman, and NCO Samuel
Baez-Veras.
thanked the NCO’s, their supervisor
Sgt. Ahmed Deeb, and Deputy Inspector
Coleman, for helping him. “I hope
you contact them to say thank you for
the service to New Yorkers like me and
you,” he wrote. “They have helped me
see the police in a different light and
helped changed my life.”
Offi cer Baez said that it was a community
effort in helping Falman.
“Everyone was just working together
to help him and that’s the beauty of the
neighborhood coordination philosophy,”
Baez said. “It all starts with leaders, and
Inspector Coleman has great leadership
in the 10th Precinct.”
Baez credited Deputy Inspector Coleman
with the precinct’s compassionate
approach. “He’s basically the one that
OBTAINED BY THE VILLAGER
pushes his cops to do better with this
philosophy, and he brings communities
together and allows us to do this kind of
work,” Baez said.
He said that Coleman leads by example,
that the cops love him and he senses
the community loves him too. “He’s a
very personable commander, he has an
open door policy,” Baez said.
“He’s just a very compassionate human
being in terms of how he works
with cops and how he serves the community.”
A Chelsea resident who has been
involved in helping Falman, and asked
to remain anonymous, said the NCO
program has helped build community
in Chelsea. He cited build the block
meetings, where residents meet with offi
cers to discuss local issues, and he said
the offi cers will follow up and update
residents on how they’re addressing the
problems.
“There’s no way Wilfredo and I
would have become friends and worked
together if it weren’t for the police,”
the resident said. He said helping Falman
was a collaborative effort, “one
that would not have happened unless
the NYPD had this NCO program.” He
also noted the Precinct’s involvement
in an upcoming community event with
Live Nation, which will work with local
youth to learn about opportunities in
the music industry. He said it wouldn’t
have been possible without the local
NYPD’s support.
Deputy Inspector Coleman said that
personal interactions with people can
make a big difference. He cited another
recent example of two teenagers who
were involved in a crime, and NCO’s
followed up and mentored them. So far
it seems to have helped, Coleman said,
and prevented them from any further
crime.
Coleman acknowledged that solving
homelessness is a national problem
and has a long way to go, but said they
work diligently with the Department
of Homeless Services to repeatedly go
street-by-street and offer services to
those in need. He said progress is being
made in building the community’s
trust, which will help residents and the
police.
“I’ve always enjoyed that as a public
servant you can have a positive impact
on a person that maybe you don’t even
know you’re having,” Coleman said,
adding that you may never even see a
person again, but still could have made
an important difference. “And I think
that’s a rewarding aspect of being a police
offi cer and a public servant.”
BY GABE HERMAN
Police offi cers in Chelsea’s 10th Precinct
are looking to address homelessness
through a recently-added
neighborhood policing approach and by
adding more compassion into its philosophy.
The Neighborhood Coordination Offi
cer (NCO) initiative was introduced in
2017 at the 10th Precinct and involves
its offi cers getting out more into the
community to make personal connections.
Deputy Inspector Kevin J. Coleman,
who has led the 10th Precinct since
2018, thinks of the neighborhood outreach
approach as a philosophy rather
than a program.
“That’s how we do business now,”
Coleman said. “We make positive connections
with people and work together
to enhance public safety.”
Good relationships with the community
can lead to people being more
willing to accept help, and also make
the public more likely to help the police
with information and cooperation that
may be needed to solve crimes, Coleman
noted.
“If the public sees us as illegitimate or
don’t trust us, they’re less likely to help
us,” Coleman said.
When it comes to homelessness, it’s
a complicated problem that involves a
range of social issues including mental
illness, Coleman noted. Offi cers work to
provide housing and services by partnering
with groups like Breaking Ground
and Goddard Services, and NCO offi -
cers play a big part in outreach.
“I’m always seeking and encouraging
our NCOs to think outside the box,
about how can we go about this problem,
or any problem, and fi x or mitigate
it in another way,” Coleman said.
A compassionate approach can be
seen in a recent case involving a man
helped by NCO’s to get off the street
and get his life on track. Offi cers Samuel
Baez-Veras and Ricardo Roman met
Wilfredo Falman Jr. a few months back
on the Chelsea streets, and were determined
to give him long-term help.
Along with giving food, they got
him a haircut and a new suit, and he
was able to fi nd a job working at a local
coffee shop. The community helped
as well, with services and setting up a
GoFundMe page to raise money for an
apartment, which he moved into last
week. The page has over $2,500 in donations
so far.
“They connected with him in a very
compassionate manner,” Coleman
said. “It’s important that we’re treating
people experiencing homelessness with
dignity and respect.” Persistence is another
key, since it normally takes over
250 interactions with a homeless person
before help is fi nally accepted, Coleman
noted.
On Falman’s GoFundMe page, he
Man. man found dead outside TV studio
BY GABE HERMAN
Police are investigating the death of a man
whose unconscious body was found outside
a television studio in Manhattan on
Sunday afternoon.
Around 4:40 p.m. on Sunday, police said they
responded to a 911 call of an unconscious man
in front of 221 West 26th St., between Seventh
and Eighth Avenues, which is Chelsea Television
Studios.
Police were informed upon arriving at the
scene that a 53-year-old man was taken by
EMS to Lenox Health Greenwich Village, an
emergency room at Seventh Avenue and West
12th Street. The man was pronounced dead at
the hospital, offi cials said.
The deceased man’s identity is being withheld
pending proper family notifi cation.
His body was transported to the Medical Examiner’s
offi ce for an autopsy to determine the
cause of death.
GOOGLE MAPS
The man was found unconscious in front of 221 W. 26 St.,
above.
Schneps Media December 12, 2019 3