The Bay Ridge Courier is back!
COURIER LIFE, JULY 24-30, 2020 21
EDITORIAL
BY BROOKLYN PAPER
Schneps Media has relaunched
the famed Bay
Ridge Courier!
The print paper will keep
residents of southern Brooklyn
up to date with the latest
and greatest news across
a wide range of topics — including
politics, development,
business, schools,
health, religion, art, and
more!
“We are thrilled to once
again be serving Bay Ridge
with local news and coverage,”
said CEO Joshua Schneps.
“These communities
are some of the most active
civically in New York City
and deserve their own newspaper
and local coverage online
and through our social
channels.”
Schenps Media, a familyowned
news conglomerate
run by Josh and Victoria
Schneps, had previously published
the Home Reporter
and Brooklyn Spectator
from 2011 to 2018 — giving
them unique experience in
bringing the most important
news and events to Bay Ridge
and Dyker Heights. The Bay
Ridge Courier is back!
Now, the Bay Ridge Courier
will live as the sixth
weekly Brooklyn-centric outlet
under the banner of the
company’s award-winning
team at Brooklyn Paper —
which includes Bay News,
the Mill–Marine Courier, the
Park Slope Courier, Brooklyn
Graphic, and Brooklyn
Paper!
The company also publishes
a number of other outlets
in-and-around New York
City, including amNewYork
Metro, Brownstoner, New
York Family, Gay City News,
Caribbean Life, The Queens
Courier, and more.
Editor Meaghan McGoldrick
comes to the job with a
tremendous amount of expertise
in the area as a lifelong
resident of the area, who has
worked covering Bay Ridge
and Dyker Heights since
2012.
“I am honored to be a part
of the relaunch of the Bay
Ridge Courier,” said McGoldrick.
“I hope to build upon
the incredible work done by
the Brooklyn Paper team
while also holding a microscope
to the incredibly diverse
and exciting neighborhoods
of Bay Ridge and
Dyker Heights.”
Readers can fi nd new copies
of the Bay Ridge Courier
each Friday at high traffi c
locations like street corners
and supermarkets, but we
also encourage you to subscribe
to the newspaper by
emailing rdonofrio@schnepsmedia.
com with your
name, address, and phone
number.
For daily Brooklyn news,
reads can visit the website
BrooklynPaper.com and
the various social media
handles @brooklynpaper,
which are updated 24/7.
We’re happy to be back!
LESSONS LEARNED WHILE ON THE BEAT
WITH BROOKLYN BOROUGH PRESIDENT ERIC ADAMS
A Plain-Spoken Approach to Plainclothes Policing Reform
In the midst of an unprecedented
pandemic, our city
is facing yet another crisis:
one of public safety. The
trends are disturbing: Shooting
incidents are up 69 percent
this year to date, while shooting
victims are up 78 percent.
In one week alone, we saw 101
people across the city shot —
all of them Black and Brown.
I have said before that
there can be no justice without
safety, nor safety without
justice. The two goals are not
mutually incompatible; they
go hand in hand. The protests
that followed the death
of George Floyd have forced a
necessary reckoning here and
around the country about racially
discriminatory policing.
While prescriptions for change
may differ, we are united in
the belief that reform is long
overdue. We can uphold public
safety while ensuring police
are held to the highest standards
of conduct.
Earlier this year, NYPD
Commissioner Dermot Shea
announced the department
was disbanding its anti-crime
unit and reassigning the majority
of the 600 plainclothes
offi cers that comprised them.
Plainclothes offi cers were
tasked with stopping violent
crimes and cracking down on
illegal guns. However, the old
unit also embodied some of
the worst aspects of policing:
From 1999 to 2019, plainclothes
offi cers were responsible for
nearly a third of all fatal police
shootings in New York
City. One of the most infamous
cases of police misconduct in
New York City, the shooting of
Amadou Diallo, involved plainclothes
offi cers.
We must adopt an approach
that addresses the very real
public safety crisis we’re facing
while correcting the abuses of
the past. That’s why I believe
we need to rebuild the anticrime
unit from the ground up,
ensuring that its operations
are more transparent, and that
the offi cers who make it up are
better equipped to do the job.
I learned during my time
on the force that there are two
essential components to containing
surges in crime like
the one we’re seeing now: omnipresence
and unpredictability.
Police need to have eyes
on the street to prevent criminal
actions before they occur,
and they need to be able to do
so in a way that catches the
people committing or planning
to commit those actions
off guard. If every offi cer has
to wear a uniform and drive in
a marked vehicle, bad actors
will easily be able to identify
and avoid them.
Rebuilding our anti-crime
unit must start with identifying
the right offi cers for the
job. During the George Floyd
protests, I spoke about the
need for the NYPD to identify
a corps of offi cers with stellar
communication skills to serve
as the frontline response to ensure
demonstrations did not
escalate. The same is true of
the people who would make up
the new, revamped unit. They
should be screened for an assignment
in the anti-crime
unit based on their ability to
communicate and de-escalate
without resorting to force.
While force may be warranted
in some circumstances, having
plainclothes offi cers who
know how to communicate
properly would ensure it isn’t
the default.
We also must institute
greater oversight measures
on the unit. In the past, plainclothes
offi cers operated with
little to no behavioral constraints,
which too often led to
fatal outcomes. We should empower
civilian oversight bodies
like the Civilian Complaint
Review Board to investigate incidents
in which a plainclothes
offi cer discharges a weapon
and see whether or not it was
justifi ed. Gone are the days
of the “Wild West” mentality,
in which plainclothes offi cers
could be the cowboys of their
respective precincts.
I often speak about how
New York cannot return to the
era when I policed this city,
when we were seeing more
than 2,000 homicides a year. A
deterioration in public safety
has negative ripple effects, as
we saw in the ’80s and ’90s.
People fl ee the city in droves,
which in turn decimates our
tax base, which leads to drastic
cutbacks in services upon
which low-income New Yorkers
rely. I am concerned that
we are seeing this vicious cycle
play out again, albeit amid
a vastly different backdrop. I
witnessed fi rsthand how turning
policing around helped
turn the city around. Now, we
must adapt yet again to ensure
we create a safer, more
just city. A re-envisioned plainclothes
detail should be part of
that adaptation.
Eric Adams is borough president
of Brooklyn. He served 22
years in the New York City Police
Department (NYPD), retiring
at the rank of captain, as
well as represented District 20
in the New York State Senate.
Borough President Eric Adams.
link
link
link
/BrooklynPaper.com