Someone to Watch Over You
NST Hosts Community Meeting with Officers from the 105th Precinct
BY JILL DAVIS
Photo by Dawn Steinberg
The NYPD has been stepping
up its efforts to reach
out to the community, and
the 105th Precinct, which includes
North Shore Towers, is leading
the way. The Towers’ Political
Action Committee Chairperson,
Felice Hannah, coordinated
a community-wide meeting at
North Shore Towers on July 30,
which included officers from the
105th Precinct along with City
Councilman Barry Grodenchik
and NYC Councilman Donovan
Richards, who is also Chair of the
NYC Council on Public Safety.
It was an evening filled with a
great sense of community as well
as important information for North
Shore Towers residents and their
surrounding neighbors. Barry
Grodenchik opened the meeting
by saying that these kinds of
community meetings are “critical;
it’s so important that in a city of
8.54 million people that they get
to know their community police
officers.”
He went on to explain a key
improvement to the area’s ability to
protect its citizens is the building
of a new NYC police precinct in
Southeast Queens. The new precinct,
which will be the 116th, will
result in the 105th “being cut in
half” and will significantly reduce
the amount of response time of
police in that precinct since they
will no longer have to traverse the
north-south corridor of Queens
and deal with the increasingly
congested Cross Island Parkway.
Councilman Richards took the
podium saying, “It’s important to
hear what’s going on in different
parts of the city and hear how we
can improve public safety. We’re
trying to bridge the gap between
our community and the police
dept. Public safety is a shared
responsibility.” He also noted that
“the new116th Precinct is on a
very fast track. You’ll see us break
ground on that very soon.”
Richards specifically noted the
recent troubling rise in hate crimes
NST General Manager Glen Kotowski presents service awards to Officers Gallagher and Contessa
and the creation of the city’s Office
to Prevent Hate Crimes, which is the
first of its kind. “We want to focus
on schools so the next generation
understands what inclusiveness
looks like,” he said. In addition,
“The Council has funded between
$1million and $2million for local
organizations throughout the city
to do education and have rapid
responses around hate crimes; it’s
very important that communities
take control and play a big role in
saying that hate crimes will not be
tolerated.”
Another important component
of safety is the development of the
role of Neighborhood Coordination
Officers (NCOs), whose job is to
not only be active officers in their
precincts but to act as liaisons
within the community to keep communications
open. Officer Shawn
Gallagher, a 23 year veteran of the
NYPD in the 105th Precinct, said
that being an NCO is “about reaching
out to the community to build
bridges, not walls, so that we can
discuss problems in the neighborhood
and resolve them together.”
To make the effort more efficient,
the area has been broken out into
“sectors,” with North Shore Towers
being within “Sector Eddie.” Officer
Joe Contessa, an NCO within the
sector, explained, “We get to know
the people. We don’t leave our sector
and we go to civic meetings
quarterly. There are more cops
on the street; there’s more police
presence now.” A real aid to the
contact effort is that each NCO
has a special cell phone so that
residents can email, call or text the
NCOs to leave a message. The cell
phone numbers were shared with
the audience and an assurance that
“We will respond to you as soon as
possible.”
What’s another way to fight
crime? Prevent it! Officer John
McCoy of the NYPD’s Crime
Prevention Unit offered some very
troubling stories—and very useful
tips—as to how people can prevent
themselves from being a victim.
“Has anybody ever gotten a
phone call from the IRS?” McCoy
began. “If you do, remember this:
What rhymes with Rick? Click!” In
other words, hang up immediately,
since the IRS will never call you
directly. Neither will the police
department. “There’s an app which
can put the scammer’s phone
number to read as if it’s from the
105th, so people think the police
are calling. Don’t fall for it.”
Another recent phone scam surrounds
someone calling claiming
to be from Apple and saying that
your computer was hacked and you
need to buy gift cards in order to get
the computer repaired. “One victim
spent $2,500,” he reported. He
also discussed “mailbox fishing,”
where thieves go into a mailbox and
pull out envelopes, find ones with
checks in them and then change
the amount. How to prevent this?
Purchase a pigmented gel ink pen
(about $8 to $10), which can’t be
washed off.
“These kinds of scams are
happening all over the country,”
he said. McCoy also shared his cell
phone number so that concerned
citizens can contact him directly.
North Shore Towers General
Manager Glen Kotowski was an
NYPD Deputy Inspector assigned
as the Commanding Officer of
the 105th Precinct prior to working
at the Towers. He presented,
along with members of the North
Shore Towers Board of Directors,
Community Service Award plaques
to Police Officer Gallagher and
Police Officer Contessa.
As part of the presentation,
Kotowski spoke about his long
history with the 105th Precinct,
which included growing up in the
Precinct, watching the skeletons of
the Towers go up in the mid 1970’s
when he ran for the Q43 bus to get
to Martin Van Buren High School,
and ultimately becoming the
Commander of the 105th Precinct
when Officer Gallagher was a newly
assigned Officer over 18 years ago.
Kotowski noted the importance
of community support and recognition
of police officers and that
he had firsthand knowledge of
how difficult a job it was. “After
September 11, 2001,” he said,
“support for the police and law
enforcement could not have been
greater. Unfortunately, lately the
support for the police nationwide
has gone in the wrong direction.”
He concluded, “This presentation
of plaques is our small gesture
to show support to our police in a
positive direction.”
September 2019 ¢ NORTH SHORE TOWERS COURIER 17