Crime is at historic lows in the 76th Precinct — which includes Gowanus, Carroll Gardens, and Red Hook — according to Commanding Officer Deputy Inspector Elliot Colon, and he says you can thank Twitter! The social messaging service has helped officers there reduce overall crime — rape, robbery, assaults, burglaries, and grand larcenies — with 69 fewer crimes than last year. Shootings are also down — five this year versus seven last year — and officers have arrested seven more people for illegal gun ownership than in 2015. So where does Twitter come in? Colon gave reporter Julianne Cuba the scoop!
Julianne Cuba: How are you targeting hot spots of crime in the precinct?
Elliot Colon: We’re basically identifying a small group of individuals committing the crimes and the violences. In the 76th Precinct, we have approximately 50 identified gang members, and an additional 20 identified associates, give or take. That’s basically the nucleus of the violence anytime we have a shooting, firearm recovers, usually nine out of 10 times it leads back to these young men.
JC: What about burglaries and robberies — how are you identifying those people?
EC: We’re incorporating technology, communication, and the community with our crime fighting and that’s the reason for our decrease in crime. As far as technology we have our CompStat 2.0 [software] — our computer systems are able to identify certain patterns of crime that are occurring in the command. This allows us to be able to deploy our resources to the hot spots immediately.
JC: How else has technology changed the way you fight crime?
EC: We use Twitter. This allows us to educate the public as opposed to the old fashioned pen and paper. We can educate them how to protect themselves from certain crimes. If people are getting their cars broken into in a certain area, we can blast that out on Twitter to the community and we can alert them on wanted individuals in the neighborhood that are affecting their blocks or their areas.
The department now has the smartphones that they give to all the cops. We can send out information regarding criminals, patterns, photos to our officers out on the street in real time so they know, if they are on the foot post and this individual happens to pass by and he’s wanted, as opposed to the traditional letting them know at roll call.
JC: One of the most shocking crimes in recent history was the death of Sharon Whigham, who was found on a park bench in Red Hook with her throat slashed back on May 19. Any movement on solving that?
EC: That is an active investigation. Her throat was sliced and she had a puncture wound just above her left breast. The detectives do have somebody in mind for this. It’s not a crazy serial slasher running around. This is definitely an isolated incident and she was definitely the intended target.
JC: Our blotters page always seems to have a lot of reports of people’s bags and wallets being swiped at the Red Hook Ikea. Why, and what are you doing about it?
EC: It comes in waves. Would I love to get the person responsible? Absolutely, but it’s very hard. The best way to do that is through education and what we tell people entering Ikea is don’t leave your bags unattended. People will have their pocketbooks open, they will turn their backs to maybe do some shopping and they turn around and it’s gone. We have made arrests.
JC: The pharmacy on Court Street and Atlantic Avenue also seems to be another regular feature.
EC: That is shoplifting. It’s a crime of opportunity, they are taking, like, bars of soap, toothbrushes. Is there a black market for soap? I don’t know, could be. Shoplifting is such a petty crime, but we make the arrest, they’re out that same day and they will go and do it again.
JC: What are your goals for the future?
EC: Our main goal is maintaining this incredible dramatic decrease in overall crime and shootings that has turned this command into one of the safest precincts in the city. It comes down to technology, community, and communication. And that’s pretty much the ingredients for our successful year so far. And the men and women in the 76th Precinct work very hard and it shows. The numbers don’t lie. It’s phenomenal.
