CROWN HEIGHTS, Brooklyn [CHI] — With much anticipation and a rather small turnout, this month’s Precinct Council Meeting opened up promptly at 7:30pm, Mr. C. Karl Cohen, president of the Precinct Council opened with a prayer, followed by the finance report by the treasurer, Mr. Errol Robinson.
As the meeting progressed, the auditorium of the Intermediate School filled with a significant crowd of Jewish residents, all of whom took the time to attend, out of concern for the neighborhoods safety and security. Some residents told CrownHeights.info that their attendance at the meeting tonight was out of support for Shomrim, Crown Heights’s neighborhood volunteer patrol.
Extensive report and more pictures in the Extended Article!
Emotions Run High, Again, At Precinct Council Meeting
CROWN HEIGHTS, Brooklyn [CHI] — With much anticipation and a rather small turnout, this month’s Precinct Council Meeting opened up promptly at 7:30pm, Mr. C. Karl Cohen, president of the Precinct Council opened with a prayer, followed by the finance report by the treasurer, Mr. Errol Robinson.
As the meeting progressed, the auditorium of the Intermediate School filled with a significant crowd of Jewish residents, all of whom took the time to attend, out of concern for the neighborhoods safety and security. Some residents told CrownHeights.info that their attendance at the meeting tonight was out of support for Shomrim, Crown Heights’s neighborhood volunteer patrol.
Extensive report and more pictures in the Extended Article!
Mr. Cohen then invited Mrs. Esther Serebryanski who spoke of the Rebbe and mayor David Dinkins and how Brooklyn is a melting pot, one which contained every Race and Religion and even compared it to her pot chicken soup. She went on to speak about tolerance and coexistence.
The meeting was then ushered along. The crime statistics was read followed by a question and answer session, which was brought along before the awards ceremony, which was to take place at the meeting, honoring the Law Enforcement Explorers along with the Auxiliary Police Officers. As in the last meeting, residents felt that the meeting was drawn out, with excessive speeches, and accusations that the Commanding Officer of the 71st Precinct, Mr. Frank Vega, was filibustering.
At the Community Board 9 meeting which took place earlier this week, Mr. Vega brought some point of interest to the gathered crowd, one of which was two proposed street renaming, one on Maple Street where the name of Officer Jeff Herman who was killed in the line of duty in 1989, as well as one of the streets near the Ebbets Field housing project, which will be named after Lieutenant John Martinson a firefighter who was killed while battling a high-rise blaze in the building.
He then asked for the community’s assistance with apprehending Derrick Nelson, Crown Heights’s notorious car thief, Mr. Vega said that if spotted residents should call 911.
Mr. Vega then read out the crime statistics for the past 28 days, compared it to this time last year, noted a 9 percent decrease in crime and that the 71st Precinct was among the city’s top ten in reduced crime figures for the month. He also pointed out, the cell phone mugging incident on Lefferts and Kingston in which a Shomrim member was locked up, he said that the investigation is very active and that police are perusing witnesses and suspects.
The question and answer session began with a resident complaining of being wrongfully arrested under the “Federal Trespass Affidavit Program” or FTAP, asking for more information about the program and to prevent wrongful arrests from happening in the future. Other questions was raised and addressed regarding summonses and nuisance complaints.
A Jewish resident got up and directed the attention back to the incident where a resident was mugged and a Shomrim member was locked up. Binyomin Lifshitz, a member in the Shomrim Volunteer Patrol, pointed out that the investigation was heading in the wrong direction with the fact that the incident took place on East New York Avenue and not Lefferts as the Inspector stated. Mr. Lifshitz pressed on and raised the issue of Officer Pablo Rivera’s unprofessional conduct at the scene of the incident, allowing his emotions to get involved and end in the arrest of the Shomrim member.
As Mr. Lifshitz began raising another issue, a sigh was heard from black residents in the crowd, which he addressed very bluntly saying, “I am raising very important issues here, don’t sigh like its nothing, this incident could have very well happened to you, me or our children”, which drew a resounding applause from the crowd. He then continued with his theory about where the teens accused of the mugging go to school and the fact that when they fled, they most likely ran to their apartment building.
Mr. Vega vaguely addressed the questions, which in turn prompted Berel Suger of the Jewish Leadership Council to readdress some of the points that were raised. The Inspector then went into some of the technicalities of unlawful detention and imprisonment, readdressing the issue that the victim of the crime did not positively identify his assailants forcing police to immediately release the suspects.
Another resident, who identified himself as an educator, got up and brought up one of the single most important issues about the entire incident, the example and precedent set forth by this incident to teens in Crown Heights, the feeling that they can get away with possibly committing a crime. The comment drew a thunderous applause.
The Inspector concurred and agreed with the example set forth by this incident, he also said that the same example should be set forth when detaining someone or when yelling at sergeants on the scene of an incident and cursing at them.
Aron Hershkop, the Shomrim member who was locked up at the scene, then got up and with excitement, he yelled “I was the one who was locked up, it was me, and that is a lie, it’s a big lie” referring to the comments about him cursing at the sergeant, 25 Shomrim members present at the meeting then got up and together protested the accusations and retorted back, “What? Rivera didn’t use emotions when he bullied us around? When he locked our own up?” Mr. Hershkop continued and accused Officer Rivera of pressuring the victim into confusion and subsequently releasing the suspects, saying “the victim told me he was 100% sure it was them, there were witnesses there to corroborate it”.
During the exited outburst the black residents again muttered aloud leaving Jewish residents with a very uncomfortable feeling, one resident said “as a community, if we were as a matter of fact a community, one would expect this amount of people gathered, about safety and security, would not just mutter and simply dismiss other residents plights, and instead they should support them” he said, adding “community, yeh right, we have a lot of work to do before we can call ourselves that”.
The meeting then went on and the awards were given out. Following which lots of residents stayed behind and spoke with police, addressing their concerns and grievances more individually, resulting with a general satisfaction from the meeting.
Stay tuned and we will keep you posted when the next meeting is scheduled to take place, residents are urged to attend and show your interest in the security of our neighborhood!
Cee
Vega is clearly the problem. If he can defend Rivera’s bully’ish acts then he’s the one that needs to go. You start to fix a problem with the head!!
ch res
kol hakovod moshe r. !! wheres chanina??!!
don-t bother
When will you guys get it? The police don’t work FOR us, they work AGAINST us.
Aron Hershkopf probably didn’t do his cause much good, shouting & ranting like he did.
In the end, what was accomplished? A cozy shmooze & photo op with Vega? Big whoop. What was done about Rivera? Nothing, or you would have reported it.
And Nelso keeps popping up to break into our cars, our wives & kids are mugged, we turn our homes into fortresses. What happened to OUR quality of life?
at the meeting and upset
i would like to point out a few things which got me very upset at while at the meeting.
Vega before taking questions tried very hard to tell the crown “his side of the story” in a way that did not allow for further question.
for example he said how the lady teacher a witness said that she did see what happened and it wasn’t any of the perps that were being held.
as we all know based of the accuracy of this site and much word and mouth from those who were at the incident that in fact the school teacher did see them doing it.
when this question was raised by mr lifshitz about that Vega chose to ignore it.
when mr lipshits brought up the fact that a officer did not use proper conduct at the scene
he again did not comment on it.
when the educator got up and brought up a number of facts
1. why do you do daily canvases in that area while looking for additional witnesses when you do have the 3 perps who were caught addresses, why don’t you question them
(at the scene these 3 being held were let go with out questions, with out being frisked, with out anything except a name age a address)
After which the inspector said as in Oh great idea ill send an officer down to talk with them?????
Duh why did a educator need to bring that up in order for it to get done it should have been the officers on the scene.
when the inspector talked about the incident earlier on before questions he made it sound from witnesses found after the incident that these boys were not even on the same side of the street.
well if these boys were questions at the scene and at the scene a witness came fwd and said so, its one thing but as i said they were not even questioned.
Another point is
The was some one who asked why don’t you look at the phone records of the calls that were made after it was stolen
Inspector answered oh that takes about a month to get clearing for the release of the records from the service provider.
I find that very odd and absurd for the following reasons
number one: when it comes to such incidents that should be the first thing they get and it should be done right away. The internet allows us to do so.
second i find it hard to believe that the inspector does not know that
These papers with the records printed out by the owner of the phone were in fact put onto the desk of the detective behind this case.
which to me sounds like there is either some real B Sing going on
or a major miscommunication between the inspector and detective both of which make me feel very uncomfortable
and in closing id like to say that there r 2 other things said by the meeting that leave me feeling unsafe and upset
the 2 people suspected for shooting some one in the Utica station are on the loose these two do not make me feel unsafe to be around. why bc they know that they r being looked for and they r there fore a by now discarded the weapon
b. are in hiding.
but on the other hand these 4 kids involved with this incident were let go and all of them and their friend know that in crown heights just grab a phone and run bc unless the person you grabbed a phone answers the question
“DID YOU SEE THIS PERSON GRAB YOUR PHONE YES OR NO? ARE YOU SURE? ARE YOU 100% POSTIVE?”
(that type of pressure is not fare for some one who just has been jumped)
you will not get even questioned or frisked.
the last thing im upset about is the fact that we thank g-d had allot of foot patrols in the past few weeks
the inspector said how these officers are no longer here.
if im not mistaken, in the past few weeks that we did have these officers i personaly saw a lot of ESU Units helicopters and racing speeding parole cars with sirens
And there fore i feel that these officers were able to stop crime and catch alot more people. Just shows how much they are needed and especially now that the winter is over
“the bears are coming out of their caves looking for food”
Friend
Perhaps an general E-Mail can go out from someone @ the meeting when the fulibustering is done and time for evryone to come and voice their opinion.
sam
why was it not mentioned about the black women who saw the whole story??
Resident
I was at the meeting. It was very clear that most of the black people there made it VERY CLEAR to us that THEY DO NOT WANT JEWS AROUND. Even former Rep Clark, mother of Rep Clark, made this clear by reminding us that no group owns the community….A CLEAR REFERENCE to disputing Jews claims to the neighborhood.
later, when two black people talked about getting arrested…they got upset.
BUT WHEN THE JEWS SPOKE, THE EYES ROLLED, THE COMMENTS…AND I HEARD THEM ACCUSE US OF BEING RACIST.
LET US BE HONEST AND COME TO TERMS…OUR BLACK NEIGHBORS TRULY HATE US.
WE MUST STAND UP FOR OURSELVES
RESIDENT
GO BEREL SUGAR
GOOD JOB!
Jury
As a resident of Brooklyn, I was forced to sit for 2 weeks on a grand jury (jury duty). It is the job of a grand jury to decide if there was a crime committed and reasonable cause to believe that this suspect did it. It is NOT the job of the police to be the judge and jury in this matter. If the victim is not sure or has doubts then that will be brought up in court, not on the street. The officer in question stepped out of his commitment to the community and his job. He obviously took matters into his own hands when he should not have. Is there any investigation going on into his actions?
short and sweet
to ch res.
you say kol hakovod.
why aint he come to ALL meetings
is it the coment that some one wrote that there r rumers about the real all new Vaad hakaohol will be speaking that got him to come.
yeh the rumers werre false.
and to upset person who wrote a long parsha some nice points
it took me like a day too read keep it short
Black & White Issue
Question to CH’s: Its great that we have Shomrim; the blacks may think we are a group looking out for only Jews; and look to arrest and bully blacks. What if… the blacks created a Security group of 20 – 30 year old men patroling .. how would you feel?
There is mistrust on both sides. (or am I wrong)?
Avraham Yitzchok
To black and white Issue:
When the whites start robbing, mugging and terrorising the black residents, by all means, start a patrol group. Shomrim was born out of necessity, not racism.
Do they only cater to Jews? A) has there been a case when they refused to help. B) Charity begins at home. its a volounteer program, not a govt service.
You say there is mistrust? no, my friend. There is downright fear. Fear of being robbed and hurt, and fear that there is noone looking out to protect us.
proud grandchildren
Bobby!!! we are proud of you!!
Resident
TO Black and White Issue:
I have yet to see Shomrim be mean to an innocent black person walking down the street, into a Jewish store etc. I HAVE seen that Shomrim will also protect anyone in a bad situation. A Mexican goya was attacked and I heard shomrim went after the perp.
I also heard from a source that a recent divorcee was being threatened by her X, a jew on jew crime…and SHOMRIM was called in.
John Doe
They say – not all Muslims are terrorists but all terrorists are Muslim.
I say, not all blacks are muggers – but no mugger in Crown Heights is a white, chassidic Jew – –