Police Commander Retires; Racial Tensions Simmer at Precinct

Deputy Inspector William McClellan, Commanding Officer of the 71st Precinct, has resigned from the police force to accept a job in the private sector, it was announced at Thursday night’s regular monthly meeting of the 71st Precinct Community Council, an organization that serves as a liaison between the civilian community and the local precinct. The precinct’s Executive Officer, Captain Daniel Sosnowik – an Orthodox Jew who wears a yarmulke with his police uniform – has been in charge pending the scheduled arrival this week of a new Commanding Officer, another Deputy Inspector.

Most police precincts in New York City are commanded by a Captain. However, the 71st precinct, which includes all of Jewish Crown Heights south of Eastern Parkway, has long been considered a particularly responsible post, in part because of the potentially volatile mix of races and religions within its borders. Accordingly, the Commanding Officer in Crown Heights has, for many years, consistently been someone of the rank of Deputy Inspector (the next higher rank above Captain).

Captain Sosnowik, who made the announcement at the Precinct Council meeting, reassured the community that the rest of the precinct’s team, including a number of Community Affairs and other officers who have established working relationships with the community, remains in place. He himself, said the Captain, “expects and hopes” to stay, but these things, he noted, are decided from above.

Inspector McClellan’s departure provided a glimpse into racial tensions simmering beneath the surface of this outwardly calm neighborhood, as black and Jewish audience members traded comments over supposed preferential treatment by police.

Benfield Munroe, who is black and the head of the Nostrand Avenue Merchants Association, got up to address the meeting during the comments period. “I want to send a message to the incoming Commanding Officer,” he said.

“We want the 71st Precinct to be one precinct. We don’t want there to be a Jerusalem up the hill [i.e., in the Jewish area] and a Palestine down the hill. We don’t want there to be 18 cops on Kingston Avenue and none on Nostrand,” said Mr. Munroe.

“Police have never done their job [evenly]. Tell the new C.O. that if you don’t clean it up, we’re going to be on the streets,” the black businessman concluded.

His remarks were met by loud applause from blacks in the audience. Captain Sosnowik, who presided over the questions and answers, recognized the next speaker without immediate comment.

However, Shmarya (Stuart) Balberg, a former school board member and community activist who is Jewish, took his turn at the microphone to respond.

“When I first moved into this neighborhood,” he stated, “my area looked like an armed camp. Our neighborhood didn’t become ‘Jerusalem’ because of favoritism from government. We worked on it ourselves, and we took it back, block by block.

“And you should know better, Mr. Munroe, because you yourself formed a block association and drove out the drug dealers on your block, to your credit. That’s how you do it. You don’t ask the police to come in and clean up every incident on every block, because that’s not going to happen—not with our [police] budget. You do it yourself. Anyone can make any block ‘Jerusalem,’” concluded Mr. Balberg.

Indeed, within the last two weeks, the Nostrand Avenue Merchants Association leader had appeared with Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes in media coverage of drug arrests in that area resulting from Mr. Munroe’s intervention.

At that point, Captain Sosnowik said he was going to “jump in” to the discussion.

“I’m Jewish,” observed the yarmulke-clad official. “But look at me,” he urged, gesturing to indicate his NYPD jacket and pants, “most of me is blue.”

“We are all blue in the police department, and we try to stay right in the middle. Our commitment to everyone is: ‘fair is fair.’ I’d like to see these Precinct Community Council meetings as one united community forum, where everyone works for community betterment, instead of trading comments between one side and another. Because that’s our commitment in the Police Department,” he concluded to applause.

City Councilmember Letitia James, recently victorious in the Democratic primary for her council seat, thanked the audience for their support, then joined the call for unity.

“Crown Heights is one community, and one standard applies to all Crown Heights,” she said. The councilmember singled out for praise the chairman of the Coalition of Crown Heights Block Associations, and pledged greater attention to the community on her own part.

“One criticism has been that I haven’t focused enough on Crown Heights,” she noted. “Well, this term, it’s going to be Crown Heights, Crown Heights, Crown Heights. You’re going to see so much of me, you’ll get sick of me.”

The racial undercurrents at this month’s meeting, though closer to the surface than they sometimes are, were not an anomaly. Strained relations have existed for some time among members of the Precinct Community Council’s executive board, which is comprised of both blacks and Jews. At the opening of the Thursday night meeting, for example, when the recording secretary, a Jewish woman, read the minutes of the June session (the last meeting before the Council recessed for the summer), heated arguments erupted over their accuracy. The June minutes recorded remarks by 71st Precinct Community Council President Evlyn Williams, who is black, criticizing the Jews in connection with the Precinct Community Council’s annual Community Day Picnic that month.

Some observers have said privately that Ms. Williams is anti-Semitic, and that she wishes to undermine the Jewish community’s relationship with local police. It is for that reason, they remarked, that the Jewish Community Council urges everyone to attend Precinct Community Council meetings. Elections will be held in a few months for a new Executive Board, and any community resident who has attended and signed in at three or more meetings within the required time period is entitled to vote. Heavy Jewish attendance during the coming months will thus help assure fair representation at election time, say the Jewish representatives.

But Ms. Williams, referring to the acrimony that marred the recent meeting’s opening, closed the evening’s proceedings on a conciliatory note.

“It’s a good meeting when people can air their issues and voice their complaints,” she proclaimed. “People should not be afraid to speak their mind in their community.

“It’s not the same now since the June meeting with the minutes,” the Precinct Council President concluded. “The Board is communicating better now. One step at a time—but we’re making progress, and I hope it continues.”