BY SEAN EGAN | There was once a time when community members would know their neighborhood beat cop by name — and that’s the era the NYPD is looking to harken back to with their Neighborhood Coordinating Officer (NCO) Program. Now arriving at the 10th Precinct (NYC’s 39th command to adopt this protocol), the NCO program assigns specific officers exclusively to certain areas, in order to build up community relations and directly address an area’s unique issues. To mark the occasion, the 10th Precinct held an NCO Rollout event at the Fashion Institute of Technology (227 W. 27th St., at Seventh Ave.) on Tues., Feb 28, where enthusiasm and hopes for the program ran high.
“I’m excited that the NCO program is coming to the 10th Precinct,” City Councilmember Corey Johnson told Chelsea Now prior to the evening’s presentation, at a cocktail hour where neighborhood stakeholders hobnobbed. “It’s what residents have asked for, for a long time,” he said, noting that interacting with residents and businesses individually has proven to be “an effective policing method.”
That sentiment was reiterated (and backed up by stats) once the presentation began in earnest, led by NYPD Chief of Patrol Terence Monahan.
“As the city has changed, so have we as a police department,” Monahan said, noting that, while the crime rates are lower than ever, in recent years relations with and perceptions of police have been quite negative. “We had to come up with a new way of policing,” he asserted, “to repair some of the disconnect.” The NCO Program was the result. “This is a major philosophical change for us as a department,” he noted.
Monahan explained that each participating precinct is divided into smaller areas (the 10th is split into three, in addition to Elliot-Chelsea and Fulton Houses), and assigned two officers whose sole job is to get to know and serve residents personally — including giving out their cellphone numbers and email. These officers are allowed to use initiative to make decisions, and reach out to people and neighborhood needs based on what they observe and the connections they make. The hope is that their efforts will lead to people trusting their local officers as a first-line resource for conflict resolution — “humanizing the uniform” as Monahan put it.
Other components of the program include the construction of Neighborhood Work Groups (consisting of NCOs and community stakeholders) to regularly discuss issues, the addition of new POs to the precinct, and specialized training courses for NCOs to help optimize their work.
“They are your cops,” Monahan said emphatically, noting that participating precincts have already seen notable reductions in crime and positive feedback from locals. “I challenge you today — get to know your NCO. Invite them to your block, invite them to your building… We need to get input from everyone.”
To help facilitate this, after a brief Q&A and featured speakers’ comments (including Johnson and 10th Precinct CO Captain Paul Lanot), the NCO officers were brought up to introduce themselves to the crowd. First were the officers serving the Elliot-Chelsea and Fulton Houses: Officers Julio Jimenez, Kimberly Peralta, Marissa Pineiro, and Mauritius Vogel, who had already been active in the complexes prior to the rollout.
Next came the officers from Sector A (btw. W. 21st & 14th Sts., west of Seventh Ave.): Officer Robert Karl, who’s been with the force 19 years in various roles, and Officer Matt Maddox, a seven year NYPD vet and former New York Giant. “It wasn’t very long — about as long as we’ve been here tonight,” Maddox laughed. The Sector B (btw. W. 29th St. & 21st Sts., west of Seventh Ave.) officers — George Ricker (whose grandparents hailed from Chelsea, giving him a personal connection to the area) and Tamarah Pickney — followed. Sector C (btw. W. 43rd & 29th Sts., west of Ninth Ave.) was handled by Detective Anthony Marion and Officer Lisa Mitchell.
As the meeting came to a close, those assembled were encouraged to mingle with the NCOs and take down their cell numbers and email — as well as connect to them via the newly launched 10th Precinct Facebook page: facebook.com/NYPD10PCT.
