Crime is down in the Bushwick neighborhood where police killed two robbery suspects last night — but relations between cops and the community are hurting.
Compared to the same period last year, there have been 50 fewer major crimes in Bushwick’s 83rd Precinct so far this year — a drop of 7.9 percent.
And over the last seven years, crime in Bushwick is down 52 percent, Police Department data shows.
Bushwick residents say that while they’ve noticed less crime, higher-intensity police patrols are causing problems of their own.
“The neighborhood has gotten better, but the cops harass men all the time,” said Frankie Frias, 35, a grocery-store worker.
“It’s not good if you’re not white,” said Frias.
If cops really did shoot the two teens in a robbery, people in the neighborhood will understand, said Everod Sonson, a 40-year-old medical technician who’s married with two children.
“But I don’t buy the story from the cops,” said Sonson. “I’d like to hear it from someone who was there.”
Sonson said that a week ago, when he was coming home from a night of bowling in Queens, cops stopped the minivan he was driving — and surrounded him, guns drawn.
“I said, ‘What’s up?’ and they said, ‘Shut the f— up,’ Sonson recounted.
It turned out the cops were looking for a black man driving a similar car. “No apologies, nothing,” Sonson said.
“This is a highly policed area, because people come here to buy drugs,” said Ron Petway, 40, who works as a hospital administrative assistant.
“But other people are harassed besides the people buying drugs,” Petway said.
Petway said recent police killings of innocent men have made his neighbors more wary of cops.
“It could be justified,” Petway said of last night’s shooting. “But there is going to be more fuel in the fire.”