While the city’s homicide rate is slowly on the rise, one of Brooklyn’s deadliest corners is bucking the trend with safer streets than its residents have ever seen.
Killings in East New York’s 75th Precinct have plummeted 60 percent over the first 10 months of this year with 12 homicides – compared to 29 last year – the latest statistics reveal.
That’s a far cry from 1990, at the height of the crack epidemic, when the precinct led the city with 109 murders and the five boroughs averaged about six killings a day.
“I remember the days when the 75th Precinct recorded more murders than some entire US cities,” said Thomas Reppetto, former president of the Citizens Crime Commission of NYC and co-author of “The NYPD: A City and Its Police.”
“It shows you how far we’ve come.”
The reduction is even more astounding because overall, the city has recorded an 8 percent spike in murders with 441 so far this year, compared to 408 for the same period last year.
With 24 murders, Brownsville’s tiny 73rd Precinct has already lapped the neighboring 75th. That number is down two from last year.
The drop in crime has also empowered the community and strengthened ties, which benefits civilians and cops, said Inspector David Barrere, the precinct’s commanding officer.
“Once the community starts to trust us and we develop relationships with them, there is trust that has built up here, there is a trust between the community and the police and they will trust us and come forward,” he said. “I have to give them credit, as well as the cops.”
Residents of the neighborhood agreed the streets felt safer.
“Back in the day, there used to be a lot of robberies and break-ins,” said Cyrus Edwin, 46, a construction worker. “You don’t see that much no more. It went down a lot this year. This year, things have made a big, big turn.”
Still, some said the gains had come at the cost of over-aggressive policing.
“If I throw a tissue on the ground, they take me in for questioning,” said Herbert Culbreath, 50, an office manager. “If I dismount my bike on the sidewalk, they run you through the system.”
Additional reporting by Reuven Fenton