When crime spikes in an area of a precinct, a police conditions team is dispatched to catch the bad guys and bring order back to the streets.
And four members of the 70th Precinct conditions unit recently received “Cop of the Month” certificates for reining in some armed robbers and taking guns off the street.
In the first incident, conditions team Sgt. Joseph Durante and Officer Raymond Higgins were patrolling around Farragut Road and Bedford Avenue at about 9:25 p.m., Oct. 20, when they spotted two individuals running down Bedford Avenue and they began to give chase.
Along the way, one of the perpetrators threw a gun under a parked van, and ultimately the two crime fighters caught the suspects and recovered the gun. Later they found out the alleged robbers had held up an elderly woman on Bedford Avenue and their takes was $4.55.
The second incident occurred at about 8:45 p.m., Oct. 24, when conditions team officers Vlad Green and Joseph Imperatrice answered a call of a robbery of a cell phone near Glenwood Road and Flatbush Avenue.
Upon arriving on the scene, the two officers interviewed the victim, and then canvassed the area while the victim went over pictures with the 70th Precinct detective squad to identify the perpetrators.
Meanwhile, Green and Imperatrice looked for the bad guys as they returned to their normal patrol, and sure enough, they spotted two males who fit the description in the Junction area.
After detaining the suspects, they called the detective squad, who identified them through the pictures. The suspects were then brought to the station house, where the victim positively identified them.
Durante said in picking conditions team members, he looks for cops who have the ability to pick perps out on the street, perform utilizing proper police tactics and who know how to treat people in the street.
Green, originally from the Sheepshead Bay/Brighton Beach area, is a graduate of Lincoln High School.
Imperatrice follows in the footsteps of his father, grandfather and several uncles – all of whom were in the NYPD.
Both Green and Imperatrice have been cops for four years.