This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Crime & Safety

Twenty-Two Officers Join 76 Precinct

Police Captain said the new crew will help address issues the community is facing.

Crime in the 76th Precinct may be low compared to other neighborhoods, but that didn't stop the city from recently assigning 22 new officers to our local force.

At the March Meeting of the 76th Precinct Council on Tuesday night, Capt. John J. Lewis announced to members of the Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill and Red Hook communities that a new crew of officers began patrol as of two weeks ago.

"We were lucky, because there were only three precincts in the entire city that got an influx of new officers," said the Captain. "They're new to us, but not new to being officers. They've all been on the street three or four years already and it's really, really going to be helpful to us to address some of the issues we've been facing."

Find out what's happening in Carroll Gardens-Cobble Hillwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Those issues include various hotbeds of activity in Red Hook as well as a 50 per cent uptick in burglaries for the year—mainly along Court Street.

"This is primarily due to the fact that there have been a series of break-ins in diners, restaurants and bars," said Capt. Lewis.

Find out what's happening in Carroll Gardens-Cobble Hillwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Some of the businesses that have fallen victim in just the last month include , , and In these instances, the crook has typically broken in through a window or wall and taken whatever he could grab, from cash registers to ATM drawers to laptops.

Police told Carroll Gardens Patch that the string of burglaries are likely related and currently under investigation.

The good news is that for the month of February robberies were down about 30 per cent. "Part of the reason," Capt. Lewis said, "was that in 2010 and 2011 we saw a phenomenon where there was a group of young people committing robberies and we identified them." Some of those individuals were arrested, the Captain said. Some of them are still on the street.

"But we know who they are," he said. "So we're trying to just keep a lid on the robberies now."

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?

To request removal of your name from an arrest report, submit these required items to arrestreports@patch.com.

More from Carroll Gardens-Cobble Hill