Years ago retailers used a “calling tree.” If a suspicious person came into a store, an employee would call to alert other stores in the neighborhood.

Today, the Internet is taking this idea to another level, says Professor Robert McCrie from John Jay College of Criminal Justice’s Department of Security, Fire and Emergency Management.

Through blogs, crime mapping sites and other digital tools, residents are communicating and learning about crime in their own neighborhoods. Online they can often find more on local crime than they can from traditional sources, such as news outlets or neighborhood association meetings. And websites and other digital tools are an efficient way to identify and monitor crime patterns—and bring attention to the authorities.

Electronic crime watching, or “e-watch,” as McCrie refers to it, has changed how both community members and law enforcement learn about crime. With watch patrols under scrutiny after the killing of 14-year-old Trayvon Martin in Florida, these kinds of efforts may gain momentum.

“We are already quite connected now and this connectedness has helped reduce crime,” he says.

For example, says McCrie, he recently heard about a woman who interviewed over the phone for a babysitting job. Afterwards, she received several messages from the person, saying that she was hired, and she would be sent a check in advance. But after the last message, she figured out it was an advanced fee fraud. She then went on her blog and warned people about this scam.

McCrie also says that smartphones have become a great crime-watching tool. “The amount of video information that members of the public can collect with their smartphones now is having a real impact on crime mitigation. Just anyone with a smartphone can be a crime fighter,” he says. And this information can be given to the police.

The New York City Police Deparment has a unit that can take images that are not so good, like ones taken on a smartphone, and make them better, he adds.

The NYPD declined to comment on the value of these digital tools when called, but requested that The Brooklyn Ink send an email. We are waiting for a reply.

Though, like most information online, there’s a possibility that misinformation could occur, says McCrie. “Somebody who has a gripe against another individual could use this means to anonymously get the individual in trouble.”

But law enforcement knows that they can’t take every bit of information they receive on face value, he says. And they know to treat crime reports with both interest and skepticism.

Here are five different digital tools that are used locally and nationally to communicate about crime, and how they are bringing the concept of neighborhood watch online.

Save Brooklyn Now! 

Errol Louis, a Crown Heights resident and political anchor at NY1, started Save Brooklyn Now!, a blog, as a way to keep track of emails that DCPI, the Office of the Deputy Commissioner of Public Information, sent him.

Around 2006, when he was a crime columnist at the Daily News, he started posting those emails, which give information about crimes, the missing or the wanted, on a blog.

But other people found his blog useful. Today, Save Brooklyn Now! is still mainly DCPI reports, but also has other crime related information, such as an event for a local community group that stands up against violence, Save Our Streets Crown Heights. His posts concentrate in the precincts around where he lives—the 71st and 77th (Crown Heights), 79th and 81st (Bedford-Stuyvesant), 73rd (Brownsville) and 88th (Fort Greene/Clinton Hill).

By putting accurate information online, Louis’ blog is a reliable, convenient place to read about local crime.

The problem with relying on news reports to learn about crime, is that what’s reported isn’t consistent he says. And often there isn’t enough, data, such as specific addresses.

People who may miss neighborhood association or precinct meetings, where more local information about crime is often communicated, can go to his blog for updates.

But online crime reporting can lead to misreported information, and since the information on his blog comes from the DCPI reports, it’s a “form of rumor control,” Louis says.

Brooklynian 

This local blog and forum is a place where Brooklynites can go to post messages about almost any subject. Posts are divided by neighborhood and topic—and often discuss something crime-related.

For example, a poster in the Prospect Heights section of the Brooklynian forum started a new thread in October: “I’ve been living at Washington Ave & St. Marks since June, and last night this together-looking guy with glasses stopped me between Vanderbilt and Underhill on Prospect Place, and told me his mother had a stroke and crashed her car, and he needed a few bucks. All I had was a 20 and hearing the words ‘mother’ and ‘stroke’ put me in some kind of sympathy trance and I gave it to him!”

The writer then added a link to a video showing this same man being caught on film six years ago, making a similar plea. She added this title to her blog post: “The Prospect Heights con artist is back.”

More recently a person last month posted about a thief who stole their iPhone on Fourth Avenue and 5th Street in Park Slope, warning people to be careful about walking around with their smartphones on the street.

Lawrence Quigley, a Prospect Heights resident, uses Brooklynian and believes it helps people become more aware of what’s going on in the neighborhood. But he admits that it isn’t perfect, and residents need to use it cautiously.

Brooklynian is anecdotal, “It’s a double edged sword, ” says Quigley. Although before sites like Brooklynian, residents would know about things just sporadically, people can get too caught up and develop a sense of fear, he says.

Things can get distorted. Once a cop told me that ‘It’s like two old ladies talking over the fence,’” he adds.

Nation of Neighbors 

Nation of Neighbors is an online community network that allows neighbors to share crime and other community concerns.

Founder Art Hanson first started with the site Watch Jefferson County. A resident of the West Virginia county, he created it around early 2005 with just 30 people as a crime mapping site. Around the end of 2009, he launched Nation of Neighbors.

Today it has 500 neighborhood groups, about 50,000 users, and about 12 counties that have an involved police presence with the site, and a mobile app is in the works.

“There had been a number of burglaries in my neighborhood and I had talked to the local sheriff about trying to set up a neighborhood watch, and I found out that my community already had a neighborhood watch, officially, but nobody went to meetings, nobody knew who was in charge,” says Hanson.

“The benefit of doing it online is that you don’t necessarily have to have those monthly meetings. You don’t have to work as hard to maintain the personal connections because should something come up you still have your network in place electronically,” he continues.

Once signed up on the site, you can search for an existing group in your neighborhood, or and can create your own. You select on a map where you want the boundary of your group to be, and whether it’s public, open to anyone who lives in the selected area with approval or no approval, or private, where you can only join by invitation.

Individuals, community groups and law enforcements use Nation of Neighbors, and can receive email or text message alerts about crime reported through the site, or from participating law enforcement.

Some communities also use it as news sharing source in place of a neighborhood website. They post things such as local events and minutes from community meetings.

Most of Nation of Neighbors’ users live in rural or suburban areas, says Hanson. The site lists only two public groups in New York City—in the Bronx and Inwood.

SpotCrime 

This crime mapping site started in Baltimore in 2007, and now is in most major cities, as well as the United Kingdom and Canada. Today, it’s the most visited crime-mapping site in the United States, says founder Colin Drane.

Drane created the site because he wanted to know where crime was occurring in Baltimore, where he lives, a place that historically has been a high crime city, he says.

There’s a “significant appetite from the public to know what’s going on around them,” he says. And maps can be a more informative way of looking at crime, rather than just reading or hearing about it.

On the site, you enter your address and a Google map of your neighborhood comes up with the pinpointed location of the crimes. Each offense has a different graphic to symbolize it—such as a burglar dressed in black for a robbery, and a closed fist for an assault.

People can also sign up for email alerts. Block captain and neighborhood watch people often sign up for these alerts.

The site gathers the crime data from a number of sources—information released from the police, news media and reports sent in directly to the site from individuals.

Though, Drane points out, the site only receives a small number of reports straight from users. For cities where police regularly release data on specific crimes and location, this is mainly where the information comes from. For example, in Chicago, anyone can go online and look up crimes by location.

New York City, says Drane, is one of the most closed cities when it comes to releasing data on specific crimes. The NYPD releases statistics on types of crimes in each precinct, but not individual reports. SpotCrime often uses local news sources to map crimes in the city.

Still, Brooklyn is one of the top 10 places visitors to the site come from, says Drane, both because of its size and its interest in looking up local crime.

Neighborhood Watch App 

This app, available for iPhone, Blackberry and Android platforms, was developed by the Community Safety Institute, which oversaw the White House-mandated redevelopment of the national Neighborhood Watch program.

Costing $1.99, it allows users to report any non-emergency crime from their smartphone, with or without photos. These reports are linked to a local police department.

It also has neighborhood watch tips and training videos.

“We believe strongly in providing our volunteers with robust, easy-to-use tools to help them report and stay informed. The NW App is our latest tool and is designed for those volunteers who are on-the-go in their communities,” it says on the app’s website.

Blidi Stemn and Zenobia Frypher in discussion. Chikaodili Okaneme/ The Brooklyn Ink

In Crown Heights’ M.S. 394, it was time for math in Jean Graham’s  5^th grade class.  On her green chalkboard, she wrote in white chalk: “Today we will continue to practice using data to plot a line graph. We will also interpret data from, and look at how, line graphs can be applied to real world situations.”

Line graphs can often seem too abstract for fifth graders to understand, or even care about.  But if the students can connect a math principle to real life, new concepts such as a line graph might be easier to learn.

Her attempt to make such connections is new, too. Rather than teaching the entire lesson herself, while the children simply watched, Graham had the students form small groups to discuss the math problem and data amongst themselves. They then presented their results to the rest of the class.

The students proved to be very resourceful. One group’s line graph even charted decreasing stock prices to illustrate a market crash. In the end, the students gave themselves a round of applause. Some cheered when the teacher said they would continue their math lesson the next day.

Math education is suffering in American schools as the country has fallen behind most other industrial countries. But this turn of fortune in its popularity, at least in M.S. 394, is the handiwork of Blidi Stemn, a passionate, soft-spoken mathematics education professor at Hofstra University.  Through New York State’s Teacher/Leader Quality Partnerships program, Stemn has been working with teachers at M.S. 394 since October to improve their math skills and teaching techniques.

“What is really good about this,” Stemn said with a Liberian accent, is that “it is [about] in-class professional development…done [regularly], not once a year [or] twice a year. Every week we come together and talk about mathematics.”

For the past six years, Stemn has been going to schools in Long Island and Brooklyn, particularly to those whose students are doing poorly in math. He assesses the teachers’ math education skills and offers them his expertise. “He’s excellent at what he does and has a very solid math mind” said Dr. Anthony Robinson, Assistant Dean and Executive Director of Hofstra’s Center for Educational Access and Success. He “brings a very unique approach to math.”

Before working at M.S. 394, Stemn worked with two Hempstead, Long Island schools for about four years. In one school, only 53% of its fourth graders were passing math at the state level. But after working with one teacher, Stemn said that by the next year 93% of that teacher’s students were passing with far higher math test scores.

“What did you do?!” Stemn remembers the school principal asking in amazement. “It was just helping [the teacher] to understand the mathematics himself,” Stemn replied, “because if you do not know the content, you can’t teach it well.”

Along with one-on-one mentoring of teachers, Stemn helped M.S. 394 create “a community” in which he had teachers join in “a culture of discussion” about how they teach.  Teachers go to each other’s classes and later provide constructive feedback on technique and performance.  Stemn also engages the teachers in group sessions to discuss the fundamentals behind the mathematics they teach.

“The conversation is ongoing about [what they] need to do,” he said. “They find it very valuable…because they haven’t had the opportunity to do that.”

Dr. Blidi Stemn, a professor at Hofstra University. Chikaodili Okaneme/ The Brooklyn Ink

Stemn’s group of ten M.S. 394 teachers is the largest that he has worked with at one school. The teachers vary in their level of teaching experience and math proficiency, but he is seeing progress even in the first few months. Students “need to touch, see, feel and make sense of mathematics” he said, “and I’m seeing that happen.”

Zenobia Frypher, who has over 20 years of teaching experience, noted that Stemn’s influence is shifting the teachers’ views on learning. “Sometimes [teachers] tend to go on and on…rather than delve into the work and have [students] solve the problems,” she said. But teachers are gradually changing their old ways to help enrich the quality of their students’ learning experiences.

“The students enjoy it, but the teachers were a bit timid at first” she said. “As teachers we tend not to like too many different people or strangers coming in the classroom…but I think now people are taking it [as] something positive.”

Stemn hopes to work with M.S. 394 for the next few years. This spring, he also plans to start preparing his research for future publication.

Read more at NYDailyNews.com.

Soccer participant going through drills. Photo courtesy of Seeds In The Middle

Violence erupts randomly on the streets of Crown Heights.  What has remained consistent is the need for children to get out and play.

The violence has been a subject of recent community board and precinct meetings.  Nancie Katz, however, seeks to remind people about the good things that also happen in the neighborhood.  One of them is the participation by local kids in her soccer program.

This fall, four afternoons a week, just past the gates of Hamilton Metz Field between Albany and Lefferts Avenue, children between the ages of 5 and 11 can be found practicing as part of Brooklyn Crown Heights Soccer Eagles. Homework is put off as the kids focus on teamwork and discipline.

Katz founded the sports program two years ago after seeing how soccer benefited her own children as they went to school in Manhattan.

“I have two daughters, and they both played soccer since they were very young,” said Katz. “It was an important part of [their] life.”

One recent afternoon at Hamilton Metz Field, the kids begin with a running exercise to get their adrenaline up under the direction of a trainer. Next, they are partnered with another kid, and begin passing the ball back and forth. Then they graduate to learning ball control as they run and kick the ball. These activities change weekly to help make the kids become better players. Practice ends each day with a scrimmage.

Katz looks on in satisfaction as she takes pictures. From being a reporter to now running a soccer program, Katz has had a long journey.

Katz worked for 11 years as an investigative reporter for the New York Daily News. It was not until Katz started covering schools in Crown Heights that she realized how different it was for children there compared to what her daughters had. There was a “devastating lack for arts and recreation” in Crown Heights, she said.

Upon leaving the Daily News in 2008, Katz formed a program called Seeds in The Middle, which its goal is to inspire social change through sustainable health in low-income areas in New York. One of the programs Katz wanted to emphasize was the soccer program because it would bring kids from around the neighborhood together. Since then, the program has been a hit, as parents from throughout the area bring their children to play soccer.

“When I found out they had this, I said I had to sign up,” said parent Nigel Shallow, 37, who was cheering for his daughter Taylor, 7, a second grader from P.S. 241 on a weekend afternoon. “It’s in the community, and it’s convenient for me. When she’s at home, she busy.  But at the same time, she needs to be outside.”

“I was so excited that they were offering soccer, because my daughter wanted to do it,” said Colleen Galy, 39, parent of Allycia Austin, 7, from P.S. 22. “She’s a fan of Dora [The Explorer], and she’s always playing soccer, so she took a liking to it. They have another program [like this], but that one is too far.”

With success has come a problem for Katz:  finding the funds to pay coaches.  She charges the children between $50 and $75 each for the season and some come for free. She must pay for coaches, uniforms, and equipment and insurance. Volunteers have stepped up to help back up the coaches, including a new lead soccer director.

Lead coach Joseph Cabral (left) instructing participants. Photo courtesy of Seeds In The Middle

“I see some great potential in them (children). They have a passion for the game and it is crucial to succeed,” said new lead coach Joseph Cabral, who has played professionally in Portugal.

Another season of soccer will begin in December, but indoors. Overall, she wants the soccer program to be fun for both parents and kids—an outlet that was not available before, she said.

“Parents want kids to be healthy,” Katz said. “There were no options for kids. I’m providing options for kids that were never there.”

***

This story was amended 12/1/2011 to correct a discrepancy concerning the hiring of coaches.

Read more stories involving Crown Heights, such as uninsured patients who endure difficulties at Interfaith Medical Center or the latest trends in the Brooklyn’s real estate market

(Photo: Chika Okaneme / The Brooklyn Ink)

The Interfaith Medical Center, a major health provider in the Crown Heights and the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhoods is experiencing an increase in uninsured patients using the emergency room as their main source of healthcare. Administrators at the hospital attribute the trend to the sluggish economy and say a pool of federal funds intended to pay for the uninsured is running out.

“You see it in cycles” said Diane Porter, Vice President of Interfaith’s Board of Trustees, “with whatever’s going on in the larger society and with recessions and high unemployment.”

Unemployment for Kings County, which encompasses Brooklyn, is 9.6 percent. According to the NY Department of Labor this percentage is higher than the national average of 9.1 percent, and the rate for the city as a whole, which is 8.7 percent.

Interfaith treated over 60,000 emergency room patients in 2010. A pool of money received from the federal government this year, called the charity pool, is nearly exhausted after just nine months, Porter said. By the end of December she predicts that the expenses the hospital will be forced to incur, to treat the increased numbers of uninsured, will have well exceeded the money left in the charity pool, forcing the hospital to cover the uncompensated costs. With no guarantee for more funding, Porter is concerned about the increase in the number of uninsured emergency patients they have to treat. “It’s growing and it’s not going away,” she said, “that’s the point.”

“It’s a burden” Porter said, “because we’re consuming goods, labor, equipment, [and] supplies, for which we are not going to be reimbursed.” Uninsured patients only add to the Medical Center’s negative cash flow, she said. “For every dollar we spend, we are reimbursed 45 to 50 cents,” she said, so servicing people who can pay little or nothing puts a further strain on Interfaith’s finances.

Federal law requires hospitals to treat patients who arrive seeking help, even if they are uninsured or unable to pay. “If a person presents themselves at the emergency room for care, by law you are required to treat them” Porter said.

Because they know they will receive treatment without paying, some people use the emergency room for routine medical care instead of going to a primary care physician, who are not required to treat patients who cannot pay.

Angela Roper (49) was a recent patient at Interfaith’s emergency room. She grew up in Crown Heights and now lives in Bedford-Stuyvesant. She said had been unemployed and uninsured for three and a half years, until finding a job this January.  Before she was laid off she had been working at her previous job for eighteen and a half years.

She received unemployment compensation, but did not qualify for Medicaid. “I felt vulnerable,” she said.

In June 2009, she started experiencing painful swelling in her hands. She felt that she had no choice but to go to the ER because “one option is better than no options”. Having no existing heath conditions, she went to Interfaith’s emergency room three consecutive times in one week as the pain escalated. Doctors at the ER were finally able to diagnose her condition as rheumatoid arthritis.

“Maybe once I gave them 5 or 10 dollars but after that I didn’t give them anything… I had nothing [more] to give,” she said.

She has gone to Interfaith’s emergency room several times in addition to this incident. She knew that there were clinics available to patients who were uninsured but she often felt her arthritis pain and other health worries could not wait for a doctor’s appointment.

One Sunday, she was in so much pain that she could not wait to see a Rheumatologist on Tuesday. Her arthritis flared up so badly that she could barely walk into the emergency room, she said. Just a few days later, she was finally approved for Medicaid.

New York City has a variety of other health facilities, such as clinics or community health centers, that serve people who cannot afford private insurance or are not eligible for public health insurance.

The increase in uninsured patients is a rising problem in the City. According to the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, 32.5 percent of Central Brooklyn residents are unemployed and uninsured, and 13 percent of the uninsured population uses the emergency room for health care.

The New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, which is dedicated to providing health services to people without insurance, has seen an increase in uninsured patients and a decrease in funding. Last year the corporation reported a 14 percent rise in the number of uninsured patients over the past four years at the same time the system was experiencing budget cuts.

Yitzchak Shuchat is suspected of attacking Andrew Charles, who is black, in Crown Heights. The area, which saw rioting in 1991, is known for tension between the Jewish and black community The extradition order alleges an unidentified man on a bicycle sprayed the victim with mace while Shuchat stepped out of an SUV, beat him with a wooden club and drove off.

Shuchat fled the country–first going to Canada, then to Israel in May of 2008. His charges include hate crime. Police believe the attack followed reports that black youths had been pelting rocks.

One of the vehicles in the Brooklyn Van Lines service that has gained popularity in the last year due to MTA bus cancellations. (Photo: Cristabelle Tumola / The Brooklyn Ink)

Weekday mornings Osmond Thorne takes commuters and children to school, but he is not driving a bus or subway train. He is behind the wheel of a 15-person commuter van.

The vans are a cheap and convenient way to get around Brooklyn, but they also skirt city regulations by regularly straying outside of their licensed routes to get more passengers.

A round of MTA bus cancellations last year led more passengers to depend on commuter vans such as Thorne’s Brooklyn Van Lines service. After the bus cancellations, many Brooklyn residents endured longer travel time to work and were stuck taking several subway lines to visit the Prospect Park area.

“By not having the service they are cut off not just to the rest of Brooklyn, but to the rest of the city and that’s very unfortunate,” says Jeffrey Zupan of the Regional Plan Association, an independent urban research and advocacy group for the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut metropolitan region.

Whenever the MTA has to cut costs, it’s the riders who suffer the most, particularly those who lose service in areas where there are few transportation options, Zupan says.

One solution was the Group Ride Vehicle program. In September 2010 the city’s Taxi & Limousine Commission gave private commuter van companies a special license to pick up passengers along five cancelled bus routes in Brooklyn and Queens. Thorne’s Brooklyn Van Lines was licensed to stop along the old B71 route, which served parts of Red Hook, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, Gowanus, Park Slope, Prospect Heights and Crown Heights.

The program led to an increase in people using Thorne’s vans as an alternative to public transportation.

Dave Abraham, chair of Transportation Alternatives’ Brooklyn Committee, says before the Group Van Ride program many former MTA customers may have not trusted less official-looking van services.

Sarah Collins uses Brooklyn Van Lines to take her children to and from school. Collins lives in Red Hook and has been riding with Thorne since the beginning of last school year. During the ride to school, she chats with other parents among the sounds of their noisy children. “For day to day commuting it has been perfect,” she says.

Ty Jones also uses Brooklyn Van Lines to take her child from her home in Crown Heights to her babysitter in Park Slope. From there Jones can easily hop on the subway to her job in Manhattan.

This May, however, the TLC cancelled the last remaining van line because of “sporadic service they had been providing along the B71 route,” according to TLC spokesman Allan Fromberg.

The action didn’t diminish Brooklyn Van Lines’ business, however. The company still had its standard TLC license and continued picking up passengers along that route, despite rules, that according to Fromberg of the TLC, do not permit the vans to pick up passengers in much of the area of the former B71 route.

Brooklyn Van Lines still charges the $2 pickup and drop off fee that it did with the TLC program, with passengers negotiating what to pay if they want to go outside of the old B71 route.

Jones feels lucky that she was able to find a cheap mode of transportation when the B71 line was cancelled: “Without this service I would have to pay $10 each way for a cab.”

Andrea Vaughn, who has been taking commuter vans since December, also feels fortunate for their existence. When the B71 was cancelled her commute went from 20 minutes to up to an hour. She had to take two buses to her job at the Brooklyn Public Library’s central branch. Now it takes her only 15 minutes and she also has “some good conversation” along with her commute.

Vaughn has been telling people in her area about the commuter vans on the neighborhood blog she writes for, The Word on Columbia Street. “Word of mouth has been very strong,” she says.

Another commuter van rider who is also helping spread the word is Marta Heilborn. She takes a Brooklyn Van Lines van to her job in the Grand Army Plaza area. She recalled how she recently met a woman on the street who was complaining about having to take three subway lines to work. Heilborn told her about the van service she uses.

Word of mouth has helped Brooklyn Van Lines’ business grow. Thorne attributes some of this increase to the beginning of the school year. The parents who have been using his service since the last school year have been telling others about it.

As a result, Thorne hopes to soon add more vans to serve the old B71 bus passengers. In the meantime, with the cold weather quickly approaching, he is sure that more people will call him for a ride.

More Stories on The Brooklyn Ink:

Job Hunting Hard for Long-Time Hospital Worker

Bensonhurst Native Optimistic Despite Unemployment

Meet Lance: Unemployed in Bensonhurst

Her new show, “Oprah’s Next Chapter” will air on OWN and reportedly will focus on Oprah interviewing real people, newsmakers, and celebrities outside the studio.

Brooklyn borough president, Marty Markowitz, marches with local residents in Crown Heights on October 20, 2011. Neha Banka/ The Brooklyn Ink

Residents of Crown Heights walked together on Thursday evening in a peace march to end gun violence, but also to call attention to increased safety in the neighborhood in recent years.

Approximately 70 marchers congregated on the north side of Eastern Parkway and Utica Avenue at 6:00pm. With many young participants carrying posters that said “DON’T SHOOT. I want to grow up,” the march proceeded along Eastern Parkway and concluded with a ceremony in Brower Park.

According to the Crown Heights Mediation Center, which had organized the march, gun violence has been on the decline in the neighborhood in recent years. Project director Amy Ellenbogen said there have been only nine shootings so far this year in the jurisdiction of the 77^th Precinct, compared with 10 last years.  “But it is still nine too many,” she said.

“Over the past 10 years, there has been a 16.7 percent decrease of victims and a 28.6 percent decrease of shooting incidents”, Ellenbogen said. The number of fatalities due to gun violence according to Ellenbogen in the 9 incidents this year and 20 last year totaled 5.

“Gun violence has been at a historic low at the 77^th precinct this year,” said Executive Officer Myrie, a police representative at the event. “New residents coming into to community should be more aware of the situations”, explained Myrie.

Map of shootings in Crown Heights for 2011 (Rheanna Abbot / Save Our Streets)

Danny Dickson, a 41 year old resident of Crown Heights and a shooting victim who uses a wheelchair, said, “I’m trying to save our streets. Trying to talk to the young youth.”  Of his own wounding, he says, “I got shot. I’ve been in the (wheel)chair for 17 years. It didn’t kill me but made me stronger,” he said.  He said the dispute that led to the shooting began “over words”. “It didn’t have to go that far, but it did”, said Dickson.

Ryan Emanuel, a 12 year old resident, said he was in the march “for the safety of the streets and to make peace.” He said a 40 year old man who lived in his building got shot four times in the head on Christmas Eve two years ago.

Bishop Roberto Jemmot, of Nazareth Christian Fellowship, said, “We’re influencing young people in our church. We’re trying to mold their lives and teach them nonviolence, which is the principle of Christ.”

Borough President Marty Markowitz was also present at the event.  “A few anti-social deviants should not bring a lack of calm and respect to the neighborhood,” he said. “There is no question that there has been an increase in gun violence in New York City over the past year or two”, Markowitz said. “Part of it is because of the increase in unemployment rates. Part of it is easy availability of purchasing of guns. In some neighborhoods it is easier to buy guns than books in Brooklyn and New York City and that’s sad.”

Residents at the march want to see positive changes in their neighborhood and many hope that Thursday’s event will help spread the message. The purpose of the event according to the S.O.S team and representatives of the 77^th precinct was spreading awareness about reducing numbers in neighborhood shootings, as well as awareness about streets in Crown Heights becoming safer for its residents.

Other speakers at the event included City Council Member Letitia James and State Senator Eric Adams. There was a strong presence of members of the S.O.S. (Save Our Streets) Outreach Team, whose antiviolence methods focus on making personal contact with at-risk young people.

Many marchers carried S.O.S. posters and the S.O.S. volunteers also distributed plastic badges reading “I SUPPORT S.O.S.”, for participants to pin onto their clothes. One resident waved a placard he had made himself which read, “In violence we forget who we are!!”

An anti-gun violence group marched in Crown Heights Neha Banka/ The Brooklyn Ink

Residents of Crown Heights walked together on Thursday evening in a peace march to end gun violence, but also to call attention to increased safety in the neighborhood in recent years.

Approximately 70 marchers congregated on the north side of Eastern Parkway and Utica Avenue at 6:00pm. With many young participants carrying posters that said “DON’T SHOOT. I want to grow up,” the march proceeded along Eastern Parkway and concluded with a ceremony in Brower Park.

According to the Crown Heights Mediation Center, which had organized the march, gun violence has been on the decline in the neighborhood in recent years. Project director Amy Ellenbogen said there have been only nine shootings so far this year in the jurisdiction of the 77th Precinct, compared with 10 last years.  “But it is still nine too many,” she said.

“Over the past 10 years, there has been a 16.7 percent decrease of victims and a 28.6 percent decrease of shooting incidents”, Ellenbogen said. The number of fatalities due to gun violence according to Ellenbogen in the 9 incidents this year and 20 last year totaled 5.

“Gun violence has been at a historic low at the 77th precinct this year,” said Executive Officer Michael Marino, a police representative at the event. “New residents coming into to community should be more aware of the situations”, explained Marino.

Source: Rheanna Abbot/ Save Our Streets

Danny Dickson, a 41 year old resident of Crown Heights and a shooting victim who uses a wheelchair, said, “I’m trying to save our streets. Trying to talk to the young youth.”  Of his own wounding, he says, “I got shot. I’ve been in the (wheel)chair for 17 years. It didn’t kill me but made me stronger,” he said.  He said the dispute that led to the shooting began “over words”. “It didn’t have to go that far, but it did”, said Dickson.

Ryan Emanuel, a 12 year old resident, said he was in the march “for the safety of the streets and to make peace.” He said a 40 year old man who lived in his building got shot four times in the head on Christmas Eve two years ago.

Bishop Roberto Jemmot, of Nazareth Christian Fellowship, said, “We’re influencing young people in our church. We’re trying to mold their lives and teach them nonviolence, which is the principle of Christ.”

Borough President Marty Markowitz was also present at the event.  “A few anti-social deviants should not bring a lack of calm and respect to the neighborhood,” he said. “There is no question that there has been an increase in gun violence in New York City over the past year or two”, Markowitz said. “Part of it is because of the increase in unemployment rates. Part of it is easy availability of purchasing of guns. In some neighborhoods it is easier to buy guns than books in Brooklyn and New York City and that’s sad.”

Residents at the march want to see positive changes in their neighborhood and many hope that Thursday’s event will help spread the message. The purpose of the event according to the S.O.S team and representatives of the 77th precinct was spreading awareness about reducing numbers in neighborhood shootings, as well as awareness about streets in Crown Heights becoming safer for its residents.

Other speakers at the event included City Council Member Letitia James and State Senator Eric Adams. There was a strong presence of members of the S.O.S. (Save Our Streets) Outreach Team, whose antiviolence methods focus on making personal contact with at-risk young people.

Many marchers carried S.O.S. posters and the S.O.S. volunteers also distributed plastic badges reading “I SUPPORT S.O.S.”, for participants to pin onto their clothes. One resident waved a placard he had made himself which read, “In violence we forget who we are!!”

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