NYPD to launch neighborhood policing program on UES

By Michael Garofalo

The New York City Police Department's neighborhood policing model is coming to the Upper East Side's 19th Precinct.

Precinct officials will introduce the neighborhood coordination officer program to residents at a public meeting on Oct. 15 at 7 p.m. at M.S. 167 Robert F. Wagner Middle School, located at 220 East 76th St.

Deputy Inspector Kathleen Walsh, the 19th Precinct's commanding officer, explained that the program aims to reinforce public trust in the NYPD and foster communication and collaboration between local police officers and the communities they serve. To that end, the program assigns two neighborhood coordination officers, or NCOs, to each of the 19th Precinct's four sectors to serve as community liaisons, attend regular meetings and work closely with their sector's patrol officers.

“You will see the same cops patrolling the same sectors every day,” Walsh wrote in an email. “This will ensure the officers know their assigned areas inside out. They will get to know the community and businesses, the community will get to know them. They will address crimes and conditions in their permanent sector along with the NCOs that are assigned.”

Walsh said locals will have the opportunity to meet their NCOs at the Oct. 15 event.

The NYPD introduced the neighborhood policing plan in 2015 and has worked to gradually implement it in all precincts. While Mayor Bill de Blasio and NYPD officials have credited the model with contributing to declining crime rates, skeptics have claimed the program lacks transparent accountability mechanisms to address police misconduct issues that give root to public mistrust.

In the 19th Precinct, year-to-date crime statistics are up in several major categories over the previous year's totals, including robberies and rapes. The 19th Precinct is one of six precincts that will implement the NCO program this month, after which it will be in place in all precincts citywide, according to an NYPD spokesperson.