By Stephen Witt
Crime within the 67th Precinct continues to drop in 2008 as compared to last year, according to the latest official police statistics. But the downward trend in crime does not leave time to rest on laurels, according to Dep. Inspector William Aubry, commanding officer of the precinct. “We’re working very closely when it comes to violence with the D.A.’s [district attorney’s] office and we’re always trying to keep violent individuals in jail,” said Aubry. Aubry added that while police and the D.A. always try to get a high bail for violent criminals, judges sometimes reduce the bail and let the bad guys back out on the street to again terrorize the community. A case in point was a recent Valentine’s Day shooting, where police allegedly found that the shooter had recently been freed on a low bail, said Aubry. Aubry commented that police have been working with the D.A.’s office on a new initiative that identifies those that have a propensity toward violence with a past arrest record. Then if the perpetrator gets arrested, cops and the D.A. go to the judge with a package of criminal history to try to get a higher bail set, Aubry added. “We try to keep them behind bars and getting them the help that they need before they get put back out on the streets and prey on a lot of people in the community,” said Aubry. Aubry said another factor to keeping crime down is getting guns off the street. In 2007, the precinct was among the top in the city with 242 gun arrests, which also set a precinct record. A lot of the gun arrests are attributed to the NYPD’s Gun Stop program, in which citizens can get up to $1,000 for information that leads to taking illegal firearms off the streets. The number to call for the program is 1-866-GUN-STOP. “If we don’t get these guns off the street, there will continue to be innocent people who are shot,” said Aubry. “I made a promise when I came here that my number-one priority would be to take guns off the street.” Aubry added, for example, that guns in the hands of 14- or 15-year old kids can be exceptionally dangerous. Sometimes they might get into a fight over a girl or something of that nature and if the have a gun, they use it. “If they fight the old-fashioned way – a fist fight – we can deal with that, but if they have a gun and they use it, a youth no longer has a life. A mother no longer has a son. A sister no longer has a brother,” he said. For the year, crime is down about 6.5 percent with burglaries leading the way with a 32 percent drop. There have been 55 reported burglaries thus far in 2008 as compared to 68 at this time in 2007. Other categories recording drops are murder, robbery and auto theft. The only major crime category that is up is felony assault. There have been 50 reported felony assaults thus far this year as compared to 29 at this time in 2007, an 11 percent increase. Aubry attributed the increase to an extremely low number of felony assaults last year at this time.
