Officers hoof it in ‘hotspots’ to bridge community divisions

Two officers wearing bulletproof vests walk block after block through one of the toughest neighborhoods of this small city that has earned an oversized reputation for violence, with 55 shootings last year.

Nearly every third house they pass is boarded up. Others are strewn with trash. Some young men sitting on stoops give hard stares. But the officers keep moving, talking to dozens of residents as they pass.

“Where’ve you been? I’ve been worried about you.” “What’s up, man?” “Did you go to school today?”

Older residents seem happy to see them. Some ask them to stick around. Young children, herded by their mothers, wave and smile.

“You get more by being friendly than by being miserable,” Officer Jeff Perez said.

Newburgh’s push to exit squad cars for more frequent foot patrols is part of an effort in the state’s violent crime hotspots to bridge the divide between poor urban communities and law officers suspected of picking unfairly on minorities. And it comes at a time when police killings

of minority suspects anywhere — most recently in Columbus, Ohio; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Charlotte, North Carolina — have the ability to create tensions on the street everywhere.

“It’s affecting us. Things halfway across the country. It’s crazy,” said Officer Chris Tabachnick, Perez’s partner on the foot patrol.

The foot patrols were done in pairs for safety, even before recent events, Lt. Richard Carrion said.

“There was a time in society they were hurting themselves and we were just the police,” Perez said. “In this day in society, police are targets.”

With about 28,000 people in nearly 4 square miles, this city 70 miles north of New York City consistently

has one of the highest rates of violent crime in the state. Including the 55 shootings, it recorded four murders, 19 rapes, 128 robberies and 261 aggravated assaults last year.

Newburgh’s 85-officer department shared a small part of the state’s $13.2 million grants this year aimed at reducing violent crime, money that went to 20 police departments in 17 counties. One key emphasis of the 3-year-old program is ensuring that interactions between officers and individuals are respectful, fair and perceived that way.

“It’s the face-to-face contact, meeting people as people on equal terms,” said Michael Green, executive deputy commissioner of the

state’s Division of Criminal Justice Services, which administers the grants. “It’s hard to do that with a police car.”

At a bodega at the end of their route, Tabachnick pointed out a man whose brother was killed in a confrontation with police a few years ago and threatened revenge. And there was another who had been shot at but refused to say anything to police because he is skeptical of them.

Larry Williams, a retired warehouse worker sitting on a stoop by his house, bantered with Perez, who met him with a fist bump.

“I enjoy them,” he said of the officers. “I don’t know about the rest of the people.”