A GUARDIN’ PARTY
NYPD will screen J’Ouvert revelers
The NYPD plans to screen every person attending Brooklyn’s J’Ouvert street party next month in an effort to prevent more bloodshed at the violence-plagued predawn festival, which last year saw two bystanders killed by gunfire.
“The whole idea of this is to prevent people who are going to the parade from getting shot,” a police source said. “If somebody gets shot 10 blocks away, this is not going to prevent that.”
The city last year added more cops and lights to the annual Caribbean cultural celebration in Crown Heights, and gave the event its first-ever permit, following the fatal shooting of Carey Gabay, a 43-year-old former aide to Gov. Cuomo, near the festivities the year before.
But violence erupted again, with revelers Tyreke Borel, 17, and Tiarah Poyau, 22, gunned down.
This year, police will fence off the event — which stretches from the top of Prospect Park to Prospect-Lefferts Gardens — and force anyone who wants to enter to go through one of 12 security checkpoints where they will be searched for weapons and booze, Assemblyman Walter Mosley said.
The start time will also be moved from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. so the party will take place mostly in daylight. Anyone who shows up before that time won’t be able to get past the cops, Mosley said.
Mosley and police are optimistic that the new measures will work.
The police source noted the NYPD uses similar checkpoints at the New Year’s Eve celebration in Times Square, which draws 40 times the 50,000 people expected to turn out for J’Ouvert.
But some revelers say that a booze-free party in broad daylight would miss the point of the celebration — a precursor to the West Indian Day Parade later that day — and that they’ll just begin their early-morning partying elsewhere.
“It’s f- -ked up that they’re moving it up, like that’s the tradition,” said Bailey-Ann Clarke, 26, of Bushwick, who says she typically starts her J’Ouvert revelry at 2 a.m.
“Officially, they can do what they want. Me and my friends are going to just keep doing what we did, except now I guess it’s just unofficial,” she added.
Councilman Jumaane Williams — who has opposed efforts to cancel the festival — says he’s fine with the changes but doesn’t expect it to stop partying or violence outside the official zone and times.
“The vast majority of folks have no idea a parade’s even going on,” the Flatbush lawmaker said.
“People are going to be out there, period.”