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March 7, 2012
Council Member James: rather than assign 78th Precinct to police arena, create new annex shared by three precincts; also, she still hasn't seen security plan
Atlantic Yards Report
City Council Member Letitia James is not pleased with the decision, conveyed via a New York Post article but not apparently an official announcement, that the New York Police Department will assign the 78th Precinct in Brooklyn to police the Barclays Center arena.
Why? It ignores issues of overlapping jurisdictions, leading her to propose instead an annex shared by the three precincts that currently have jurisdiction over the Atlantic Yards sites, with all additional costs underwritten by the developer.
The 78th Precinct stationhouse is a block away, though the arena is located at the far north of the precinct. The other two precincts have stationhouses located at the far eastern ends of their territories.
James's press statement asserts that the "arena is located in Prospect Heights, which is covered by the 77th Precinct (with the boundaries for the 88th Precinct ending across the street)."
Actually, as noted in the map at right and the map I ran earlier in the week, the 78th and 88th Precincts share jurisdiction over the arena site, indicated in red. The stationhouse for the 78th is denoted by the blue indicator.
Click through for the Council Member's statement.
Related content...
Gothamist, NYPD Precincts Fight For Right To Police Barclays Center, With Park Slope Winning
"Winning" might not be exactly the right word.
The 78th Station house is a block away from the arena, and one source at the 78th argues, "The overtime was going up whether we got the arena or not. If something happens at the arena and a cop isn’t around, most people are going to walk into our [station house] to report it because we’re across the street. They’re not traveling all the way to the 88th, so obviously, our workload is going up. And don’t get me started with the traffic and scalpers. Yes, many people are looking forward to more overtime. But the arena is going to be a nightmare to deal with."
Posted by eric at March 7, 2012 10:11 AM