New Watch Group Formed In Crown Heights

Sunday, June 7, 2009



A new civilian watch group in Crown Heights is bringing together blacks and Jews in a neighborhood once synonymous with racial tension.

If all goes as planned, a Caribbean-American pastor could share a car with an Orthodox Jew on the NYPD Civilian Observation Patrol - or blacks might volunteer for Friday night shifts, when their Jewish neighbors can’t work.

“It’s a quantum leap beyond what it was in 1991,” Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said, referring to the riots that rocked the community nearly two decades ago.

About 50 residents have signed up for the police-sponsored group, completing 60 hours of training before they got black jackets, ID cards and hybrid cars with NYPD emblems.

“You are now officially the eyes and ears of the department,” Kelly told them in a dedication ceremony outside the 71st Precinct.

There already are Jewish patrols in the area, Shomrim and Shmira. In the past, there’s been friction between the two - and with the black community.

Members of the Shomrim and Shmira groups said they welcome the NYPD-backed patrol in the neighborhood.

But while several Shmira volunteers have joined, Shomrim members have shunned it so far.

Shmira member Levi Huebner, 40, signed up and said the NYPD is “giving us resources and training to do the job properly.”

“Ideally, we’ll have one patrol that incorporates everybody,” Kelly said.

(Source: NY Daily News) (Taken almost entirely from: Yeshiva World News)

(MRN- 18)