Now the president of Baisley Park Houses, Hogan bears witness to a community-police relationship that is often adversarial. He says stop and frisks are everyday occurrences in southeast Queens. Metal detectors line entrances to learning institutions. School safety officers outnumber guidance counselors.
In what many call a “school to prison” pipeline, area residents can often bond more with their local troublemaker than with their protectors.
“Their allegiance is to the shooter. Even though they know he did something wrong, they have more of a relationship with the shooter than the police,” said Hogan, who is running for the District 28 City Council seat. “A kid grows up learning he hates cops.”
On the other hand, negatives are positives when it comes to crime statistics. Compare the rates of reported crime in every major category to years past, and minus signs mark percentage decreases dating back to the 1990s.
However, there are no measures to calculate the divide between the two groups who create these statistics — the community and the police who oversee their streets.
Marq Claxton, a retired police detective who is running for councilman in the 31st District, says the relationship is eroding. Starting in school, youths are desensitized by police and daily intrusions into their lives. In fact, state Democrats in Albany have considered amending mayoral control to include a commission on public safety in city schools. Students encounter a “phalanx of security,” Claxton said, forcing groggy teenagers to empty their pockets first thing in the morning.
A member of the force for 20 years, Claxton, who is black, trained his son to listen — don’t talk back — and respond quickly to an officer’s commands if he were to be pulled aside. He wouldn’t want his child to speak poorly to an on-edge cop.
But one day, Claxton came home to find the inside of his car in disarray. His son, a high school teen who was driving the vehicle, was surprisingly unshaken. In a nonchalant tone, he said he was stopped and questioned by police a few blocks from home. While his son said he was doing nothing wrong, the encounter was little to worry about in his mind. Cops frisked him every week.
While at first glance these incidents could amount to racial profiling, the police officer in Claxton understood how his colleagues acquired a “street cop mentality,” looking out for the smallest gesture as a sign of trouble in a not-so-innocent neighborhood. And many of the same officers are under pressure to meet quotas for stop and frisks and arrests.
“Police work is now strictly enforcement,” Claxton said. “It’s about numbers and statistics.”
Vivian McMillian, president of the 113th Precinct Community Council, acknowledged police are spread too thin to operate as they once did, becoming familiar with the residents on their block, better distinguishing between a threat and a harmless passerby. This leads to more random questioning on suspicious corners, which can offend a population of minority residents who feel they are singled out for nothing more than their appearance.
That’s why she recommends her neighbors, especially the younger ones, attend council meetings to avoid unnecessary conflicts with patrolling police who don’t know their faces.
Claxton wants a broader conversation.
“The community needs to have a discussion with police — no finger pointing, no yelling — but a discussion of race without either side calling each other racist,” he said. “The NYPD needs a 12-step program. The first step is admitting there is a problem.”
A lack of respect from officers is the main concern McMillian hears from residents. Cops answering a simple “hello,” for example, could go a long way toward bridging the divide between the community and police.
Orville Hall, owner of Hollis Famous Burgers and Hip Hop Museum, counts the cooperation of police during his establishment’s grand opening as a tip-toeing toward improving the community’s unique relationship with law enforcement. With a hip-hop culture often stereotyped for its no-snitch, anti-authority approach, like group N.W.A.’s hit “F*** Tha Police,” Hall said rap lyrics and other backlash against cops is just a by-product of rough urban areas. Confrontations are a reality, but, overall, communities defined by hip-hop aren’t unappreciative of police protection on the whole.
At his restaurant, a testament to rap’s rich history in southeast Queens, Hall senses a tranquility that can be achieved.
“We are starting the dialogue,” Hall said. “People who came [to the grand opening] can talk to each other and be like, ‘Hey, the police were here and weren’t bothering anyone.’”
Claxton doesn’t dispute there are some great people working in law enforcement, including more than a few who tease him after he takes another pubic jab at the force.
Regardless, he doesn’t believe that crime statistics, which are generated by the Police Department, can be an accurate measure of illegal behavior. Only the “seven majors” — murder, robbery, rape, burglary, grand larceny, grand theft auto and felony assault — are included in the statistics, but not misdemeanor assaults or drug possession.
In the 113th Precinct, which covers southern Jamaica and parts of St. Albans, Hollis and Springfield Gardens, murder is down 53.8 percent over the past 16 years. Robbery: 70.7 percent. Grand Larceny: 85.7 percent.
Hogan is shocked by the facts, but not in a favorable way. “I don’t know what crime they are talking about,” he said. “I guess reported crimes are down, but crime itself is not.”
His cynical view of police-related activity only worsens as each day passes, as Hogan’s attention is called to yet another incident — or lack thereof.
He recalls the story of a person being arrested and held in jail for failing to have identification while walking his dog. That young man attends Northwestern University, he said, and “is sure to be studying with a different attitude next semester.”
On Sunday, Hogan pulled up in his truck to see a couple of officers disciplining an 11-year-old who was riding his bike on the sidewalk. He intervened, pleading with the police to let the boy off with a warning. In mid-sentence, the cops got a call over the radio to head to a double shooting in Ajax Park.
One man died. Another was in critical condition in Jamaica Hospital as of Tuesday.
“Why weren’t they there?” Hogan asks.
Why were they dealing with this boy, who like him, might otherwise look up to them.
“You are sworn into office to protect,” Hogan said. “Yeah, their job is hard. They are busy, and their life is on the line — but so is the life of that boy in the ’hood.”
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