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What Happened When a Brooklyn Neighborhood Policed Itself for Five Days
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/04/nyregion/brooklyn-brownsville-no-police.htmlNo paywall
https://archive.is/uFUF3
It had been a quiet April afternoon until about a dozen teenagers began running up Pitkin Avenue in Brownsville, yelling and cursing. They were chasing a girl of about 14 and it was clear they wanted a fight.
Five plainclothes police officers watched warily. Across Pitkin stood about half a dozen men, civilians in jeans and purple-and-gray sweatshirts.
“They got it,” an officer said.
The teenagers slowed as they spotted the men, workers from an organization called Brownsville In Violence Out, who calmly waved them in different directions. They scattered as the girl fled down a side street.
The brief encounter encapsulated a simple yet unorthodox concept that is at the heart of a bold experiment organizers believe could redefine law-enforcement in New York: letting neighbors, not the police, respond to low-level street crime.
*snip*
