Members of the HPPC meeting with the 108th Precinct in March (Photo: Provided by the HPPC)
June 11, 2021 By Michael Dorgan
The new commanding officer at the 108th Precinct is going to meet with Hunters Point residents on Monday to discuss crime, safety and other quality of life issues.
The meeting will take place at LIC landing, located in Hunters Point South Park, and Captain Lavonda Wise – along with the 108th Precinct’s Neighborhood Coordination Officers – will be in attendance. The gathering is scheduled to take place on June 14 from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.
The informal event is being organized by the Hunters Point Parks Conservancy and aims to provide residents with an opportunity to discuss some of the ongoing issues on the waterfront—such as illegal fireworks, vandalism, drag racing and late-night parties.
“This will be a casual meeting for residents to voice their concerns and get to know our new commanding officer,” said Rob Basch, president of the HPPC, a non-profit group that oversees the waterfront parks.
A number of rank and file officers from the 108th Precinct are also expected to attend, Basch said.
The NYPD will outline its strategy to combat illegal activity on the waterfront this summer.
The precinct pledged during a virtual public meeting in April that it would increase the number of officers patrolling Center Boulevard–and that policing the waterfront would be a top priority. The 108th Precinct also committed to closing off 2nd Street and 54th Avenue to curtail drag racing.
Wise and members of the 108th Precinct also toured the parks with the HPPC in March to help identify trouble hotspots, Basch said.
Basch said that the parks have been a lot quieter so far this year.
“There have been incidents of fireworks going off and people staying in the park after the 10 p.m. closing time. We have not witnessed the big parties with loud music that we saw last year but there is still time for that,” he said.
Basch said that cars and motorcycles speeding in the area still pose a big danger to residents. He said that the HPPC is looking to meet with the DOT over the coming weeks to find solutions to the problem.
The meeting on Monday comes as private guards have already been deployed to patrol the parks on weekends.
The initiative, which is independent of the NYPD, is being organized by a group of Long Island City residents known as the LIC Community Action group.
The group has hired the guards to beef up security despite promises given by the 108th Precinct that there would be more uniformed officers at the parks this summer.
The LIC Community Action group launched the initiative last year, with security guards brought on to patrol the periphery of the parks in September and October.
The security team — which consists of approximately four guards —patrol the walkway outside both parks from Thursdays through Sundays from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. They began operations on Memorial weekend and are expected to continue through the summer.
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6 Comments
Dear 108 Precinct: Food trucks. Food trucks as in 14-15 at night, all brightly lit. Please assign two officers to get them out at dark. What we have now is the party fostered by LIC Landing, the beer and wine dispenser at the ferry, and the food trucks.
Please check the licenses. Even a little check up on copied food truck licenses, fines for these, will cut down on the mess. As long as they are there, with double parking, we are doomed to dangerous nighttime activities.
Rob Bausch got in front in this coverage, saying the Parks are a lot quieter this year. Why?
Sorry I missed this. Wondering when LIC Post will post a write-up on what happened.
Yeah right.
What a joke. At 7:30 I watched a dirt bike and a quad come through my section of the park near the Pepsi sign. Great work 108th!
We are so f__ked
I am going to be blunt. This is something the conservancy was told about at least 5 yrs ago. They had meetings at the Irish Center, things were starting to get bad way back then. This is not because of Covid, this is because even before Covid there was no policing here. When residents starting complaining about crime, we would be cut off saying time was limited. This happened meeting after meeting. It is because they are all friends, The cops, The conservancy and the politicians. This is why we never got a good fight from anyone to clean up the park. Now we have them all on the run, we are getting things done, but we are doing it, not the conservancy. They are partly responsible for what has happened here. Conservancy through event after event, everything from silent disco which I know people liked, to booze filled DJ Parties and huge movie nights. This is all how our park became so well known. But the trash was disgusting after these events and people stayed to party more and more into the night. They made our park so well known, this is why it is so bad. But getting back to this story, DOT already has been in talks about the street issues, little too late for the conservancy to be concerned now, lots of the work has been done by the community and not them. Little late to talk to the cops about the crime issue in the parks, we and I mean all us residents have been addressing all of this ourselves. We got no support from the conservancy for our security and other issues we are fighting, and that is because if they can not have the credit, they want nothing to do with it. They got tons of money, I did not see one donation from them. But they need to be the Kings around here. Sure, anyone can be the king or queen, but you have to earn it from your subjects, you need to do the work. Tonights meeting is nothing but a publicity stunt, another meeting just like the Irish Center meetings, promises made and no promises kept. Join our fight on facebook. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1829481923962053/?multi_permalinks=2920049114905323%2C2920049004905334%2C2919797488263819%2C2919682248275343%2C2919658551611046¬if_id=1623396385193289¬if_t=group_activity&ref=notif
This will unfortunately yield zero results. The 108th has proven time and time again that they do not care about the residence of LIC, they only care about protecting their jobs. They have 100% abandoned us.