The NYPD’s new anti-gun units began their first patrols Monday in multiple neighborhoods to combat gun violence.
Over 150 officers from the department’s Neighborhood Safety Teams are patrolling 28 areas where shootings have increased during the pandemic.
NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell said Friday that the initiative will have commands patrolling the most dangerous neighborhoods in the city’s five boroughs.
There is a plan to roll out more teams in the future, with officers focusing on gun violence and criminal activity.
“They are not in plain clothes; the uniform on the back plainly states NYPD Police,” Sewell said. “They are there for the safety of the community and to get the violent offenders off the streets”.
According to police data from March 6, there were 215 citywide shooting victims year-to-date, which is an 18.8% increase compared to reports during the same period last year.
Kenneth Corey, NYPD Chief of Department, said the officers are “intensively trained in minimal force techniques, advanced tactics, car stops”.
“De-escalation is essential to all of it, communication skills is a big part of it, courtroom training and as the police commissioner indicated, constitutional policing,” Corey added.
The officers will patrol in undercover cars, which will be equipped with dashboard cameras.