The Pain of Losing Lesandro and the Power of Neighborhood Policing

July 2, 2018

Op-Ed by Police Commissioner James P. O'Neill published in the Monday, July 2, 2018, print issue of the New York Daily News

Gang violence is ugly in any form, but the killing of Lesandro "Junior" Guzman-Feliz was an unspeakably savage act. The images of him being dragged from a store and then repeatedly stabbed and hacked are the definition of horror. The depraved indifference to this boy's life is made all the worse in that the child who the gang was destroying wasn't even their intended target.

His mother reported that Lesandro wanted to be a cop and that he had joined the NYPD program for teens called the Explorers to further that dream. The NYPD has been my life's purpose for more than 35 years, and when I think about what this young man could have been, it breaks my heart.

We have a family feeling in the department, and Lesandro's murder is like losing a family member that we didn't even know we had.

His death has spurred outrage across our city, our nation, and especially in the Bronx and the 48th Precinct where Lesandro lived and died. The chant of "Justice for Junior" rang out at his funeral last week and at a demonstration on the street where he was killed. For what it's worth, we are going to get that justice. We have the perpetrators in custody, and we will build an airtight case against them. None of them will walk away from this.

Despite the pain that has precipitated the outrage, the compassionate concern and the commitment to justice in the 48th Precinct are deeply inspiring. We saw similar outrage and concern when Detective Miosotis Familia was assassinated following our city's July 4th celebrations last year in the neighboring 46th Precinct. New Yorkers abhor violence, whether directed against a 15-year-old boy or a 48-year-old police officer and mother of three who worked in, and cared for, their community.

I learned much of what I know about policing and community as the commander of the 44th Precinct, just south of the 46th and 48th. I worked with great cops there and with fiercely dedicated community members. It was there that I first saw clearly the enormous potential for police and neighborhood alliances in the fight against crime and in the shaping of police service to community needs.

Ever since, I've been talking about the shared responsibility for public safety and the need to break down barriers between police and their potential neighborhood allies. In the past three years, the NYPD has been striving to make that vision a reality with Neighborhood Policing, our effort to deliver localized, connected police service all across the city.

An alliance with neighborhoods is built of small increments: a cop in a sector who engages with merchants, tenant associations, community groups and young people; a conscientious police effort to resolve a local problem that has been driving residents crazy; a resident who comes forward with key information about a criminal, a crime or a crime pattern, like the outpouring of tips and leads the NYPD received on the heels of Lesandro's murder.

We are in this together, and if we work together, we can win this, nurturing communities that are safe and feel safe too.

People in the neighborhoods don't like the gang members any more than the police do. They don't want to live with the terror that they might become collateral damage in some random gang gun or knife battle, or that crossing some gang member will lead to a retaliatory hit.

We track the gangs and their membership. We conduct precisely directed investigations into their criminal activities. We bring in indictments that ultimately send them to prison. And we stanch the violence, as recent drops in crime have demonstrated. These are essential steps toward healing gang-plagued communities and fulfilling the police department's sacred duty to work with and protect every neighborhood and all the people of New York.