New Southeast Queens police precinct nears completion
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Southeast Queens residents got an update on the new NYPD 116th Precinct on Tuesday, a project decades in the making which should be finished this year. Eagle photo by Ryan Schwach
By Ryan Schwach
The decades-long wait for a new NYPD precinct in Southeast Queens is nearly over.
Police officials this week told residents that the long-awaited 116th Precinct in Rosedale is nearly completed and on track to open before the end of the year.
But before the new precinct’s doors officially open, there remain some major milestones to complete. Among them – selecting the precinct’s inaugural commander, a decision residents got to weigh in on during a Monday meeting the NYPD held to give residents an opportunity to “interview” the candidates, as well as to give them an update on the precinct.
At P.S. 270 in Laurelton, NYPD officials assured Southeast Queens residents that the doors of the new 116th Precinct, which has been in the works for nearly half a century, will open sometime before the end of 2024.
The precinct, which will patrol the neighborhoods of Rosedale, Springfield Gardens, Brookville and Laurelton, was originally slated to be completed at the start of 2024 but was delayed by around six months after issues with its construction arose earlier this year, as first reported by the Eagle in January.
The precinct is around 90 percent completed, though there is no official opening date, according to Assistant Chief Kevin Williams, the commanding officer of Patrol Borough Queens South.
“This community has strived to get a precinct right, and we are on the edge of doing that,” Williams said. “We're doing everything we can to open this precinct as soon as possible, because we know the need. We know what they want from the community.”
The 116th will include all of Rosedale and Brookville down to Brookville Boulevard, Springfield Gardens south of the Belt Parkway, and areas of Laurelton and Cambria Heights, going west to around Farmers Boulevard. The precinct largely covers areas currently patrolled by the 105th and 113th Precincts.
Response times, particularly in the far reaches of the Southeast Queens communities, were a key reason – if not the main reason – locals advocated for a new precinct in the area. The 105th Precinct has for many years seen some of the slowest response times in the city given that its station house is anywhere from five to six miles away from some of the furthest corners of the precinct’s boundaries.
Bess DeBetham, a resident and community board member who has been boosting the precinct for four decades, said that she was “extremely happy” that the precinct was nearly complete.
“I'm hoping that it will become a reality,” she told the Eagle.
Picking a new precinct boss
Before the precinct can open its doors, the NYPD will first have to select its first commanding officer.
While the department will ultimately get final say over the hire, the NYPD gave community members a chance to weigh in on the candidates on Monday during a “community interview,” where the four candidates took questions and discussed why they should get the job.
It’s not the first “community interview” the NYPD has held, but it is the first carried out for a new role in a new precinct.
The four candidates included Captain Waheed Akhter from Transit District 23 and the first Pakistani-American to reach the rank of captain in the NYPD; 105th Precinct Commanding Officer Jean Beauvior; 113th Executive Officer Larry Meyers; and Douglas Moodie from Brooklyn’s 67th Precinct.
Each of the candidates spoke about their experiences with the NYPD, and how they hope to use that knowledge of the job at the new 116th.
Though the residents appeared to enjoy the exchange, the interview often felt like a political debate that saw the four captains make sometimes overzealous promises, awkwardly weigh their bonafides next to their counterparts and pitch policing strategies that are unlikely to be enforceable at the precinct level.
Off the bat, there was a clear favorite – Beauvior, who already oversees a large portion of what will become the 116th.
“I am dedicated to this journey with you, because I understand working here,” Beauvior said. “I am heavily invested, and I want to see this product right to what we imagine it could be.”
As residents of Southeast Queens got an update on the new NYPD 116th Precinct on Tuesday, they also got to weigh in on who will run it via a “community interview” of four candidates for the role of commanding officer at the new precinct. Eagle photo by Ryan Schwach
DeBetham called the interview process “quite interesting,” and said Beauvior is a favorite due to his pre-existing experience running a local precinct.
“I know what he has done,” she said.
There was also support for the other local cop, Meyers, who works in the neighboring 113th Precinct.
Meyers, who has been in the NYPD since 2005, has had a handful of substantiated police misconduct complaints made against him, and has been involved in misconduct settlements totalling $360,700.
Throughout the interview, some of the candidates pitched themselves like candidates for public office would.
At one point, Moodie, who has close family ties to the Southeast Queens area, said that there is “no one more invested in improving safety and improving quality of life for the residents of this community,” which prompted laughter from the crowd and playful jeers from his fellow captains.
Some of the candidates also put forth policing policy proposals, many of which would likely be difficult to implement without buy-in from the NYPD commissioner, the mayor and the City Council.
One of the candidates said they’d use drones to determine places to park large commercial vehicles.
Another candidate promised he’d give every single community member his personal cell phone number.
“I was wondering if they were running for borough president,” said the actual Queens Borough President Donovan Richards.
The BP has been a longtime supporter of the new precinct, and said that he was glad to see the community get involved in its inception.
“I'm very happy to see the community being able to actually interview because before we would say, ‘Are [precinct commanders] really speaking to the community or speaking to just the same five stakeholders?’” Richards said.
The precinct, which has been delayed numerous times because of funding woes, was intended to be one that was centered around “community policing” – it will feature a food pantry and a community room.
However, the four candidates for commander didn’t differ much on their suggestions for how to increase community policing locally. All of them emphasized the work of neighborhood coordination officers – or NCOs – and increasing their own personal involvement in the community.
