Cop unions: Delay precinct closing plan

A sharp increase in burglaries in Nassau County this year should prompt the county to delay its plan to turn four of its eight police precincts into community policing centers, police union leaders said Monday.

"We are losing the battle with crime in Nassau County," James Carver, president of the Police Benevolent Association, said outside the Sixth Precinct on Community Drive in Manhasset. "What this administration is doing right now is adding to that by decreasing the police protection."

However, County Executive Edward Mangano indicated he would go ahead with the plan, which he said would eliminate 100 administrative positions and save about $20 million a year. The county legislature is expected to vote on the proposal next Monday.

"We take home burglaries very serious and this is exactly why my plan reassigns 48 police officers from behind desks to assist the public in their neighborhoods," Mangano said in a statement released later Monday.

Carver cited a Newsday article Monday reporting that burglaries in Nassau County were up by 69 percent in the first six weeks of this year compared with roughly the same period last year.

"We're asking the public to contact their [county] legislators to let them know this is not a good idea at all, go back to the drawing board, there's not enough information on this. Slow this all down," Carver said.

"We are now becoming a reactionary police department, not the proactive police department that the residents of this county have come to expect."

Mangano said the plan would downgrade Elmont's Fifth Precinct, Baldwin's First Precinct, Levittown's Eighth Precinct and Manhasset's Sixth Precinct to "community policing centers," staffed by two officers around the clock. He would reassign 48 desk officers to neighborhood crime prevention and keep all current patrols.

Legis. Wayne Wink (D-Roslyn), who lives in an area covered by the Sixth Precinct, said it was important that the precinct not be merged with the First Precinct as planned. "At what price do we put our public safety?" Wink asked at the news conference with union leaders.

Gary Learned, president of the Superior Officers Association, said, "the worst crimes for residents are burglaries and home invasions because the biggest service we give the public is that feeling of being safe."