Questions, some answers at 1st Precinct meeting

Fifth District Legislator Joseph Scannell, a Baldwin resident, called an emergency community meeting at the library last week to discuss the implications of Nassau County’s police precinct reorganization plan.

At the meeting, Scannell, fellow Legislator Dave Denenberg of the 19th District, police union representatives and some 50 Baldwin residents peppered Deputy Police Commissioner Tom Krumpter and Chief Deputy County Executive Rob Walker with questions about the future of the 1st Precinct. Although Walker and Krumpter provided numerous details and confidently asserted that on-the-ground police protection in Baldwin would be improved, not diminished, if the new plan is enacted, they answered some questions by saying only that specifics of the redesign were still being ironed out.

The complete plan, they said, would be unveiled at a hearing on Monday, after the Herald went to press. (For updates, go to www.liherald.com.

Scannell was occasionally combative in probing for answers. “We’re upset and disturbed about the county’s plan to remove four precincts, including the 1st,” he said. “Our DWI unit was moved. We had 30 officers on a heroin unit — we lost that. Now you’re telling us 38 officers will go down to two. We don’t want this. I don’t feel safer in Baldwin than I did four years ago. There’s been a 47 percent increase in burglaries and a 10 percent increase in violent crime. The worst thing for Baldwin would be for the 1st Precinct to be closed.”

Although Walker and Krumpter were visibly weary — they were conducting what Walker estimated was their 21st meeting on this subject in two weeks — they were also consistent in presenting their vision of a trimmer county police force in which a streamlined, cost-efficient administration would oversee a beefed-up community presence. “The savings in this plan comes from a reduction in 156 service positions,” Krumpter explained. “We will take 48 of those people and get them back on the street.”