from SLATE:
NYPD (Quietly) Credits Occupy For Helping Fight Post-Sandy Crime
By Josh Voorhees
Posted Thursday, Dec. 6, 2012, at 10:27 AM ET
As my colleague Katherine Goldstein reported last month, Occupy Wall
Street was quick to set up shop to help people recover in the wake of
Hurricane Sandy, collecting and handing out donations in New York City
for those impacted by the superstorm. She closed her dispatch with
this line: "I imagine both concerned New Yorkers and storm victims
alike will remember who was out on the front lines." Turns out, they
have. And, perhaps even more surprisingly, it looks like we can count
NYPD officers among that group.
The New York Post explains the situation in the Brooklyn neighborhood
of Red Hook, which was among those areas of the city hit hardest by
the storm:
Despite desperate conditions in the Red Hook housing development
and residences nearby, there was virtually no crime—and no
storm-related deaths. Other neighborhoods like Breezy Point and Coney
Island haven’t been as lucky.
Police sources have credited the drop in crime to an unlikely
coalition that included the NYPD, Occupy Wall Street activists, and
local nonprofits working together to keep storm victims safe.
"This crisis allowed us all to remove the politics and differences
we had to do our job, and come to the aid of the people," said a
police source yesterday. "We all rose to the occasion."
The "police sources" are talking off-the-record here, as they tend to
do for reports like this. Still, the story of NYPD-Occupy cooperation
(and acknowledgement) is a noteworthy one given it was only a little
more than a year ago that the two sides were clashing—often quite
violently—in and around New York City.
--
Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your
own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
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