More cops will be covering schools at dismissal time as the NYPD fights a frightening jump in teen-on-teen violence across the city, the Daily News has learned.
NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey on Thursday ordered precinct commanders to put together a team of officers to “cover dismissals at problematic schools,” according to a interdepartmental memo shared with The News.
Maddrey called the initiative an “All-Out” — a department patrol tactic commonly used in the summer months in which dozens of cops flood high-crime areas to keep the peace.
More transit officers will be sent to bus stops and train stations near problematic schools “after conferral with their precinct commanders,” Maddrey said.
Precinct commanders have been tasked with bulking up the number of their Youth Coordination Officers to six, as well as assigning a sergeant to oversee the officers.
“Student safety is a priority for the NYPD and we regularly monitor and evaluate crime conditions in and around schools,” the department said in a statement Friday. “In response to recent incidents, the NYPD is increasing the number of Youth Coordination Officers citywide.”
The steps are being taken “due to recent violence in the vicinity of schools,” Maddrey noted in the memo.
The new marching orders come a day after two teens and a 37-year-old security guard were hit by gunfire outside the Williamsburg Charter High School on Varet St. in Brooklyn after a large brawl broke out as classes ended for the day. In December, a girl was shot and wounded outside the same school, police said.
On Monday, two other Williamsburg students were shot and wounded outside a separate high school in the same neighborhood.
The teens were fired on about a half block from Grand Street Campus High School, which briefly went into lockdown, according to the Department of Education.
Besides increasing police patrols around violence-prone schools, Maddrey ordered his precinct commanders to meet weekly with school principals to discuss “issues of note.”
At the same time, Deputy Chief Marlon Larin, the commanding officer of the School Safety Division, ordered his officers to alert local precincts when a minor clash among students inside a school “has the potential for retaliation.”
“This notification is important in order for a collaborative approach to take place to address future issues stemming from the original incident,” Larin wrote. “These incidents include but are not limited to disputes, assaults and serious threats between students.
“If a school incident report was generated, that report should be forwarded tot he command concerned,” Larin ordered.
Cops have seen an increase of teen-on-teen violence since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, officials said.
Police said 157 victims under the age of 18 were either killed or wounded by gunfire last year, an increase of 20 incidents from 2021, according to NYPD statistics shared with The News.
In just one week last month, cops investigated four gun-violence incidents where city teens were either the shooter or the victim, and one suspect was arrested after opening fire on a city cop.
Gregory Floyd, the head of Teamsters Local 237, which represents the city’s school safety agents, said his members “have always alerted” local cops to issues at their schools that could lead to a violent incident.
Floyd blames the increase in violence at dismissal times to the removal of “safe corridor” programs that were run by the NYPD and School Safety officers before the pandemic.
As part of the program, cops and School Safety officers would monitor streets students used to leave school on their way to the nearest train stations and bus stops.
The program was scrapped following the death of George Floyd at the hands of police officers in Minneapolis as city leaders pushed to move cops away from city schools, fearing that the presence of police officers criminalizes students and disproportionately harms youths of color.
“We had the safe corridor program down to a science,” Floyd said Friday. “But during the George Floyd protests, the de Blasio administration weakened it. They should never have allowed the liberals who don’t have children in our schools tell us how to protect children.”
While the union leader agreed Maddrey’s “All Out” program may help tamp down the violence, there are not enough cops and school safety officers available today to re-create the safe corridor program.
“This is not the Adams’ administration’s fault. I’m not blaming them. But now it’s their problem,” Floyd said.
In October, Mayor Adams announced the creation of a program in which community organizations and violence interrupters will create safe corridors for students as they come and go from school.
