The 68th Precinct Doesn’t Respond to Calls
If you follow me on Twitter, you will know that we have contacted the 68th Precinct twice and both times they didn’t come.
Long story short: We have a narrow driveway and some people park in it so we can’t get out. Prior to last month, we would just drive on our neighbors sidewalk and go out another open driveway. My neighbors and I just had our sidewalk cemented, so we couldn’t ride on their sidewalk (well we could have, but it wouldn’t be right).
Basically the city needs to change the way they handle the situation of blocked driveways. An owner should be able to send a picture of a parked driveway and receive clearance to have it towed. Cops don’t want to come out and ticket, but currently that’s the only way to get a car towed out of a driveway. And the owner doesn’t want the stupid person who blocked their driveway to have to pay towing fees and a ticket.
In the early Summer when this happened, we made the call to 311 and the 68th Precinct did not come out. Three hours later, they left a message on our machine and said, “we are closing your call.”
The 68th Precinct wasn’t always this way. Before last year, I called the 68th Precinct and the officer answering the call came out and ticketed the car in 10=15 minutes from when I placed the call. Yes they were that good.
When someone blocked our sidewalk earlier this week, I called the 68th Precinct because we had no luck with getting a response from them using 311. We spoke with a female who said they would send a car out. But they didn’t. I called back the precinct and asked to speak to Captain Festino.
Tonight Lieutenant N called me and he was polite, but didn’t have a lot of answers. Some things the lieutenant wasn’t able to address:
1) He told us that our call was received as a 911 call. We called the precinct number 718-439-4211. When I called the woman I spoke with did not take my info right away and didn’t seem to care. I felt that is where the communication breakdown started. I hope no one would call 911 for a blocked driveway.
2) I stayed outside and waited for the the police. I had a coffee to drink and neighbors to talk to so I wasn’t lonely. My neighbor walked up to Dunkin Donuts. He saw a patrol car and asked the two officers if they were from the six eight. They said they were, but that they didn’t have the call. My neighbor came back and waited with me. He has a tow truck company so he was ready to tow the car out of my driveway. Although we don’t have the names of the officers, the precinct knows who is out on patrol at that time.
3) I waited for two hours and called the precinct back. A woman who identified herself as a police officer answered the phone after five minutes and told me that a car came out to us and closed the call. I asked her if she could tell me the name of the person who we initially put the call in with, but she told me she couldn’t tell me that. This woman was efficient, but I found out from Lieutenant N that the woman was not a police officer. She used PO after her last name (a regular civilian would have said their first and last name OR Ms. or Mrs. Last name – not last name and PO). So that was odd.
4) No one responds to complaints at the 68th Precinct twitter acct – Lieutenant L told me that an older officer with 24 years does the twitter acct. Seriously get someone younger or delete the acct. There is no purpose in having an acct if the NYPD isn’t going to respond.
My neighbors are amazing. The silver car with the red arrow double parked across the driveway as if they were double parked against a car. My neighbor called the person with the dark car across the street (see yellow arrow) so Lee could exit the driveway (he had to swing more to the right than my blue line entails)
I wrote this for you my neighbors in Bay Ridge. Are the police responding to your calls? I witnessed something terrible on 3rd, the NYPD was called at 311 and their office and I saw no help for that either.
Hugs,
marlene
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