That Should Help Patch Things Up With The Community

The police find that there’s less chance of getting in trouble if you simply stay away:

In the weeks since Sean Bell was fatally shot by police outside a Queens topless bar, arrests have dropped by about 40% in the area, the latest police statistics show.

Some experts said the drop reflected police officers’ reluctance to face another confrontation in a neighborhood charged with racial tension after the shooting, and some pointed to similar drops following other controversial shootings.

Police arrested 323 people in the Jamaica area of Queens during the November 19–December 17 period, Compstat reports show. In 2005, police arrested 535 people during the same period. The 39.6% drop comes alongside a 5.3% increase in complaints of crime in the neighborhood for the period. The 103rd Precinct is responsible for the neighborhood, but the drop in arrests include those made by other bureaus, including Organized Crime and Narcotics.

Meanwhile, arrests across the city have risen to 27,164 this year from 25,139 for the same period in 2005, an 8% increase.

. . .

The drop is in line with city arrest data after other police shootings, a professor of policing at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Eli Silverman, said.

“If an officer feels that the heat is on and the spotlight is on, they are going to opt for the side of caution,” he said. “After major incidents, you generally see a tapering off” of active enforcement.

Detectives Union Head Slams NYPD Recruitment Efforts

The head of the police detectives’ union doesn’t believe there are actually 100 blacks in law enforcement:

Michael Palladino, president of the Detectives Endowment Association, said the group 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care is like a secret society that constantly chooses to criticize the NYPD while failing to show support for cops — even for slain black cops.

The group, now called 100 Blacks Who Care, was founded by Capt. Eric Adams and has been advocating changes in NYPD undercover tactics, firearms training and removal of top brass in the wake of last month’s fatal shooting of Bell outside a strip club.

“I only see the same five people at their press conferences,” Palladino told The Post.

“What is the identity of the other 95 members, what is their connection to law enforcement and more importantly, what do they care about, since they have showed no interest in the five black NYPD detectives who recently sacrificed their lives for their community?” he asked.

Marq Claxton, a retired NYPD detective who serves as the group’s “minister of information,” said 100 Blacks is a “civil rights” — not fraternal — organization with more than 130 members, most of them in the NYPD.

He said entry into the group is by “invitation only.” He declined to provide a list or say what the dues payments are.

Who Still Walks Around With Slingshots?

Latter-day Dennis The Menace terrorizes co-workers at Brooklyn high school:

A Brooklyn high-school teacher was sent home after he showed up for work drunk and got into an argument with a co-worker yesterday — then returned to the school with a slingshot to confront the colleague, police and education sources said.

Judson Kilpatrick, a 42-year-old teacher at Paul Robeson HS in Crown Heights, landed in hot water after he started fighting with another teacher and officials discovered that he had been drinking, the sources said.

Kilpatrick was promptly sent home.

But he continued to harass the co-worker by repeatedly calling him on the phone, authorities said.

Kilpatrick then returned to the school after classes let out, armed with the slingshot and empty gun holsters, sources said.

An Area Teen, His Death Simply Ignored Like So Much Christmas Garland

There’s a time to care when a gang of youths are in the middle of fatally beating one another at Union Square:

A pack of hooligans — clutching bats, belts, knives and planks of wood — killed a teen at the farmers market in Union Square yesterday, sending holiday shoppers ducking for cover behind tables of cookies and Christmas trees.

“You saw hands and fists flying. One girl with a burgundy coat was beating someone with a cane,” said Derwin Hannah, 43, a book vendor. “It went down like ‘The Warriors’ [movie].

“Innocent people were locked in against the tables.”

. . .

Hannah said he knew trouble was brewing when young people started gathering in packs at a McDonald’s on the west side of the park. “Every couple of minutes, more and more would come,” he said.

Then they inexplicably stormed the peaceful market.

“I suddenly saw a bunch of kids. One had a belt with the metal side out,” said Laura Chipley, 30, a shopper from Brooklyn. “I saw a guy with a piece of wood. He was using it like a bat. It was a wild melee.

“Then they got closer to me, and I got out the way.”

And then there’s a time to go back to work:

About 20 youths were being questioned by police last night, sources said. But it was business as usual at the market, where shoppers walked around crime scene tape as if it were Christmas garland.

Good Thing They Don’t Do This With Police Officers (*Oh Wait)

For years now, colleges have found that hiring less-expensive adjunct instructors provides the same great level of education as full-time faculty:

A computer science lab instructor at La Guardia Community College has been charged with taking payments of cash or liquor from students to alter their grades, prosecutors said yesterday. The instructor, Elvin Escano, 46, of Glendale, is charged with taking payments ranging from $200 to $2,500 from 2004 until September, said Richard A. Brown, the Queens district attorney.

*See, for example.