Metro Matters

LIKE AVATARS OF CRIME, THEY'RE BACK

The statistics say New York just went through a spike in crime.

Want to know what a spike feels like?

Come to East New York.

Walk around New Lots Avenue beneath the elevated subway station and look
around. You'll see them. The unsmiling guys in the hooded sweatshirts and
bubble jackets. The ones whose eyes never meet yours.

They're back, blatantly back, milling about on the corner near the pizza
place, up to no good in a neighborhood that, though still among the most
dangerous in the city, has come far since the nadir of the early 1990's.
Stores that had been boarded up reopened. Empty lots became two-story
attached homes. Windows and doors guarded by iron cages of protection still
are. But there are so many more of them.

Now the people in this Brooklyn neighborhood are nervous, fearful of a
return to the past, when violence scarred the nights and drug dealers ruled
the streets.

"As soon as they see the cops leave, they surface again, just like
cockroaches," said Johnny, a storekeeper in the neighborhood for 30 years.
Like most people encountered in East New York one afternoon this week,
Johnny, fearful of the hooded drug dealers, agreed to be interviewed only
if guaranteed anonymity.

"I don't care about the statistics," he continued. "It's the people on the
streets. I see things I should not be seeing."

Like all statistics, the Police Department's numbers show many things.

They show that the 75th Precinct, which includes East New York and Cypress
Hills, is still the homicide capital of New York. But so far, there have
been 33 homicides in the precinct this year, compared with 40 in the same
period last year. In 1993, there were 126 homicides. Reports of crimes in
the seven major categories, from murders to auto theft, have gone down 56
percent in the last eight years (63 percent citywide).

The statistics also reveal a spike in murders and shootings citywide this
fall. Police officials cite Sept. 11, which drew thousands of officers from
their regular assignments. A few weeks ago, in response to the bad crime
news, police officials returned many officers to their original duties.

Murders and shootings began to fall again throughout the city the week
ending last Sunday. That week in the 75th Precinct, major crimes -- 36
percent higher than last year in the five weeks that ended Dec. 9 --
dropped almost 10 percent from their 2000 levels. In other words, the trend
is beginning to move in the right direction.

But it does not feel that way on the ground. Michael Mazzariello, who grew
up in a gentler East New York and stubbornly refuses to give up, has been
increasingly worried about backsliding, in part because of the impending
departure of Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who responded to his complaints
about the neighborhood in the mid-1990's.

"Giuliani made quality of life in the neighborhood substantially better,"
said Mr. Mazzariello, who runs the nonprofit East New York Legal Services.
"It all comes down to the cops."

Some people in the neighborhood say things started to feel more ragged than
usual even before Sept. 11, maybe because of the economy and the related
rise in unemployment or for reasons not yet quantified. Not everything is,
after all, a statistic.

It is not a statistic that people avoid a known drug house on Cleveland
Street. Or that there are more neighborhood drunks in front of a corner church.

"They don't cause any problems, but the group has gotten larger," said
Sebastian, a local merchant. "It's the sight. It's unpleasant. And there's
the guys. You see them walking the streets. I have not seen open dealing,
but we know what they are doing. They're not being harassed by the cops. If
you don't have constant pressure, the problems magnify.

"Just last week, I heard this noise, I thought a car backfired," Sebastian
continued. "It was a gun shot. A guy stole a car, someone pulled a gun out
and shot at the ground. They let him live. At least nobody got killed. I've
been here five years; I never heard a gun shot."

Deputy Commissioner Thomas Antenen, a spokesman for the Police Department,
said people in East New York should soon begin to feel the impact of
redeployed officers. "The numbers are reversing. When all is said and done,
it's effective policing is what it is. It's not a mystery."

It's not. Neither is the reason those hooded guys get away with owning the
sidewalk of New Lots Avenue. They stand there day and night, in the
malevolent path of people who pretend they don't see them because, for now,
they can.