All Brooklyn news
Neighborhood Map
Bay Ridge
  • Bensonhurst, Dyker Heights
Brooklyn Heights
  • Downtown, DUMBO
Carroll Gardens
  • Cobble Hill, Red Hook, Boerum Hill
Fort Greene
  • Clinton Hill, Crown Heights
North Brooklyn
  • Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Bushwick
Park Slope
  • Prospect Heights, Windsor Terrace, Greenwood Heights
GO Brooklyn
Dining Guide
Where to GO
Events calendar
Classifieds
The Brooklyn Wire
Not Just Nets
Police Blotter
Perspective
Parenting
Politics
Transit
Podcasts
Brooklyn Cyclones
Special sections
About The Paper
Mobile site
Twitter
Facebook
RSS Feeds

Black officer picked for high Brooklyn post

By Dana Rubinstein
The Brooklyn Paper

Tools

Print this story
Facebook this
Tweet this
Digg this
Del.icio.us

Two brownstone Brooklyn lawmakers are crowing this week after Police Commissioner Ray Kelly named a person of color to a powerful borough command.

Assistant Chief Gerald Nelson, currently in charge of the school safety division, will be the new chief of the Brooklyn North Patrol, which covers 10 precincts from Williamsburg to Boerum Hill and East New York.

The promotion came days after Councilwoman Letitia James (D-Fort Greene) and Assemblyman-elect Hakeem Jeffries (D–Prospect Heights) joined a coalition of black leaders demanding Kelly appoint an African-American in the wake of last month’s fatal police shooting of an unarmed black man killed on his wedding day.

Nelson (inset) will become the only black commander of the eight borough patrols in the NYPD.

“Kelly heard the appeal from central Brooklyn elected officials, but his work is not done yet,” said James. “We need to continue to promote, recruit, and retain people of color at the department, particularly at the top level where decisions are made.”

An NYPD spokesman said politics did not play a role in Nelson’s promotion.

“He’s been [promoted] as a result of the exceptional job he did at school safety,” he said.

The post was vacant due to the retirement of Joseph Cunneen. Councilman Al Vann (D–Bedford-Stuyvesant); Rep. Ed Towns (D–Brooklyn Heights); state Sen. Velmanette Montgomery (D–Park Slope); and state Sen.-elect Eric Adams (D–Fort Greene) also called for a black to succeed Cunneen.

©2006 Community Newspaper Group

←Le divorce … bakery style
→Mapping a way to the Bridge

Reader Feedback

Enter your comment below

By submitting this comment, you agree to the following terms:

You agree that you, and not BrooklynPaper.com or its affiliates, are fully responsible for the content that you post. You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening or sexually-oriented material or any material that may violate applicable law; doing so may lead to the removal of your post and to your being permanently banned from posting to the site. You grant to BrooklynPaper.com the royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual and fully sublicensable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such content in whole or in part world-wide and to incorporate it in other works in any form, media or technology now known or later developed.

First name
Last name
Your neighborhood
Email address
Daytime phone

Your letter must be signed and include all of the information requested above. (Only your name and neighborhood are published with the letter.) Letters should be as brief as possible; while they may discuss any topic of interest to our readers, priority will be given to letters that relate to stories covered by The Brooklyn Paper.

Letters will be edited at the sole discretion of the editor, may be published in whole or part in any media, and upon publication become the property of The Brooklyn Paper. The earlier in the week you send your letter, the better.

Tomasos Restaurant

Links