Major police activity - Nostrand & Crown street

Anyone know what happened? 10 cop cars and at least 50 cops are in the area.

Plain clothes officers of some sort. It's a drug bust or bust of some sort. Helicopters now.

No -they are searching for the guy who raped the 82 year old woman that has been in the news.

They believe he's in the area

What's going on now??

Huge amounts of helicopters, fire trucks, police cars, the works. I'm in the New York ave/sterling area of crown heights and it sounds like a war outside.

Various sources confirm the NYPD was hunting the guy who raped the 82 y/o woman.

I haven't seen anything about the later activity at NY Ave and Sterling. Might be unrelated.

The choppers put me on edge. I don't think there was this much major police activity in the neighbourhood last year.

I don't have data to back this up, but my sense is that the amount of crime continues to drop, but the NYPD allocates larger numbers of staff and resources in individual instances.

It might relate to having a growing NYPD, but a shrinking crime rate.

I don't have data to back this up, but my sense is that the amount of crime continues to drop

http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/downloads/pdf/crime_statistics/cs-en-us-city.pdf

City-wide, the murder rate is up 9%, but that is off a very small number (168 vs. 153, year-to-date).  Overall, the major crime rate continues to rapidly drop, down another 6.4% this year.  It's down 6% in the 71st (South Crown Heights) and 12% in the 77th (North Crown Heights).  

Yes, those stats are readily available. It is the second part of my statement, that is hard.

I would need to know how large the NYPD's response has been to similar types of incidents now vs the past.

My sense is that the growing response size, coupled with a increasingly bored and sloppy media, makes people believe there is far more crime than there actually is and/or that crime is increasing.

The increased use of NYPD helicopters may compound the phenomena.

Not to worry, the helicopters are a phenomenon likely to be replaced by drones within the next decade.  

 Drones are quiet and a small army of them can be dispatched to keep an eye on the entire neighborhood for a fraction of the cost of keeping a single helicopter in the air.

That should make some people conclude crime has dropped dramatically.

I wouldn't be surprised if it would actually contribute to same.

During the "learning curve", crime may actually increase because of the faulty believe that "if I can't see the cops, they can't see me".

It might be amusing to watch.

The NYPD has now arrested him: http://7online.com/857564/