By Daniel Katzive
The new year brings new leadership to the 20th Precinct. Deputy Inspector Candida Sullivan has taken over as commanding officer from Deputy Inspector Neil Zuber, who has moved across the park to take the reins at the 19th Precinct on the Upper East Side. Sullivan arrives in the 2-0 after a year in which major crime numbers were generally stable on the Upper West Side.
D.I. Sullivan will hit her 20-year anniversary on the force in July 2024. Interviewed for a 2019 article in the New York Post describing NYPD efforts to recruit more Asian-American female officers, Sullivan attributed her decision to leave a six-year career in finance and sign up for police work to her experience working downtown in the World Financial Center on 9/11. “My whole life changed after that. I wanted to do something more with my life — I wanted to help,” she told the Post.
Sullivan arrives at the 2-0 after serving nearly two years as the commanding officer of Police Service Area 9, the Housing Bureau unit which patrols NYCHA properties spanning six precincts in Queens. Prior to PSA 9, she worked patrol in Manhattan, served as a sergeant in the North Bronx and was a lieutenant in Washington Heights, according to the Post. She took over at PSA 9 in April 2022 and was promoted to Deputy Inspector in December 2022.
In 2023, major felonies reported in public housing in the precincts covered by PSA 9 were up 10% over 2022 levels, well above the 3% increase reported for public housing citywide, according to CompStat data. The increases were driven by burglary and auto theft, with shooting incidents and murder numbers low and stable in the command.
On the Upper West Side, crime was stable or lower in 2023 compared with 2022 numbers across most major felony categories in the 20th and 24th precincts, with the notable exception of murder (including involuntary manslaughter) and auto theft. There were six murders across the two precincts in 2023 vs. just one in 2022, and auto theft was up 16% on the Upper West Side in line with a citywide surge.
In the 20th Precinct, the homicide numbers include the January 2023 murder of Maria Hernandez in her home on West 83rd Street, as well as the deaths of three members of a family on West 86th Street on August 28. Two suspects are in custody awaiting trial for the Hernandez murder, while reports have indicated that the West 86th Street incident is believed to have been the result of a murder-suicide.
In the 24th Precinct, two homicides occurred early in the year, the first stemming from a fight in the West 96th Street subway station that resulted in manslaughter charges, and the second, a February stabbing on West 97th Street for which the victim’s neighbor is currently in custody awaiting trial for murder.
The 20th Precinct notched another grim statistic in 2023, recording its first pedestrian fatality in over a year. Eighty-nine year old Leonard Sugin of 201 West 70th Street died after being struck by a TLC livery SUV while crossing Riverside Boulevard on October 26.
There were two pedestrian fatalities in the 24th Precinct in 2023.
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Wishing DI Sullivan good luck & good results in her new position.
In addition to the fatalities, the 20th Precinct had 244 traffic injuries and the 24th had 203 injuries. These injuries can be devastating and life altering for the victims.
We welcome our new commanding officer. Hopefully, she will guide her precinct to start enforcing the traffic laws with respect to motorcycles, powered scooters, ebikes and bikes, so that they stop at red traffic lights, yield to pedestrians, stay off the sidewalks, and cease going the wrong way on one way streets. She will be a city-wide hero if the only thing she does is that.
I think people exaggerate the extent of the problems you mentioned. UWS’ers love to be overly dramatic. I’m not a young person, so spare me the lecture about not being in an elderly person’s predicament. I don’t find it that hard to get around the streets as a pedestrian if I exercise just a little more care.
I have experienced three serious near misses crossing streets when I had the light despite my hypervigilance. Worse, my dog has experienced five near misses and is alive only due to my hypervigilance. I have also had numerous mopeds deliberately aim at me. Once a ebike rider deliberately dropped his bike so as to hit me on the leg.
I’m one person. Multiple this by the number of adult UWS residents.
PS This doesn’t include multiple toddlers on scooters whose parents allow them to ride wildly and out of control who have nearly run me down.
Like praying a lot? You must be joking. It’s not up to pedestrians to “exercise care” when an electric vehicle or an illegal, unlicensed gas powered vehicle is zooming illegally all over the sidewalk, or zooming illegally the wrong way up a one-way street, or zooming illegally through a red light. As for the exaggeration? Come to some of the community meetings and meet the folks who suffer traumatic brain injury and broken bones and can no longer function as a result of getting hit by some electric and often illegal vehicle reckless zooming at up to 50 mph all over the City.
But you have no problem with the dangerous situations created by pedestrians who flout laws? Your use of the word ‘illegal’ should be applied to them at the same level of rage that you often exhibit if you are truly unbiased.
I have a different perspective, even if I like you I have been able to avoid being runover to date. It seems to me that there are a large number of people with disabilities — sight, mobility, hearing or a combination of those — who are simply unable to exercise “a little more care” of the type you mention. And there are lots of other people who have not trained themselves to look for vehicles about to plow into them from an unexpected direction — such as coming the wrong way on a one way street, or on the sidewalk. And we already know that (i) the law is clear on the fact that those vehicles are obliged both to yield to pedestrians and to stop at red lights and remain stopped until the light turns green, and (2) as readers of this publication know, there have been multiple horrible accidents where people legally crossing the street have been badly injured by bicycles, motorbikes, scooters, motorcycles. Some killed, others maimed for life, others badly shaken up. You make it sound like the fact that they were injured is their own fault even if they were on the sidewalk or crossing legally. I hope that is not your view but whether or not it is, I think it is fair to expect our police — particularly when they see the violations — to enforce the existing law. And so we have a new head of our precinct and hopefully she will engage on this topic and have her staff help to stop the problem.
As someone who is on the sidewalks walking dogs half of each day I can attest to the madness of the e-bikes, regular bikes and mopeds. With scaffolding blocking much of the sidewalks and bikes chained to same scaffolding the sidewalks are something of an obstacle course. Certain corners seem to stand out for particularly egregious flaunting of traffic laws…major intersections at Broadway and 110th, Riverside Drive also at 110th and up and down Amsterdam Ave. where you see driving the wrong way, through red lights, on sidewalks regularly. I am not overly dramatic…just stating the facts. The effect is to make walking a challenging exercise, and I am nimble. It degrades the quality of life hugely and I would also applaud the new commanding officer for focussing on this issue.
Boris, I agree with you 100%. I think people overreact to what is unfamiliar. There has been a surge in the usage of bikes, lanes and e-bikes. Which I for one applaud! And while it’s true there are some bad actors, and it’s also true that pedestrians have been injured by them on rare occasions (it’s almost always the riders who are injured), the real mortal danger to pedestrians has always been and is still cars and trucks. Whether they’re refusing to yield, running reds, speeding or idly spewing exhaust into our air, these vehicles are the greatest threats to our lives and well being . When my children go outside alone I tell them truthfully/factually, “Some pedestrians in NYC are going to get killed this week by a car or truck. Your job is to make sure it’s not you.” Be safe out there, everyone. And be kind to each other., including the cyclists.
Not sure if a one year look back is enough. Let’s see data for the past say 15 years. Might tell a different story.
Crime was higher 15 years ago
Looking at data over a longer time period shows an even bigger reduction in crime. Major crimes down -15% vs 20 years ago and -34% vs 25 years ago.
https://www.nyc.gov/assets/nypd/downloads/pdf/crime_statistics/cs-en-us-020pct.pdf
Crime was 20% lower 13 years ago, You can find a historical perspective for the 20th precinct at the NYPD Compstat site. https://www.nyc.gov/assets/nypd/downloads/pdf/crime_statistics/cs-en-us-020pct.pdf
What about 100 years ago?
On one side was a rising tide of professional criminals, made richer and bolder by Prohibition. With wallets bursting from bootlegging profits, gangs outfitted themselves with guns and operated with impunity by paying off politicians and police. Law enforcement was outgunned (literally) and ill-prepared to take on the surging national crime wave. Dealing with bootlegging and speakeasies was challenging enough, but the “Roaring Twenties” also saw bank robbery, kidnapping, auto theft, gambling, and drug trafficking become increasingly common.
– – adapted from the fbi.gov site
Thank you, that was my point. If you choose a benchmark low enough, today’s crime “statistics” look even better.
Dear Officer Sullivan,
Please put the bad guys in jail.
I’m cold and I’m scared.
Edith B.
Congratulations boss! Best of luck in your new command.
Sgt JAL
Ret.
1970-1995