By Thomas Tracy
New York Daily News
NEW YORK — A fleet of drones and carefully placed surveillance cameras will add to the massive New York City Police Department deployment covering this weekend’s J’Ouvert celebration and West Indian Day Parade, helping keep down violence at the two events, the NYPD said.
Strengthened community partnerships will also help reduce tensions at the massive back-to-back events, which begin Sunday night into Monday, police said at a news conference Friday.
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“We accomplish safety best when we work together,” NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey said. “In the last few years we have really seen the community join together in this.”
Violence marred celebrations following last year’s West Indian Day Parade. The incidents included a deadly shooting, a fight that erupted in gunfire and an incident in which a man apparently shot himself in the foot, cops said.
Still, Mayor Eric Adams and NYPD officials noted Brooklyn’s J’Ouvert celebration — the night of revelry that takes place before the Monday parade — was the “safest in history.”
Police said there were five violent incidents along the parade route last year, one more than in 2022, which Adams had called a “benchmark for safety.” There were also four violent clashes in the streets surrounding the parade route, three more than in 2022, cops said.
While J’Ouvert is historically plagued with shootings, there were “zero acts of violence throughout the evening,” Police Commissioner Edward Caban said.
Thirty firearms were seized in the four precincts where J’Ouvert and the West Indian Day Parade take place last Labor Day weekend, cops said. At the same time, the police department has contacted 40 known gang members as part of the NYC Ceasefire Initiative requesting a peaceful holiday.
This year there will be a “strong police presence at events throughout the weekend,” Maddrey said.
“There will be plenty of safety measures you will see and plenty of measures you will not see,” the chief said.
Among the less visible safety measures will be the placement of dozens of temporary cameras that will help cops monitor the parade route as well as 12 drones flying over the area — six at each event.
Complaints about noise and unruly parties will be handled first by community partners, faith leaders and others who will try to mitigate any issues before police have to be called in, Chief of Patrol Borough Brooklyn North Scott Henderson said.
Changes that have helped bring down violence at the events include entry checkpoints where revelers are scanned with a wand detector before they can party.
“We have turned a corner now, and we have a safer Labor Day weekend,” said Pastor Gilford Monrose, faith adviser to Mayor Adams. “We now have an organized J’Ouvert.”
He called it “a weekend where we can enjoy our culture and the dynamics and how we can work together with the community and the police.”
Maddrey said while violence was low last year, cops devoted a lot of time reviewing what happened to see what they could differently this year.
“There were a few incidents where people got into it, a little bit of violence. We looked into those incidents and the current trends in the communities around the parade route and made adjustments accordingly,” said Maddrey, who added that the parade’s violent reputation is a thing of the past.
“When I was a captain, I was the J’Ouvert response captain. It was a very dangerous, tough night to work. We were ripping and running around all night from scene to scene, shooting to shooting,” he said. “We’ve seen a tremendous reduction in violence.”
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