SHEEPSHEAD BAY'S ONLY INDEPENDENT NEWS BLOG

You might have thought that the wonderful utopia of Sheepshead Bay was somehow free of the stop-and-frisk controversies igniting throughout New York City. You’d be wrong. New statistics released this morning by the NYPD show that, much like in the rest of the five boroughs, officers from the 61st Precinct are stopping and frisking black men and women at a rate that’s disproportionate to the size of the population.

The NYPD surprised observers this morning by releasing the 2011 figures in a detailed report. The report shows the total number of stops per precinct, the top suspected crime accounting for the stops, and the race of the persons stopped compared to their percentage of the precinct’s population using 2010 census numbers.

Although the vast majority of stops in the 61st Precinct were of white residents, at 49.4 percent, the number comes up short when compared to the number of white residents living in the neighborhood – 72.8 percent.

Conversely, black residents comprise only 3.4 percent of the precinct’s population, yet they accounted for 28.5 percent of the stops. Likewise, Hispanics accounted for 18.8 percent of stop-and-frisks in an around Sheepshead Bay, and yet they only make up 8.3 percent of the neighborhood’s population.

And although they’re the second-largest demographic in the area, at 15.5 percent, Asians were largely left alone by cops. Three-point-three percent of people stopped-and-frisked were Asian.

Read the report and more analysis of the local stop-and-frisk numbers.

Source: Mephell/Deviantart.com

According to a report by YouGov.com, a research and consulting organization, 64 percent of Americans are woefully unprepared for a major natural disaster, even after the events of Hurricane Sandy, Hurricane Katrina, and a series of other major natural disasters smacking us around in recent years.

The report finds that people making disaster-readiness plans has slightly increased from 31 percent to 36 percent since 2011, showing that the majority of Americans have failed to adequately prepare themselves in the event of another major disaster. This is the breakdown of YouGov’s numbers,

Of the 36 percent who said they were equipped for natural disasters, their preparations included the following:

• Emergency supplies (for example, flashlights or first-aid kits): 89 percent
• Food stocks: 74 percent
• Creating an evacuation or an emergency plan: 50 percent
• Disaster insurance: 22 percent

Of the 89 percent who had emergency supplies, their supplies included the following:

• Flashlights:  97 percent
• Water:  92 percent
• First-aid kits or medicine:  92 percent
• Sleeping bags or blankets:  83 percent
• Face masks: 18 percent
• Iodine pills:  15 percent

While general preparedness is low, concern and fear over another natural disaster has increased, especially across the Northeast, where 31 percent report that they are “very concerned” following Hurricane Sand, doubled from the previous year’s report of 17 percent concern in polling done after Tropical Storm Irene, the highest percentage in the country.

A lot of people have prognosticated in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy that this was finally the storm that got everyone’s attention, and that in the future, people will be more prepared for the advent of another natural catastrophe. I’m not so sure. While Sandy’s devastation was massive and destabilizing, only time will tell how New Yorkers will prepare and respond, both personally, and politically, should another superstorm come to wreck our city.

We in Southern Brooklyn are no strangers to healthcare fraud.

We’ve got the Midwood couple that allegedly collected more than $108,000 in benefits, while living it up in lavish homes and luxury automobiles.

We’ve got the Brighton Beach proctologist that billed for more procedures than any other proctologist in the nation – many of which, prosecutors say, were bogus, including charging more than $60,000 for 85 hemorrhoidectomies on a single patient in 20 months.

We’ve got bogus pharmacies – allegedly, of course – and a slew of local operations swept up in the two largest medical fraud busts in the nation’s history.

In fact, the number of busts around here suggests that our area may just have the highest rates of healthcare fraud, per capita, in the nation. But what’s it costing American taxpayers?

About $80 billion a year, with Medicare fraud alone expected to cost $1 trillion over the next decade, according to a new infographic produced by ComplianceAndSafety.com.

See the infographic after the jump to understand the sheer scale of medical fraud in the nation, how it happens, and where that lost revenue could be better used.

WNYC took it upon themselves to map all of the street stops – a.k.a. stop and frisks – using information from the police department showcasing where guns were recovered last year, since firearm control has been the primary justification for the controversial tactic. The map reveals that, in Sheepshead Bay, the NYPD has turned up no firearms in the areas in which NYPD has concentrated its use of stop-and-frisk tactics.

In Sheepshead Bay, police made 1,324 stops in the Sheepshead Bay-Nostrand Housing projects. Yet only two guns were found in the 61st Precinct’s command, and neither were in the vicinity of the projects.

Two guns were found, however; one at the Log Cabin at 2123 Avenue Z, and the other during a random sidewalk stop near the Kings Bay fields, at Voorhies Avenue and Bragg Street.

Public Advocate and mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio has been saying that stop-and-frisk needs reform because it fosters a distrust between citizens and police officials. Others note that it is a major waste of public resources.

Those sentiments have been echoed by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, also a mayoral candidate. Stringer points out that the city is on track to stop and frisk more than 700,000 people this year, of which 85 percent are black and Latino males. Yet only seven percent of stops lead to an arrest, and less than one percent for gun-related charges.

Further, legal advocacy groups like the New York Civil Liberties Union deem stop-and-frisk as “racial profiling.”

An NYCLU analysis revealed that New Yorkers (mostly black or Latino) have been subjected to police stops and street interrogations more than 4 million times since 2002, and that nearly nine out of 10 stopped-and-frisked New Yorkers were innocent.

Commissioner Raymond Kelly and Mayor Michael Bloomberg say that stop-and-frisk is meant to get illegal guns out of the streets and criminals behind bars.

“You hear all the time from people who don’t like stop-and-frisk. But you know what people really hate in New York City, and always have? Guns,” said Kelly.

Current data shows that out of 685,000 stops in 2011, about 770 guns were recovered. This means that only one tenth of one percent of all stops resulted in cops finding a gun.

Supporters of the stop-and-frisk procedures say that the police concentrate their hubs of activity where violent crimes are most often reported, and that it is crime, not gun recoveries, which determine where police officers go. Also, because police saturate certain areas, this becomes a deterrent for carrying a firearm.

Similar results to those found at the Sheepshead-Nostrand Houses were also found at the Marlboro Houses, as well as areas citywide in which the city focuses its stop-and-frisk efforts.

What do you think? Are current stop-and-frisk tactics effective?

It’s really easy to joke about colonoscopies. Like the one about Johnnie Cochran’s first checkup, when, through clenched teeth, he reminded the doc that if the camera don’t fit, he must acquit. Or the guy who asked his doctor to provide a note for his wife making clear that his head was not, in fact, up there. Or… okay, okay, I’ll stop.

So the topic of rectal health may spur on some silly jokes. But it’s still a serious matter. Dead serious.

After all, colon cancer – a preventable and treatable disease – remains the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths, killing approximately 1,400 New Yorkers every year, according to the New York City Department of Health.

And Russian-Americans are lagging far behind other New Yorkers when it comes to colon cancer screening, recent findings show. So the Department of Health, the Health and Hospitals Corporation, Russian-American community leaders announced a new partnership this morning to raise awareness within the Russian-speaking community.

Get the facts – including statistics and an understanding of why regular colon cancer screenings are important – from the press release below.

Protect yourself. Get the facts.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

We’re smarter than you, Futurama. That’s right, we’re so smart we even know that Futurama is a neighborhood in Brooklyn (just don’t ask us where). We also know that “than,” and not “then,” is the correct word to use when making a comparison. We think we’re ready for Jeopardy or, at least, Wheel of Fortune.

But how do we know all this? Because if anyone can identify genius, it’s those number crunchers over at the Census Bureau.

According to statistics the bureau just released, the entire nation has seen some major improvements in educational attainment, a term that basically means the level of schooling achieved. Nationally, there have been significant increases in the population’s obtainment of Bachelor’s degrees, particularly in those ages 25 and older.

Even better than the country doing well? Brooklyn doing better than the country. And even better than that? Sheepshead Bay doing better than Brooklyn.

Sheepshead Bay’s 160,319 residents are above the Brooklyn average for their achievements. Sheepshead Bay’s numbers towered over Brooklyn’s, with large obtainments at higher educational levels. The above graph can give a better picture of some of these numbers.

City & State’s morning newsletter, First Read, carried this little nugget:

The Bloomberg administration has been on a record-breaking streak this past few weeks. Last week, the mayor proudly welcomed the city’s 50 millionth tourist. On Tuesday, he trumpeted the dramatic increase in life expectancy for city residents, higher than it’s ever been. Yesterday, he stood with NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly to declare the third lowest number of homicides since record-keeping began 50 years ago. And today, Bloomberg is set to announce that traffic-related deaths are at an all-time low.

More tourists, longer lives, lower crime and less death… not a bad year for the City of New York.

Of course, there will be no shortage of naysayers out there who will say, “Yeah, but what about the economy?” Or maybe, “Herr Bloombucks is destroying this city by X-Y-Z.”

Perhaps. But the existence of bad news does not negate the good news. If 2011 is to end – and, of course, it will – better to fill its last few hours with some positive thoughts of the year past.

What are some other great accomplishments that have occurred in 2011?

Source: davidsonscott15/Flickr

Looks like the city press is catching on to something we’ve already noted at Sheepshead Bites: Sheepshead Bay’s crime rates are up for the year. Oh, and the rest of the city is catching up.

The New York Post is reporting that we are just a couple of crimes away from crossing over into a citywide crime increase. We’re currently down for the year a measly .01 percent, with nine problematic precincts pulling the rest of the city towards and overall increase. And Brooklyn seems to be leading the way in number of precincts with a rise in crime, with five of the nine based in the county of Kings.

The eight other precincts seeing an “alarming spike in crime” are:

• 34th Precinct in Washington Heights, Manhattan
• 90th Precinct in Williamsburg, Brooklyn
• 42nd Precinct in Tremont, Bronx
• 66th Precinct in Borough Park, Brooklyn
• 76th Precinct in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn
• 77th Precinct in Crown Heights, Brooklyn
• 100th Precinct in Rockaway, Queens
• 113th Precinct in St. Albans, Queens

According to the Post, NYPD brass are launching a “get-tough” policy to pressure police commanders to reduce rates.

How have the increased crime rates in Sheepshead Bay affected you? Do you think this is becoming a worse area to live in, or is it just an anomaly that will work itself out?