Five days without cops: Could Brooklyn policing experiment be a model?

Cops from Brownsville’s 73rd Precinct withdrew from their regular posts on Mother Gaston Boulevard for parts of a five-day stretch in early December, while violence interrupter and crisis management groups watched over the two-block zone between Pitkin and Sutter avenues.

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“This was ‘defund the police’ in actuality,” said Assemblymember Latrice Walker (D-Brooklyn), who grew up in the nearby Glenmore Plaza Houses.

The idea was for the groups, staffed largely by community members with prior involvement with the criminal justice system, to prevent minor incidents from escalating into violence or other crime.

Meanwhile, city agencies and nonprofits set up tents along the strip — surrounded by one of the city’s highest concentrations of public housing — to offer information on education, job and housing opportunities, as well as other services.

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