Brooklyn Neighborhood Successfully Polices Itself for 5 Days Without Police Intervention

In a bold experiment, a Brooklyn neighborhood, Brownsville, let neighbors, not the police, respond to low-level street crime for five days. Workers from Brownsville In Violence Out stand sentry on two blocks, and the police channel all 911 calls from that area to the civilians. The civilians have no arrest powers, but they have persuaded people to turn in illegal guns, prevented shoplifting, and stopped a pregnant woman from hitting a boyfriend. The effort is part of a movement called the “community responder model,” which aims to reduce the use of armed officers to handle many calls.