Yonkers Police Housing Unit - 104 South Broadway

Commanding Officer Lieutenant DiMaggio
Executive Officer Sergeant Meade
Field Supervisor Sergeant Bladel
Field Supervisor Sergeant Papaleo

Lieutenant DiMaggio

   The Yonkers Police Department Housing Unit is based at Police Headquaters. The unit is staffed by one lieutenant, three sergeants, sixteen police officers and one narcotics detective. The Housing Unit was established to provide specialized police patrols at four of the city's densely populated Municipal Housing Developments: the William A. Schlobohm Homes, Mulford Gardens, and Cottage Place Gardens within the boundaries of the Fourth Precinct and the Ross Calgano Homes within the boundaries of the Third Precinct. These four sites contain 1,945 family apartments and we are home to 5,420 residents.

   The Housing Unit employs community policing strategies to improve the quality of life for the residents of these housing developments. A major component of that strategy is aggressively enforcing laws aimed at reducing drug trade. Statistics from the past several years reveal that the majority of illegal drug dealers and buyers arrested in the public housing developments do not live there, so the Housing Unit strictly continues to enforce Criminal Trespass laws in order to lessen the appeal of the sites to the drug trade.

   It is believed that the decrease in the number of arrests reflects a reduction in the number of offenses as a direct result of the aggressive strategy being employed. The Housing Unit continues to employ aggressive law enforcement in halls, lobbies, and entrances of housing properties. Policing strategies include vertical patrols of stairways, halls, lobbies, and rooftops. In addition, the unit randomly conducts undercover narcotics surveillance when specific problem areas are identified. In situations where residents are dealing drugs from within their apartment or if they allow others do so, other strategies are employed. This situation will cause an investigation to be initiated by the narcotics detective assigned to the Housing Unit. Some of these investigations resulted in the issuance of search warrants. Sixteen of these warrants were executed on MHA properties in 2002 resulting in 35 narcotics related arrests and the recovery of drugs, weapons, and cash. Felony arrests were reduced 11% from the previous year and misdemeanor arrests were reduced 20%. This is the sixth consecutive year that the number of felony and misdemeanor arrests have declined.