Crime in the area Nassau County’s Third Police Precinct now covers has increased this year for the first time since 2012, the year of its merger with the Sixth Precinct.
Police data shows the Third Precinct has seen a total of 7,965 crime reports as of Dec. 27, about 2.2 percent higher than 2014’s year-end total of 7,796.
Crime rose more sharply in the first two years following its merger with the Sixth Precinct, statistics show. The total number of reported crimes dropped below pre-merger levels last year, and 2015’s total is still below that mark despite the increase.
On the other hand, major crimes such as murder, felony assault and burglary have seen a slower decline.
The Third and Sixth Precincts had a total of 8,972 crimes reported in 2010, according to the police department’s annual Strat-Com statistics reports.
That number — which reflects major crimes as well as all other lesser crimes — dropped by about 5.3 percent to 8,493 in 2011.
In those two years, the Sixth Precinct’s total crimes accounted for just less than 20 percent of the two precincts’ combined totals.
The Third Precinct absorbed the Sixth in May 2012, and in that year the total number of reported crimes rose to 9,163, an increase of about 7.9 percent.
It dropped the next year to 8,681, still about 2 percent above 2011’s number.
But the total dipped below that low point in 2014, when the Third Precinct saw 7,796 reported crimes.
The number of major crimes is below 2010’s number of 2,039 for both precincts, but remains above the low point of 2,004 in 2011.
The number rose for the combined Third Precinct in 2012 to 2,156 and again in 2013 to 2,205 before dropping to 2,097 in 2014.
It’s fallen another 3 percent to 2,032 as of Dec. 27, near the pre-merger level.
The fact that the former Sixth Precinct, now known as Third Precinct North, only accounts for about a fifth of the area’s total crime suggests the Third Precinct’s leadership may focus more on its southern portion, said Richard Bentley, president of the Greater Manhasset Council of Civic Associations.
The civic group recently authored a letter to county officials asking for the Sixth Precinct’s reinstatement, a call Town of North Hempstead officials echoed in their own letter this week.
The merger, Bentley said, has therefore left the northern portion, which includes Manhasset and Great Neck, with fewer police resources to tackle “quality of life issues.”
“From the many conversations that I have had with police are varying levels, I get a strong impression that police in our neighborhoods simpl(y) don’t have the manpower they once had to adequately handle the diverse needs of these two very different precincts,” Bentley said in an email.
In a statement, Police Commissioner Thomas Krumpter said crime has dropped 25 percent countywide over the past five years.
Repurposing the Sixth Precinct as a “community policing center” and staffing Highway Patrol there has created “a larger police presence at this building than ever before,” he said.
“The realignment of back office operations has had no impact on public safety and anyone suggesting otherwise is simply playing political games as buildings don’t protect the public, cops do,” Krumpter said in the statement.
Bentley said the crime statistics should be analyzed to determine whether “improved precinct management” or other outside factors, such as improvements in the economy, have led to the drop in crime numbers.
