Queens DA Richard Brown (at lectern) briefed elected officials last week on public safety at his Kew Gardens office.Photo Courtesy of the Queens DA’s Office.
Queens District Attorney Richard Brown last Friday welcomed elected officials on the city, state and federal levels to his Kew Gardens office for the annual Legislative Breakfast in which he briefed them on key accomplishments and initiatives of the past year, as well as challenges facing borough prosecutors in 2015.
The DA’s Office handled more than 77,000 cases in 2014, and the historical downward trend in homicides, robberies, felony assaults and burglaries over the past two decades continued, Brown said. Compared to 1993, there has been there has been a 77 percent decline in murders, an 81 percent decline in robberies, a 40 percent decline in felony assaults, and an 82 percent decline in burglaries in the last year.
“These figures offer clear and compelling evidence that our law enforcement initiatives continue to have a profound impact in making Queens County one of the safest counties not just in the city but in the nation,” Brown noted. “Yet despite the overall improvement in the crime rate we remain steadfast in our commitment to aggressively go after violent crime, as illustrated by the fact that Queens County arrests 22.4 percent of the city’s violent felons, convicts 23 percent of those felons and sends nearly 14 percent of them to prison.”
Brown added that one of the many contributing factors responsible for the decline in crime has been the emergence of modern technology. “There is literally not a single aspect of the criminal justice system that has not benefitted from or become more effective from utilizing new technology. As an office, we have become completely computerized. We are linked together by modern voicemail and Blackberry systems—and by our New York City Police Department Command Center that keeps us apprised of everything and anything that is happening in Queens County at all hours of the day and night and—dispatches our assistants to crime scenes or makes them available to answer questions or to assist in case processing.”
In closing, Brown characterized his office as among the best in the country, “an office which has the respect of our law enforcement colleagues and the confidence of the 2.3 million residents of Queens County whom we represent.”
By Michael V. Cusenza
