By Madina Toure
Although she is only a few weeks into the job, the new commanding officer of the 109th Precinct says she is building on her predecessor’s legacy, which includes a recently created community policing program and online crowdsourcing platform for residents to share problems in the area.
Deputy Inspector Judith Harrison started in the position May 16. Her predecessor, Deputy Inspector Thomas Conforti, is now the commanding officer of the NYPD’s Crime Prevention Division.
Harrison, who has already been to a few civic meetings, said she inherited the community policing program launched by Conforti. The program, which started April 4, breaks up the precinct’s coverage area into six sections: College Point, Whitestone, Flushing, Bay Terrace, downtown Flushing and Auburndale.
“People already have positive feedback on it. They’re starting to see a lot more police officers,” Harrison said. “We’re not so much reactive as we used to be where (in) certain neighborhoods, you wouldn’t see us unless you really called for us because we were busy in the busier part of the precinct.”
The new commanding officer is also an active tweeter and plans to continue building upon the NYPD’s IdeaScale website, a web-based platform kicked off in the precinct, where residents post quality-of-life concerns.
Most recently, she tweeted a photo of the perp walk of an Oakland Gardens man arrested and indicted in connection with the slashing of a 16-year-old female Chinese exchange student in December 2015.
“If I get that information out and I’ve got a little over 6,000 followers, if each one of my followers re-tweets that, you see how many people you can touch?” she said.
Harrison, who joined the NYPD in April 1997, first started in the 102nd Precinct, where she worked for five years before she was promoted to sergeant in 2002. She also worked for the 104th Precinct for a year and at the Police Academy for a few years.
Upon her promotion to lieutenant, she was assigned to the 109th Precinct, where she worked for about a year. She then worked in Queens Borough North for six years until she was promoted to captain, after which she was assigned to the 115th Precinct.
In July 2014, she became the commanding officer of the 112th Precinct and then finally became commanding officer of the 109th Precinct. She grew up in Queens Village.
“You can see that most of my career has been in Queens,” she said. “I reside in Queens. I have family here in Queens and I’ve worked here primarily. Queens is near and dear to my heart.”
The most prevalent crimes in the precinct, which she said is property-crime driven, are grand larcenies, including identity theft as well as auto theft.
She also said her traffic unit and her executive officer, who oversees her traffic program, have been determining where most accidents occur as well as problematic locations.
Harrison said she has noticed new developments and once-empty parking lots replaced by homes and businesses in Flushing.
“The crowding is a good thing because it brings people here and there’s a reason why they come here,” she said. “They come here to shop, they come here to patronize local businesses, they come here to eat so it’s great to see that they come here.”
Reach reporter Madina Toure by e-mail at mtour
