The NYPD's 114th Precinct must eliminate "unnecessary" police chases through mostly residential Astoria because they haver "dramatically reduced" public safety with very little upside, a Queens community board told the NYPD this week.
At its meeting last Tuesday, Community Board 1 voted to send such a letter to Mayor Adams and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, the language of which remains to be finalized.
But it specifically cited the recent death of cyclist Amanda Servedio, who was run down and killed by a burglary suspect who was fleeing an active police chase on 34th Avenue in October.
"This tragic loss of one of our community members has awakened an acute awareness on this issue more broadly, resulting in a unified community voice in addressing the underlying policy that made this loss of life possible," the board wrote in a draft obtained by Streetsblog.
Emphasizing that NYPD policy calls for chases to be discontinued if they represent a greater threat to the community than the escape of a suspect, the board argued that the chase that killed Servedio should never have been initiated in the first place.
"We believe that non-violent crimes never constitute a public safety risk that warrant a vehicular pursuit," the letter said.
Police chases have increased dramatically since Mayor Adams took office in 2022, as Streetsblog has reported. By the end of November, there have been close to 400 crashes as a result of police chases, injuring at least 315 people, up 47 percent from last year and nearly five times more than during the de Blasio administration, according to reporting by The City.
Streetsblog's own investigation into the 114th shows that it has undertaken the seventh-most chases in the city, despite very low crime numbers.
Such chases have "dramatically reduced the public safety of pedestrians, cyclists, and other motorists, while we have found no discernible difference in public safety outcomes," the CB1 letter reads.
The letter was written with the Servedio family in mind. Amanda's dad, Frank Servedio, attended a recent precinct community council meeting as well as the community board meeting to share his family's grief and outrage.
"We are heartbroken and grieving our sweet daughter whose life was cut short by what appear to be unnecessary and senseless actions," he told Streetsblog. "We are horrified at the statistics which show the tremendous increase in the numbers of dangerous police chases in New York city, and particularly in Amanda’s neighborhood. The fact that so many people are injured, OR KILLED as a result, is terrifying.
"We wholeheartedly support advocates for safer streets in their efforts to exact policy change and to hold accountable those who do not follow safe policy," he added. "We want the tragic and unnecessary loss of Amanda’s life not to have been in vain."
City Hall referred Streetsblog to the NYPD for comment. The NYPD said it would "review" the letter.
In the past, the NYPD has boasted of its vehicular approach to catching suspects.
“People thinking they can take off on us, those days are over,” Chief of Patrol John Chell declared last year after The City reported that the 625 chases in the first six months of that year exceeded the count for the previous five years combined.
