“We Shouldn’t Need the Police”

By COLlive reporter

New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly hosted long-time community leader and activist Rabbi Shea Hecht in his office at police headquarters on Monday.

“Some of what they discussed cannot be disclosed at this time,” said Hecht’s son Rabbi Yitzchok Hecht, Director of Chabad of Ulster County in New York, who attended the meeting, as did Kelly’s chief of staff Joe Wuensch.

“Commissioner Kelly spoke for a few minutes about the Rebbe,” he said. “And they did talk about the police relationship with the Orthodox Jewish community in general and Crown Heights in particular.”

Kelly, a regular visitor to the neighborhood, made it a point to mention the “many successes of the New York City Police Department over the last decade,” according to Hecht.

Among them is the fact that during this past decade, New York City has had an approximate 50% reduction in murders and that the police department has successfully prevented 14 terrorist attacks on the City.

The commissioner recognized that there is much more that needs to be done, but at the same time he expressed his appreciation of working with the Jewish community, the junior Hecht said.

Rabbi Shea Hecht, Chairman of the National Committee for the Furtherance of Jewish Education, told the commissioner, “with G-d’s help we shouldn’t need the services of the police department.” He added that the Jewish community is “thankful for all he, his staff and the police as a whole do for us.”