Village residents vent at 6th Precinct meeting over e-bikes, public drug use and shoplifting

West Village and Greenwich Village residents expressed concern about numerous quality-of-life issues plaguing their neighborhoods at the 6th Precinct Community Council meeting on Wednesday.

Captain Jason Zeikel, the precinct’s commanding officer, got an earful from a crowd of nearly 75 attendees during the session at Our Lady of Pompeii Church in the West Village, where he reported that year-to-date serious crime around the command was down 27%.

But this impressive crime decrease refers to major crime that includes murder, rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny and grand larceny auto; it does not include quality-of-life issues and occurrences.

Attendees shared many concerns about every-day offenses that continue to riddle the precinct’s communities. Several brought up the rampant use of e-bikes, as well as public drug use and intoxication.

West Villager Amy Lopez-Cepero, said she is tired of e-bikes and e-scooters “terrorizing” the West Village and neighborhoods throughout the city.

“It doesn’t seem like the police anywhere in the city are doing anything about the e-bikes,” she said. “They’re not licensed, they’re not plated, and these guys are terrorizing sidewalks.”

Zeikel explained that for safety reasons, police officers can not chase a moving e-bike, but they’ve been successful in confiscating many vehicles.

Retail theft is another major problem in the precinct, and it is one of Zeikel’s top priorities.

“Our pharmacies get pillaged. The Sunglass Hut, Lululemon, gets pillaged,” Zeikel said. “We try to put resources there when we can, we work with them to try to make apprehensions, but it’s a problem.”

Another attendee zeroed in on homelessness. She said she is “sympathetic” to the homeless population, but some have become “too aggressive” when asking passersby for money.

Zeikel shared the residents’ frustration, observing that crime recidivism is high city-wide. He also said there’s a “heavy population in the community” with addiction issues and homelessness, creating a market for drugs and crime.

“Unfortunately, the reality is, it takes multiple times for you to be arrested for shoplifting for bail to be set,” he said. “Even when the D.A.’s office does go and request bail for this, oftentimes the judge will go against the D.A.’s wishes and grant supervised release, and the person is right back out.”

Squashing drug dealers

Drugs and cash confiscated by the 6th Precinct from alleged dealers on 6th Avenue in Greenwich Village on Feb. 17, 2024.Photo via X/@NYPD6Pct

As for local drug use, one man described an encounter he had recently with a heroin user who was shooting up right outside his building.

Zeikel noted the precinct is making headway when it comes to drug dealing. Recently the Manhattan South narcotics team took down approximately nine drug dealers for selling cocaine, heroin and mushrooms around the command.

“My new public safety team working the overnight shift has been arresting a lot of drug dealers on Sixth Avenue,” he said. “We hear the complaints from the community and I see it as I walk around myself, so we really are trying to make an effort over there.”

The 6th Precinct’s X (formerly Twitter) page shows photos of drugs the police confiscated recently.

On Feb. 13, for example, police arrested a drug dealer on Sixth Avenue and West 8 Street who was in possession of 37 bags of alleged crack cocaine and 19 glassine envelopes of heroin.

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