While crime is down throughout Brownsville, the blocks around Brooklyn's 73rd Precinct stationhouse have been played host to a number of recent shootings. In the past four months, there have been seven shootings within 10 blocks of the stationhouse — two of them fatal. These crimes come at a time while shootings have declined precinct-wide from 82 at this point last year, to 67 so far this year. Those are encouraging figures, according to NYPD spokesman Paul Browne: "The fact that overall crime is down by 6%, shootings are down by 18%, and murder is down by 23% reflects well on the precinct command's crime suppression."

But neighbors like Latisha Daring — who once thought living near a precinct was a "selling point" — are scared. An anonymous police source told this rather foreboding message to the Daily News: "Even though the numbers are going down, as far as shootings and the city being safer, the criminals are more brazen than ever."