NYPD probes whether Brooklyn commander inappropriately helped teen gunman
A Brooklyn NYPD commander is being investigated about whether he let a teen gunman off the hook because the suspect was involved in a youth program the officer supports, the Daily News has learned.
Capt. Derby St. Fort was recently cleared of wrongdoing in a probe of how his cops responded to 311 calls. But he’s come under renewed scrutiny since the Internal Affairs Bureau was told that on New Year’s Eve 2021, St. Fort learned from his officers that a teen was livestreaming on social media as he flashed a gun inside a Coney Island Ave. lounge in Homecrest.
St. Fort allegedly told the officers to go see if the teen was there, but not to arrest him or even approach him, sources familiar with the complaint said.
The officers followed orders, sources said, and at some point the livestream was taken down. IAB is investigating if St. Fort — who knows the teen from We Build the Block, a program aimed at keeping at-risk kids away from gun violence — set that in motion by calling the teen’s mother.
St. Fort did not respond to a request for comment, but a source close to him said he did nothing wrong.
“Anyone who says otherwise is smearing a good cop trying to impact young people impacted by violence within their community,” the source said.
The News wrote Monday that precinct commanders in south Brooklyn have been told they need to do a better job responding to 311 complaints — a directive issued after more than a dozen cops were cited for not documenting how scores of calls for help were handled.
The actions followed an investigation triggered by a News story last May about the 61st Precinct’s response time to 311 complaints.
Investigators found that through April 10 of last year, the precinct’s response times to 2,183 complaints to the 311 line — or 42% of 5,163 total — were never recorded because they were marked as open incidents requiring a delayed future response.
Some 311 complaints legitimately prompt delayed responses. Calls to 911 get top priority, and a 311 complaint at night about a problem like double-parking won’t usually be handled until the next day.
But data from other precincts raised concerns there was an attempt to make the 61st Precinct’s response times appear better than they actually were by marking so many calls unresolved.
Investigators looked at 348 of the 61st Precinct ‘s 311 complaints marked as awaiting a delayed response and found only 52 instances in which it could be determined officers ever investigated and documented what happened. For the other 85%, investigators could not figure out what police did.
“It’s unknown who was assigned or who handled it — or if it even was handled,” one source said. “None of that could be determined.”
More than a dozen cops — in the 61st Precinct and other commands — had letters of instruction placed in their personnel file as a reprimand. But no wrongdoing was linked to St. Fort.
