Teen essays give police good ideas

Charged by the 110th Precinct Community Council with suggesting ways the police could improve the quality of life in their northwest neighborhoods, area teens proposed changes like installing more lighting in higher-crime areas and forcing suspended high school students to help with graffiti cleanups.
Along with the idea for more lighting, 18-year-old Roderick Caeao from Elmhurst said that schools should recruit former gang members to lecture kids about how to stay away from the groups.
“I believe that kids should be educated at an early age about gangs,” Caeao said, explaining that his 500-word essay on the subject was selected as one of eight winners. Caeao, who is headed to the New York Institute of Technology in the fall to study architecture, and the other winners, received $500 checks to be used at their own discretion - for books, dorm fees, or even new school clothes.
At a ceremony, held at Newtown High School on Wednesday, June 20, Councilmember Helen Sears presented the scholarship funds to winners Caeao, Amaani Bhamla, Gina Chen, Clara Garcia, Yi Liu, Ahmed Mirza, Alexis Rodriguez, and Jesenia Dutan. Debra Pagano Cohen, President of the 110th Precinct Community Council, pointed to the diversity of the winners as representative of the community.
“I’m very happy that I got it,” said 18-year-old Dutan from Corona. Dutan said she heard about the essay-writing challenge from two sources - Newtown High School, where she is a senior, and the 110th Precinct Explorer program, an after-school youth group with the police department.
In her essay, Dutan, who has been an Explorer since age 14, suggested that other teens sign up to the program, to serve as role models in the community.
“At first, to tell the truth, I didn’t really want to do it [the Explorer program], but then I got used to it and I liked it … I really like doing community service,” she said.
Along with graffiti cleanups and working around the precinct, located at 94-41 43rd Avenue, Explorers help to organize the area’s annual National Night Out Against Crime (NNO), scheduled for Tuesday, August 7 at Hoffman Park in Elmhurst.
Sears praised the group for their collaboration with various civic organizations.
“I have seen them extend hands to different agents and to help where they are needed,” she said, looking out onto the Newtown auditorium of young people. “You are the cornerstones of Corona and Elmhurst.”
With 40 members, the Explorers give teens the chance to meet other kids, who are interested in bettering the community, Dutan said.
“When they start off working with the police department, they realize that there are other options out there, instead of joining gangs,” said P.O. Karen McKenzie, who leads the program. “Most of the kids that we have worked with in the last few years have gone on to college, become cops or done something productive in the society.”
In addition, Dutan said that female police officers assigned as Explorer Advisors - McKenzie and P.O. Lucy Solares - have inspired her to consider the NYPD as a possible career.
“I might change my mind,” Dutan said, explaining that she plans to study pharmacy at Long Island University in the fall. “That [the police] is one of the things that I think about doing later on. I could see myself being a police officer.”