DIVIDED AMERICA: Bridging the gap between police, policed

NEW YORK (AP) — On an unusually cool night for summer, Mike Perry and his crew thread the sidewalks running through Staten Island's Stapleton Houses, tracked by police cameras bolted to the apartment blocks and positioned atop poles.

[...] though, their Cure Violence team works to defuse arguments that can lead to shootings and match people with job training and counseling.

EDITOR'S NOTE — This story is part of Divided America, AP's ongoing exploration of the economic, social and political divisions in American society.

Since Garner's death in July 2014, they have confronted a measure of the anger, pain and alienation that the nation now shares.

Years of tension have left people wary in both the policing community and in minority neighborhoods, with many yearning for one another's respect.

"What we have to bear in mind is that when a particular culture has been created, or when people sense a certain culture is operating, it takes time in order to change that culture," says the Rev. Victor Brown, a pastor of one of the larger African-American churches on Staten Island's North Shore.

Brown, a spiritual adviser to Garner's family who criticized the grand jury's decision not to indict the officer involved, serves as a part-time police chaplain.

Like the white retired officer who credits a longtime black partner for much of his success in patrolling poor neighborhoods, and worries today's cops are not street-wise enough.

Or the black street vendor who rails against police for Garner's death, but says officers are needed to clean up the street where that death occurred.

About 3,000 police officers, scores of retired cops and their families live here, many in the heavily white neighborhoods on the southern two-thirds of the island.

In those neighborhoods, protests that followed Garner's death in July 2014 were met with "God Bless the NYPD" yard signs and pro-police rallies.

Two weeks later, a man claiming vengeance killed two police officers in Brooklyn, one of them a former Staten Island school safety officer.

In 2000, police arrested Downs on the street, before moving on to nearby neighborhoods to pick up two men he says he'd never met, and accused the trio of conspiring to sell drugs.

Shawn Mitchell, 28 and black, takes a break from a basketball game to recount being stopped recently by a police officer suspicious of his fast-food cup of lemonade.

Downs testified against the NYPD when a legal advocacy group sued and won a 2013 ruling that sweeping stop-and-frisks violate the constitutional rights of minority New Yorkers.

"We do a lot of things to keep his name alive and let people know this is the kind of person we should look up to," says Ambrosino, a boyhood friend of Laurie's.

"A lot of kids in this school have parents who are police officers — a lot," says Peter Macellari, principal of the school, where about a quarter of the students are Hispanic and 5 percent are black.

Anthony Sabbatino, a former police officer who is now a firefighter, paid tribute with the recently closed 10-4 Bar & Grill, hiring an artist to paint a mural of first responders at the World Trade Center.

"Things have changed drastically," says Commesso, president of the group whose name incorporates the NYPD code for an officer requiring assistance.

If you make an arrest today, there's somebody there with a camera and, my own personal opinion, you're getting a lot of kids today, just out of school, never had a job before, becoming a cop.

Combine officers lacking street savvy and people in minority neighborhoods who mistrust them and policing is much tougher, says Commesso.

The blame belongs to activists who portray cops as enemies rather than allies, says Vincent Montagna, a fellow retired cop.

How, exactly, do you build trust between police and people in minority neighborhoods?

On a steamy afternoon, NYPD officers Jessi D'Ambrosio and Mary Gillespie pull up to the Richmond Terrace Houses to start their patrol.

Nearly two years after police wrestled Eric Garner to the sidewalk in front of Bay Beauty Supply, his mother, Gwen Carr, stands in the small park across the street and cringes at the scene.

A young woman — "Alcohol Gives You Wings," tattooed down her left arm — sits on the edge of a dry fountain, trying to sell used shoes.

Transforming this triangle would displace the addicts, who could be directed to treatment, and make this area safe, Carr says.

The police wouldn't have that much of a problem weeding out the bad guys because the people in the community would let them know, she says.

"The more I think about it (Garner's death) the madder I get, because that man should not be dead," says Doug Brinson, who sells T-shirts and household items from folding tables on the sidewalk.