Following Paris attacks, NYC steps up outreach to Muslims

NEW YORK (AP) — In the aftermath of last month's terror attacks in Paris, New York City officials have bolstered security and quietly stepped up outreach efforts to Muslim residents, trying to calm fears of possible hate-filled retaliation while trying to extend government services to a community that often has felt neglected.

Six days after the Paris attacks, the Mayor's Community Affairs Unit organized a meeting between 40 community leaders — the vast majority from the Muslim community — and the NYPD's Hate Crimes Unit with aims of building the trust necessary for Muslims to turn to law enforcement to report crimes.

Teams from the mayor's office and city council have spent time at mosques and community centers, hoping to improve relations with imams who could also advocate city services, such as free pre-kindergarten and municipal identification cards, that would improve some Muslims' level of civic engagement and potentially ward off alienation.

The NYPD, which has 900 Muslim officers, uses its Community Affairs Bureau to foster better relationships with all of the city's diverse communities by staffing street festivals, providing services to accident victims and trying "to make people who don't normally talk to cops feel comfortable coming to us," said the head of the unit, Chief Joanne Jaffe.

Over the years, the practice resulted in a handful of prosecutions of homegrown terrorists and, more recently, became the subject of a series of articles by The Associated Press revealing that the intelligence division had infiltrated dozens of mosques and Muslim student groups and investigated hundreds.

Last year, amid complaints of religious and racial profiling, the NYPD disbanded a team of detectives assigned to create databases but has continued its use of informants and undercover investigators to fight terror.