{"id":145351,"date":"2026-02-25T22:27:31","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T22:27:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/145351\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T22:27:31","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T22:27:31","slug":"the-bronx-needs-action-on-crime-housing-and-safety-bronx-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/145351\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bronx needs action on crime, housing and safety \u2013 Bronx Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"Screenshot\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Aboubakar Amadou is the Secretary of the Omar Islamic Center. Bakary Camara is the Director of External Affairs for the Islamic Cultural Center. Mr. Amadou & Mr. Camara are both leaders of The Bronx First, Metro I.A.F. <\/p>\n

Those of us who work and worship in the Bronx\u00a0realize that\u00a0two seemingly contradictory things can be true when it comes to public safety.\n<\/p>\n

On the one hand, we realize that the borough is significantly safer than it once was. At the same time, we represent communities that suffer more than\u00a0most\u00a0from the crimes that do occur\u00a0including one third of shooting victims last year were in The Bronx.<\/p>\n

Our immigrant families, people in service jobs, or young students\u00a0confront the daily dangers that remain.\n<\/p>\n

One of us is\u00a0the Secretary of the Omar Islamic Center on Grand Concourse and Fordham Road. \u00a0Frequently, my members\u00a0run a gauntlet of assault as they make their way to daily prayers.\n<\/p>\n

Recently, in a meeting of a dozen members, every single person reported having been struck in the face at least once in the past few years. One man even lost sight in one eye.\n<\/p>\n

The first homicide<\/a> of the year in NYC occurred right here in the Bronx early on New Year\u2019s Day. Issa Mbolo-Isac, a Muslim Uber driver, was shot twice in the face and killed while trying to support his four children back home in Burkina Faso.<\/p>\n

Five days later, a Ghanaian brother George Ennin, a Christian, and father of\u00a0two, was stabbed to death while on his way to work on\u00a0Third\u00a0Ave.\n<\/p>\n

Even in the safe bubble of midtown Manhattan, violence and danger have a way of singling us out. The last NYPD\u00a0officer to be killed was\u00a0Didarul Islam<\/a>\u00a0was shot\u00a0last summer at an office on Park Avenue.<\/p>\n

Mr. Islam\u2019s funeral in Parkchester was attended by many thousands of Bengali families, NYPD officers and city leadership. The presiding imam wondered if the awesome display of grief and unity in pain would convert to meaningful change later. It did not. Tragedies without organization rarely do.<\/p>\n

One of us\u00a0is the head of external affairs for the Islamic Cultural Center, which represents 11 mostly Gambian and West African \u00a0mosques with more than 11,000 weekly worshippers.\u00a0Even in the crowded places we call home, we are not safe.<\/p>\n

Seventeen members of our mosque, including eight children, were killed in the Twin Parks Fire<\/a>. A slumlord refused to provide adequate heating and fire safety measures. \u00a0A city shirked its basic obligation to keep people safe and enforce open violations.<\/p>\n

The first\u00a0two\u00a0major fires\u00a0of\u00a0this year\u00a0were also in the Bronx, killing one and displacing hundreds.\u00a0The last two major building collapses happened here, too.\u00a0Like gun violence, there is\u00a0a\u00a0predictable burst of prayers and proclamations followed by a resumption of danger.<\/p>\n

So, while we applaud the effective professional work done by the NYPD\u00a0and the Fire Department,\u00a0we live with the\u00a0daily\u00a0reality of crime,\u00a0violence\u00a0and squalor conditions.\u00a0We don\u2019t get the same concierge-level\u00a0safety\u00a0provided by the city to tourists and the affluent.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why our\u00a0West African and South Asian\u00a0mosques decided to join African American churches, Jewish-founded settlement houses, Latino Catholic parishes and many more to form a new Bronx Metro IAF organization,\u00a0The Bronx First<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 the newest affiliate of Metro Industrial Areas Foundation in New York.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0total of 1872 leaders met in the Rose Hill Gym of Fordham University on a frigid night and voted to make improved public safety one of the top priorities of our new organization. \u00a0We also voted to pressure the mayor and governor to build truly affordable housing; and develop and act on solutions to our mental health care crisis.<\/p>\n

Our fellow Metro IAF leaders met recently with NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch and were\u00a0encouraged\u00a0by her focused and no-nonsense approach to crime prevention and crime reduction. \u00a0We welcomed\u00a0her\u00a0recent\u00a0announcement that the NYPD is reorganizing\u00a0the\u00a0Bronx police leadership and deploying additional resources in response to the persistent violence across our borough.<\/p>\n

Sadly, the same day the commissioner\u00a0held her press conference, a\u00a0middle-aged man was shot and killed in broad daylight on a Bronx subway platform. A few days after that, a young student was killed outside a McDonalds after school.\u00a0Both\u00a0individuals were connected to our settlement house community, with their own dreams cut down.<\/p>\n

The combination of a reorganized and bolstered NYPD presence in the Bronx, along with the kind of deep\u00a0community knowledge and insight\u00a0that\u00a0the leaders of\u00a0The Bronx First\u00a0are marshaling,\u00a0sets the stage for even greater\u00a0reductions in crime.<\/p>\n

To ensure that outcome,\u00a0leaders of The Bronx First\u00a0have committed ourselves to form teams in each of our mosques, churches, non-profits and Business Improvement Districts; to identify crime sites, slum lords, and other problem areas; to develop\u00a0and recommend solutions that will range from more police patrols, to the use of mental health care workers, to accountability for slumlords who allow their lobbies and courtyards to serve as gathering places for those committing crimes.<\/p>\n

We will\u00a0meet on a regular basis with precinct commanders and others to demand follow-through. \u00a0If the results aren\u2019t forthcoming, we will return to Commissioner Tisch, who has promised to make sure that local commanders respond.<\/p>\n

While we recognize the measurable progress already made,\u00a0nobody is going to tell our people to be more patient and understanding. We are still burying our members and consoling their families.\u00a0We continue shivering\u00a0through this brutal winter in overcrowded apartments\u00a0with precarious\u00a0space heaters.<\/p>\n

We are not waiting for\u00a0The Bronx to\u00a0get better on its own. We intend to make\u00a0our neighborhoods and this city safe and affordable for everyone.\n<\/p>\n

Aboubakar Amadou is the Secretary of the Omar Islamic Center. Bakary Camara is the Director of External Affairs for the Islamic Cultural Center. Both are leaders of The Bronx First, Metro I.A.F.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aboubakar Amadou is the Secretary of the Omar Islamic Center. Bakary Camara is the Director of External Affairs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[60948,60949,128,4452,57151,60950,37218,21961,57493,259,9,24,63,60951,3980,129,131,130],"class_list":{"0":"post-145351","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-the-bronx","8":"tag-aboubakar-amadou","9":"tag-bakary-camara","10":"tag-bronx","11":"tag-bronx-crime","12":"tag-bronx-first","13":"tag-crime-in-the-bronx","14":"tag-fordham-road","15":"tag-grand-concourse","16":"tag-metro-iaf","17":"tag-murder","18":"tag-new-york","19":"tag-new-york-city","20":"tag-nyc","21":"tag-omar-islamic-center","22":"tag-shootings","23":"tag-the-bronx","24":"tag-the-bronx-headlines","25":"tag-the-bronx-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}