Reinvented NYPD: 'Reach Out to People Who Don't Like You'

In a diametrically opposing reinvention of its policing strategy, the NYPD is moving away from the controversial stop and frisk that led to riots and antagonization of the men in blue to what it calls Precision Policing, according to an NBC News report Sunday.

"I've asked my cops, 'Reach out to the people in the community that don't like you,'" NYPD Chief of Department Terence Monahan told NBC News.

The strategy is meant to rebuild the trust between law enforcement and citizens after a fracturing of an at-times hostile standoff in recent years.

"It's been said many times, it's hard to hate up close," Monahan told NBC News. "You may hate just a blue uniform, but when you know that person, know them as a human, it's different."

Despite 27 straight years of a reduced crime rate of the nation's latest police department – protecting what is the nation's safest big city – the stop-and-frisk policy has tarnished the connection between police and residents.

"A lot of people don't do anything wrong, and they still get harassed by the cops," Brooklyn resident Shanasia Maddox told NBC News. "I mean pulled over, stop and frisk, being patted down, anything the cops would do to stop you. . . . just you looking at them the wrong way."

Monahan pointed to the 2014 unrest after police shot an unarmed man in Ferguson, Missouri, and the death of Eric Garner in Staten Island, who died after being in a chokehold by an NYPD officer. Those led to the Dec. 20, 2014 ambush shooting of two NYPD officers, he said.

"It all culminated in the assassinations of [Wenjian] Liu and [Rafael] Ramos, two of our police officers sitting in a radio car," Monahan told NBC News.

"We had to change the way we policed. Crime had been going down but cop morale was low, communities didn't have trust in us. We had to come up with a new system of policing to try and change that dynamic."

City Council Member Donovan Richards praised the police effort to reach out to ordinary citizens and focus its Precision Policing on known criminals.

"I think these one-on-one daily interactions with the community are going a long way in repairing a lot of the damage that was done by the NYPD in our communities under prior administrations," Richard told NBC News.

• WashPost: Hungary's Passport Fraud Allowed Dozens to Enter US Illegally
• US to Provide Funds for More Police, Improve School Safety