"Our closeness with city officials is at its highest level ever since the Shomrim have been in existence," says Coordinator Moishe Jeremias. "We are in constant contact, almost on a daily basis, with the commander of the 66th Precinct, Captain Donald P. O'Donnell, and the officers on the beat treat us OK as well."

It's a far cry from the situation which existed this spring. After a much-publicized incident in Crown Heights in which two members of the local Shomrim patrol there were accused of having roughed someone up during the course of an investigation into a stolen bike (Jewish communal leaders deny the allegation and contend the men acted in self-defense), the newspapers were full of stories of a rift between the Shomrim and the city's new police commissioner, Howard Safir.

The commissioner held a meeting May 20 at One Police Plaza with leaders from the various Brooklyn Shomrim patrols (the Boro Park, Crown Heights, Flatbush and Williamsburg patrols are organized by their respective communities and operate independently of one another, although they cooperate when the need arises), other local citizen patrols from throughout the city, and precinct commanders.

Safir was quoted as saying that citizen patrols should only act "as the eyes and ears" of the Department and not overstep their bounds and get into actually enforcing the law and apprehending criminals, except in emergency situations.

That dismayed many Shomrim leaders, proud of their patrols' record in stopping crimes and handing suspects over to the cops, who cannot be everywhere at once. They expressed fears that if they were forced to take a less aggressive stance against crime and just act as observers, their communities would be seen as sitting ducks, ripe for plucking by professional criminals.

Happily, such fears seem to have been put to rest. "Thank G-d we have no problem," says BP Shomrim leader Jeremias. "The whole thing was just a misunderstanding." Pointing out that he could not comment about any discussions the police might have had with the other Shomrim units elsewhere in Brooklyn, he says for Boro Park, "Commissioner Safir was in contact with the commander at the 66th, and said he wants everything to work smoothly. We've been in communication with his Deputy Commissioner for Community Affiars, Yolanda B. Jiminez, as well as Mayor Giuliani's liason for the Jewish community, Bruce Teitelbaum."

(Flatbush Shomrim Coordinator Chaim Deutsch meanwhile told COUNTRY YOSSI FAMILY MAGAZINE that in his community, "everything is A-OK. We never had a problem and hope we never will. We have very good relations with the three precincts we work with, the 61st, the 63rd and the 70th. With G-d's help, I don't see anything becoming a problem.")

The issue, Jeremias says, is not whether or not the Shomrim should take a hands-on approach to crime, but rather, one of indemnification. "Our members get official identification cards from the police (as do members of all registered civilian patrols), and the city will indemnify us [against lawsuits arising out of Shomrim activities] as long as we stick to their guidelines." One example would be a suit arising from a traffic accident involving a Shomrim vehicle out on patrol.

The city "is not saying they want us to stop apprehending criminals," the patrol coordinator continued. "They're telling us to go out and continue doing the good job we're doing. But they said we have to understand that if we get sued in the process, we're on our own." That, he adds, is no big deal, because that was the status quo already.

Jeremias is impressed with the new precinct commander, Captain O'Donnell, calling him "a hands-on guy," and crediting him for the greatly expanded cooperation between the officers and the civilian volunteers.

He says "it's very good that the community now knows that police officers will be working with the Shomrim (and vice versa), and that if they call the Shomrim or the police, it will be handled properly. The major thing we would like to convey to people is that if there is a crime, they should by all means report it."

Many people might not feel it's worth the bother, or don't think an arrest will be made anyway, or they might be afraid of their insurance rates going up. But, the patrol coordinator says, "statistics count" in many different ways. If there's a rash of robberies reported and a pattern of some sort emerges, "we can set up a sting operation with the precinct's anti-crime division and hopefully put a stop to it."

One such recent sting operation, for example, caught a thief with a weakness for high-tech devices. The patrol and the police were helped by the fact that he also had a fondness for hard cash, which ultimately outweighed his sense of caution.

One Friday night, says Jeremias, someone left his beeper and his cellular phone in his car and they were ripped off. On motzei Shabbos, the Shomrim advised the victim to use his home phone to dial his own pager number, just to see if someone answered. Sure enough, five minutes later, the thief called back.

The victim offered him $50 for return of the cellular phone and another $50 for the pager, no questions asked. The thief agreed to the deal.

"At that point," Jeremias says, "we called the anti-crime cops, who set up the actual sting, and the thief was arrested. " That arrest closed the book on a guy who had been breaking into dozens of cars and stealing cellular phones all over town.

Speaking of statistics, Jeremias says the latest figures show a sizable drop-off in local crime. Whether it's because his volunteers are enthused about their amiable new relationship with the police and are going out more often and more enthusiastically, or just because crime in general is going down city-wide, he can't say. Precinct-wide, grand larceny auto was down 25% in July versus a year ago, burglary was down 26%, grand larceny had no change +/-, and felonious assaults had a 43% decrease. Overall, crime had a 20% decrease versus a year ago.