NYPD to swarm upper Manhattan, aiming to head off a 'Dyckman Takeover'

Hundreds of police officers will be posted across Upper Manhattan this weekend, and Dyckman Street will be closed from end to end as part of a city plan to head off another “Dyckman Takeover" after another unsanctioned gathering there last Sunday ended in a fatal stabbing, elected officials said Friday.

Steven Bodnar, 23, was stabbed in the stomach with a sharp object during a brawl on Dyckman Street in Inwood early Aug. 9 and later died at a hospital, police said.

The gathering that ended in the stabbings had branched off from the Dominican Day Parade earlier that day. The parade itself, on Sixth Avenue, "went off without a hitch," local Councilmember Carmen De La Rosa said at a press conference in Inwood Friday morning.

What followed on Dyckman did not.

”Before the parade, there was a safety plan that was in place,” De La Rosa said. “There was a breakdown of that plan, in my opinion, as well as a capacity issue where our community was overrun with hundreds and hundreds of people from Connecticut, from Long Island.”

De La Rosa said officers would work Washington Heights and Inwood this weekend in two shifts across four sectors, with sanitation and fire crews standing by. She said Dyckman Street would be closed end to end starting Saturday.


But a flyer promoting "Dominican Dyckman Takeover Pt 3" was still circulating online this week, telling people to meet and stay "till they shut us down." Such takeovers are organized on social media and have grown increasingly destructive in recent years, officials have said.

Last Sunday's crowd caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in property and vehicle damage and lost revenue for small businesses that were forced to close, De La Rosa said.

"It created a situation where our neighbors could not safely transit into their homes," she said.

Public spaces were left trashed, according to a joint statement from Upper Manhattan's congressional, state and City Council representatives.

De La Rosa said most of the people who turned out last weekend were young, and pledged more youth services and anti-violence work alongside the enforcement.

An NYPD spokesperson did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

https://gothamist.com/news/nypd-to-swarm-upper-manhattan-aiming-to-head-off-a-dyckman-takeover