Big step up for commander of the 50th

Newly promoted Deputy Inspector John D'Adamo. Photo by Karsten Moran

By N. Clark Judd

The commander of the Riverdale/ Kingsbridge area’s police precinct has been promoted.

On Aug. 28, 50th Precinct Capt. John D’Adamo became Deputy Inspector D’Adamo — the latest in a long line of local commanders to come to Riverdale and get new pins for his collar.

Deputy Inspector Dermot Shea came to the precinct in September 2006 as a captain, was promoted in late 2007, and in February 2008, left for the 44th Precinct, which includes the Highbridge, Mt. Eden and Concourse Village neighborhoods. He was the sixth of the last seven 50th Precinct commanders to be promoted and then transferred. D.I. D’Adamo, who became Riverdale’s top police officer in February 2008, is the seventh precinct commander to receive a promotion.

So is D.I. D’Adamo also on his way to what they call, in police parlance, a “busier precinct?”

He hopes not, he says.

“I love it here in the Five-O precinct. I love everyone here in the Five- O,” D.I. D’Adamo said.

While one Upper Manhattan precinct has been struggling to find a serial robber who preys on women late at night, and law enforcement officers elsewhere in the Bronx recently had to identify the body of another young woman found stabbed and dumped in the trash, complaints in the Riverdale/ Kingsbridge area are usually less dire.

At a recent community council meeting, the complaint that most stood out to D.I. D’Adamo was about the return of rambunctious Manhattan College students and the consequent repopulation of the bars on West 238th Street. People playing basketball in area parks after hours are a recurring source of consternation.

Which isn’t to say D.I. D’Adamo’s police officers aren’t busy. On the wall of his office is the “Inspector D’Adamo Gun Board,” with pictures from the aftermath of each of the 22 arrests made in the precinct for firearm-related offenses. Laid out on tables — sometimes with police officers posing nearby like fishermen after landing a trophy bass — are hauls ranging from a Colt AR-15, the semi-automatic cousin of the M-16 assault rifle used by U.S. soldiers, to a .22-caliber handgun.

“This is to get the guys, to let them know that they’re important,” said D.I. D’Adamo. “It’s a motivating factor. Guys want to make the board … and as you can see, my board has filled up.”

The Riverdale/Kingsbridge area still has one unsolved murder: that of Raymond Casul, the 23-year-old shot dead in March just moments after picking up Chinese food on West Kingsbridge Road. Detectives are still investigating his death.

“That is the last shooting, the last bit of violence that we’ve had in the precinct,” D.I. D’Adamo said. He credits his officers for a continued drop in violent crime.

The precinct’s top cop was executive officer at the 43rd Precinct for more than two years, and began his NYPD career in 1990 in a housing district in the South Bronx. His mother grew up in Riverdale and occasionally meets him for lunch in the neighborhood.

D.I. D’Adamo takes the promotion seriously but says his responsibilities have not changed. On Sunday, he was in a typical D.I. D’Adamo mode — personally supervising security at the Riverdale Jewish Community Relations Council’s annual street fair on Johnson Avenue, the way he supervised picket lines in front of the Stella D’oro factory, a false alarm over an abandoned luggage near a North Riverdale synagogue, and the aftermath of the terrorism arrests in May — when four men were accused of planting what they thought were explosives in front of two synagogues.

This is part of the September 17, 2009 online edition of The Riverdale Press.

Have an opinion on this matter? We'd like to hear from you. Click here.