Amadeo Oktrova reflects on NYPD career as he takes next step in 50th Precinct command

According to the NYPD, auto-theft related arrests are up in the 50th Precinct 666% year-to-date, and gun arrests are up 175%.

When Amadeo Oktrova took command of the New York City Police Department’s 50th Precinct in January, he inherited a corner of the Bronx far different from some of the assignments that shaped his career.

For years, Oktrova worked specialized units focused on gun violence, narcotics and violent crime, traveling across the Bronx and eventually throughout New York City wherever crime was spiking. Now, roughly 10 months after stepping in as commanding officer, Oktrova has been promoted from captain to deputy inspector.

The promotion changes his rank, but not his responsibilities or his role as commanding officer of the precinct, which covers Riverdale and surrounding neighborhoods.

Oktrova said he has been driven to pursue law enforcement for as long as he remembers, far before he came to the United States from Albania as a teenager. As a kid, he said, he admired the officers who stepped in when someone was in trouble rather than running away.

He attended high school in Philadelphia before moving to New York and joining the NYPD in 2010. Oktrova recalled opportunities to join smaller departments, but New York City was where he strove to be.

“I wanted to always be part of a big police department. … What better place than the NYPD?” Oktrova said.

Out of the police academy, he spent about a year and a half on foot posts in the 52nd Precinct, including West Kingsbridge Road and Grand Concourse — not far from the borders of the precinct he now leads.

“When you go on the streets, then it’s a different world,” Oktrova said. “Then you’ve got to start fresh, and you start from the beginning. You learn the streets.”

From there came a succession of assignments. Oktrova later worked patrol and conditions in the 49th Precinct before joining the Bronx Anti-Crime Unit in 2013, where his work expanded from one precinct to the entire borough. Wherever violent crime jumped, he said, the team could be sent.

It was about two years later, he said, that he was promoted to sergeant. In 2018, Oktrova was transferred to a citywide anti-crime unit,  exposing him to neighborhoods across Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan and Staten Island.

“So that was a very good learning experience,” Oktrova said. “There, I got a lot of experience, met a lot of good people and got to see the different neighborhoods of almost all of them in the city.”

Stints in the Gun Violence Suppression Division and Manhattan North Narcotics followed before he was promoted to lieutenant in 2021. He later became a captain in July 2023, commanding Bronx specialized units that included an auto larceny team. The role was a fitting preparation for the 50th, which covers an area where vehicle and car part thefts have long been persistent problems.

Oktrova said auto-theft related arrests are up significantly year-to-date, with the deputy inspector crediting focused deployments to the areas where thefts have increasingly been reported.

However, he was quick to note although car-related arrests have risen substantially, reducing the underlying issue is not a quick fix.

“It’s like turning a cruise ship around. It takes — it’s going to take — time, but cops are trying,” he said.

His experience targeting illegal firearms has followed him into the precinct as well. Oktrova said gun arrests were up compared with the prior year, something he attributed partly to analyzing when crimes occur and shifting officers accordingly.

“We look at crime trends, the times, the days, and we adjust the hours of our teams here, our specialized units within the precinct, and we tailor it to the crime trends,” he said.

The biggest adjustment has been the scale of the precinct, he said, as his most recent unit had about 45 people. The 50th has about 130 and never closes, and Oktrova said “when you go home, you’re just basically changing your office.”

“My previous unit, we worked, let’s say, at 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. and when we went home, everybody went home,” he said. “Now it’s 24 hours.”

Still, Oktrova doesn’t want the commanding officer’s desk to cut him off from the street. When his schedule allows, he puts on his duty belt and responds to radio runs, and has taken part in gun and stolen-car arrests since taking command.

The point, he said, is to lead by example.

“It’s just to show them that if I’m asking them to be out there to protect the community, that I’m also willing to do it,” Oktrova explained, crediting that approach, along with an open-door policy, with boosting morale.

At the core, his goals remain centered on the officers working under him, the residents they serve and keeping crime down.

“I want the community to have faith in us, that we’re out there for them, and we’re trying our best,” Oktrova said. “And I want cops to look forward to come and work, be happy, and increase morale.”