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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - Staten Island's newest top cop has a message for speeders and aggressive drivers on the borough's roads - "They will be feeling our presence shortly."

Asst. Chief Edward Delatorre, in his first interview with the Advance since taking command of the borough this summer, said he's pulling together a traffic enforcement initiative designed to hit several trouble spots on Staten Island at once.

"A lot of resources are going to be brought ... at different times of the day and evening, and we're going to do strict enforcement on speeding and other traffic violations that lead to accidents and pedestrians being struck," he said.

He didn't specify which neighborhoods or trouble spots might be targeted; rather, he said, police are going to "try to saturate different parts of the Island all at the same time.

"We need to have people who are driving out there and speeding, we need to have an expectation that there's a likelihood, or certainly a risk, that there's going to be an officer waiting for them when they're speeding," he said. "So we're going to try to have surges throughout the Island simultaneously."

DRUG STRATEGY

The borough's prescription drug abuse epidemic, and subsequent increase in heroin overdose deaths, also remains a top concern, he said.

And, Delatorre said, police are seeing a new trend emerge -- older patients selling their legitimate prescriptions to drug dealers.

"I'm not going to question their need for funding, but I will say that it's the wrong way to get money and people out here on the Island need to know that they're gonna get arrested like anyone else if they facilitate this," he said.

Delatorre was tapped this summer to replace Asst. Chief Kevin Ward, who served as borough commander from January 2012 through July of this year. Ward, who was seen in police circles as a hands-on, research-driven commander, put burglaries, the borough's the prescription drug epidemic and gun violence atop his priorities list.

The overall crime rate on Staten Island has remained relatively level from 2012 to 2013 -- the latest police statistics show a .86 percent increase. But shootings have decreased by nearly 19 percent, and the borough has seen just five murders this year -- putting 2013 on track to be the quietest year for murders in recent memory. A

QUALITY OF LIFE

"I'm not changing any of the priorities on Staten Island at this point. I think Ward had his finger on the pulse, he knew what he was doing, and I think the Staten Island cops overall work very well together," Delatorre said, referring to the way several police bureaus worked together to quickly find the suspect in the slaying of 20-year-old Megan Marotte, who was found dead in Willowbrook Park on Aug. 15.

"I saw how well patrol, the detectives, and all the different bureaus on Staten Island really did work together to solve that crime really fast. I was very impressed with them," Delatorre said. "So I'm not looking to change any of their priorities, the question is, where will I put more emphasis and try to layer on top of what already exists?"

So far, he said, he's heard a common complaint at community meetings over the past three months -- traffic around schools, especially during arrival and dismissal, when parents drop off and pick up children.

Delatorre said he's looking to "put a strategy together that will suit each school individually."

"The other area that's always been important to me, and again, it goes to my background in community affairs, is just overall quality of life," he said. "When I hear about neighbors being inconsiderate to other neighbors and their children can't sleep at night to go to school the next day -- different complaints I'm picking up at the community meetings I'm going to -- those are clearly going to be a focus of ours too."

Delatorre, who got his start in the NYPD in 1979, commutes to work from the Throgs Neck section of the Bronx.

Though he called the trip "challenging" at certain times of the day, he said he hasn't personally encountered any bad drivers -- no one has cut him off, or hit his car, or caused any near-misses thus far.

"The drivers that like to speed find those back roadways that I'm not really familiar with, he said. "I don't see Staten Island drivers are bad drivers at all. There's a few here and there that take liberties, and those are the ones that we have to address." A

SEASONED VETERAN

Delatorre spent most of his patrol years in the Bronx, and later commanded both the 42nd and 43rd Precincts before becoming the adjutant in the Queens North and the Bronx.

He's been executive officer to two chiefs of departments and other chiefs, and commanded the Police Academy in 2000 and 2001.

Delatorre wouldn't discuss the looming changes to the city's political landscape, or the how changes to the city's controversial stop-and-frisk tactics would affect police work on Staten Island.

As for his own philosophy about policing, he said, "I think police officers in general are very special people... Every day when they leave their homes and go to work, they really don't know what they're in for. And I think that takes a special type of person They don't know if they're going to go home at the end of that tour.

"I'm proud of them when they do a good job, and I think what I'd like to do, what I'd like to see on this Island, is that as many people as possible on this Island be proud of them as well, the same as I am."