bratton-file.JPG

In this Dec. 5, 2013 file photo, William Bratton, left, speaks while New York Mayor Bill de Blasio looks on during a news conference in New York introducing Bratton as de Blasio's choice for New York City police commissioner.

(AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- With Staten Island reeling from an eight-day stretch this summer where four men were killed in shootings, one question continues to arise in political circles, among rank-and-file police, and in public discussion:

Would "stop-and-frisk" have made a difference?

For the family of Devin Powell, 23, the answer is an unequivocal yes.

Powell was shot and killed in an area of Mariners Harbor, not far from the Arlington Terrace apartments, which has seen a steady drumbeat of violence and death in recent months, including, this past Friday, an incident which saw a man shot in the leg.

Police believe Powell was one of two men fatally shot during an alleged crime spree waged by 25-year-old ex-convict Tyrell Brown.

Powell's mother, Annette, called out Mayor Bill de Blasio by name in an interview with the Advance last week, challenging the mayor to "Bring back stop-and-frisk."

"We've been saying that for a long time, because Arlington was worse than it already was," Ms. Powell said.

"This is coming from an interracial family," she said, noting her family is half Jamaican, half Italian. "We are all for stop-and-frisk because we have nothing to hide.... They shouldn't be afraid to be stopped if they're not carrying something that they shouldn't be carrying."

Citywide, shooting incidents have increased by 9.3 percent, with 562 so far this year, compared to 514 year-to-date in 2013, according to NYPD data from last Wednesday. Homicides, meanwhile, have hit record lows citywide, with 153 so far this year compared to 169 year-to-date last year.

The weekends of June 27 and July 4 proved particularly violent, with 21 people shot citywide the weekend of June 27, and 12 shot over five hours on July 6.

On Staten Island, shootings have actually decreased, by 5.4 percent, but the homicide rate has more than doubled, with 10 so far this year compared to just four year-to-date last year. All but one of this year's slayings were shooting deaths.

Still, experts warn not to read too much into the summertime spike.

"One weekend doesn't make a pattern. Even a couple of weekends don't make a pattern," said Eugene O'Donnell, a professor of law and police studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan.

In 2012, when NYPD officers made roughly 530,000 street stops across the five boroughs, the city saw a wave of gun violence not unlike this year's, with 77 people shot in 62 separate incidents between July 2 and July 8.

Then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg told the New York Post that the Fourth of July weekend "traditionally has been a very high-crime shooting, murder week." He curtly responded to a reporter who asked if the city or the police could do more, saying, "If there was, don't you think we would do it?"

NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton said late last month that the department would analyze years of data to determine what effect stop-and-frisk policies had on crime.

At a press conference Wednesday, Bratton displayed a chart showing the long-term, downward trend of gun violence in the city, from 2,680 year-to-date in 1993, down to 514 year-to-date in 2013.

Although a few years in between have seen small spikes upward -- like 2009, which saw 709 shootings year-to-date, or 2012, when that number hit 715 -- Bratton contended:

"I do not anticipate at the end of the year that we are going to have an increase, but if we do I don't think it's going to be so significant to be of concern -- the idea that the sky is falling, or that the good old bad days are coming back again. Not at all. This is an incredibly safe city....

"This is nothing new. As you can see in years past we've had years where homicides went up, years past where shootings went up. The city didn't fall apart. It wasn't the end of the world. We addressed it the next year and it went down."

As for the idea that the city might revert to its pre-1990s high crime levels, John Jay College's O'Donnell said, "There's a little bit of a media element here. [The media] has been poised to write that story for 15 years....

"But having said that, there is a sense that when the cops are out there, the bad guys do know," he said.

The NYPD hasn't completely abandoned stop-and-frisk, though in the wake of a federal court's ruling that found the department was unconstitutionally using the policy to target minorities, the number of street stops have dropped dramatically.

In the first quarter of 2014, police officers conducted almost 14,300 street stops, with about 1,400 on Staten Island.

That number is a 93 percent drop from the 203,500 street stops conducted by police citywide in the first quarter of 2012. Roughly 6,900 of those stops were done on Staten Island.

At the height of the city's stop-and-frisk policy, criminals had taken to stashing "community guns" in easy-access hiding places to avoid getting caught with firearms.

One ranking NYPD source told the Advance last week that criminals are again taking to carrying guns, suggesting, "The day of the community gun is over."

Another NYPD source said individual officers worry that Local Law 71, which went into effect last August despite Bloomberg's attempts to veto it, will make them the subject of financially-crippling lawsuits based on actions taken as part of the job.

"If you're a police officer, and you see somebody's got a bulge in their pocket, and it happens to be a black or Hispanic or Latino person, unless you're really confident, you're not going to stop that person," the source said. "You have something to lose if you're wrong."

Even so the source said, "Stop-and-frisk with quotas is bad for the cops, it's bad for the community."

In a pair of posts on his public Facebook page, city Council Minority Leader Vincent Ignizio (R-South Shore) tied the increase in violence to the decline of stop-and-frisk.

The NYCLU, long a critic of the NYPD's stop-and-frisk policies, had a different take on the recent spike in shootings. In an interview with CBS News, NYCLU associate legal director Chris Dunn said, "There's no real relationship between stop-and-frisk and shootings... There's spikes in criminal activity all the time, and when you look at 12 years of data, the lack of relationship is quite clear."

Ignizio has also been pushing for the Police Department to add manpower to combat the shooting spike, as has the city's police union.

Last week, the union criticized the NYPD's "Operation All Out" -- which involves sending more than 600 rookie officers from the latest Police Academy class to high-crime areas and putting 313 officers currently on desk duty into patrol assignments.

"Operation All Out is a clear and unambiguous admission that the NYPD does not have enough police officers on patrol to curb gun violence, control crime and keep the city safe," said Patrolmen's Benevolent Association president Patrick J. Lynch.

"It is a last-ditch, band-aid response to the escalating gun violence and disorder in this city. City Hall has ignored the dramatically diminished staffing in the NYPD for well over a decade and now this administration is left to fix the problem. Hiring more police officers is critical to addressing this problem and it must begin immediately."

O'Donnell, meanwhile, said the practice of diverting police resources to high-crime areas often means taking them out of quieter neighborhoods.

"A community like Staten Island can suffer in that equation," he said.

As for the family of Devin Powell, the 23-year-old man slain on Arlington Place by South Avenue on July 6, "it just seems like insanity," said Danielle Ortiz, Powell's cousin.

"Where are the Council people? I don't understand, where are anybody responsible for this area?" Ms. Ortiz said. "It's not the cops' fault. I'm sorry, it's not NYPD's fault. Because what are they supposed to be there doing... if they're not allowed to stop anybody that looks suspicious? What are they going to do, just stand there?"