Christian Spencer
Most NYPD precincts stage their annual turkey handouts as routine community-relations theater. The 116th Precinct in Queens flipped the script.
On Nov. 23, from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., roughly 100 residents lined up outside the precinct’s new headquarters at 244-04 North Conduit Avenue in Rosedale. They left with frozen birds, but many also filled out forms to stay connected: text-message alerts, seats on the neighborhood council, and a promise to keep talking long after the cameras packed up.
“It keeps people in check and order,” said Margaret Herbert, who lives on 22nd Street and waited for her bird. “They give to people — the people should be thankful for what they did.”
The block felt more like a block party than a police rollout. A DJ spun tracks next to the Long Island Rail Road station, hot chocolate steamed in the cold air, and an AT&T table pitched the newest iPhones.
Oversized inflatable turkeys and pumpkins swayed overhead while officers and volunteers handed out birds from a long table.
For Bill Perkins, the precinct’s community council president, the afternoon was as much about connection as it was about holiday help. “It’s our way of giving back to the community,” Perkins said. “We want to make sure there is a bond between the police and the community — that just works to everyone’s benefit.”
A banner from the Diller Family Foundation billed the giveaway as the first of many annual events, with a Christmas toy drive already on deck.
Then came the part that lingered. In front of the building stood a plaque: “IN MEMORY OF DETECTIVE JONATHAN E. DILLER,” the 31-year-old officer gunned down in Far Rockaway in March 2024. His name, now etched in stone, watched over the same southeast Queens streets he once patrolled.
Inside the tent, a community affairs officer took the mic first. “Times are hard,” he told the crowd. “We just want to give back and come together.”
He turned it over to Deputy Inspector Jean Beauvoir, commanding officer of the 116th, who promptly deflected credit to Lt. Frantz Chauvet. “He quarterbacked the whole thing,” Beauvoir said, drawing applause for the lieutenant’s late nights and longer days.
Beauvoir kept it brief. The precinct opened its doors last December after years of residents demanding better response times and closer ties. “We want this to be an annual tradition,” he said. “Support your precinct, support your officers. We’re going to give you our very best.”
Then he waved the line forward. “Let’s start it.”
While some appreciated the turkey and chicken, especially in light of national food insecurity, cynicism persisted as a man named Supreme Singh Master collected his bird while also harboring criticism of the newly opened station.
“I was at the community meeting on Wednesday and the officers from this precinct said that they were doing a giveaway,” Master said. “I don’t like coming to a precinct personally, but it beats a zero.”
It’s the kind of response, Perkins said, that explains why the NYPD’s community affairs team goes all out for its turkey and chicken giveaways.
That’s what the precinct council is about, is connecting the community with the NYPD. Our main objective is to make sure that there is a bond between the police and the community. And that just works to everyone’s benefit.” Perkins said.
“Their job is to protect and serve. Our job is to make sure that people know who they are, know what they’re doing. We remove obstacles to make this a better place.”
The turkeys moved, the music played on, and for two hours on a Saturday in November, the newest precinct in the city felt a little less like an outpost and a little more like home.
“I want them to take away at least they went through the trouble of providing the turkeys here. At least they went through that trouble. I would like everybody to think about it because they went through, you know, this took a lot of planning. So I’m happy to see that,” Master said.
