On the walls of Assistant Chief Joseph Fox’s office in Flatbush, more than 60 photographs and plaques decorate the walls and more crowd the tabletops. Fox points first to the one of the West Indian Labor Day Carnival by his door to make a point about how he sees Brooklyn.

“We’re a borough who likes to be among crowds,” said Fox, 46, pointing again to pictures taken at picnics, Jewish weddings and other parades.

A Brooklyn native, Fox is one of the borough’s two chiefs who report to New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. He is responsible for implementing the city’s anti-crime policies in the 13 precincts that serve Patrol Borough Brooklyn South, which includes Flatbush, Crown Heights, Canarsie, Carroll Gardens, Prospect Park and Ditmas Park among its neighborhoods.

The patrol borough is home to more than half of Brooklyn’s 2.5 million residents, including the majority of Brooklyn’s estimated 89,000 Haitians and a police staff of about 3,000 people.

Fox faced several challenges during the two years he’s been assistant chief and is looking forward to a new one—implementing High Impact, the city’s latest initiative against crime.

“Safety,” Fox said, letting the word hang a little. “That is our basic responsibility.” New York’s crime rate dropped six percent last year, putting the city at an all-time record for consistent crime reduction, despite threats to the department’s budget. “We deal with what we have,” Fox said about the department’s budgets.

Crime is down citywide, though robberies, especially of livery cab drivers, persist. But Fox said he is optimistic, noting that 61 crimes occurred in the borough on a recent day, compared with about 130 a decade ago.

In his father’s footsteps

Growing up in Old Mill Basin, Fox admired his father, a police officer for more than 20 years. The family joke was to ask Little Joseph what his father’s job was. He would reply, “My dad don’t work, he’s a cop.”

Fox said his father encouraged young men to apply for a civil service test, so it was only natural for him to apply as well. He had a chance to join the Fire Department but entered the Police Academy instead.

It’s been a succession of promotions ever since. Fox does not have a favorite moment, opting instead to enjoy each one as it happens.

“I can’t believe how it gets better and better,” Fox said.

One of the key influences in his career was Lewis Miller, a veteran officer who taught the rookies how to treat people, victims and suspects with respect. As Miller’s protégé, he learned about building relationships with the residents of the communities they serve.

Fox likes to tell the story of how, as a rookie, he put on a stern face and squared his shoulders when he saw an intimidating man walking down Church Avenue. Miller who was sitting in the patrol car, recognized the man and they greeted each other warmly.

“Miller saw him for the human being that he is,” Fox said. “That’s the model of policing. There’s no reason to be a crime fighter without being able to work with the community.”

That lesson has stayed with Fox throughout his years in the force. As an officer, lieutenant, captain and commanding officer, Fox has been chosen on numerous occasions to reassure victims or smooth over the worries of community leaders. The police management institute he attended at Columbia University reinforced something that was already innate in him.

Some of those positions during his 21-year career have been high profile, in which media attention was focused on a particular issue. During the tense moments of the Crown Heights riot, after a Hasidic Jew hit a 7-year-old black boy with his car, Fox was assigned to that precinct as the community tried to do damage control.

He was named assistant chief in 2000, when the police department was under fire after a cop fatally shot Patrick Dorismond, an unarmed Haitian-American man.

Mending, building relations

When he arrived at his office on top of Snyder Avenue’s 67th precinct in Flatbush, just a few blocks from the Catholic church where Dorismond’s funeral was held, Fox had his work cut out for him.

The funeral was complete with protesters and placards with all kinds of names for cops. Days later, beaten effigies of police officers still hung on Church Avenue’s electric cables. The predominantly Haitian community remained angry, fearful and mistrustful of the police. Some continue to harbor such feelings and there have been additional shootings and harassment by police, throughout the city, including in the 67th precinct.

Fox’s response: Put the community affairs team out there to mend and build relations; implement the city’s cultural sensitivity trainings; and meet with community activists to reassure them.

Sgt. Hervé Guiteau, a supervising officer at Brooklyn South Community Affairs, came aboard Fox’s team about 18 months ago to serve as a liaison between the Haitian community and the police department.

“[Fox] really believes in community-police relations,” said Guiteau, who lectures at Haitian venues and makes regular appearances on Haitian radio and television shows. “He sees the value of talking to everybody and he wants everybody to be represented. That’s why I’m here.”

Things have calmed down a bit, though anti-cop sentiment surged last January when a Haitian man, Georgy Louisgene, was gunned down by two officers in the precinct that houses Patrol Borough South’s offices. Fox said officers and the department must keep working to develop and strengthen relations.

“The day we look at that and say, ‘It’s enough,’ that’s the day we’re going to fail,” he said. We have to see everything as a drop in the bucket. It’s our obligation to build trust.”

And that takes a lot of time. Married to his wife Eileen for 16 years, and the father of two, Elizabeth, 8, and Joseph, 13, Fox is always busy. The drawings of him by his kids, one with a phone by his ear, and the other one saying, “Get my phone,” attest to that, but Fox, now a Marine Park resident, said he tries to make the most of his time with them.

Fox knows the importance of family. He has spent much of his time with families from various racial and ethnic backgrounds since the attacks on the World Trade Center. His nephew and godson, Michael, was lost in that tragic event.

A picture of the young man is on the wall right next to Fox’s chair, along with 16 funeral cards from memorial services and burials, and pictures of the lost ones’ families.

“We’re all really here, it’s all about what we can do for each other,” Fox said.

The sentiment not only applies to comforting people during times of grief but also in regular times, daily. Patrol Borough Brooklyn South has a very large immigrant population, comprised overwhelmingly of Caribbean, Middle Eastern and Jewish residents.

Fox said these communities have to work with their precincts, tipping off the cops when they witness criminal activity in order to better the quality of life.

“We depend on people to be our eyes and ears,” he said.

The patrol borough will fold in about 200 new cops at the end of next month. They will work alongside experienced officers in areas that have the highest incidents of crime. They will be assigned to foot patrol in places that have a lot of people, and in the commercial zones, such as north of Church Avenue up to Parkside Avenue and the Vanderveer projects.

“I hope that the person who reads this will see Hervé on a community program and know who to call,” he said. “I ask people to test us because you belong. This precinct is your house.”