The seasonal return of gun violence — a foreign idea to some New Yorkers but a familiar one in the city’s crime-troubled communities — has come early this year to the northernmost neighborhoods of the Bronx: eight killings, five this month, compared with a single murder at this time last year. The number of shootings has nearly doubled.

The rise in violence is challenging NYPD precinct commanders to put Chief William Bratton's collaborative policing strategies into action.

NYPD spokesman, Stephen Davis, told the New York Times that the precinct commander here is aggressively experimenting, and, in the process, providing a blueprint for how Bratton’s “collaborative policing” might be translated to the street. “We want people who think on their feet”, Davis said. “This style of thing is going to be something that Bratton is in favor of.”