The Man to B’Stoner: Probies Have Been Here Forever

By on July 16, 2008 2:46 pm in News

As discussed here by some in the BHB community, the plan to move a Federal probation office to 147 Pierrepont across the street from St. Ann’s School is really no big deal.  Why? They’ve been here for years.  Brownstoner talks to “the man” who explains everything.  Now will ya calm down?

Brownstoner: Federal Probation Officer: In response to the story we broke last week about the federal parole office set to share a building with St. Ann’s School, Tony Garoppolo, Chief Probation Officer of the Eastern District, pictured above, forwarded us a letter he recently sent to parents defending the decision. “Our anonymity has been blown,” he told us, adding that his agency has been in the neighborhood, within walking distance from the court system, since the 1930s.

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  • http://www.mwscomp.com/movies/grail/grail-05.htm No One Of Consequence

    All of this “reasoning” will just make matters worse if, god forbid, anything were to happen.
    Just because it hasn’t happened in the agency’s history, doesn’t make them immune. (Yes, I know, waking up in the morning is presents its risks, too.)

  • brooklynkid

    I don’t like the tone of much of the discussion about the probation office: are we unwilling to let these former offenders back into society when it’s our own society we are talking about? Let them go “somewhere else”, is the dismissive response. As the court system is only blocks away, this neighborhood makes the most sense for the agency, as long as they take basic safety precautions. Either these parolees are re-entering society and have been deemed capable of doing so, or they are irredeemable and should be back behind bars. Perhaps their presence in some ways will be a valuable part of the education of those students, who one hopes are grateful that their own lives are not on such a precarious path.Brooklyn Friends school is practically on top of the courthouses and socail agencies, but you don’t hear anyone making a stink about it because Quakers believe in giving someone a second chance. To look at it from another point of view, we are graced by the presence of people determined to change their lives, which could serve as an example to us all.