LITTLE HAITI — One by one, youthful boxers streamed into Brooklyn’s NYC Cops & Kids Boxing eager to get busy pursuing their dreams of pugilistic excellence.

Soon, the gym, located in a basement at the massive Flatbush Gardens housing development, was filled with aspiring boxers ranging in age from 12 to 21, including a few young women.

But before any of them began warming up, sparring, or lifting weights, they had to complete one specific task. Each boxer immediately went to every other person in the gym to exchange handshakes, fist bumps, or nods of acknowledgement.

The courtesy was extended to everyone in the sweltering space, including teammates, coaches — even this newspaper reporter visiting on the morning of July 7. 

They’ve been greeting each other that way “since day one” in 1985, said Pat Russo, director of NYC Cops & Kids Boxing.

“I think it’s good for kids to do that,” Russo said. “It’s clearly a cultural thing that we try to promote.”

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Russo, a retired NYPD sergeant, said gym members are also held to other “simple” standards. For example, he said, 50 push ups is the consequence for anyone “sagging” their pants.

“It’s just to teach them to respect themselves and, more importantly, to respect everybody else in the place,” Russo said.

The organization has three other locations — two on Staten Island and one in the Bronx, which opened in May.

Russo grew up in Brooklyn, where he attended the parishes of St. Frances Cabrini and the Shrine of St. Bernadette. He and his wife, JoAnne, who have three adult children, belong to Our Lady Help of Christians in Tottenville, Staten Island, where they reside. Russo played baseball and football for CYO programs and in high school. However, he said he never boxed until 1984 when he was in the police academy.

“I saw a sign that said, ‘Join the NYPD boxing team,’ ” he said. “I showed up there, and I just fell in love with the sport.”

Russo won his first fight before a sold-out crowd at Madison Square Garden, where the NYPD team faced the New York Fire Department’s team. 

After graduating from the academy, Russo was assigned to the 72nd Precinct, which included his patrol beat — Sunset Park. The neighborhood, he said, was rife with drugs and gangs, which resulted in a crackdown by police. 

Community leaders applauded the arrests and subsequent convictions, but urged police to also create intervention programs.

“We said, ‘You know, they’re 100% right,’ ” Russo recalled. “And the [72nd Precinct] was chosen for a community policing program that was a pilot program for the entire city.”

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Russo was then assigned to work with community leaders and the city’s parks department to develop alternative activities for at-risk youth — ones that would also teach self-discipline, respect for themselves and others, and sportsmanship.

“Politicians backed us,” he said, “and that was the start of the Cops & Kids Boxing.” 

Community policing, Russo explained, is “common sense policing” that engages residents with respect and appreciation for their human dignity — lessons he learned as a youth listening to Sunday homilies.

Russo said thousands of kids joined the program over the years, and some of them have gone on to boxing greatness, like Nisa Rodriguez, an NYPD officer who oversees the community affairs office in Flatbush Gardens.

Rodriguez, a former teacher, qualified as an Olympic boxer for Puerto Rico in 2018, but a blood clot forced her to withdraw from the competition. Now, she is a professional middleweight fighter ranked third in the world by the World Boxing Association.

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The program, which Russo admits has become more successful than he ever imagined, has become a beacon of hope and empowerment.

“To have Olympians and world-champion fighters — that wasn’t the goal. The goal was to keep the kids off the street,” he said. “As the old saying goes, ‘If you build it, they will come.’ And they came in droves. Many of them have gone on to become police officers, firefighters, and teachers.

“Just champions, in and out of the ring.”