April 2, 2010 By Christian Murray
New York’s major tabloid newspapers have been reporting that crime is up throughout the city. Unfortunately, Precinct 108, which covers Woodside, Sunnyside and Long Island City, is no different.
In the last 28-days, Deputy Inspector Thomas Kavanagh reported that crime jumped 26% over the same period one-year earlier. A spike in “burglaries”, “felony assaults” and “grand larceny autos” accounted for the large jump in the figures.
Furthermore, like in other NYC precincts, the number of cops on this precinct’s beat has dropped. Kavanagh said “we are down” and speculated that the number of cops might have dropped about 5% from last year.
There was one murder in the precinct in the past month, which involved a shaken baby. There were two rapes, where both the perpetrator and victim knew one another. One of those cases was a statutory rape.
While there were nine robberies, the same as last year, Kavanagh said there appears to be one person responsible for many of them. He said that a man, who operates in the Woodside neighborhood targets mainly Asian women awaiting buses and trains; the perpetrator then pushes the women to the ground and takes off with their bags.
The number of felony assaults jumped to 15, up from the 5 incidents that were reported during the same period last year. Most were domestic in nature, although there were a couple of bar fights.
Burglaries spiked to 24, up from 13 last year. There were commercial burglaries where stores such as GameStop in Sunnyside and a nearby KFC were targeted. However, there was an upswing in residential burglaries, particularly between Queens Blvd. and 50th Ave in the Sunnyside/Woodside neighborhoods. Kavanagh said many of these victims left their fire escape windows open.
Grand Larcenies declined to 39, from 46 last year. Many of these crimes involved property stolen out of vehicles.
Grand larceny autos remain stubbornly high. There were 21 cases this month, compared to 14 for the same period last year. This month new vehicles, such as 2010 Toyota Higherlanders, were targeted.
Big events such as the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Sunnyside and Woodside went without incident.
3 Comments
Melissa is correct, but in our apt the joke is, if you need a cop run directly to the chicken joint on 46th and GP – at least a 50/50 chance a couple of cops are in there eating. Other than that, there is close to ZERO police presence in the area, and when there is, as Monkia said, it is always a car passing through.
You know it is bad when you are literally surprised to see a cop car roll down the block. It’s sad that under bloomberg the priorities are on over-development so rich friends benefit, instead of important issues like cops, schools, transit and hospitals.
The problem will only get worse we end up w. 12 story towers along the boulevard, because you know the city won’t compensate w. additional manpower at the 108.
I agree with Melissa. It’s been well over a year, when my neighbors were burgled, since I’ve seen a police officer on foot. And on the scarce occasions that I have seen them, they’ve been in a car. I’m not saying that they’re aren’t doing their jobs–I’m just speaking to their (noticeable) absence in my neck of Sunnyside.
So many of these random crimes could be eliminated if there was a police presence on the streets. The only time I ever see cops in Sunnyside is if they’re at Dunkin Donuts (so not a joke…) or if there’s a late-night brawl in the bar across from my apt bldg. Where are they the rest of the time?