Despite Major Arrests, 66th Precinct Crime Keeps Climbing
Capping his first spring as the 66th Precinct’s Commander, Capt. Kenneth Quick announced at the June 25 Community Council meeting, the last of the season, that the precinct had made 12 burglary collars in the past month, compared to just one at the same time last year. That’s the good news. The bad was the 20 burglaries committed in the 66th during the past 28-day period. Quick called it “concerning.”
Robberies are also creeping up, he said, although here, too, the precinct has made what Quick called “good arrests,” and overall, robbery is down 5.9 percent for the year.
“Right now our crime in the 28-day period is up,” Commander Quick said of the precinct, which covers Kensington, Borough Park and part of Midwood.
But to keep that uptick in perspective, he repeated what NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton’s been saying recently: you have to look at the stats over the long period. Compared with 2013, “the overall trend is still going down.” According to the most recent CompStat report, major crime in the 66th Precinct has dropped by 9.32 percent over the past two years.
Praising the work of the patrol and detective squads, Commander Quick said that in two incidents, with citizen help, they’d made really “good” burglary arrests, in one case busting a perp that the precinct believes has committed other crimes.
Other arrests included seven people caught by the night Anti-Crime unit for burglaries at local businesses, and one by the day squad — as photographed here — who, along with some 70th Precinct officers, the K-9 cop, and a helicopter hovering above, chased after and captured a perp stealing packages of vitamins from doorsteps on Dahill Road and Story Street. What started as a robbery was charged as “burglary” because the perp hid out in a house.
The “Cops of the Month” citation went to two officers, Joel Ramirez and Jason Alter, who were called in to settle what they thought was a fight, but discovered was an armed robbery of a florist shop at Avenue J and McDonald Avenue on May 29. The saleswomen started to open the cash register as the thief demanded, when the store owner intervened and fought the perp to get hold of his .22 caliber revolver. The officers captured the firearm and the perp without incident.
Commander Quick urged neighbors to be particularly careful as they prepare to leave for upcoming trips. Burglary is a difficult crime to solve, he pointed out and, without a camera, there are no witnesses. So, rather than returning to a ravished home after an extended summer vacation, he recommended taking precautionary steps beforehand. For example, he suggested installing a motion detector, mounting air conditioning units with screws and brackets so they can’t be pushed through the window to gain entrance to your home, and not letting newspapers pile up at your front door. For good measure, lock fire escape and basement windows and porch doors before you leave.
One further step would be to make an appointment with the precinct’s crime prevention officer, P.O. Michael Riomao, at (718) 851–5620. Officer Riomao will gladly come to your home, evaluate its vulnerabilities,= and suggest simple preventive measures.
To deal with a slight uptick in grand larceny, i.e., theft of unattended property, Commander Quick advised not leaving your purse in your shopping cart.
The precinct’s new Traffic Officer, Sgt. Hook, reported the 66th has increased the number of summons it issued in the past 28 days for hazardous moving and “failure to yield” violations to 50, compared to 44 last year.
When the public got a chance to speak, four people talked about motor vehicles. The fifth complained that slow-moving pedestrians who stop mid-block at Ocean Parkway and Avenue L were a danger to motorists.
Other trouble spots were the endless illegal left turns at McDonald and Avenue N; double-parked cars at McDonald between Avenues O and P, in crosswalks, at bus stops and hydrants (with sometimes as many as 40 vehicles being double-parked, especially on Thursday evenings from 10-12 pm); a fast-moving left-turning driver in flagrant disregard of the white crosswalk sign (and the pedestrian in it) at Dahill Road and Caton Avenue; an auto-leasing company at McDonald and E. 2nd Street allegedly using the street as his parking lot for unregistered cars; and another 20 cars parked at Avenue O and Kings Highway preventing the valet service from parking its clients.
A woman said her brother-in-law was injured by an unlicensed motorized scooter on Church Avenue and taken to the hospital in an ambulance. She claimed these scooters run rampant along Church Avenue and the cops do nothing to enforce the licensing law or the helmet requirement. Quick said this was the first he had heard of the incident, but he promised to check it out.
The NYPD ‘s new police program will include fewer, but bigger, precinct sectors (the 66th has 13). The goal is to assign more cops to a home sector where they will get to know the local businesses, the neighbors, and the sector’s concerns, and vice versa, and spend less time chasing radio calls all over the precinct. Quick demurred when asked whether this means Kensington is going to get a beat cop. Only time will tell.
Meanwhile the annual National Night Out Against Crime will be held from 6-9 pm at the 66th Precinct house at 5822 16th Avenue, at the corner of 60th Street on Tuesday, August 4th. Monthly Council meetings resume Thursday, September 17 at 7:30 pm at Community Board 12’s office, located at 5910 13th Avenue in Borough Park.