A Devastating Fire In Midwood, Attack At The McDonald’s, Murder On Flatbush & More Notes From The 70th Precinct Community Council Meeting

“It’s been a hard week,” Deputy Inspector Richard DiBlasio said at the beginning of the 70th Precinct Community Council’s meeting last Wednesday evening, as those in the crowd nodded their heads, some of them wiping away tears with the thought of the conversation to come.

After seven children died in a Midwood house fire, DiBlasio’s sentiment was one that was echoed by many of the meeting’s speakers, a number of whom had been at the tragic blaze that was the city’s deadliest fire in eight years.

“I usually start this off with a little humor, but I know a lot of us are sitting here broken-hearted,” said Rabbi Perlstein, the 70th Precinct’s clergy liaison.

The rabbi noted the hard work of the FDNY, the NYPD, community members, civic leaders, and others to help the Sassoon family in the wake of the fire.

“We saw communities getting together, people getting together… because they really felt for each other as human beings,” the rabbi said. “I really think we owe a great debt of gratitude to our own deputy inspector [and other members of the 70th Precinct] — they put their heart and soul into this.”

“I was out there — it was very hard to see and grasp,” DiBlasio, the commanding officer of the 70th Precinct, said of the fire.

“May nobody ever have to go through that,” he continued.

In addition to the Midwood fire, DiBlasio spoke of the other difficult situations that have happened in the precinct, including the horrifying attack at a Flatbush Avenue McDonald’s, an 18-year-old who was killed on Flatbush Avenue, a toddler who was shot on Rugby Road, and two individuals being shot at Clarkson and Bedford Avenues.

“In the McDonald’s incident, there was that horrible video that individuals took rather than going out and helping — they were more interested in social media,” DiBlasio said of the cell phone footage of six teenage girls viciously beating a 15-year-old girl. “If anything can be learned from that, it’s to please call 911 and help the individual who needs help.

“However, the detectives and police department did a wonderful job — we apprehended six individuals,” the commanding officer continued.”I hope that doesn’t ever happen again; we have to teach the young ones, and sometimes the older ones, it’s more important to get somebody help than to get a great shot.”

DiBlasio also said they “have a lot of detectives” assigned to the case of the toddler who was shot on Rugby on March 21. According to the NYPD, a 22-year-old man, Jimmy Jerome, who lives on Rugby Road between Newkirk and Foster Avenues, has been arrested in connection to the toddler being shot and has been charged with felony criminal possession of a weapon and misdemeanor criminal possession of a weapon.

“About 11 minutes later [after the toddler was shot], we had another shooting happen, unrelated, on Flatbush by Snyder,” DiBlasio said of the murder of Donel Andrew, 18. “We had an individual who was shot by several other individuals. Unfortunately this individual passed away. Detectives put out a photo of three individuals we’re looking for.”

No one has been arrested in the teen’s death, and police said the investigation is ongoing.

As for the shooting of two individuals on Clarkson and Bedford around 5:10pm on Monday, March 23, the 70th Precinct has released a photo of the individual who is wanted in connection to this incident. The two people who were shot were treated at the hospital and released, police said.

Other highlights from the 70th Precinct Community Council meeting include:

• The 70th Precinct, along with the 71st and 67th Precincts, are some of the first precincts in the five boroughs to test a new NYPD technology, called ShotSpotter, which the city just rolled out this month. A gunshot detection program, the new system picks up gunshots that are fired and immediate reports the location to units in the field. “It’s much quicker than 911,” DiBlasio said.

• Numerous car break-ins have been reported in the precinct, the commanding officer said. “People leave wallets, credit cards, jewelry, attache cases with laptops, laptops just sitting there… Make sure you don’t leave anything visible. Your car is not really safe — they’ll just pop the window, or you leave the car unlocked and they go in,” DiBlasio said.

• Sergeant Jose Baez and Officers Brian Festo, and Jason Warfield, were honored as the community councils police of the month for arresting four individuals who are part of an ongoing investigation. While the commanding officer was unable to give many specifics about the case because it is ongoing, he did say that the cops pulled over a vehicle that “had a felony alarm on it,” meaning “it was involved in something really bad.” “They stopped these individuals, apprehended them and took them into custody,” DiBlasio said. “The results of this apprehension is helping an ongoing investigation — it’s helping it so much that it’ll help solve it.”

• DiBlasio urged individuals to pass on information about the Green Dot Moneypak scam, which he said still frequently occurs throughout the city. As part of the scam, an individual will call and say they are from a utility company or the Internal Revenue Service and need to collect a debt. They will often threaten the individual, often a senior citizen, with the loss of their heat or electricity if they do not pay the so-called debt. To find out more about this scam, go here.

• Community Council President Ed Powell announced the Church Avenue Street Fair, which is co-presented by the council and co-sponsored by the Church Avenue Business Improvement District, CAMBA, and others, will be held on Sunday, April 26 from 12pm to 6pm. The event is held on Church Avenue, from Coney Island Avenue to Argyle Road. If you want to be a vendor at the fair, or want more information about it in general, you can call the BID at 718-282-2500 extension 79234.

• The precinct’s Executive Officer Anthony Sanseverino reported the 70th has seen a large drop in the number of pedestrian accidents because of Vision Zero, a program rolled out by Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration. He noted that the precinct, along with Community Board 14 and other civic leaders, has undertaken numerous pedestrian safety initiatives, including making crosswalks “clearer and safer” at the Flatbush Nostrand junction. Additionally, Sanseverino said at “the axis of all evil in the 70th Precinct — Church and Flatbush, there’s a real in-depth plan to change the traffic pattern there.

• A neighbor who lives on Rugby Road and Ditmas said that about once every three weeks he hears “a lot of rapid gunfire.” “A couple weeks ago, I counted 31 shots — it’s hard to tell where they’re coming from, maybe the Newkirk Plaza area,” he said. DiBlasio said the new ShotSpotter program should be able to help with this issue.

• Juan de la Cruz, who owns the McDonald’s at Parkside and Ocean Avenues, said “things are getting worse and worse” at his restaurant. According to de la Cruz, individuals will “come, not eat anything or buy a coffee and want to spend four, five hours there. This is really bad. It’s happening all day.” DiBlasio said the precinct would help him, “but you have to help yourself too — you need security.”

• Community Council Secretary Nathan Thompson asked DiBlasio what has happened to the officers whose beat it was to be liaisons to area businesses, noting that “it sounds like there aren’t beats anymore.” “There are officers who go out and keep contact with the community and the commercial establishments,” DiBlasio responded. The commanding officer said that he’d “love to have police officers condensed to a smaller area, and I think that’ll come down the road” because NYPD Commissioner William Bratton is focusing on that.

The next meeting of the 70th Precinct Community Council will be held April 29 at a new location, likely at St. Paul’s Church, located at the corner of Church Avenue and St. Paul’s Place.