Attempted Deception Burglary Leads to Huge Police Response

Details of Maspeth Incident Provided at COP 104 Meeting

By Conor Greene

Crime is down and arrests are up in the area so far this year, according to the
104th Precinct, which was able to fight back from a spike in incidents that occurred earlier this year.

So far this year, major crime is down 4.6 percent in the precinct, which covers Maspeth, Middle Village, Glendale and Ridgewood, according to Lt. James Lombardi of the Special Operations Unit. At the same time, arrests are up throughout the precinct, he told residents at the monthly COP 104 session, which was held during last week’s Juniper Park Civic Association meeting.

While felony assaults are up 32 percent this year, there have been a total of 31 arrests in connection with the 41 assaults reported this year, according to Lombardi, who estimated that 90 percent are domestic in nature. After a large spike earlier this year, burglaries are up just one percent, or one additional incident, compared with the same time last year.

“We were able to get that under control recently,” said Lombardi of the spike in crime that occurred throughout the precinct in the first few months of 2010. One bright spot, he added, is graffiti arrests, which have risen 437 percent this year. There have been 43 graffiti busts so far, compared with just eight at the same time last year. “Everybody is doing their job. It does take some time because we have to identify the tags.” He said that three individuals recently served jail time after being arrested on graffiti charges.

A resident asked about a huge police response last Thursday on 73rd Street near 57th Avenue, when a number of squad cars and a helicopter descended on the neighborhood.

Officer Tommy Bell from the precinct’s Community Affairs Unit explained that huge turnout was in response to a report at about 10:30 a.m. of an attempted burglary. An individual who claimed to be a Department of Environmental Protection employee fled the scene when the homeowner became suspicious, leading to the huge response.

According to Bell, the incident was consistent with past deception burglary attempts that have taken place both within the confines of the 104th Precinct and across the city. Any ongoing citywide crime patterns tend to result in a large response from law enforcement, he added.