Officer’s Integrity Earns Cop Of The Month Award
By Thomas Cogan

At the November meeting of the 108th Police Precinct Community Council, the precinct was hailed as the safest in the city. That claim, which had been made previously, was tested during the month by two killings, one of them the topic of wide media coverage for several days. In addition, Precinct Commander Captain Matthew Whelan’s crime report was not the picture of perfection. Otherwise, the meeting included a Cop of the Month award, a ceremony for five Auxiliary Police officers and a few contributions from the audience that, as usual during the question period, added to the picture of life in the precinct’s neighborhoods.

The Cop of the Month award honored an officer who adhered to standards of honesty in the face of temptation. He was helped out, so to speak, by an alleged perpetrator who insisted on adding to the charges already brought against him. On Friday evening, November 11, Patrol Officer Ron Casazza was sent to La Guardia Community College to apprehend a robbery suspect named Gonzalez, who was being held by the school’s security force. On the way to the precinct station, Gonzalez told Officer Casazza that if he were let go, he would give the officer half the goods he claimed he had stolen from the P.C. Richard electronics appliance store on Steinway Street. Casazza instead took Gonzalez in for arrest and reported the offer that was made to him. Gonzalez continued to make the offer to others after being arrested; but it was the first person to turn him down, Patrol Officer Ron Casazza, who won Cop of the Month honor.

A contingent of perhaps 15 Auxiliary Police officers was on hand to cheer the five award winners, who were cited for having passed the thousand-hour point of service. Whelan, who several months ago said the auxiliary force in the 108th is the best he has seen in his career, reported that its numbers have grown. The auxiliaries help the regular police in activities ranging from crime fighting to security. Many served in the latter capacity during the recent annual New York City Marathon. The awards, presented by Officer José Torres of the 108th, went to Auxiliary Sergeant Gary Canns, who had accumulated 1,397 hours of service; Sgt. José Rios, 1,250 hours; Auxiliary Patrol Officer Kareem Lashkar, 1,155 hours; Sgt. Dan Exler, 1,133 hours, and Officer Alexander Levy, 1,017 hours.

The captain’s crime report was largely positive: robberies are down slightly, and he described burglaries as “flat,” which is usually a business euphemism for poor sales, but in this case meant that the numbers have remained fairly constant. For the nearly expired year, the index crime rate is down 17 percent. This was good news, but didn’t help anyone to forget two fatal incidents that occurred in recent days. In the first, on Tuesday, November 15, a man was shot to death on Queens Boulevard near 40th Street, and his killer fled. Captain Whelan had nothing to report on the case. The second incident occurred at about 5 a.m. Sunday, November 27 on the outbound platform at the 52nd Street/Lincoln Avenue station of the No. 7 line, and was quickly treated as a bleeds-&-leads item by the metropolitan news media. Two men, apparently friends, were in a dispute on the platform as a Flushing train entered the station from the previous stop, Bliss Street. One pushed the other from the platform to the tracks, where he was killed under the train’s wheels. The survivor faces a second-degree murder charge. These incidents did not discourage Woodside resident Peter O’Donnell from declaring that since Whelan’s arrival as commander of the precinct in 2004, quality of life in the precinct area has improved remarkably.

The captain called for questions or complaints about relevant matters. Joe Rusalski of the United Forties Civic Association talked about the garbage truck situation in the vicinity of 55th Avenue between 48th and 50th Streets. It had been bad for a while, he said, but became outrageous during the Thanksgiving holiday period. The block has become a trash transfer point, with some trucks coming in from as far away as Nassau and Suffolk counties Rusalski said. He added that during the four-day holiday period he counted 21 trucks, all of them the source of much noise, traffic congestion and odor. He said also that he made a call to the 311 information line and spent most of it jousting with an operator who didn’t seem to take his complaint seriously. The captain did, and said the precinct could reach out to other agencies, such as the Department of Environmental Protection, in an effort to end this problem. After Rusalski spoke, a young man who recently took up residence on 49th Street between 39th and Skillman Avenues said he has found the scene outside his Sunnyside Gardens door more disruptive than he expected it would be when he first moved in. People park in cars and play loud music beside the fire hydrant near his house, and, he said, other people in cars arrive and seem to do business with those who come to lean in their windows; business that looks drug-oriented to him. He said he occasionally hears hurried foot traffic in one of the corridors between 49th and 48th Streets that further indicates something illicit is going on. Captain Matthew Hyland of Patrol Borough Queens North, a narcotics officer in command of a team working within the 108th and 114th Precincts, was present and expressed interest in the man’s story but said he would need much more specific information. Hyland made a general appeal to those who phone in information about narcotics activity: try to be as specific as you can, and remain anonymous if you believe you have to.

Officer Louis Chimento, the precinct safety specialist, advised shoppers to be on the lookout for pickpockets, purse-snatchers and bunco artists with schemes requiring an instant investment of money. He said that identification numbers can now be applied to cell phones and i-Pods and he was prepared to inscribe these devices that very evening if anyone would bring him a phone or a music system.

As usual, there is no December community council meeting, though the precinct holiday party for children will take place Saturday, December 17. The next community council meeting is January 31, 2006.