108th Precinct Cops Nab Suspected Serial Burglar
BY THOMAS COGAN

Three officers assigned to the 108th Police Precinct were named Cop of the Month at the March meeting of the 108th Police Precinct Community Council. All the award recipients were cited for their efforts in arresting a possible serial burglar on St. Patrick's Day. The precinct commander's crime report revealed that the arrested person is part of a rising trend, since burglaries have increased considerably in the precinct lately. Familiar topics were also brought up again, among them graffiti, Midtown Express and a disruptive resident of 54th Street.

Precinct Commander Captain Matthew Whelan said that the early morning arrest of a burglary suspect on March 17 has evidently broken a chain of burglaries involving theft of construction equipment. Construction vans and buildings containing equipment such as jackhammers had been broken into recently, and by March 15, the commander had gathered enough intelligence to put together a plan of action. Shortly after 3 a.m. on March 17, a report came in about a possible break-in at 34-30 57th St. Responding to the call, Sergeant Brendan McCaffrey and Patrol Officers Ken Mantone and Thomas Brennan went to the address and climbed to the second floor level to trap the person inside and arrest him. Since then, police have been checking the possibility the suspect could be linked to the other burglaries. For their quick and efficient work, McCaffrey, Mantone and Brennan were presented with Cop of the Month plaques.

Whelan's March crime report was entirely free of murder and rape, but burglaries had jumped some 160 percent, and felony assaults were again on the rise. He said that several youths in an alleged ring were arrested in Jackson Heights recently and charged with burglary; one of them was from Woodside. These criminal deeds were done in the winter, not in the warm weather that is supposed to provide opportunity for burglaries because of windows left open. Since the warm weather is coming, so are burglaries, the captain warned. Officer Louis Cimento, the precinct's safety specialist, cautioned the audience about becoming slack and careless and advised his hearers not to leave windows or doors unlocked when they leave a house or apartment. Also, he said, report the presence of strangers whose behavior arouses suspicion, especially if that behavior includes looking in windows.

Before opening the meeting for questions, Whelan introduced Lew Story, Sunnyside resident and anti-graffiti activist, who said that on Saturday, April 29, he and several others would again conduct a cleanup campaign, painting over or scrubbing off accessible graffiti in Sunnyside. It was a call for volunteers to join them. All are to meet on the northeast corner of 48th Street and Skillman Avenue.

One of the first persons speaking at question time was Al Volpe, a Community Board 2 member, who brought up the matter of the man living on 54th Street near Roosevelt Avenue who reportedly has been making life acutely unpleasant for his neighbors for the last few weeks. Volpe said he "has destroyed a whole block" with his behavior. There was a rumor that he attacked a child and a report that he threw a bottle at a DOE Fund worker; but the worker did not press charges and the other story is apparently unsubstantiated. Other than that, he has spent time under observation at the Elmhurst Medical Center's psychiatric facility but has been released. The captain and Detective Glenn Yule have become quite familiar with him. Both told Volpe that since the man has not been accused of any specific crime, he cannot be arrested.

Another persistent problem is that of truck parking on Tyler Avenue south of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. One resident complained that a tractor/trailer truck had been there for two weeks straight. Whelan and Yule said that trucks are ticketed constantly on Tyler Avenue, yet drivers persist in parking them there. The man asked if they might be off the truck routes and thus illegally astray, but Whelan said they might not be, since drivers are given latitude to make deliveries. Of that problem in general, Whelan said: "I've been here over two years and haven't come up with a solution." Another man wondered about Midtown Express, a trucking company on industrial 43rd Street that has been castigated for having irresponsible drivers; he made reference to a recent traffic accident involving the company in which a woman was hit and badly injured. He noticed that Midtown Express has Ohio license tags, and asked if this might be a clue to its alleged irresponsibility. Not necessarily, both Whelan and Yule said, since many companies operating locally have trucks with out-of-state tags. Whelan thanked the man for providing photographs and other information that helped police to trace the burglar arrested on 57th Street, in the Cops of the Month case, but he could provide no conclusions about Midtown Express, which, he added, would soon be relocating to facilities a few blocks from 43rd Street. The captain did perhaps provide the man with a little schadenfreude (glee at another's misfortune), though he said he didn't mean to condone crime, when he told him that Midtown Express has twice been the victim of recent burglaries.

Three other recipients of last month's Sugar Plum awards for meritorious achievement in the precinct during 2005 were present at the March meeting to accept their framed certificates of appreciation. Eileen Auld, vice president of community relations, accepted the award to Citibank. Cheri Sabolenki of Police Officers' Quarterly took the award presented to that publication. And Doris Nowillo Suda, fundraiser and YMCA board member among other things, accepted the award presented to Good Stuff LLC, the toy company on Northern Boulevard of which she is a sales representative.