108th Police Precinct Gets New Commander
BY THOMAS COGAN

The November meeting of the 108th Police Precinct Community Council was mainly an occasion for the new precinct commander to introduce himself-and also make clear the spelling of his name. The new commander is Captain Thomas Kavanagh, who succeeds Deputy Inspector Matthew Whelan, now the commander of the 109th Police Precinct in Flushing. The meeting also featured the annual warning about thieves who prey on holiday shoppers, and the announcement that Detective Glenn Yule, who has become a prominent spokesman for the precinct, and who was present at the meeting in that capacity, had that day been advanced to the rank of detective second grade.

The new commander stood before the meeting to say that he is a native of the Woodlawn section of The Bronx and a member of the Police Department since July 1984. He was first assigned to The Bronx and spent several years in that borough's precincts before being transferred to Manhattan in the 1990s. He became a sergeant in 1992, a lieutenant in 1997 and a captain in 2000 (on the same date in November as that of the meeting, he recalled aloud). He was in the Manhattan Borough North precincts covering Harlem and Times Square, being in the latter place when he was appointed commander of the 108th Precinct, his first assignment in Queens. His first duty after introducing himself was to read the latest crime statistics, but as a preface to that he said, "We read off these statistics all the time, but what people really want to know about is not just whether crime is up or down, but what can be done for them on their own corners."

He began the report by saying that there were no murders within the precinct's boundaries in the past month. The number of burglaries declined, he said, but he had been informed they had been on the rise in recent months. He said residents should be aware that most burglars live in the local area and spend much of their time checking out opportunities to break into homes and apartments, looking for the combination of easy access and residents' absence. Residents must make access difficult, and toward that end he offered police inspections of homes to point out how best to protect against break-ins. He further reported that car thefts were higher in number during the month, and added that models from the 1990s were favorite targets, being useful to thieves who would put them onto the chop shop-foreign resale circuit.

Officer Louis Cimento issued a list of warnings for holiday shoppers, telling women to hold their purses rather like footballs to prevent thieves from either picking them clean or simply snatching them. Kavanagh then described methods of pick pocketing in the vicinity of Macy's on 34th Street in Manhattan, which has entrances on both Broadway and Seventh Avenue. There, he said, some thieves will follow a targeted victim for blocks, opening a purse or backpack so gradually that the victim can't feel anything happening. By the time he or she is aware of having been robbed, the commander said, "the thief could be in New Jersey". Cimento warned against buzzing someone into one's apartment house without finding out who that person is. He added, however, that police called to apartments often press several tenants' buttons, knowing one or more of them are bound to buzz them in. Telephone swindles were also referred to, and Yule advised the audience to beware the "county clerk" scheme, whereby somebody phones to tell you that your jury duty records are in disarray, or some such pitch, with the ultimate aim of obtaining the targeted victim's address and Social Security number. Hang up on such people, he said, and also dismiss anyone phoning on behalf of a policemen's brotherhood.

The question period was brief. One man asked what the police could do about a disruptive tenant. Kavanagh told him the police are not the final arbiters in such matters; with rare exceptions, the police don't throw tenants out of their apartments. And inevitably, someone asked about a new station house to replace the one at 50th Avenue, near Vernon Boulevard, in Long Island City. Community Council President Diane Ballek answered that question by saying that people have brought it up constantly in the 12 years she has held office, but plans for a new station house are nowhere in sight.