108th Pct. Auxiliary Officers Are March Cops Of The Month
BY THOMAS COGAN

The April meeting of the 108th Police Precinct Community Council featured another tribute to Auxiliary Police Officers Greg Baranowski and Thomas Massa, as Precinct Commander Captain Thomas Kavanagh named them Cops of the Month. The commander then did a crime report and took questions, as did Sergeant Tom Larson, who handled a traffic inquiry.

Auxiliary Sergeant Baranowski and Auxiliary P.O. Massa had been cited for meritorious service at the Sunnyside Chamber of Commerce luncheon a week earlier, but at the Community Council meeting, Kavanagh provided a fuller description of their actions of Thursday, March 29. On that day at 4:40 p.m., the two were alerted to a 1054 medical emergency in a building at 46th Avenue and Vernon Boulevard, where a man on the fourth floor had apparently suffered a heart attack. The two used a defibrillator and other cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) measures to revive the man, but he again stopped breathing and had no pulse. The two officers repeated the procedure until the victim was again brought to life. The man, who police later discovered was 46 years old, relatively young for the onset of heart problems, was rushed to Mt. Sinai Hospital in critical condition but survived. Kavanagh repeated his observation that the Auxiliary program at the 108th Precinct is the best he has seen. He said also that enrollment in the Auxiliaries had increased since two Auxiliary officers were killed in Greenwich Village in March by a man on a shooting rampage, who ultimately was shot dead by regular police.

The captain's crime report included two rapes for the month, both committed in the Mets Motel on Queens Boulevard. The apprehended suspects were from Rockland County. The number of robberies was lower, after having risen in the previous month. There were fewer felony assaults, several of them arising from family disputes, the captain said. There were fewer burglaries too, but Kavanagh said that burglary remains the leading crime in the precinct. The number of grand larcenies was up for the week, though it has been flat for the past few months. Grand larceny auto was down by one during the previous week, from four to three; for the month the decline was greater, going from 119 to 103.

Question time brought a complaint about all-hours noisemaking on 40th Street between Queens Boulevard and 47th Avenue, and another about rowdy behavior at the Rawson and Lowery Street stations of the No. 7 elevated train line when Aviation H.S. students get out of classes on weekday afternoons. Concerning the former, Kavanagh said he'd have the situation monitored. A complaint about traffic hazards on Borden and Review Avenues in industrial Long Island City brought Sergeant Tom Larson into the conversation. The point where Review enters Borden at an angle has no traffic light and is considered a great hazard to both vehicle operators and pedestrians. Larson said that a pedestrian had been hit and injured there during the previous week. He said he is all in favor of a traffic light and has submitted a traffic intelligence report to that effect. Thus far, however, the Department of Transportation has declined to act on it. He said he would resubmit a report.

A feature of the next meeting, on Tuesday, May 29, will be blood pressure readings.