108th Precinct's Lieutenant Wierzbicki A Real Hero
BY LIZ GOFF

It began simply enough, with a misplaced mark on a police crime report form- an error that would change a Queens businessman's perception of police work and of the men and women behind the badge.

In July 2007, Dominick Stagliano, service director at City Cadillac in Long Island City arranged for a loaner vehicle for a customer whose car was being repaired. Some time after the customer drove the loaner home to Forest Hills vandals struck, breaking several of the vehicle's windows, said Stagliano. The customer reported the break-in to the local precinct where the Cadillac was mistakenly classified as stolen, rather than vandalized.

The error went unnoticed until months later, when the vehicle was transferred to "pre-owned" stock that was then sold to a Staten Island man. "When we tried to register the vehicle the "VIN" (vehicle identification number) kept showing up on an NYPD Hot Sheet," Stagliano said. "We couldn't register a stolen vehicle."

Officials at the state Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) steered Stagliano to Long Island City's 108th Precinct for help in clearing up the error.

The City Cadillac service director arrived at the 108th Precinct on a September afternoon, just as police working the day tour were heading out and the night tour was preparing to hit the street.

Stagliano said he was greeted by the tour Desk Officer Lieutenant Wierzbicki. "He looked over the crowd in the stationhouse and asked me what I needed. I explained my predicament and he asked if I would return about 90 minutes later, when things calmed down and he could take care of my problem." When Stagliano returned, the stationhouse was still bubbling over with most of the earlier activity.

Stagliano said, "The lieutenant was on the phone, trying to convince the parents of a 15- year-old who had been arrested to pick up their son. The parents were on the phone when I left, refusing to pick up the teen. The father felt that his son would learn a valuable lesson by remaining in custody overnight. But the Lieutenant tried repeatedly to make them change their minds. [He] told them the boy would be sent to a youth facility in The Bronx overnight and that the experience would change him forever." With all he had going on at the precinct, Lieutenant Wierzbicki didn't have to spend any time trying to convince these parents to come for their child, but he did.

Stagliano said Wierzbicki's effort struck a chord. "He handled that crisis while dealing with the family of a deceased woman. The family wanted to claim jewelry and other of the deceased's belongings. It was a difficult situation, but the lieutenant sailed through it."

Likewise Wierzbicki also sailed through the challenge of clearing the way for the DMV to approve registration of the Cadillac, now in Staten Island, said Stagliano. "He made about a dozen calls and within a half-hour he handed me paperwork showing that DMV had approved the registration."

Stagliano said he was awestruck at the way Wierzbicki handled very difficult, multiple tasks without losing his cool. "Wierzbicki cleared cops on the 4 to 12 p.m. tour to hit the streets, he dealt with grieving family members, spoke passionately to a teen's parents, handled the closing of the Queensboro Bridge and still managed to breeze through the paperwork and chaos resulting from a flawed police report," Stagliano said.

"I left the precinct with a new respect for the work police officers do and for the way they handle difficult situations to resolve problems. I realized that so much of the good they do goes unnoticed, while we only hear and read negative stories about cops who make mistakes or go astray. It's like the old saying- that you should walk a mile in my shoes before you pass judgment on me," Stagliano said. "Lieutenant Wierzbicki opened my eyes without even trying."