FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.queenscourier.com juLY 2, 2015 • The Queens Courier 3 Dog stolen from Bayside park found dead Photo courtesy of Lora BY ANGY ALTAMIRANO [email protected] @aaltamirano28 The search for Ginger, the 5-year-old cocker spaniel that was stolen from a Bayside park Sunday night, ended in tragedy Tuesday as the owner confirmed to The Courier that the dog was found dead. The beloved pet was discovered by park workers within Crocheron Park, located at 214th Street and 35th Avenue, where on Sunday at about 10 p.m. she was stolen from her owner, Lora, who did not want to give her last name. According to the Bayside resident, two men approached Lora and Ginger near the stairs leading toward the pond. One of the two men pretended to be interested in the dog and bent down to pet her while asking questions about the dog, according to Lora. “I didn’t really think anything of it because people stop and look at my dog all the time,” she said. The second man, who was larger than the other and stayed quiet the whole time, then punched Lora in the stomach and the two men ran away with Ginger. The owner, who found it difficult to get up from the attack, said she ran after them after catching her breath and was screaming her dog’s name. Lora said she heard a car “peeling out” right after but wasn’t sure it was the men’s car. “I mean it’s Bayside,” she said. “I didn’t think anything like that could happen. I never felt unsafe in the area.” Fliers asking for the public’s help were taped all down Bell Boulevard Monday afternoon and posts were also put up on Facebook, Craigslist and Reddit asking for help in bringing Ginger home. “I just want her back safely with my family,” she previously told The Courier. According to Lora, who has had the dog since it was 4 months old, Ginger was wearing a Star Wars Yoda collar with green, yellow and brown checkers and had a black leash with multicolor peace signs on it. “I just want her back. I just feel so guilty for not protecting her,” she previously said. “It doesn’t even feel real. I feel like I’m going to wake up and she’s going to be in bed with me. I feel like it’s a really, really bad dream. It’s not right. I don’t know how anyone can do that.” Lora filed a police report with the 111th Precinct on Sunday and the Detective Squad of the precinct is now investigating the dog’s death. Police said they caution dog owners to be careful when walking their dogs and also added that people should not be in public parks after 9 p.m. Ginger, a 5-year-old cocker spaniel Whitestone resident develops website for local helicopter noise complaints BY ALIN A SURIE L [email protected] @alinangelica All they want is some peace and quiet. A Whitestone resident is taking the issue of overhead helicopter noise into the hands of the community by developing a website for residents to digitally submit complaints. Technology consultant Daniel Aronoff launched the beta test version of his site, “Stop the Chop NY,” on June 24 in an effort to fight back against sound pollution from helicopters and small airplanes flying over north Queens. Information gathered on the site will be sent to local city, state and federal representatives to appeal for their help in seeking relief. “We wanted to have a community engine that we could control to try to effect change,” said Aronoff, who has lived in Whitestone in 2013 after purchasing a house his grandparents owned in the 1950s. The site is being spread to the Whitestone community by Aronoff and civic group We Love Whitestone, and has already garnered more than 130 noise complaints. It will be open to other affected communities in mid- July after troubleshooting for operational issues which may occur during the initial trial period. Features set to be added to the site in the near future include maps of collected complaints and the ability to submit reports of multiple incidents at the same time. While a site designed by aircraft noise complaint company PlaneNoise is used by the Port Authority to officially collect complaints about airplane, Aronoff saw a need for an additional page because citizens are not able to easily access data collected from that site. Some residents have also said that they are frustrated with not being able to enter in multiple complaints at the same time, and that the page is generally not user-friendly. The choppers passing over residential areas in north Queens are largely used by tourists from out of town and wealthy patrons chartering speedy transportation to the Hamptons. A study published by Bloomberg News shows that helicopter trips have significantly gone up in East Hampton Airport in 2014. Thanks to the increasing popularity of cellphone applications which allow chartered flights to be summoned almost instantaneously, this number is not likely to go down any time soon. We Love Whitestone president Alfredo Centola says that he and his neighbors have noticed the increase in air traffic and the resulting noise, noting that sometimes he has even seen two separate aircrafts passing overhead at the same time. “What happens is, Queens has been all of a sudden assaulted by these helicopters and small planes flying overhead,” said Centola, “and it’s progressively gotten worse.”
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