FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.timesnewsweekly.com JUNE 4, 2015 • TIMES 3 Crime rates down for the year in the 110th Precinct BY ANTHONY GIUDICE agiudice@ridgewoodtimes.com @A_GiudiceReport RIDGEWOOD TIMES/Photo by Anthony Giudice Deputy Inspector Christopher Manson updated members of the community on the crime rates for the 110th Precinct during the COMET meeting on June 1. CURES BY ANTHONY GIUDICE agiudice@ridgewoodtimes.com @A_GiudiceReport An odoriferous open-top rail car, fi lled to capacity with construction and demolition debris, has been parked for several weeks in the Fresh Pond Railyard, directly across the street from Glendale homes, raising the ire of nearby residents. Just an orange mesh lies atop the debris of the car at the corner of 68th Place and Otto Road, leaving it exposed to the elements of nature, according to one activist. “When you have open containers like this, you leave the communities open to odors and debris,” said Mary Parisen, chair of Civics United for Railroad Environment a l Solutions (CURES) civic group. “The orange top is not suffi cient when the railcars are traveling near schools, parks and homes. These open rail cars are hosts for vectors, odors and storm runoff. Our communities cannot be held hostage by the state of New York to these conditions.” “The railroad won’t move it. The rail car has a defect, which is why it is parked here,” she added. “The community shouldn’t be subjugated to vermin, raccoons or even rats. These long, heavy rail cars have been creating structural damage to homes, with seismic vibrations, and keeping residents awake all hours of the night.” The rail yard is operated by New York and Atlantic Railway, which leases the site from the Long Island Rail Road for its freight operations. A resident of the area believes that something has to be done about this rail car near his property. “I’m not crazy about that, it’s been here over a week,” said Peter Germano, resident of 68th Place and Otto Road. “They shouldn’t leave it like that. You get a strong wind or some rain The railroad won’t move it. The rail car has a defect, which is why it is parked here.” -- Mary Parisen, chair of Civics United for Railroad Environmental Solutions (CURES) civic group. and it can get worse.” CURES has urged Joseph Martens, commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC), and elected offi cials for the complete containerization of all waste moved by rail, not just demolition and construction residuals. “If you put a solid lid on top of the rail cars, you will be protecting the community since they are traveling though densely populated neighborhoods,” Parisen said. “The state needs to be responsible for this.” In May, seven local elected offi cials, including state Senator Joseph Addabbo and Borough President Melinda Katz, penned a letter to Martens asking him to consider implementing the use of solid lids on rail cars carrying waste near communities. “Additionally, we would like to follow up on the use of hard lids on all freight rail carts carrying putrescible waste,” the letter stated. “The use of solid covers to restrict pollution is a strong measure that would benefi t our constituents and all New Yorkers.” Paul Victor, New York and Atlantic Railway president, confirmed that the rail car is off the tracks and near the fencing by Otto Road. He said the car is there because it is awaiting parts for a repair before it can be put back on the tracks and moved. He also said that the orange mesh atop the garbage in the rail car is used to signify that it is filled with construction and demolition debris, and not any other type of garbage. Crime continues to drop across the 110th Precinct, the force’s commanding offi cer announced at the Communities of Maspeth and Elmhurst Together (COMET) meeting on June 1. “We are down 6.2 percent in crime for the year so far,” Deputy Inspector Christopher Manson said. “We have major reductions in robbery, burglary and grand larceny.” The precinct is currently down eight robberies for the year, from 111 last year to 103 thus far in 2015. Police offi cers have made 63 robbery arrests this year, Manson noted, leading to the lower crime rates that the precinct is seeing. Although crime is down overall for the 110th Precinct, vehicle thefts are on the rise. Manson told those in attendance that they have been six more stolen cars this year than at this point last year. “The other area we are up in is felony assaults. We’ve been fi ghting that since the beginning of the year; there’s a lot domestic felony assaults,” Manson said. “One of the reasons we think we’re up in domestic assaults, it’s not a bad thing, it’s because we’re doing a lot of outreach. We’re going out on the streets and out into the community and we’re giving out pamphlets and letting people know about domestic violence and how they can report it. So we think more people are reporting it.” Manson also alerted those in attendance of three recent crimes that turned out to all be connected within the 110th Precinct. The fi rst two crimes were robberies in which a male, Hispanic suspect drove up to people on the street and robbed them of their cellphones at knife point. Later that night, police witnessed two men fi ghting in the street on Queens Boulevard near 74th Street, where one of the men stabbed the other six times with a small knife. That suspect was taken into custody and brought to the stationhouse. The other man was brought to the hospital and will survive his wounds. “While we were in the stationhouse with this male, our offi cers in the room began tracking one of the cellphones from the earlier robberies,” Manson added. “We ping it, we get to fi nd out the location, we look down and the location came to the same room we were in. We looked at the property that we were taking from the guy who just stabbed the guy six times and he has both cellphones. So we got him for all three crimes.” wants to put a lid on open-top rail cars
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