FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM APRIL 12, 2018 • THE QUEENS COURIER 21
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Garbage trucks in Astoria will no longer be parked on the street.
Burglaries continue to drive crime at Bayside’s 111th Precinct
BY SUZANNE MONTEVERDI
smonteverdi@qns.com / @smont76
Overall crime has fallen across
Bayside, Douglaston and Little Neck,
but the northeast Queens area continues
to see a sharp uptick in burglaries.
Robbery, grand larceny and car theft
numbers are each down year to date
within the 111th Precinct, according to
Captain John Hall, the precinct’s commanding
offi cer.
However, burglaries continue to drive
crime at the precinct. A total 57 burglaries
were recorded year to date, as compared
to 46 in 2017.
“My major concern — and it will be
my driving concern this year — is burglaries,”
Hall said at the 111th Precinct
Community Council meeting on April 3.
“We just came out of a two-week period
of no residential burglaries; but unfortunately,
we had an attempted burglary last
night. Th e burglar wasn’t successful, but
we still count that as a burglary.”
One approach the commanding offi -
cer has taken to combat the trend is
taking some of the precinct’s patrol
cars off some of the main corridors —
like Northern Boulevard and Utopia
Parkway — and relocating them into the
neighborhoods.
“Th ey’re driving down the side streets.
We’re sending them to places where the
burglaries happen,” he said.
Hall is also keeping an eye on a list of
known perpetrators in the area.
“Only a small percentage of the population
is responsible for a large percentage
of burglaries,” he said. “We do have
a list of people who routinely burglarize
this area.”
Offi cers are scanning local pawn
shops for items reported missing in the
home break-ins as a way to gather leads.
Community Aff airs and Auxiliary offi -
cers are also focusing in on crime prevention.
“Any time a place is burglarized, we’re
gonna go to that place and just let everyone
know in that neighborhood there’s
been a burglary in the area,” he said.
Hall made note of a signifi cant burglary
arrest made last month. On March
12, offi cers cuff ed a local man allegedly
connected to multiple commercial burglaries
within the command.
Police Offi cer John Erdman of the
111th Precinct Community Aff airs
Unit told attendees at the January
Community Board 11 about the continued
home break-in crime trend. He
encouraged homeowners to secure their
windows and doors and keep entryways
well lit.
Erdman also encouraged residents
to invest in security cameras and an
alarm system, which allows for a faster
response time by authorities.
Queens pols seek
probe of Russian
crimes against
Hindus
BY WILLIAM HARRIS
editorial@qns.com / @QNS
Reported Russian religious persecution
of Hindus are sparking a call
for an investigation from two Queens
lawmakers.
Congressman Gregory Meeks
and Assemblyman David Weprin
are sending multiple letters to the
U.S. Commission on International
Religious Freedom, addressing the
problems of persecution, threats
and other religious freedom violations
that Hindus face while living
in Russia.
In an eff ort in order to create a
more Russian identity, the Russian
Orthodox Church has intensifi ed
their campaign with increasing persecution
and threats toward Hindus
under President Vladimir Putin’s
regime.
Th e letters are being sent to
Daniel Mark, the chairman of the
U.S Commission on International
Religious Freedom. Meeks and
Weprin represent some of the largest
Indian-American communities in the
entire country right here in Queens.
According to a report by the
U.S. Commission on International
Religious Freedom, there are several
reported occurrences of derogatory
rhetoric toward Hindus, including
one where prosecutors attempted
to paint a seminal commentary on a
Bhagavad Gita as extremist.
Meeks and Weprin noted that the
most prominent Hindu spiritual
leader, Shri Prakash Ji, has been experiencing
Hindu persecution while living
in Russia for the past several
years. He and his family over the last
several years are victims of threats
and unauthorized police raids of both
his cultural center and home. Smear
campaigns are also being used to turn
the Russian population against the
Hindu spiritual leader.
According to Meeks and Weprin,
the letters call for action on an
alarming trend stating, “Your
Commission’s mandate is to fully
examine religious freedom allegations
and make policy recommendations
to Congress, the President and
the State Department when it comes
to pursuing appropriate intervention
and/or sanctions.”
Meeks and Weprin also note that
under Putin’s leadership, a number
of other minority groups have
faced similar persecution, including
Muslims, Buddhists, Scientologists
and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Th is behavior
in Russia is becoming more common
as time goes on, but the investigation
into these matters may provide
some relief for Hindus living in
Russia sometime in the near future.
Smelly sanitation trucks will no longer be parked on Astoria street
BY ANGELA MATUA
amatua@qns.com / @angelamatua
Garbage trucks parked near a garage
operated by the Department of Sanitation
have caused headaches for residents of the
Ravenswood Houses in Astoria for years.
Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer, who
said he has been pressing the city to
move the site and stop the trucks from
being parked in the area since his fi rst
year in offi ce in 2010, announced that the
Department of Sanitation on Monday will
no longer be storing garbage trucks outside
of a garage at 34-28 21st St.
“It’s a decades-long problem and the
people of Ravenswood in my district have
led this fi ght for over 20 years to remove
the trucks from double parking in the
streets,” he said.
Van Bramer said he brought up the
issue with Mayor Michael Bloomberg but
“didn’t get traction” and had a similar
experience with Mayor Bill de Blasio until
a blizzard in 2016.
When the mayor came to visit Astoria
to check on snow removal, the councilman,
along with Ravenswood Tenants
Association President Carol Wilkins
made sure to walk past the garage during
their tour.
“All the trucks were lined out on the
street and we took that opportunity to say
to him personally that this is an environmental
justice issue, this is a Vision
Zero issue because the trucks made it
really dangerous to cross the street along
35th Avenue and I said to the mayor,
‘Th is is the biggest thing that you can do
to make life better for a lot of people in
Ravenswood,” Van Bramer said. “I think
he took that to heart.”
During a town hall in Long Island City
last April, residents again brought up
the issue of the garage and the mayor
announced that he had allocated $142.6
million to relocate it.
“Not only have a lot of the members
of the community obviously raised
this very powerfully, the councilman has
raised this during the last snowstorm,” de
Blasio said in the town hall.
Th ough the city promised residents that
the trucks would stop idling in the area
by last summer, they did not meet that
deadline, according to Van Bramer. But
last week, he received a letter from the
Department of Sanitation saying that trucks
would no longer be parked on the street.
According to Belinda Mager, a spokesperson
for the Department of Sanitation,
the city has operated that garage since
the 1930s.
“Th e neighborhood has grown through
the decades, and to meet the needs of the
expanding neighborhood, our equipment
fl eet has also grown,” Mager said. “Th e
old facility is just not adequate to contain
the current neighborhood needs. We
recently fi nalized an agreement that will
help alleviate overcrowding at the garage,
allowing us to move some trucks off site
for parking.”
Th e construction of a new site will take
several years but Van Bramer argues that
the trucks no longer idling around 35th
Avenue “makes a big diff erence.”
“Th ere’s a playground right next to the
depot and basketball and handball courts
right adjacent to it as well,” Van Bramer
said. “My fi rst year as a council member
I sponsored a basketball tournament
on a hot summer day. All the kids were
running around playing basketball but
the smell in the court from the garbage
trucks was really intense. It was a stench
that no child should have to smell while
they’re playing in the neighborhood playground.”
He said the community, including
Wilkins, are “elated” and that a bus driver
who transports senior citizens to and
from the Ravenswood Senior Center
stopped his bus on the street to shout out
that this relocation is “a great thing.”
“He said it was always really dangerous
to pick up the seniors and deliver them
home in a sea of garbage trucks,” he said.
According to the Department of
Sanitation, construction on a new site
will begin in 2021 and is expected to be
completed in 2024.
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