BRONX NEWS

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Bronx News (Bxnews.net): Fun in the Sun

Bronx News (Bxnews.net): Fun in the Sun: Summer Guide 2014: Where to go and what to do this summer Click here

Fun in the Sun

Summer Guide 2014:

Where to go and what to do this summer

Click here

Thursday, May 22, 2014

Bronx News (Bxnews.net): We Need Cops!

Bronx News (Bxnews.net): We Need Cops!: Hey Blaz: We Need Cops! Too Many Shootings, Too Few Cops! COMMUNITY BOARD NEWS N’ VIEWS by Father Richard F. Gorman Chairman Community ...

We Need Cops!

Hey Blaz:
We Need Cops!

Too Many Shootings,

Too Few Cops!

COMMUNITY BOARD

NEWS N’ VIEWS

Father Richard F. Gorman

Chairman

Community Board #12 (The Bronx)

BRONX, NEW YORK, MAY 22- Our newly arrived Commanding Officer at the Forty-seventh Precinct, Deputy Inspector Raul R. Stephenson, is certainly receiving his “baptism by fire.” The number of shootings as of late has placed our Precinct in the top tier of shootings in our beloved Borough of The Bronx and the entire City of New York.

I trust that the good Deputy Inspector has not, and will not, become disheartened. I suspect not. Something tells me that he is fired up to make our numbers in this category go down and stay down. I can tell you that my colleagues and I on Community Board #12 (The Bronx) stand ready to support our Commanding Officer in any way that we can. I can tell you that one course of action for which the Community Board will be advocating will remain sizably increasing the number of Police

Officers in our Forty-seventh Precinct.

Traditionally, our local Precinct has been routinely short-changed when it comes to the assignment of new and/or additional Police Officers. In terms of territory required to be policed, the “4 – 7” ranks right near the top in our Borough. I hasten to add that the confines of the Precinct are by no means contiguous and compact. The Woodlawn Heights neighborhood juts out on the northwestern margins of Bronx Community District #12 and the Pelham community that includes that portion of The Bronx that bears a Pelham Manor / Westchester County Zip Code and that one must traverse through Westchester in order to access correspondingly hangs out like an appendage along the District’s northeastern boundaries. This geographical idiosyncrasy, with its nonconforming peculiarity, does not make for easy patrolling.

Add to this the fact that the population of Community Board #12 (The Bronx), thanks to the haphazard, pro-development-despite-the-detriment policies of the prior Municipal Administrations of Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, has substantially shifted upward and you have, in my humble estimation, a cogent and reasonable argument that more cops are called for in the “4 – 7,” and sooner rather than later. Nevertheless, One Police Plaza, “1 – P – P,” as it is affectionately called, the Headquarters of the New York City Police Department (N.Y.P.D.), stubbornly clings to the outdated and specious argument that the Precinct is adequately staffed by a sufficient number of cops. Maddeningly, the powers-that-be at Police Headquarters cite alleged scientific and statistical support for this rather unscientific determination that totally and obviously ignores the aforesaid significant facts. They routinely allude to the rather mysterious and not-ever-to-be-faulted “RAND FORMULA” that supposed provides a systematic, precise and infallible methodology for assessing how many Police Officers are needed and justified in any given command.

“RAND FORMULA” be damned! Whatever it is, it does not suffice for our Forty-seventh Precinct. We genuinely and straight away need more Police Officers and we should not continue to be short-changed. A new Administration sits tall in the saddle at City Hall. It has promised to be more attentive to the needs and concerns of our neighborhoods.

Let it hear this concern of Community Board #12 (The Bronx) and be attentive to this need. Mayor Bill de Blasio has promised and signaled that he is neither enamored nor bound to the priorities and approach of Administrations past. This issue of ours would be an excellent opportunity and venue to so demonstrate.

Our men and women in the Laconia Avenue stationhouse do an outstanding job protecting us day in and day out. It is about time that they got more help to do so. They deserve it . . . . . . and so do we! What do you say, Your Honor? May we have more cops . . . . . . PLEASE?!?!?

Until next time, that is it for this time!

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Did Security Ignore Shooting Warnings?

Co-op City residents claim management is ignoring drug dealing, violence

By David Greene

BRONX, NEW YORK, MAY 21- A man was shot in the head on a public basketball court in Co-op City and one resident claims the Department of Public Safety was warned of the impending violence.

The FDNY reports EMS was dispatched at 9:17 p.m. on Saturday, May 17, to the basketball courts across the street from 100 Bellamy Loop for an arrest-- but discovered a male victim in his 30's had been shot in the head.

The victim was rushed to Jacobi Hospital in critical, but stable condition.

Shortly after the gunfire, police were looking for the suspect or suspects, who reportedly fled in a silver Toyota Corolla.

One resident who declined to be identified, said he heard the shots less than two hours after residents had called the Co-op City Department of Public Safety, who patrols the massive complex, that violence was about to breakout.

The source continued, "There was a group of about five or six people and they had two pit bull dogs, so we called public safety and told them it looked like something was about to go down."

The resident could not say if officers responded, but explained how the River Bay Corporation, the management office for the complex, has been slow in responding to complaints about the escalating drug sales in front of the building.

"We've been asking for more security," the resident continued, "They would come out for about a week," before the patrols would stop and the drug dealers would return.

The resident also claims that River Bay objected to residents holding a prayer vigil outside the building last summer.

The source fumed, "The drug dealers could come and go as they please, but we couldn't gather and pray outside our building."

Under the watchful eye of Councilman Andy King, residents held their prayer vigil on the sidewalk. Days later River Bay installed one surveillance camera in the back of the building.

The resident concluded, "The summer's coming back and it's starting up again and now their selling the drugs in plain sight. They’re not even hiding it anymore."

A second resident of the building was unaware when she said, "I never heard of a problem here, that's why I'm a little shocked when I heard Bellamy Loop." She believed that most of the problems in the area was centered on Benchley Place around the corner.

Police have no motives or suspects at this time, but continue to investigate.

An inquiry with the Co-op City Department of Public Safety was referred to the River Bay Corporation management office.

A secretary at River Bay said that Vernon Cooper, the Riverbay Executive General Manager would return the call for comment, but hadn't respond before the publication of this article.

Co-op City is the largest co-operative housing complex in the United States, if not the world and consists of 35 high-rise buildings that house about 50,000 residents. Co-op City opened in 1968.