Howard Beach residents are alarmed over a recent spike in crime in their normally quiet neighborhood. Two daylight break-ins within a week of each other—one on either side of Crossbay Boulevard—both occurred when two women, who normally spend most of their days at home, went out for a short time.
Marie Papalardo and her husband, James, say they are shocked by what happened at their Howard Beach home this Monday morning. Marie left her house around 11:30 a.m. and returned home from having coffee with a friend around 1p.m.
“I got home and from the minute I put the key in the door I felt something was up.” The homeowner was certain she had locked the top lock on her door, yet it was unlocked.
Papalardo says she went inside the house and approached the door to the second floor apartment. As she neared the door, she noticed the doorway looked like it had been chiseled near the frame. “I thought about going in for a second and then I said to myself, “Are you nuts?”. She called her husband to say what she found at the door. He told her to get out of the house.
Once on the street, she took a look around the house and saw that the basement window had been broken into. Marie went to her neighbors and they called 911. Police arrived at the home shortly after and began a search for the suspect which led them over to the Hamilton Beach section. NYPD helicopters flew overhead in search of the robbers, but search efforts came up empty.
Thieves made off with some cash and jewelry but thankfully, Papalardo says, not much else.
“I interrupted them as they were breaking into our lockbox and luckily they overlooked other valuables.”
But the Papalardo surprise break-in was not the only one in Howard Beach. Exactly one week before, around 9:20 a.m., a woman from the other side of Howard Beach near 91st Street says she left her home to do some routine errands.
When she returned about 20 minutes later she too heard footsteps. They were coming from the bedroom above the den where she was standing. “I heard the sound of someone walking and then I noticed that the window was open. I knew then I had to get out right away.”
The young mother, who asked to have her name withheld because of concern for safety, told The Forum she has lived in Howard Beach all of her life and has never even thought about anything like this happening. “It’s incredible to me—I’m just so glad I got out of there. It was the worst feeling in the world at that moment.”
After fleeing her home the woman called 911 from her car to say that someone had bro- ken into her house. “Right at that minute, they came running out of the house in the direction of 159th avenue.” The shaken homeowner described the two men as being small—5’8 or less and in their late teens or early twenties at most. “I got a really good look at one of them,” she said. “He was very white, almost pasty.” The other suspect she says was a white male as well, although she did not see his face clearly.
“When the police got here they took me in a squad car and we drove through the neighborhood hoping to find them, but nothing.” The woman also went to the precinct to review mug shots on file but was unable to make identification.
An inspection of the home showed that the thieves tried several routes before gaining entry into the home. They first tried to get in through a French patio door, then pulled the screen covering a crawl space back and broke it, and stood atop a pool filter trying to get in yet another window.
Once inside the house they made off with a work laptop, jewelry and a pocketbook.
Police sources say while investigating the robbery they spoke with a neighbor who told them she had seen the two men and thought they looked suspicious but that she had failed to call 911. Community Affairs Officer Kenneth Zorn from the 106th precinct pointed out how important the cooperation of the public is. “If you see anything that you feel is a crime you have to call it in. The department relies on this cooperation with the public.” Zorn points out that a lot of crimes such as this could be prevented or in the very least greatly hindered if police had more information from citizen observers.
“People are always shaken up by things like this,” said a neighbor who had come out when the police arrived. “It’s up to us to say something when we see it. You can’t live in fear.”
By Patricia Adams
