Deputy Inspector Michael Cody (left) and Community Affairs officer Thomas Bell (right) go over the crime stats from August 12 to September 9 with COMET president Roe Daraio and residents at the civic meeting on Monday night. Forum Newsgroup photo by Luis Gronda.
At the Communities of Maspeth and Elmhurst Together (COMET) meeting on Monday night, Deputy Inspector Michael Cody broke down the most up-to-date crime statistics for the 104th Precinct.
According to crime numbers from the last 28 day period that goes from August 12 to September 9th, Cody reported that crime is down 11 percent overall for the precinct, whose patrol area includes Maspeth and also covers Glendale, Middle Village and Ridgewood.
The precinct is down in several types of crimes for that time period including robberies, felony assaults and grand larcenies. The command is down three robberies for this time period compared to last year and it is down 20 grand larcenies for the 28 day time frame and 2.5 percent for the year as a whole, according to the newly promoted deputy inspector.
Cody said that the problem of grand larcenies is often discussed at civic meetings like COMET and the main reason that type of crime is down is due to the hard work put in by his lieutenants and patrol officers.
Although many crimes are down in the precinct for that time period, there are some crimes that have seen an uptick for the four-week time period.
The deputy inspector reported that burglaries is up in the command for the most recent time period, 34 reported burglaries for the last four weeks compared to 28 for the same time in 2011. The precinct also saw sharp increases in arrests for Driving While Intoxicated (DWI) and for narcotics. Cody said that there have been 96 DWI arrests for this period compared with 68 for last year’s period, an increase of 41 percent. As for narcotics, the arrests for that are up 70 percent, 225 versus 132 for this specific period.
In talking about the narcotics arrests, he said that many of those drug users can also be related to other crimes like breaking into a car, which is classified as a grand larceny, or breaking into someone’s home, which is a burglary.
Cody then delved into a few stories about recent arrests that occurred in the neighborhood.
Back on August 24, the 104 and the 110 precinct, which covers Elmhurst, had gotten reports from residents of a male and female tag team burglarizing an area close to the Maspeth-Elmhurst border line. They didn’t catch the duo but he said that they compared their notes on the call and kept it in their files. Then, on September 5, they got a call from the same area, which Cody would only say happened on 66th Street, and that person said that he saw a man and woman trying to get into someone’s house.
Cody said they arrested the tag team and originally charged them with only trespassing. Then the person from the Aug. 24 burglary came forward and identified the two as the culprits for that incident. The Deputy inspector added that the duo also admitted to the crime and gave them full detail as to what they were doing.
“They said where they hit, where they didn’t hit. They gave up the playbook as far as where they were going and what they were looking for,” Cody said.
He added that they admitted to burglaries in the 110 Precinct and the 109 Precinct in the Flushing area as well.
“Hopefully they won’t be getting out of jail any time soon,” Cody said.
By Luis Gronda
