Capt. Christopher Manson, center, and Community Council Vice President Abraham Markowitz, right, honor Officer Louis Marinacci, left, and Detective Anthony Wright, second from right, for a major narcotics bust. Photos by Phil Corso
Capt. Charles Manson of the 104th Precinct tapped two of his bravest as April’s top cops for going above and beyond on a drug and weapon bust.
Detective Anthony Wright and Police Officer Louis Marinacci of the narcotics unit received the honors at Tuesday night’s 104th Precinct Community Council meeting for busting what Manson described as a heated assault between a man and his female victim.
Manson outlined the scene in which Wright and Marinacci were called to a home in Ridgewood to investigate a possible assault and ultimately recovered ammunition and narcotics. The captain said the perpetrator, a Hispanic man, was evasive upon the cops’ arrival, which prompted them to force their way inside the home and find an assaulted woman hiding in the bedroom with drugs and a loaded firearm close by.
“They went a little farther in this and found the victim of the assault and recovered a weapon from the street,” Manson said.
Manson said crime was slightly up in the mid-Queens precinct as of April 30, mostly because of such low statistics recorded last year. Some of the precinct’s toughest crimes to date came in the forms of stolen cars, car break-ins and robberies, which contributed to the roughly 4 percent increase in crime to date, the captain said.
“We’ve been very busy and going against very low numbers,” Manson said. “We saw a major decrease in crime last year.”
Christopher Manson addresses the crowd at the 104th Community Council meeting Tuesday evening.
Photos by Phil Corso
The precinct has, however, seen a significant dip in traffic accidents, the captain said, in part because of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Vision Zero initiatives targeting hotspots throughout the city and stepping up radar enforcement.
With the warm weather approaching, Manson also said the 104th Precinct would be bulking up its presence at both Highland and Juniper parks to ensure no illegal activity occurs there after hours. Officers were being sent to both parks around 8 p.m. each night to make sure people know to begin clearing out, he said.
“It is making a difference,” the captain said of the park enforcement. “The situations there have gotten a lot better. At least 80 to 90 percent better.”
Paul Kerzner of the Greater Ridgewood Restoration Corporation recapped the precinct’s anti-graffiti efforts and urged both the captain and community to let his group know of any new incidents throughout the region. He also pushed for a crackdown on restitution charges to ensure those responsible for the crimes end up footing the cleanup bill.
The precinct urged anyone who finds graffiti to send a photo of it to graffiti@104pcc.org before cleaning it up.
On the topic of recruitment, Council member Patricia Grayson said she has been have some difficulty getting more people to attend the body’s monthly meeting at Christ the King High School. She said the group would be drumming up plans over the coming weeks to increase the Community Council’s visibility and bulk up attendance numbers, including recruitment at this year’s National Night Out on August 5.
“The biggest interchange we have with the community right now is through Facebook,” she said. “We should have a better means of human communication.”
By Phil Corso
