A small crowd at last Thursday’s Ozone Park Tudor Civic Association expressed their concerns about activity going on in Tudor Village.
106th Precinct commanding officer Deputy Inspector Thomas Pascale made an appearance at the meeting to go over what has been going on in the command overall and the Tudor Village section of Ozone Park.
Pascale said that there is a robbery problem specifically occurring at night and near subway stations. The Deputy Inspector said women that are carrying purses and iPhones have been targeted at the 88th Street, 80th Street and to a lesser extent, the Howard Beach-JFK Airport subway stations. The robberies have been taking place between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m.
He reminded residents to be careful when walking around the areas at night.
“Until we get a handle on the situation, we really want to make the community aware of what’s going on when you’re coming home from the train,” said Pascale, who added that a couple of arrests were made for the same type of crime recently but it wasn’t the suspects they were looking for in terms of those robberies. “Just be aware of your surroundings and be discreet if you’re using a cell phone.”
Ozone-Tudor President Frank Dardani said that a way to combat that is to call a family member or a friend to pick you up at the train station either by foot or by car.
There were also two more car break-ins last week, which continues a problem in that neighborhood. At this civic meeting last month, many complained about the auto vandals and told their story of how they got their vehicle broken into.
The Deputy Inspector advised people to make sure valuables like your GPS system and cell phones are not visible if they are left in the car.
The mentioning of the break-ins sparked a discussion at the meeting, in which many residents vented their frustrations at Pascale regarding to response times.
One resident said that someone else on their block confronted a robber that was attempting to steal rims and tires from a car.
Liz Oielbaum, who lives on 83rd Street and Sutter Avenue, said that there have been break-ins on her block, costing about $6,000 in damage.
Pascale said never to confront a criminal if they are committing a crime and to immediately call 911 if you see something that shouldn’t be happening.
In response to residents complaining about slow response times, Pascale said that they try to get to every call as soon as they can but that they need people to pick up the phone and make that call for police.
“Unfortunately, when you call 911, you don’t know what else is going on in the precinct at that time,” he said, adding that they have made three arrests for rim theft within the command so far this year.
By Luis Gronda
