This is simply disgusting. Please read the Journal News report on the exorbitant amount of overtime paid to cops. Take some time to wrap your mind around statements like this:
“According to their contract, [Clarkstown] police officers [can] receive pay for overtime hours they did not work.“
Rudy Alvarado, a 22-year old former Rockland resident was arrested in connection with an earlier armed robbery on Freedman Ave, in which the bungling crooks made off with $15 and left a handgun at the scene. Police are still searching for the other three men involved in the robbery.
In April 2007, Russel Trojan, 51, was at his home on Jerry’s Ave in Nanuet, when a building inspector came onto his property and started photographing some broken down vehicles parked in violation of town code. The incident escalated and Trojan stabbed the inspector multiple times with a kitchen knife before being subdued by a neighbor. The inspector was hospitalized but did survive. Trojan was convicted of attempted murder in the second degree. A sentence is still pending.
Clarkstown police found a man barely alive in the woods near the Hub shopping center in West Nyack after receiving a call about a dead body. Police said homeless people sometimes squat in that spot and that a dead body was found there a few years ago. The man was taken to Nyack hospital for examination.
Police have warned residents to watch for a bear on the loose, apparently looking for food, in the vicinity around Clarkstown North High School on Congers Rd. Anyone who sees the bear is asked to call 911.
An armed robbery happened at 3:20 am in Nanuet last night. Four men in a silver car, carrying a handgun, robbed a man of his wallet. Strangely, police recovered the handgun at the scene, meaning that somehow the robber left the gun behind.
We applaud the incredible self-discipline of the victim to not recover the gun himself and use it to mow down the robbers in a Scarface-esque hail of gunfire.
Strangely, we didn’t see this one in the Journal News!
On May 5, a Clarkstown Police car and a ‘civilian’ vehicle collided. The civilian was hospitalized, but is recovering. The civilian was issued citations for failure to yield right of way, making an unsafe turn, and unlicensed driving (although the linked article notes he was driving with a suspended license, not simply without a license).
The carefully crafted newspaper article does an excellent job at making sure the reader cannot fully reconstruct the accident by using abstract words like “intercepted” to describe the moment of the actual collision. The photo of the civilian vehicle is also taken from an angle that hides all of the damage. But one thing is clear from the photos: The front the police car, on the passenger side, collided with the passenger side of the civilian’s vehicle, towards the front. A passenger-side to passenger-side collision involves some pretty poor driving. The article notes there is video footage of the accident, but naturally, we are left to trust the official police interpretation of what the tape shows.
One thing that particularly is annoying is the use of the word ‘civilian’ to describe the driver of the SUV. Police are civilian law enforcement; they are civilians as well.
The article also notes that the officer was not driving with his siren on. But perhaps we should ask Clarkstown police to adopt a policy like those in Puerto Rico where police drive with their lights on any time they’re on duty.
Also, what’s up with the tag “SPORTS” at the end of the Journal News article URL? Is this some kind of sport to anyone?
While people sleep safely in there homes, a silent killer lurks in the shadows, waiting for an unsuspecting tree to fall prey to its moving mechanical steel-alloy claws. That killer is the town itself. The Journal News has more (link).
25 people, including a 68-year-old man, were arrested in early-morning raids on an apartment complex and senior-citizen facility located in Nyack. Police used wiretaps and video surveillance to collect the information on the group, apparently known as the “Building 3 Crew”, who were ultimately found in possession of large amounts of drugs, money, and guns. Granted, this occurred in Nyack, but we in the neighboring second safest city are certainly glad that a geographic boundary on a map sets us apart from these thugs. We especially look forward to see how justice is served in these 25 cases, since apparently a number of them have prior arrests.
Update 11-Apr-2008: the number of indictments associated with this drug bust has risen to 27. The bust also garnered the praise of the DEA, who released more details about the bust in their press release. According to the press release, the operation resulted in the seizure of an impressive cache of drugs and guns: 4 kilograms of heroin, 10 decks of heroin, 3 ½ kilograms of cocaine, scales and drug packaging material, a .25 Caliber Beretta handgun, $31,000 of US Currency, 5 handguns, handcuffs, bullet proof vests and ammunition. Sounds like a pretty serious operation. Again, it’s a good thing we have the mall as a buffer between Nyack and the second safest city.
Even the second safest city is not immune to the fallout of the ongoing credit crunch. Rockland Journal News reported that home prices in Rockland dropped an average of 5% in the first three months of 2008. In addition, the number of home sales dropped over 30%, to 216 home sales compared to 329 during the same period in 2007. The article conspicuously fails to mention the outrageously high property taxes assessed on homes in the area.