Second Safest City Blog

19 year old Patrick Coudin was arrested by Ramapo Police and charged with first-degree assault and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon, both of which are felonies, in addition to a charge of possession of crack cocaine. According to the Journal News, this incident of epic proportions included 30 people armed with improvised weapons including tire irons and box cutters. This is the third gang attack in Rockland since April. Coudin allegedly fired a single shot, wounding the leg of another teen. The article does not describe if the wounded teen was armed at the time, but as the old saying goes, never bring a knife (or a tire iron) to a gun fight.

Overpaid, underworked suburban cops are brushing up on their crime solving skills by searching social networking sites (like Facebook, Myspace, etc.) looking for underage after-prom drinking parties.  The article’s sidebar has an interesting anecdote where police crashed a party because the party’s description included the words “cheese platter”. You can’t make this stuff up. To be fair, Clarkstown Police Lt. Steve Morgan said the department is skeptical of the effectiveness of such tactics, preferring instead to target alcohol vendors that sell to minors. Despite this sensible policy, Lt. Morgan also admitted that there’s no way to verify the veracity of the information they find online: “there’s counterintelligence,” he said.

Eyewitnesses reported seeing more than 100 kids running amok in the Palisades Center yesterday, screaming and breaking glass. Police were unable to locate any one of the teens. Rockland Journal News reported police spokesperson Sgt. Harry Baumann as saying, “We did have several calls of suspicious incidents with kids, but every time we got to the location, there was nobody there.” Broken glass could still be observed where the teens had been hours later. The story also mentions the February 2006 McDonald’s riot, when fight broke out between 40 children aged 12 to 19, resulting in felony arrests and charges of rioting.