April 2, 2010 By Christian Murray
New York’s major tabloid newspapers have been reporting that crime is up throughout the city. Unfortunately, Precinct 108, which covers Woodside, Sunnyside and Long Island City, is no different.
In the last 28-days, Deputy Inspector Thomas Kavanagh reported that crime jumped 26% over the same period one-year earlier. A spike in “burglaries”, “felony assaults” and “grand larceny autos” accounted for the large jump in the figures.
Furthermore, like in other NYC precincts, the number of cops on this precinct’s beat has dropped. Kavanagh said “we are down” and speculated that the number of cops might have dropped about 5% from last year.
There was one murder in the precinct in the past month, which involved a shaken baby. There were two rapes, where both the perpetrator and victim knew one another. One of those cases was a statutory rape.
While there were nine robberies, the same as last year, Kavanagh said there appears to be one person responsible for many of them. He said that a man, who operates in the Woodside neighborhood targets mainly Asian women awaiting buses and trains; the perpetrator then pushes the women to the ground and takes off with their bags.
The number of felony assaults jumped to 15, up from the 5 incidents that were reported during the same period last year. Most were domestic in nature, although there were a couple of bar fights.
Burglaries spiked to 24, up from 13 last year. There were commercial burglaries where stores such as GameStop in Sunnyside and a nearby KFC were targeted. However, there was an upswing in residential burglaries, particularly between Queens Blvd. and 50th Ave in the Sunnyside/Woodside neighborhoods. Kavanagh said many of these victims left their fire escape windows open.
Grand Larcenies declined to 39, from 46 last year. Many of these crimes involved property stolen out of vehicles.
Grand larceny autos remain stubbornly high. There were 21 cases this month, compared to 14 for the same period last year. This month new vehicles, such as 2010 Toyota Higherlanders, were targeted.
Big events such as the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Sunnyside and Woodside went without incident.
