Greetings to all members of the Juniper Park Civic Association. We hope everyone is staying healthy while this pandemic continues to wind down. We would like to take this time to speak on some current trends we have seen here in the 104th Precinct and more specifically in Middle Village and Maspeth. Throughout the 104th Precinct, we are proud to report a decrease of overall crime by 9% for the 28 day-period and a decrease of 19% for the year-to-date. To speak on Middle Village, more specifically, we have seen an overall decrease of 45% for the 28 day-period and decrease of 9.5% for the year-to-date. Moving over to Maspeth, we have seen an uptick of 30% for the 28 day-period mainly due to auto theft. For the year-to-date we have a decrease of 13.2%. We attribute this decrease in crime to our partnership with the community and Juniper Park Civic Association, so thank you for working with us in helping to spread the word and share our crime prevention tips to members of the community. As you know we cannot do this alone, community and policing go hand in hand, and this decrease in crime proves that.

We continue to urge everyone to utilize our crime prevention tips to help in continuing to drive crime down. Please do not leave any valuables in your vehicle and continue to lock your vehicles. We remind everyone not to leave your vehicle running with the keys inside it, even if it’s just for a quick moment. Many of our auto thefts come from this exact situation, a vehicle left running and unattended. This creates an opportunity for someone to take your vehicle and can easily be prevented by properly securing your vehicle. As we enter the nice weather, we continue to combat quality of life concerns such as drag racing and car meet ups. Please know we are aware of these issues and understand your frustration.

We have dedicated multiple resources to address this specific concern as it is taking place throughout all of Queens. Along with issuing numerous summonses, our officers have confiscated multiple speakers and vehicles. One of the difficulties we are faced with in addressing this issue is locating where the sound is coming from. Many times this loud noise is coming all the way from Brooklyn. The nice weather also brings out dirt bikes and ATVs. Please call 911 when you see this taking place. Though it is a difficult task to catch these individuals on the roadway, the 911 call is extremely important as it helps us to utilize our resources in a strategic way and advise our neighboring precincts as the dirt bikes move through the local roadways.

We hope everyone had a peaceful Memorial Day as we remembered all those who sacrificed their lives for our country. As always please feel free to write or call the precinct with any issues you may have. We hope to see everyone soon when we can finally have an in person Juniper Park Civic Association meeting. Please continue to stay safe and healthy.