DWI TRAGEDY IN MIDDLE VILLAGE
The Juniper Park Civic Association offers its heartfelt condolences to the parents of Robert Ogle, 16, an honor student and junior at Brooklyn Tech High School. Brendan Ogle and his wife Mei, and Robert’s 15 year old brother Sean, were devastated upon learning that Robert, along with his friend Alex Paul were struck and killed by a drunken car thief who laughed as he was arrested by cops from the 104th Precinct.

Robert’s funeral Mass was celebrated at Resurrection Ascension in Rego Park, just yards from the Deli from which the killer stole the automobile.

The killer driver, arrested many times for robbery and drugs, stole an idling car from a deli. The auto owner and the drunk actually brushed against each other as the owner entered the deli and the drunk departed to jump into the idling car.

Brendan Ogle plans to take legal action against the stolen car owner for his negligence in leaving his car, idling with keys, ripe for theft. We recommend that the police vigorously enforce the law against leaving a car unattended, with the keys in the ignition. But, it shouldn’t take enforcement for owners to NEVER leave an unattended car with keys in the ignition. There are thugs everywhere who are always looking for such cars.

The owner of the stolen car that was used to take the life of Robert Ogle and his friend Alex Paul, will likely spend the remainder of his life regretting his role in contributing to the deaths of these two young friends.

Please, take the keys when you run in to get coffee, a bagel, or a newspaper. You car could be the next one stolen and used to injure or kill an innocent. You just don’t want that on your conscience for your remaining days.

ANOTHER UNNECESSARY FATALITY
On January 19th, at Eliot Avenue and 85th Street, a man was crossing Eliot and was either struck or brushed by a car. This caused Borys Boryk to fall backwards, striking his head, causing severe injury. Emergency personnel responded almost immediately. Borys was taken to the hospital. The sad news is that he succumbed almost a month later on February 12th.

We offer our condolences to Borys’ family.

We report this sad story as a caution to all of us, reminding us that crossing a street is a dangerous matter. We have to be alert, watching for all moving traffic, most importantly, those drivers turning into our lane as we cross.

A CASE OF CITY IMPUDENCE CAUSES THE DEATH OF A WOMAN
A woman and her boyfriend lived in a three-family apartment here in Middle Village. The landlord is a very decent fellow who tolerated many, many months of non-payment of rent by this couple. Finally, the landlord very reluctantly started eviction proceedings. In New York City’s landlord-tenant court, the cards are dealt with the open intention of declaring the landlord to be guilty of predatory behavior for renting his property to people.

It turns out that the woman claimed that she was mentally incapable of being evicted and that she could not speak any English.

So, translators paid by you readers were assigned to her for every court appearance, as were City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene staffers. The staffers told the court that the woman could not function outside the apartment on her own. This line was repeated. Eventually, the court ruled in favor of the landlord and the woman was evicted.

Several times through the many months of court hearings, the Mental Health staffers would arrive, with ambulance and police, to institutionalize the woman for a few days. The woman always was released and returned.

Eviction day finally arrived. The woman was forcibly evicted – in December; when, as you remember, we experienced severely freezing weather.

A few days after being removed, the woman returned in the middle of the night, went to the backyard, wrapped herself under a sheet of plastic and froze to death, to be discovered the following morning by the landlord, who notified the police.

From about 10AM until after noon, about six police officers were tied up with an investigation.

The woman’s death was entirely avoidable. The Heath Department staffers used this woman’s plight to fight the landlord. The woman’s mental illness appears to have been of far less importance to these people than the important job of crushing landlords because they rent out private property to people and expect payment.

For all the police time used to institutionalize her for short periods, then to finally evict her, and then to investigate her sad and avoidable death, how many other actual victims of crime had their call for help delayed, because of city policies to squash middle class landlords?

AND FINALLY – SOME GOOD NEWS!
You may recall that in this column in the June 2008 issue of the Juniper Berry, the problem of GPS theft from cars was mentioned, with a particular incident described where the GPS was hidden but the mount was visible, alerting the perp that the device was probably inside the car. That perp left his DNA behind. Deputy Inspector Green ordered a forensics team to collect the evidence and it was tested. This past February, the victim of the break-in was notified by the 104th Precinct that there was a DNA match and the offender had been put behind bars for a serious drug crime and will be there for awhile. If this pattern of smashing windows and grabbing GPS devices starts up again, the police will know who to find and question first.

I WOULD LIKE TO DO MORE. ANY SUGGESTIONS?
Yes. Attend the COP104 meetings, held on the 3rd Wednesday of each month. The locations for the meetings rotate throughout the Precinct so that all precinct resident have an opportunity at least several times each year to communicate with the Precinct Commander and various officers. All residents are always invited and welcome to attend any and all meetings throughout the year. Look for posters announcing the next meeting and its location. These meetings are useful to learn more about your community, and for you and your neighbors to inform the Deputy Inspector of incidents and problems in your neighborhood.

Are you interested in participating in civilian patrol of the community? Phone GCOP/104COP at 718-497-1500.

HOW CAN I CONTACT DEPUTY INSPECTOR GREEN?
You can e-mail the Deputy Inspector at adm104@gw.nypd.org. For USPS Mail, write the Deputy Inspector at: 64-02 Catalpa Ave, Ridgewood, NY 11385-5257.

Do you have questions or comments for Deputy Inspector Green that you want published in the next issue of this column? Just e-mail: POLICEBEAT104@AOL.COM or write this column at: Police Beat 104, C/O Juniper Park Civic Association, P.O. Box 790275, Middle Village, NY 11379. We will keep your identity private if you request. If you request, we will forward your question or comment to Deputy Inspector Green and publish his reply in the next issue.