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1st Precinct News and Updates

Cop of the Month 2010: First and Second Precincts

The First Precinct Cop of the Month 2010

March
ROBBERY

Police Officer Gene Schatz.

PO Schatz successfully apprehended a fleeing bank robbery suspect after commission of the crime.

On Friday March 26, 2010, at approximately 1209 PM, PO Schatz and his partner PO Desapio responded to a Bank Robbery at 277 Broadway. While responding to the location, the officers were flagged down by a bank employee who had followed the perpetrator from the bank. The employee pointed out the perpetrator and PO Schatz executed the quick apprehension of the criminal.

PO Schatz exercised sound tactics and keen observation while responding to a tense situation. His actions led to the quick apprehension of the perpetrator as well as the recovery of $2,000.

April – Police Officer Yael Magori – During the month of April 2010, PO Magori made an astounding 12 arrests including 2 felony arrests, to earn her the April Cop of the Month award.

May – Police Officer Lawrence Sanzari – On May 7, 2010, PO Sanzari responded to a call of an unconsciuos female at 138 Spring Street. Upon arrival, the aided was lying on the floor. Sergeant Bullara and PO Sanzari accessed the aided and found that the aided had no pulse and was not breathing. The aided was also cold to the touch and did not respond to verbal commands. PO Sanzari the initiated rescue breathing and chest compressions to the aided. After the first round of CPR, the aided began to have a shallow pulse and weak breathing. After about 5 minutes the aided stopped breathing again, and had no pulse. PO Sanzari performed CPR again, stabilizing the aided until the arrival of EMS. The aided was the stabilized by EMS and transported to NYU Downtown Hospital in stable condition and conscious.

June – Anti Crime Team
Sgt Michael Lutz
PO Whittaker Young
PO Andre Reyes
PO William Finan
PO Mildred Velez

The burglary pattern was ongoing for a few months in Manhattan and Brooklyn with many NYPD units working on it. On June 5, 2010 1st Precinct Anti Crime Team observed and arrested the 3 perpetrators involved in the burglary pattern after a commercial burglary in the 61 Precinct. All 3 defendants had numerous prior arrests. One of them had a prior conviction for murder.

July – Police Officer Daniel Brier, Police Officer Richard Ford, Police Officer Christopher Braine -On July 6,2010 Police Officers Brier, Ford and Braine responded to a suicidal person threatening to jump out of his apartment window on the 11th floor of a building on Wall ST. Upon entering the apartment, the person was sitting on the windowsill with his legs facing outwards. The victim told police to stay away and not to come any closer or he would jump. For approximately 20 minutes the Police Officers maintained a dialogue with the person to attempt to get him off of the windowsill. Upon arrival of the Emergency Service Unit, the Officers were able to inch their way toward the disturbed person, eventually leading to him being pulled from the window by the responding personnel.

August

Sgt. Joseph Taylor and Police Officer Theodore Plevritis

On Saturday, August 7, 2010, three people were shot in the vicinity of Front Street and Beekman Street. At approximately 3 am, Police Officer Theodore Plevritis and Sgt. Joseph Taylor were flagged down by a group of people at the corner of the location. They were informed of the shooting and immediately placed one of the witnesses in the patrol car to conduct a canvass of the area. Near the corner of Fulton Street and Pearl Street the witness identified the two perpetrators. The defendants were stopped and the firearm was recovered. Due to the constant patrolling and quick response of the officers involved, the perpetrators were taken into custody without any further incident. The perpetrators were charged with assault and criminal possession of a weapon.

September

Police Officer Michael Burke and Police Officer Nick Giakoumis

On Friday, September 17, 2010, at approximately 11 am, a 76 year old woman was the victim of a strong arm robbery in the vicinity of Canal Street and West Broadway. The perpetrator dropped something on the ground and when the victim bent to pick it up he grabbed her pocketbook and pushed her to the ground. Police Officer Michael Burke and Police Officer Nick Giakoumis were driving past the location and were flagged down by a passerby who informed them of the crime. The Officers immediately took action and pursued the perpetrator into a nearby parking garage. The perpetrator tried to escape and was subdued by the Officers. The perpetrator was charged with Robbery and Resisting Arrest.

TD2 – Cop of the Month 2010

January
GRAND LARCENY

Arrest made at 4am of a suspect who stole iPod from sleeping victim on the E train. Police found that suspect had criminal history.

February
ROBBERY

  • Sgt.Joseph Sordi
  • PO John Birong
  • PO Darrell Alfonso
  • PO Lener Morales

Arrest in robbery of a victim who was attacked and punched on staircase by 3 suspects who then went thru the victims pockets and fled. The officers canvassed the area and found the suspects and made the arrest.

March
GRAND LARCENY

  • Sgt Christopher Correa
  • PO Cesar Gonzales

Suspect robbing victims on as they enter the subway at Broadway Nassau Street station on the J line. Grabbing ladies purses at they go through turnstiles
Officers found suspect, had a positive line up id., made arrest.

May
GRAND LARCENY

  • Sgt. John Nunziato
  • PO. Alexander Bradshaw
  • PO. Jim Bartley
  • PO. Michael Thomas

Lush worker arrest for more on this story see Daily News article.

June
Lush Worker Arrest

At the Brooklyn Bridge station at 3:40 am on the 6 train officers observed a known lush worker (criminal who steals items from people asleep on trains) remove a Sidekick cell phone from a sleeping passenger’s hand. The officer arrested the perp and 2 other lush workers who were look outs.

Between the 2 defendants they had 54 prior arrests including arrests for Robbery and Grand Larceny

Sgt John Nunziato, PO Bradshaw, PO Thomas and PO Bartley made the arrests

July
Grand Larceny Arrest

At Penn Station around 1pm an officers observed a person trying to use a credit card in the Metro Card machine which was denied. The officer questioned the man and he stated “you got me”. The perp was found to be in possession of 4 stolen credit cards, belonging to 2 separate persons. Investigation showed that a bag was stolen from a woman at Radio City and another victim reported that his bag was stolen from 44th St and 5th Ave.

Lt Cruz, Sgt. Larasso and PO Corrado made the arrest. They were the anti crime plain clothes officers

The defendant had 20 prior arrests including 7 for Burglary and 2 for Robbery

July
Phone snatch arrest

Officers observed a female chasing a male down the street yelling “stop him.” The officers caught the male near Waverly Place. The female stated the perp had snatched her Phone while she was texting.

August
Jostling

During a train inspection on the uptown A train at W 4th Street, at 5:50pm officers observed a perp pretending to read a newspaper reach and grab a females purse 2 times while holding the train door open. Anti crime plain clothes officers Lt Cruz and Officer Mejia observed and made the arrest. The defendant had 42 prior arrests including 8 for Robbery, 4 for Grand Larceny, 6 for Criminal Possession of stolen property and 1 for Burglary

September
At approx 1:30 am on the Brooklyn Bridge station north bound track officers were called to the station in response to a call.
A male had beaten up passengers who had refused to give him their money and possessions.
The victims stated that the perp was sitting across from them on the train and stated “Give me you money”, when refused he punched and kicked victims and took their wallets
The officers did an investigation on the scene and the perp was found and arrested by Officer Tom.
Officers responded were

  • Sgt Joseph Sordi
  • PO Michael Rhome
  • PO Randy Dasilva
  • PO Brendan Tom

1st Precinct Council News


Chief Purtell and Liz Berger, President of the Downtown Alliance, at the NYPD Downtown Center opening

The 1st Precinct Scooter Task Force and the Downtown Alliance Security Division moved to new offices at 65 Broadway this week. Patrol Boro Manhattan South Chief Thomas Purtell, 1st Precinct Commanding Officer Captain Edward Winski, Scooter Task Force Commanding Officer Lt. Rob Rudolph were on hand to open the new NYPD Downtown Center.

The new offices are centrally located to the Financial District, Battery Park City, Greenwich South.

We wish them well in their new space.


Commanding Officer Edward Winski with Lt Rob Rudolph, Liz Berger, President of the Downtown Alliance, and Sgt Harvin of the Scooter Task Force.

Captain Paul Rasa, new Commanding Officer of Transit District 2

Assigned to Transit District 2 on 1/3/10
Previous commands: 49 Pct, Bronx Narcotics, 43 Pct, 115 Pct and Transit Manhattan Task Force
Transit District 2 covers 6 precincts: 1,5,6,10,13 and MTS, 36 Stations, 21 Lines and 44 posts (or subway stations)


Other news:

Captain Vincent Costagliola new Executive Officer of Transit District 2
Assigned to Transit District 2 on 4/19/10 former ICO (Integrity Control Officer) at our 1st Precinct

We wish them all well!


Pictured L-R: Council Member Margaret Chin attends the 1st Precinct Council meeting as we honor our March Cop-of-the-Month Officer Gene Schatz ( story below), 1st Pct Council VP Marc Ameruso, Transit District 2 Community Affairs Officer James Rudolph, 1st Precinct Community Affairs Officer Steve Rose, Detective Rick Lee, 1st Precinct Council President Anthony Notaro, Council Member Margaret Chin, Officer of the Month Gene Schatz, Executive Officer Joseph Panarisse

New 1st Pct. Commander Taking Hard Line With Late-Night Partiers

By Matt Dunning, The Tribeca Trib
Since taking command of the NYPD’s 1st Precinct in June, Capt. Edward Winski has leapt to the frontline of confronting troublesome Lower Manhattan nightspots.

Two shooting incidents—at Soho’s Greenhouse nightclub in July and near the South Street Seaport in the early hours of Saturday, Aug. 7—plus a steady stream of noise complaints from around Downtown have led him to assemble a special nightlife “conditions” unit.

Winski reported on the new police unit to a Community Board 1 subcommittee on crime at its Aug. 9 meeting.

Read more online…

1st Precinct Celebrates National Night Out with Mayor Bloomberg and Commisssioner Kelly

Read the article about the day’s events at DNAinfo.com.

Browse our photo gallery below from this year’s event.

The big cop-out: Organizers try to blame police after riot cancels their concert

Editorials, Thursday, June 17th 2010, 4:00 AM
Source: NY Daily News

To the annals of fatuousness is added the following Twitter update sent out Tuesday night by Paper magazine, sponsor of the free South Street Seaport concert that erupted into a miniriot:

“It’s a total madhouse — in a good way!”

This is how you view thrown chairs and bottles and throngs of people perched dangerously on rooftops when you believe that you inhabit a space somewhere other than reality.

As one guiding spirit of Paper, Kim Hastreiter, once said of her kindred soul in command:

“My wonderful longtime partner David Hershkovits always says that we at Paper live in a parallel universe … and so we create our own little utopian business where conforming to standard operating procedures is not required.”

It was in this parallel universe that Paper staged a show whose leading acts were pop-rock group Hanson and hip-hop performer Aubrey Graham, aka Drake, projecting attendance at 8,000 but drawing 20,000 and having no clue as to crowd control.

Read the rest of this entry »

Cheers! NYPD transit cops bust three ‘lush worker’ pickpockets who targeted drunk subway riders

By Pete Donohue
NY Daily News Staff Writer
Saturday, June 5th 2010, 4:00 AM

Subway riders who imbibe too much can sleep easier on the trip home now that a team of “lush worker” pickpockets is locked up, authorities said Friday.

NYPD Transit Bureau police have busted a trio that preyed on intoxicated riders who doze off and are unlikely to notice being relieved of their property, police said.

"The three individuals arrested had more than 30 arrests among them, many of them in the subway system," Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne said in a statement. "Their apprehension makes the riding public that much safer."

Victor Vataj, Darrell Wilson and Christopher Harris were arrested at a lower Manhattan station at 3:20 a.m. on May 30. A transit police officer spotted Wilson, 40, taking a cell phone from a sleeping rider while Harris, 43, kept the train doors open and Vataj, 34, stood on the platform "looking back and forth," the police complaint said.

A judge set Wilson’s bail at $100,000 bond, according to the Manhattan district attorney’s office. Bail for Vataj and Harris was set at $60,000 bond each.

Read the original article.

2009 National Night Out

The 26th Annual National Night Out in Zuccotti Park on August 4, 2009 was attended by officers of the 1st Precinct, Commanding Officer Anthony Bologna, Chief of Manhattan South Patrol Boro Raymond Diaz, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, CEO of Brookfield Properties John Zuccotti, State Senator Daniel Squadron, Downtown Alliance President Liz Berger, Councilman Alan Gerson, director of The New York City Police Museum Julie Bose, Century 21 executive Betty Cohen and 1st Precinct Community Council President Anthony Notaro.

National Night Out is an opportunity for members of the community to meet with local police and elected officials. Many local community organizations offer material on their events and programing. This year we were happy to welcome the new commander of Manhattan South Patrol Boro, Chief Raymond Diaz.

Browse our photo gallery below from this year’s event.