A group of more than a dozen Arverne by the Sea homeowners are under investigation for illegally renting out their homes while collecting approximately $1 million in tax exemptions, the Department of Investigation said this week.
A Department of Investigation report, issued Feb. 8, includes 11 recommendations to expand city oversight and prevent violations following the investigation into a 2018 complaint.
The DOI found that there were 15 homeowners in violation of the primary residence requirement; eight used the properties as rentals or investment properties — one as a hotel that was registered with the city to collect occupancy tax — and four who each owned one property and used them as rentals instead of living there.
There were 11 homeowners with multiple Arverne by the Sea deeds.
According to the DOI, they “were in violation of primary residence requirements by illegally renting their properties while being unjustly enriched by tax exemptions meant for owner-occupied homes.”
The apartments were designated in the early 2000’s as an Housing Preservation and Development Urban Development Action Area Project with a 20-year property tax exemption to homeowners requiring they maintain the homes as their primary residences.
You wouldn’t think if you looked at them on first impression, but these beautiful beach front houses are actually government sanctioned public housing…
These Arverne homes are actually impeccably designed, a bulk of them even have patios on the top floors which resemble something like penthouse condos like on Miami and Venice Beaches with gorgeous views of the Atlantic Ocean and somewhat pleasant views of Jamaica Bay and the poorer parts of Rockaway Beach, where there at least three public housing projects in the same neighborhood.
You don’t have to be much of a detective to figure out why these 15 motherfuckers ook advantage of a government housing program and made millions off it while getting tax breaks and write-offs for nearly a decade. It doesn’t take much sleuthing to figure out why these homes were easily poached for illegal renting and airbnb lodging and why some nefarious scumbags would conspire tto take advantage of this government housing program and try to make massive profits from it.All it took was a casual bike ride around this sunny oasis of pirated housing equity, it’s gets real plain to see why some nefarious scumbags would try to take advantage of this government housing program and try to make massive profits from it. Bookending this HUD financed utopian village are two massive vacant lots, one of which is still a landfill.
And they are slathered with massive ads promoting luxury lifestyle and real estate offers…..for one luxury apartment building. Which is very odd.
This building “The Tides” is the only actual luxury building which for all intents and purposes and ironically doesn’t even stand out. It actually looks more like a government funded building than the HUD houses by the boardwalk, kinda like a Mitchell Lama building. But it’s definitely lux, even the hip cafe, fancy eatery and wine shop are right there in the building too as advertised.
And it’s not just “The Tides” lux building that’s rich around here, the whole vicinity looks like nothing else on Queens only peninsula (well, besides Rikers Island) Just across the street is a row of other high end eateries and big bank branches and hovering right over them and Beach Channel Drive is a massive sign of the name of this area “Arverne By The Sea” as if to mimic the legendary Hollywood sign on the hills over Los Angeles.
The thing about the HUD houses is that even though they are nice, they were built too nice. Which belies the motive to seize all these homes for these greedy predators to grossly monetize from. Plus it wasn’t hard to accomplish, because ever since the peninsula and the boardwalk were renovated and revitalized after Hurricane Sandy, Rockaway Beach has surprisingly become a worldwide tourist attraction and an bigger attraction for high end real estate development and a hotspot for Airbnb opportunists like the guilty parties not named on this motley list of LLC homeowners.
A lot of this has interest has been established in Arverne, which also had the benefit of getting the most shore infrastructure improvements which includes a surfer culture scene that has grown immensely in the last half decade that has attracted visitors from all over the world (despite the pathetic waves in this area that usually leave these wave riding novices and posers waddling on the Atlantic like ducks in a lake for hours).
Which brings us back to the surfer demographic, because it was quite strategic for this surf shop Breakwater Surf Co. (company?) to set up their surfboard rental right under the giant advert sign for the luxury Tides condo building. Coincidentally, the shop Breakwater Surf’s founder started his company in the wave capital and summer hot spot in the nation in Rhode Island(!!)and was courted by the developer mentioned in the DOI’s report Benjamin Beechwood to set up shop at Arverne to bring a surf scene to new neighborhood. It arouses a bit of suspicion that there’s some sort of vertical integration with the marketing for not only the Tides (which advertises three businesses that take up space on the landfill walls) but with the illegal rentals as well.
And all this nefarious malfeasance by this consortium of affordable housing snatchers and the creeping gentrification and overdevelopment on the beach would not be possible without the complicity of the criminal negligence and insouciance of the feckless officials of the Housing, Development and Preservation Department under the crooked mayor and his deputy mayor co-conspirators, which for all intents and purposes according to the DOI study deliberately didn’t set up a regulatory system to monitor the criminal conspiracy at the Arverne By The Sea complex for almost an entire decade.
But one thing that’s common knowledge especially after de Blasio’s HPD’s notorious affordable housing program, is that the city’s housing policies are always geared and prioritized for the nomadic rich and mostly for the rich that doesn’t exist in NYC. And despite the charges and calls for reform of the HPD (instead of firing everyone and subpoenaing every involved in this housing scandal including de Blasio and deputy mayor’s and HPD commissioners Alicia Glen and Vicki Been) the damage from nearly a decade of ripping off HUD tax dollars has paid dividends for the real estate developers as standard luxury tower and luxury public tower development progressed even further during the Arverne illegal rental heists (despite the ominous land erosion on Rockaway’s shores). Even the community civics are getting more alarmed by the tower pestilence infecting the landscape of the mostly middle class streets of Rockaway Beach And Rockaway Park.
Although HPD’s apparent deliberate negligence enabling millions of tax payer dollars get pissed away for profits leading to the rise of real estate values by weaponizing a federal housing program for profits is even more capricious considering that this was happening literally in the district’s Congress member in the U.S. Capitol Rep. Gregory Meeks, whose office is right in the heart and under the vast sign of Arverne by the Sea. It’s a wonder how Meeks could not have seen this scandal happening right under his nose until you think about his own personal troubles with real estate investments with an indicted developer donor and the fact that he was living as a squatter in a luxury home not long ago.
It doesn’t say in the DOI report if any of these profiteering plunderers of government housing will ever face charges. It’s not even known if anyone from HPD got a piece of the action got rich with them for keeping quiet as the tax free cash rolled in and piled up for these makeshift realtors and landlords (Hell the HPD even gave them fucking money themselves!). It’s also quite surprising that The Tides developers and realtor is not tied to this scheme giving the convenient proximity of their location. Because real estate is all about location location location.
Mostly it was the speculation/fabrication of the real estate market that inspired these criminal actions. During the time these urban housing poachers were making their millions and dodging property taxes, more lux development immediately followed in nearby areas like the Playland and Rockaway Park districts and Edgemere, along with a big boost by former Mayor’s Bill de Blasio’s mandatory inclusionary housing ruse that enables developers to build higher and denser with the flimsy provision to include incremental housing for lower income residents while also hoarding more cash from the city and state’s philanthropic 421a tax break. And just like in Brooklyn by the bridges where the majority of the city’s most luxurious public housing towers have been erected, this consortium of opportunist government welfare realtors in Arverne easily took advantage of frivolous spending transient suckers looking to pay high to dwell or vacation in a town with cache’s and cultural scenes, being dutiful proxies in making the housing and rental market even more enriching for the Gentrification Industrial Complex of real estate and government.
It’s been a few weeks since the, umm, reported suicide of Jeffrey Epstein, multi-millionaire financial advisor and money manager, child predator and trafficker. Conveniently for Epstein, he was detained in the Manhattan Correctional Center after his first “suicide attempt” was “stopped” by a cop who slaughtered four people. The MCC is one this city’s wretched facilities, rife with horrid conditions and atypical lousy food. But what made his fatal jailbreak easy was the fact that the jail’s personnel was understaffed, guarded by C.O.’s working overtime during the wee hours and notably a person assigned to fill in to guard who wasn’t even an official C.O., (which for some reason there hasn’t been much or any inquiry why he was assigned that position and what his job history was). At the time when he snuffed it, he was actually put back on suicide watch.
It was easy to figure out that Epstein was not going to learn anything from his sabbatical incarceration away from society, after getting a light sentence from his prior child rape charges because he was “of intelligence” according to Trump’s former Labor Secretary Acosta. But high society easily forgives and embraces multi-millionaires, whether doing some light embezzlement or treason and in this case child trafficking. Which the pedophile Epstein continued to fiendishly dabble in from his release a decade ago notably at his vast and eerie Upper East Side mansion a block from Central Park which got immediately raided during his overdue arrest.
Overdue being that District Attorney Cy Vance lowered Epstein’s sexual offender level status, as the NYPD didn’t bother to do checkups on his creepy mansion or even bring Epstein downtown to register as a level 3 offender despite judge’s orders, as the statutory rape addict continued to engage and arrange sexual trysts involving hundreds of young girls with the aid of his platonic girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell. (The relationship these two have is almost like an evil version of Jerry Seinfeld and Elaine Benes)
To think that if Cy Vance wasn’t such an oligarch ass kisser and the NYPD were as aggressive to keep tabs on an internationally known sexual predator as they were to stop and frisk Black and Hispanic people and combing colleges for Muslims, they could have got a warrant and broke down the door to Epstein’s townhouse and arrested him 8 years ago. And they probably could have collared Prince Andrew during a blow job with a 14-year-old girl.
Who knows if Epstein would have wound up if he was caught back then. Probably dead too under strange and suspicious circumstance and coincidence also. He had a lot of powerful and pretty much immoral friends and associates that didn’t want their evil sexual piccadillos or how they acquired their finances exposed back then either.
But for now, what we got according to corporate news, has been determined a suicide and everyone is supposed to believe and accept it. Even though for some reason in this age of infinite and omniscient surveillance, there is no video footage of Epstein’s determined suicide. Even though Epstein plead not guilty to all charges and he paid some of the inmates commissary for protection. Even though the autopsy found a bone in his neck that was broken which is usually caused by strangulation. And the sheets given to inmates are not even strong enough to squeeze the cream out of a twinkie.
Lo and behold, video footage was available, but it turned out to be damaged or unreadable or some bullshit. I guess that’s what you have to expect in a run down, debilitated, vermin infested, understaffed correctional facility.
Which incidentally is the perfect place to execute the perfect crime on the most wanted man in the world, by those violated and those that did the violating. Although not as gruesome but still barbaric, Epstein’s suicide is akin to the butchering of Washington Post reporter Adnan Kashoggi by 15 men associated with Prince Mohammed Bin Salman in Saudi Arabia’s embassy in Turkey. Kashoggi was another man who knew too much, but Epstein knew tons more. He even was close with MBS too. There’s just too much to know and it’s way above my pay grade, which is zero.
But all I can offer about this convoluted FUBAR coverup is this:
That all questions and theories on Epstein’s “suicide” are moot. It’s common and horribly accepted knowledge that the wealthiest people in the world and the politicians who are obeisant to them don’t want anything to ruin their heavily guarded hedonistic lifestyles and swollen bank accounts.
Rikers Island, pariah government center on scrumptious speculative real estate.
From the elected denizens occupying City Hall, they have begun the dizzying ill conceived official program to shut down Rikers Island and transfer all convicts present and future to four jails in the boroughs of Queens, Brooklyn, Bronx, and Manhattan. But not Staten Island, because supposedly no one commits crimes there.
This is where the Mini-Rikers will be:
Manhattan Detention Center, 125 White Street, Manhattan, 10013 (The Tombs)
Brooklyn Detention Center, 275 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, 11201
Queens Detention Center, 126-01 82nd Avenue, Kew Gardens, 11415
NYPD Tow Pound, 320 Concord Avenue, Bronx, 10454
This transition is suppose to take a decade or if crime drops first. But apparently these fauxgressive hacks aren’t even going to wait for the latter, especially now that Gov. Andy has decided to up the ante with his jackass boisterousness and wants Rikers shut down earlier than that.
Mayor de Blasio and Speaker Corey Johnson announced an agreement today to move forward on closing Rikers Island and creating a smaller, safer and fairer borough-based jail system. Together with the Council Members representing these areas, the Mayor and Speaker have agreed to a single public review process for four proposed sites in Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens. These sites together will provide off-Island space for 5,000 detainees, and will include the three existing DOC facilities in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, as well as a new site in the Bronx located at 320 Concord Avenue in Mott Haven.
“This agreement marks a huge step forward on our path to closing Rikers Island,” said Mayor de Blasio. “In partnership with the City Council, we can now move ahead with creating a borough-based jail system that’s smaller, safer and fairer. I want to thank these representatives, who share our vision of a more rehabilitative and humane criminal justice system that brings staff and detainees closer to their communities.”
“Today is a historic day, as we are yet one step closer to closing Rikers Island. The New York City Council is proud to have spearheaded the historic Close Rikers movement by creating the Lippman commission and passing legislation enacting many of its recommendations. The Council has also funded innovative programming to keep cases out of the criminal justice system altogether, such as the CLEAR and HOPE programs, which provide treatment instead of incarceration to those with substance abuse issues. We all know that closing jails on Rikers means opening more humane, community-based facilities elsewhere. I am proud to stand with my Council colleagues and thank them for their support on this crucial issue. I look forward to working closely with Mayor de Blasio, my Council colleagues representing these communities, and the communities themselves in finally achieving our shared goal of closing Rikers Island,” said Speaker Corey Johnson.
This is being done because the violent environment and corruption in Rikers has become too endemic. As opposed to the equally well know graft in the city and state government high offices for a century and at a pinnacle today? Is this really what voters, meaning the less than 25% who showed up to elect these dusted democrats, really asked for from them.
What are the costs going to be to retrofit those four jails and how they are going to manage to fit all those prisoners and even staff. Especially what the speculative costs will be to convert that garage in the Bronx into a functioning high security apparatus. Most essential is how this goal of 5,000 convicts going to be accomplished to justify these transfers.
As simplistic and cynical as it sounds, which this utopian program resembles the former in spades, the only way this can be achieved is by not convicting anyone who commits crimes it seems. Which de Blasio has already assured with recent accusations by a police captain of stations lessening crime charges and the recent and similar doctoring and reclassifying of crimes committed at homeless shelters
As for sounding like the latter, it has been known for a few years that the Gentrification Industrial Complex are salivating at the prospects of all that scrumptious real estate waiting to be taken. Even the Corrections Officers Union President Elias Husamudeen smells a rat and sees this for the fauxgressive ruse it is. Although coming from the namesake of the commission report that inspired the Rikers shutdown, Johnathan Lippman, it ain’t like those interested in all that city property are shy about their passively heinous ulterior motives masking as a humanity cause:
…former New York State chief judge Jonathan Lippman, who heads the New York City Council-created criminal justice reform commission that oversees the Rikers-study committee, said it’s only natural to explore “potentially doing some of the things we’ve done with other vacant, large pieces of land, whether it be benefiting public health, education, research institutions.”
But he also sought to emphasize, and then re-emphasize, that real estate is in no way the central focus of his committee.
“At the outset, let me say that the future of Rikers Island as a physical location follows—and certainly doesn’t precede—improving our jail system,” he said.
“The political center of this will be about how we make the system more humane and just,” he said, “and at the same time recognize that you do have a very strategically placed and valuable piece of real estate there that could have a multitude of public policy purposes to develop it.”
None of these elected idiots surely not have thought through this but predictably are following de Faustio’s (bottom) line. Particularly Speaker Corey Johnson who in just a short month after exhorting that he was going to be a bulldog critic and a check on the mayor’s machinations and decisions has devolved into the typical partisan loyal neoliberal lapdog he is. And Councilwoman Karen Koslowitz who has officially thrown her hands up and quit and gave her approval, selling out her constituents and her credibility.
While we all want to live in a city or even a world without crime, this program is being foisted on the public without a clarified thought or what the ramifications might be or how much the goddamn new Mini-Rikers are going to cost.
And one huge fact is if that when this transfer officially begins, will that endemic violent and corrupt prison culture will carry on in the new jails or will exacerbate. Because this is clearly not going to happen overnight or most certainly, well, never.
Because in Rikers Island, a correction officer was attacked and beat down by five prisoners as a guard in the same room just stood there and watched and did not help his fellow officer, who wound up with severe spinal and neck injuries from the savage gang attack. The first one who barged in the room planned the premeditated the attack during a phone call according to another inmate.
We shall see how this shit enfolds. This post illustrates that this isn’t starting off well.
Queens
In Long Island City, an 18-year-old man was accosted by a man in the elevator withim if he could hook him up with a job but then ambushed him and punched him repeatedly and stole his phone.
In Jackson Heights, a woman entering her apartment building was attacked by a man with a knife who shoved her against the wall and tried to steal her purse, but she resisted and dragged the mugger outside while holding on to her property.
Also in Jackson Heights, a man fell off the elevated tracks at the 74st Train Station and died.
In Far Rockaway, a 15-year-old boy was shot at twice and killed by two other teenage boys on the street at 4:30 p.m. in a gang-related shooting. The parents of the victim moved to the neighborhood from gentrifying Astoria because it was affordable.
In Ozone Park, a poor woman was killed in an fire ignited by a hot plate she was using in an apartment with multiple illegal conversion violations.
Also in Ozone Park, two men held up a man at knifepoint and robbed his wallet.
In South Ozone Park at Resorts World Casino, a 19-year-old man slashed a 72-year-old man in the face.
In Kew Gardens, a 50-year-old woman sitting on her porch at 8 p.m. was approached by a stranger who asked for the time then attacked her and slammed her into her car during a struggle and robbed her purse.
In Astoria, a newborn baby was found dead with his tube still attached to his belly in a garbage can at the Dutch Kills Playground.
Also in Astoria, at the Broadway Station, a man taking a piss on the platform was caught in the act by a commuter who decided to film him (unwise) and then whipped out a knife and threatened him then stalked him as they left the station
In South Jamaica, a hooker from California arranged a hookup with a woman through a website instead was confronted by an man with a gun who took her by a building where an armed woman was waiting and robbed her phone, I.D., and debit cards. The woman was forced into a cab and was about to be pimped out by them but was able to escape.
In Rosedale, 2 unattended pit bulls wandering around Brookville Park attacked a man then tried to attack cops coming out of their car, which led one of the officers to shoot one of the dogs in the legs.
In Forest Hills, a man killed himself as he crashed his BMW in a parking lot after he lost control of his vehicle.
In South Richmond Hill, a similar car burned to a crisp is parked on 107th avenue for some unknown reason.
Hot Wheels.
In Richmond Hill, three men are still at large for 2 armed robberies of 2 bodegas and another bodega in Jamaica.
In Maspeth, a man robbed a bank of $2,200 when he gave the teller a note.
In Flushing, a burglar robbed the same house twice within the hour in the same day, stealing cash and jewelry totaling $2,200.
In Woodside, an 83-year-old woman was killed crossing the street by an SUV at 2:30 p.m.
In Fresh Meadows, parked cars are getting damaged from students of a driving school during lessons.
In Glen Oaks, a man was found dead in a house after it was on fire.
Manhattan
In Columbus Circle on the A train arriving at the station of the same name, 20 to 30 kids attacked and savagely beat up a homeless man who asked them for money. This is like the first thing the Droogies did after leaving the milk bar in A Clockwork Orange but 5 to 7.5 times worse.
In the Lower East Side, a man attacked a restaurant worker on the street by calling him a racial slur then punching and slashing him in the face and stealing his cellphone.
Also in the Lower East Side, a man randomly slashed two women in the face blocks apart, the second attack was near a police station.
In the East Village, a vandal used a branch to smash the back windshield of a car.
Also in the East Village at Tompkins Square Park, a pile of christmas trees collected for mulching was set on fire overnight by pyromaniac vandals.
Again in the East Village, a man feigning to be a customer robbed a store at gunpoint and stole $500
And again in the East Village, a pitbull belonging to a homeless woman bit a homeless man when he tried to steal her food.
And again in the East Village at the 3rd Avenue Station, a man sat down next to a woman on the L train, whipped out his shlong and started jerking off.
And again in the East Village, proto-punk legend Handsome Dick Manitoba was charged with beating his ex-girlfriend in his apartment.
In the Upper West Side on the tracks of the Broadway express lines, a man jumped onto the tracks from the 96th St. Station, rested for a bit around 86th St. Station while holding a record then ran up the steps where he was detained by police kicking and screaming.
In Harlem, a man got shot to death after he engaged in an argument with three men in front of a public housing building.
Also in Harlem, a cab driver got stiffed for $18 from a couple and got assaulted by the male passenger when he tried to get his money as witnesses gawked at the beatdown.
Again in Harlem, a woman committed suicide by jumping out the window in front of her 11-year-old son.
In East Harlem at the 125th Street Station, a 17-year-old boy got slashed and robbed by two men for his sneakers that he was trying to sell via an arrangement on a social media platform. This is the umpteenth incident of it’s kind.
In Soho, a fire escape step that was being inspected by the Department of Buildings at the time fell off when a contractor was looking at it and fell 7 stories and landed on two people, critically injuring one and killing another.
In Greenwich Village, a man randomly attacked a woman and two men on the same block by punching them in the face.
Also in Greenwich Village, a man stabbed himself in the neck in front of his house over a break-up.
Again in Greenwich Village at Pier 40, a man was robbed of his bag containing his $2,000 laptop by two kids.
In the West Village at the 4th Street Station, a man going through the turnstile had his wallet snatched by a thief who then punched him in the face when he tried to get it back.
In Union Square, a man slashed his co-worker in the face at a juice store.
Also in Union Square, a man got busted trying to snatch a purse inside a supermarket and was wanted for prior similar thefts in the area.
Again in Union Square, a man attacked two cops by biting and kicking them when they were trying to remove him from a chain pharmacy store.
In Penn Station at Madison Square Garden, an off-duty cop seeing a kids show with his wife and kid caught a fugitive from a shooting in his precinct in University Heights and busted the perp with the help of his fellow officers.
In Hell’s Kitchen at the Intrepid Sea and Air Museum, a man attempted to rob a sweatshirt and demand five dollars by threatening a worker with a hammer.
In Waterside Plaza on the FDR drive, a mentally ill man being sent to Bellevue jumped out of the back door of the ambulance as it was leaving the highway exit.
In Chelsea at the Fulton Houses, a woman was raped by two men in a bathroom at an apartment while a house party was happening.
In Times Square at the 42nd Street Station, a man punched a woman in the face because she accidentally bumped into him.
Also in Times Square, a man harassed a woman and then pulled out a knife and slashed her face after her boyfriend tried to defend her.
Again in Times Square, a homeless man slashed a pedestrian in his face when he bumped into him.
In Hell’s Kitchen, a woman committed suicide as she leapt from the 28th floor of an apartment building.
In Midtown, a man was found dead in his apartment after he overdosed on huffing spray paint.
Also in Midtown at the 7th Avenue Station, a man shoved a 79-year-old man into a wall on the staircase and caused him to fall down the stairs.
At the Joralemon Tunnel under the East River, although there was a smoke condition the train continued to run on the 4/5 line.
In Downtown at City Hall, a livery cab driver shot himself in his car with a shotgun by the front gate in protest of the city’s ineffective policies regarding the amount of app-based hail car service vehicles clogging the streets and the monopolization of the industry and the elected officials who let it fester and grow. Never Forget Doug Schifter.
Also in Downtown at the Chambers St. Station on the J line platform, a woman was accosted by a man on the other side who took out his dick and started masturbating in front of her.
In the Flatiron District, two men went into an upscale handbag store and stole 3 grand worth of purses.
In Waterside Plaza, a man and a boy with hammers mugged a woman for her cash.
Brooklyn
In East New York, where a hipster population is growing like a repulsive skinny tattooed stupid tree in Brooklyn which is what the city wants above all else, a man strangled his girlfriend in his apartment and was busted by the cops later at a barber shop in possession of a stolen loaded gun and a knife.
Also in East New York, a NYCHA employee grabbed the nuts of a man she was working with because she was about to get off probation for something.
Again in East New York at the Gateway Mall Shopping Mall parking lot is where the most car break-in thefts in the city happen.
In Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, a man attacked and stabbed to death a husband and wife when they were walking back home from their store. The motive of the murders seem to be that the attacker bought bad mojo from them.
In Crown Heights, a man was shot twice in the face and stomach and killed around the corner from where he lived and nearby where the voodoo store proprietors were stabbed days before.
In Crown Heights, a group of men arrested for illegal trespassing taken to the 71st Pct. were never searched and were able to record a video from a cellphone in their jail cell and were showing off a big bag of weed and talking shit a mile a minute as officers were trying not to acknowledge them. Thus The Blue Wall Of Insouciance gets denser and higher.
Again in Crown Heights, a man dressed as a superhero with a costume ensemble of sandals, long johns, bermuda shorts, a ripped wifebeater t-shirt, a beach towel and a banana was jumping from roof to roof and was detained by cops after he posed with his trusty potassium power source on a fire escape and was about to jump and defy gravity and lose.
(Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News)
No need for Black Panther or Ghost Dad,Banana Lantern is here to fight gradually rising street crime and forced gentrification. Or maybe it’s Blankman II (are the Watchmen recruiting??)
In Flatbush, a barber who told a man to stop bothering his customers at his salon was shot by him two hours later.
In Bed-Stuy, a man shot his girlfriend in his apartment after an argument and barricaded himself inside from the cops.
In East Flatbush at the Holy Cross Cemetery, 63 headstones and statues were vandalized and knocked down.
In Williamsburg, a man broke into an apartment at 2:40 p.m. and stole expensive tech items, a laptop, a video game console and a purse.
In Cobble Hill, a man was found dead in the basement of a former hospital under development for luxury housing.
In Brighton Beach, three men are wanted for 4 violent muggings in 4 weeks from late December to January.
Also in Brighton Beach, three apartments were burglarized blocks away from each other.
In Seagate, a woman was slashed in the face by a man after an argument they had at a diner.
In Marine Park and Mill Basin, an employee of a department store aided a crook in stealing clothes and a woman’s car window was smashed and her pocketbook robbed.
In Coney Island, a deli was held up by a masked gunman who robbed the register.
In Sheepshead Bay, a woman was attacked by two men who put her in a chokehold and punched her in the face and was robbed of her cellphone, purse and shoes and a bodega was robbed overnight as was the portable ATM machine by it as the burglars made off with over 5 large.
Also in Sheepshead Bay, two boys robbed a kid of his bicycle when one of the jerks shot a stun gun at him.
Again in Sheepshead Bay, two men stole thousands of dollars worth of cellphones from a store.
And again in Sheepshead Bay, two men slashed a 17-year-old boy and robbed his cellphone and wallet,t hree people pounced on a 14-year-old boy in a park and beat him down for his sneakers and metrocard and two 18-year-old men broke into an apartment armed and ran when the kids inside started crying.
In Gravesend, an 18-year-old man got beaten up and robbed by a man he knew who stole his cellphone and hat after they got off a bus together.
In Bensonhurst, a woman was scammed and robbed by a con artist of 3 grand who promised her a job if she sent her a check, a man clobbered another man with a broomstick cutting his head open, three men sneaked up behind a man making a withdrawal at an ATM and stole 900 bucks, two men held up a man at gunpoint and robbed his cellphone.
Also in Bensonhurst, a man followed a woman to her apartment and forced his way in and attempted to rape her. The woman managed to elude him by running away and locking him out when he pursued her.
In Bay Ridge, a man held up a store at gunpoint and stole lottery scratch games worth $300.
Also in Bay Ridge, a woman found her screen window busted and $1,800 worth of jewelry missing when she came home after a few days.
Again in Bay Ridge, a man walking on the street drinking beer slapped and grabbed a woman’s ass.
In Bath Beach, a man held up a store at gunpoint and robbed $900, a gang of five men rolled up on a man sitting in his car with a BB gun and stole 30 bucks and his phone.
Bronx
In Woodstock, a pregnant woman was attacked by two women who knocked her down and kicked her repeatedly as she laid on the steps and slammed the door on her leg then robbed her cellphone. Two supporters for the lady thugs were arrested at their arraignments for disrupting the court process with their yelling and refusing to vacate the chambers.
In Kingsbridge Heights, a teenage girl was attacked in an apartment building lobby by three men and two women who all beat her down to the floor with punches and kicks then threw bleach at and slashed her face.
In Mott Haven, a wheelchair bound woman with one leg was randomly slashed in the face by a man she recognized in front of corner bodega.
Also in Mott Haven, a man randomly slashed a father in his face when he walking on the sidewalk with his 1 year old son.
In Morris Park, a man was shot to death while sitting in his car at 5:30 a.m.
In Pelham Gardens, a man broke into a 64-year-old woman’s apartment by climbing through her window on the second floor then beat her up with a crowbar after she tried to take his skimask off. He then tied her up with a phone cord and stole her wedding band and $500.
In Allerton, a man was was found in an apartment lobby floor with a stab wound in his chest and died from his wound.
In Norwood, a man shot his girlfriend three times in their apartment after an argument.
In Fordham Heights, a man shot at two teenage males on a street corner after midnight.
In Pelham Bay Park, a man and woman boarding a bus got into a brawl with a commuter who the woman attacked with a screwdriver, then the man attacked the driver with an umbrella when he refused the suspects demand to keep driving.
In Belmont, while filming a segment for his news report about people getting swindled, PIX news correspondent Howard Thompson got attacked at an auto repair shop by a mechanic with a baseball bat who managed to hit Help Me Howard on the arm and also his cameraman on his hip.
In Claremont Village, a man tasked with watching a puppy pit bull stabbed it 50 times and killed it after the little dog bit him.
Goodnight, Onyx, 18 months.
In the South Bronx, a commercial building being used as a brothel was raided by cops leading to the arrest of seven men
In Parkchester, $100,000 in fentanyl was found inside box coolers of fish after a police investigation of a car.
In Morris Heights, a man and woman waltzed into an apartment and stole 4 grand worth of kicks.
In Foxhurst, an agent from the Immigrant and Customs Enforcement abused his position when he threatened to shoot a man with his gun having his car repossessed by his repoman cousin and later was arrested himself at the police station he brought his victim to because he was not suppose to use his government issued weapon while off duty.
Staten Island
A cop from the borough was busted in a bank fraud scheme with an accomplice who used his dead father’s identity, stealing $1.5 million from citizens.
Two men are ripping off people by placing skimmers in gas station pumps in this borough and Flushing and using cloned card numbers for shopping sprees.
Police brass are investigating claims by a veteran captain who alleges that some NYPD commanders are misclassifying felonies to hold down crime statistics in a bid to further their careers.
Capt. Marash Vucinaj has gathered 156 cases over the past two years from multiple commands that he contends show a pattern of downgrading some felony-level crimes to misdemeanors. The crimes include thefts and attempted thefts, assaults and assaults on cops. He does not claim the manipulation extends to murders and rapes.
The purpose, he said, is to shift crimes out of the all-important index crime category — made up of murder, rape, robbery, assault, burglary, grand larceny and auto theft.
Among the methods he claims he has seen:
Classifying incidents where cops are injured by suspects as resisting arrest, rather than assault.
Classifying grand larcenies as lost property and ignoring details that suggest a crime took place.
Classifying incidents where someone purposefully shot at someone but missed as “investigate shots fired,” reckless endangerment or criminal mischief.
Classifying incidents where a would-be thief slipped his hand into someone’s pocket or bag as misdemeanor “jostling” rather than attempted grand larceny.
Compressing several crimes with separate victims into one complaint report.
Failing to record crimes in the city handled by other law enforcement agencies.
High-ranking police officials sharply disputed Vucinaj’s claims of any widespread downgrading of crime. “I take serious offense at these allegations that crime reports aren’t taken right because cops shed their blood for these crime reports,” said Dermot Shea, the chief of crime control strategies.
“It goes against everything we’re trying to do to deploy our resources. We need those crime reports to deploy appropriately.”
A few days after touting and actually celebrating the record low murder rate (just 290 dead, a murder every 36 hours, hooray!), our NYPD of this/your city is under new scrutiny for downgrading the severity of crime statistics.
The creativity behind this according to Captain Vucinaj is disturbingly and conspiratorially widespread, showing an insidious sophistication that resembles the craft and skill sets of the biggest public relations firms. For example, Mayor de Faustio’s buddies in Berlin/Rosen.
Captain Vucinaj’s study revealed drawn down and peculiar reclassifying. Like shootings, targeted and crossfire, being filed as criminal mischief, basically associating sporadic gunfire with throwing eggs or toilet paper on Halloween. Shootings also qualified under the redundantly described reckless endangerment. The severity of such lethal activity got conveniently and literally lessened as long as the shots don’t hit or kill anybody.
Like how four people were held up at knife point and robbed and how three women had their wallets lifted and both were filed as one robbery because it was committed by one suspect.
Speaking of lifting wallets and also cellphones, the latter seeing a great increase because of it’s ubiquity and exposure, crime reports fell under the term “jostling” if the victims happened to robbed while asleep, bumped into and even with the perp just putting his hand in a purse or pocket, or classified as lost property instead of the standard, serious and accurate charge of grand larceny. Because your cherish personal belongings aren’t that essential you materialists, especially those fancy phones containing all your vital personal data and information.
The standout and most egregious of criminal activity is the diminishing of resisting arrest. What was previously classified as felony assault resulting from injuries caused during struggles was marked down to misdemeanor assault according to Capt. Vucinaj’s probe while working in the Transit Division. A remarkable amount of over 2,200 incidents out of over 3.500 involved a cop getting injured during an arrest with a rambunctious suspect in the span of 6 months.
Why that outstanding statistic is not revealed is not disturbing enough. But it makes a shitload of sense of why perpetrators are emboldened to go down with a fight before getting cuffed.
Similar altercations have happened in the last few months when a chump knocked over a cop after he was stopped jumping the turnstile when his train arrived, and a mentally ill man engaged in a struggle with two cops on a platform, causing one of the cops to fall down the stairs trying to apprehend him as he fled.
What’s perplexing is that these machinations are being ordered by the top brass of the precincts.More perplexing is that cops react with fervor and fury when a colleague gets shot or injured and this is going to encourage, as it has already, more skells to battle with cops and resist arrest. And it puts the cops on the street in more precarious and dangerous positions and situations, it may lead to more excessive use of force or another senseless, preventable and ultimately galvanizing fatality. The chiefs overseeing these crime spins are putting the lives of citizens and cops at more risk.
As with the standard procedure for investigating crime patterns, these markdowns gain more validation and credulity considering Deputy Inspector Peter Rose, recently promoted from captain from his precinct in Greenpoint. The same Inspector Rose who marginalized/reclassified the meaning of rape by stating that being raped by someone you know or dated is not as serious as being raped by a stranger (you can always depend on the kindness and aggressive sexual advances of those familiar with you, to misquote Tennessee Williams). Nearby in Bushwick, a woman had tremendous difficulty shaking off a stalker because the precinct she reported to kept giving her conflicting advice to avoid writing up her experience and told her flat out that she was wasting her time. An almost exact treatment by two precincts was given to a woman who was assaulted on the train because of the fact that the attack occurred when the train was moving as officers gave her conflicting excuses of where to file a complaint.
As with all great stories of the process of law enforcement and justice, there has to be a motive behind this. Maybe an ulterior motive. And it could only be, albeit cynically, is to make the neighborhoods virtually safe for habitation for market rate renting and home and condo ownership. As recent reports show a herculean percentage of whites moving into neighborhoods were crime was rampant in the bad old decades of the 70’s and 80’s like in Bed-Stuy, Crown Heights and Bushwick. And with the recent hyper-development in the South Bronx, Jamaica, Queens and the MIH zoning development being pushed by the city in East New York and East Harlem it is sure to get virtually safer there soon too.
It sure looks like the overlords of real estate are defining the charges, because all those nasty murders and muggings will make moneyed individuals think twice about living in these new posh burghs.
Captain Vucinaj should be highly commended for his due diligence for this irresponsible white washing and fudging of the stats, and the distressing fact that Compstat, like all technology, is not, never was and never will be infallible and can be easily taken advantaged of by the minds and hands of conniving humans. And since the persecution and casting out of Detective Frank Serpico, Captain Vucinaj has unfortunately become just another victim of the perpetual Blue Wall Of Silence and the sad, maddening culture of unquestioned exclusivity and fraternity of the NYPD.
Privately, police sources said, Vucinaj is known as a stickler for the rules and is not well-liked. “Cops don’t like him, his peers don’t like him, and no one wants to work with him,” one police source said. “Look at how frequently he’s been transferred.”Vucinaj, 45, has 24 years on the job and is the highest-ranking active-duty officer ever to publicly make such claims. A captain since 2009, he has been in 10 commands in the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn.From 2004 to 2007, he was assigned to Interpol in Lyon, France, by then-Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. He also commanded the special frauds squad and was twice selected to help write promotional exams. He has never been formally disciplined.For the past six months, however, he has been marooned in a do-nothing post in Transit Borough Brooklyn without an office phone, he says, as retaliation for reporting crime stat manipulation and other misconduct by commanders to Internal Affairs and the Quality Assurance Division — the unit that audits NYPD crime stats.All too often, the NYPD retaliates rather than investigates when officers report internal misconduct, and that sure looks like what’s happening here,” said Christopher Dunn, associate legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union.“Instead of going after Captain Vucinaj, the department should be getting to the bottom of his reports, which come from a high-level official and raise serious concerns about downgrading and other wrongdoing.”The last time chicanery like this was going on was when it was exposed by a regular cop, Adrian Schoolcraft, who also exposed endemic corruption involving ticket and arrest quotas, and the reclassifying and lessening serious charges of those arrests, arbitrary and retaliatory orders and assignments, the unconstitutional usage of stop question-and frisk and disregarding citizens complaints of vagrant and criminal activity. For doing his duty to protect and serve the public and not the culture of corruption fostered and enabled by precinct command and control, he was taken from his apartment by his fellow officers in the Emergency Services Unit and had him thrown into a psych ward at Jamaica Hospital in an attempt to get him institutionalized. That idiotic CIA-style rendition mission cost the city $600,000.This time it’s a decorated Captain and a city being run by an inveterate liar mayor. Although fortunately for Captain Vucinaj, he is protected by his high brass rank.As with all great stories of the process of law enforcement and justice, there has to be a motive behind this. Maybe an ulterior motive. And it could only be, albeit cynically, is to make the neighborhoods virtually safe for habitation for market rate renting and home and condo ownership. As recent reports show a herculean percentage of whites moving into neighborhoods were crime was rampant in the bad old decades of the 70’s and 80’s like in Bed-Stuy, Crown Heights and Bushwick. And with the recent hyper-development in the South Bronx, Jamaica, Queens and the MIH zoning development being pushed by the city in East New York and East Harlem it is sure to get virtually safer there soon too. This isn’t standard procedure, this is a conspiracy.It’s like there is new blue wall being built next to one of silence. A bigger blue wall of insouciance.