Prospect Park Gun Scare: Park Ranger Apprehends "Indecent" Man With Loaded Gun

UPDATED

Brooklyn

By Geoffrey Croft

A hero park ranger in Prospect Park took a sex offender off the streets yesterday when he arrested a man carrying a loaded gun, a large box cutter and drugs, who minutes earlier exposed himself to a female park patron, A Walk In the Park has learned.

A woman walking her dog spotted 53-year old Glen Perouza of South Jamaica Queens, masturbating inside Prospect Park between near the Long Meadow near the Picnic House near 4th street yesterday at approximately 3:30pm, according to NYPD and Parks Department sources.

The woman flagged down Parks Department Urban Park Ranger Andrew Marsala who was driving on a path near the picnic house. The woman complained that the suspect has repeatedly exposed himself to her in the past. The ranger gave chase after the man started to run. Ranger Marsala apprehended Glen Perouza, 53 after a struggle which required the assistance of a park patron who helped subdue the perpetrator who was resisting arrest.

An eight inch box cutter was recovered, and marijuana was found in the suspect's coat pocket.

Mr. Perouza was transported to the 78 Pct. A loaded 9mm Taurus Pt. 99 hand gun - complete with an illegal 15 bullet magazine - was discovered stuffed in between the seat in the back of the Ranger vehicle where the defendant had been transported.

The suspect was charged with criminal possession of a weapon, unlawful possession of marijuana, and indecent exposure.

No prior arrests could be found for Mr. Perouza at this time.

"Thank God they didn't get shot and killed," said senior Parks employee. "Thank God nobody got hurt."

"Nothing but the grace of God that were all alive," said a Park Enforcement Patrol (PEP) Officer.

"And we're only 'eyes and ears,'" another PEP officer said sarcastically in reference to the Parks Department management's repeated attempts to down play the role Rangers and PEP play in fighting crime.

For at least the last three years Urban Park Rangers management have not given park rangers enforcement training according to park sources.

The Parks Department refused to comment and referred inquiries to DCPI.

Read More:

Park ranger captures pistol-packing man pleasuring himself in the woods

Suspect had a bag of weed plus a loaded gun

New York Daily News - November 4, 2011 - By John Doyle

Hero ranger nabs park masturbator

The Brooklyn Paper - November 5, 2011 - By Natalie O’Neill

Prospect Park Flasher Caught With Loaded Gun

gothamist - November 4, 2011- By Garth Johnston

NYPD Daily Blotter

New York Post - November 5, 2011

By Doug Auer, Rebecca Harshbarger, Lorena Mongelli and Kirstan Conley

Body Of Murdered Wife Recovered In Forest Park

Police search Forest Park in Queens on Tuesday for the dismembered remains of Reina De Los Santos Reyes, 42. She was murdered by her husband, Edwin Fuentes, 44, in July 2007. Fuentes dumped her body in the park. He agreed to divulge the location of her body as part of a plea deal with Queens DA Richard Brown.

Queens

A man led cops yesterday to a bag in a Queens park filled with some of the grisly remains of the wife he admitted killing and dismembering, according to the New York Post.

Edwin Fuentes, 44, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and tampering with physical evidence in the June 2007 death of his wife, Reina De Los Santos Reyes, 42, of Woodhaven.

He will be sentenced to 20 years in prison as part of a plea deal that included divulging the whereabouts of his wife’s remains, said Queens DA Richard Brown.

Brown said Fuentes admitted putting his arm around his wife’s neck and choking her to death.

He also said he dismembered her body and stuffed some parts in a suitcase in Forest Park. The luggage was found by a group of teenagers almost a year later.

As part of his guilty plea, Fuentes agreed to lead investigators to the rest of his wife’s body.

After he ditched the body, Brown said, Fuentes called police and reported his wife missing.

But officers became suspicious of him when they noticed fresh scratch marks on both his arms and a bite mark on his left hand.

Read More:

Wife-slay grisly find

New York Post - November 2, 2011 - By Leonard Greene, Christina Carrega

Butcher Husband Leads Cops to Wife's Remains

WPIX11 - November 2, 2011 - By Mary Murphy

Sutton Place South Co-Op Finally Relents Over Backyard Park

A verdant little jewel atop Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive between E. 56/57th streets - has served as a lush private backyard for one of the city's most exclusive addresses for more than half a century. The City and the co-op board finally came to terms in a deal that will return a portion the property - 10,000 square feet - for a public park overlooking the East River. (Photos: © Geoffrey Croft/NYC Park Advocates) Click on images to enlarge.

When the 13-story Italian Renaissance building at 1 Sutton Place South was built in 1927, the land in back sloped down to the East River and residents had access to the waterfront. (Photo: Vincent Laforet/The New York Times - 2005)

In 1939, the city took most of the co-op backyard under eminent domain to build the East River Drive (Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive). The city agreed to lease the land atop the highway back to 1 Sutton Place South and its residents for $1 a year. But once the lease expired in 1990, the co-op - and a park commissioner - kept quiet about the status of its valued outdoor amenity. The co-op board even swore prospective buyers to secrecy according to the New York Times - Geoffrey Croft

Manhattan

Large wrought iron fences currently keep the public out.

The Department of Parks and Recreation has plans to turn slightly more than half of the backyard garden into a quarter-acre park. (Rendering: New York City Parks Department - 2005)

An exclusive East Side co-op has released its ownership claim on a 10,000-square-foot patch of its elevated backyard overlooking the East River, ending a decade-long boundary dispute with the city, according to the New York Times.

As part of a settlement, the owners of the apartment building at 1 Sutton Place South, between 56th and 57th Streets, will share with the city the $2 million cost of building a public park on the site.

The area behind the co-op was the focus of a quarrel between the co-op’s owners and the parks department over the past decade as the city tried to claim a portion of the yard for public use.

According to the agreement, announced in a joint statement on Tuesday, the city and the Sutton Place South Corporation, which owns the 13-story apartment building, will each contribute $1 million to the park’s construction. The site will connect two existing community parks on the eastern ends of 56th and 57th Streets.

“Every square foot of parkland is precious, particularly on the Upper East Side,” said Adrian Benepe, commissioner of the parks department. “I’d say, in the long run, it’s worth the protracted negotiation.”

The yard’s history dates back more than 70 years. In 1939, as the city planned to build what is now the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive, it moved to control most of the co-op’s backyard under eminent domain. In return, the city agreed to pour soil over the drive’s roof, ensuring residents would not be disturbed by the din of passing vehicles.

Sutton Place Park. Two existing park properties North and South will connect to the reclaimed park when it is completed next year.

The co-op rented that deck from the city for $1 a year, but once the lease expired in 1990, the co-op kept quiet about the status of its valued outdoor amenity, even swearing prospective buyers to secrecy. The city eventually moved to retake control of the space; in 2007, the co-op filed a lawsuit disputing the boundaries of the area to which the city was entitled.

“This has been something very special to the building for a great deal of time,” said Lucy Lamphere, president of the Sutton Place South Corporation. “However, it became clear that something needed to happen.”

Under the agreement, the co-op will release its ownership claim to the part of the deck closest to the East River. The city, in turn, will release its claim to the part closest to the building, leaving the co-op with less than 4,000 square feet of the disputed area.

The city’s slice will be converted, using an architect enlisted by the co-op, to a park intended mostly for quiet leisure, not active recreation. Mr. Benepe said he hoped construction would begin within the year.

1 Sutton Place South. The triple-arched porte-cochere still opens to a glass-walled lobby with views of the garden and the East River. The owners of the exclusive 13-story Italian Renaissance co-op building attempted to block the city from seizing the park in court. The co-op originally sought $10 million in compensation for the property if it lost the case. The co-op is now paying the city $1 milllon dollars.

The city acquired the land in a condemnation proceeding in the 1940's to build the East River Drive (Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive). After the lease ran out in 1990, the co-op board passed a resolution requiring prospective apartment buyers to review the semi-secret status of the garden and to sign a strict confidentiality agreement.

Read More:

Co-op Ends Fight With City Over Its East Side Backyard

New York Times - November 1, 2011 - By Matt Flegenheimer

Sutton Place South Gives Up the Ghost… of Its Backyard

New York Observer - November 2, 2011 - By Matt Chaban

Gated Garden at Sutton Place to Become Public Park

DNAinfo - November 1, 2011 - By Amy Zimmer

In Sutton Place's Backyard, Private Oasis on Public Land

New York Times - December 31, 2003 - By Charles V. Bagli

A Park? Not With My Backyard; Sutton Place Resists City's Grand Plans for Its Garden

New York Times - January 9, 2005 - By Charles V. Bagli

A Co-op on Sutton Place Sues to Keep Its Backyard

New York Times - June 19, 2007 - By Charles V. Bagli

City Council Member Jessica Lappin released the following statement:

I have some exciting news to share. A new 10,000-square-foot waterfront park will be opening to the public, thanks to an agreement signed by the New York City Parks Department and Sutton Place South Corporation (SPSC). The new parkland sits atop a roof deck over the FDR Drive, and will connect existing parks at the eastern ends of 56th and 57th Streets.

This historic agreement resolves a 10-year boundary dispute by transforming a portion of One Sutton Place South’s current backyard into a public green space overlooking the East River. To meet the anticipated costs of construction and design, I secured $1 million in city capital funding and SPSC, which owns the co-op at One Sutton Place, has agreed to contribute another $1 million.

We accomplished what many said we never could. The city and One Sutton Place South worked together in a collaborative way to give the public greater access to the waterfront.

Here is what the Parks Department and SPSC had to say about this monumental achievement.

“It is always gratifying to generate a positive outcome from a difficult situation,” said Parks & Recreation Commissioner Adrian Benepe. “Instead of prolonging a boundary-line dispute, neighborhood and building residents will enjoy a public garden terrace overlooking the East River. We are grateful to the Sutton Place South Corporation for partnering with the city to create a beautiful new park, and to Council Member Jessica Lappin for allocating essential funds that will help make these improvements a reality.”

“We are pleased to have reached an agreement that provides a valuable amenity for our community,” said SPSC President Lucy Lamphere. “We thank Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe and his colleagues for their assistance in creating a plan that respects the building’s architectural integrity and balances its residents’ desire to maintain a reasonable degree of privacy while providing beautiful and much-needed park space for our neighbors. We are also grateful for the support of our City Council Member Jessica Lappin for securing a portion of the funding necessary for this project.”

I will keep you updated as we begin building this new green space.

Sincerely,

Jessica Lappin

Police Arrest 21-Year-Old College Student In Riverside Park For No ID

“While it may have been one out-of-control officer that began the process,” she said, “no other officer had the courage to stand up against what they knew was a poor decision.” - Samantha Zucker

Samantha Zucker in Pittsburgh, where she attends college. She was arrested on Ocotober 22nd in Riverside Park in Manhattan. The judge dismissed the ticket in less than a minute. (Photo: Jeff Swensen for The New York Times)

"Here, in the pointless arrest of Ms. Zucker, is a crime that is not even on the books: the staggering waste of spirit, the squandering of public resources, the follies disguised as crime-fighting."

Manhattan

The arresting officer came by the cell, Samantha Zucker said, to make snide remarks about finding her with a friend in Riverside Park after its 1 a.m. closing, according to the New York Times.

For instance:

“He was telling me that I needed to get a new boyfriend, that I should get a guy who takes me out to dinner,” Ms. Zucker said. “He mocked me for being from Westchester.”

Early in the morning on Oct. 22, a Saturday, Ms. Zucker, 21, and her friend Alex Fischer, also 21, were stopped by the police in Riverside Park and given tickets for trespassing. Mr. Fischer was permitted to leave after he produced his driver’s license. But Ms. Zucker, on a visit to New York City with a group of Carnegie Mellon University seniors looking for jobs in design industries, had left her wallet in a hotel two blocks away.

She was handcuffed. For the next 36 hours, she was moved from a cell in the 26th Precinct station house on West 126th Street to central booking in Lower Manhattan and then — because one of the officers was ending his shift before Ms. Zucker could be photographed for her court appearance, and you didn’t think he was going to take the subway uptown while his partner stayed with her at booking, did you? — she was brought back to Harlem.

There she waited in a cell until a pair of fresh police officers were rustled up to bring her back downtown for booking, where she spent a second night in custody.

The judge proceeded to dismiss the ticket in less than a minute.

News about the Police Department lately could run under the headline of the daily Dismal Development, starting with a judge declaring Tuesday that an officer was guilty of planting drugs on entirely innocent people and continuing back a few days to gun-smuggling, pepper-spraying and ticket-fixing.

Here, in the pointless arrest of Ms. Zucker, is a crime that is not even on the books: the staggering waste of spirit, the squandering of public resources, the follies disguised as crime-fighting. About 40,000 people a year — the vast majority of them young black and Latino men — are fed like widgets onto a conveyor belt of arrest, booking and court, after being told to empty their pockets and thus commit the misdemeanor of “open display” of marijuana.

Such arrests are a drain on the human economy.

Ms. Zucker said that throughout her stay in police station cells, other officers were shocked that she had not been given a chance to have a friend fetch her ID. “The female officers were gossiping that the officer who arrested me had an incredibly short fuse,” she said.

We are instructed by the mayor that the garish crimes of police gun-running and fake arrests are the work of rogues, not the daily toil of honest police officers. A fair point — but no more than Ms. Zucker’s observations of spiritual corruption.

“While it may have been one out-of-control officer that began the process,” she said, “no other officer had the courage to stand up against what they knew was a poor decision.”

After two days of storming design firms around the city with about 80 classmates, Ms. Zucker stopped at the hotel near West 103rd Street where the group was staying so she could drop off the bag she had been schlepping. Then she got Mr. Fischer — a classmate, not a boyfriend, the leering remark of the police officer to the contrary — to walk with her a few blocks to the park, at about 3 a.m. They wanted to see the Hudson River, which runs past her hometown of Ardsley, N.Y.

“We’re there five minutes when a police car came up and told us we had to leave because the park was closed,” Mr. Fischer said. “We said, ‘O.K., we didn’t know,’ and turned around to leave. Almost immediately, a second police car pulls up.”

Its driver said they would get tickets for trespassing and demanded their IDs. Ms. Zucker suggested that someone could bring her papers from the hotel. “He said it was too late for that, I should have thought of it earlier,” she said.

Asked about the policy, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, Paul J. Browne, said officers can allow a friend or relative to retrieve ID. He did not say if a supervisor approved the arrest of Ms. Zucker, which was attributed in court papers to a Police Officer Durrell of the 26th Precinct.

Twice, she said, the officer told her not to call him by a specific foul term.

“I said, ‘Sir, I never used that word.’ ”

No doubt he was hearing things: the unspoken truth about his unspeakable actions.

Read More:

Dismal Tale of Arrest for Tiniest of Crimes

New York Times - November 1, 2011 - By Jim Dwyer

Food Vendors Arrested In Front Of Metropolitan Museum Of Art

Two carts belonging to military veterans who have set up shot in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art were confiscated by the police and carted away by the Parks Department on Tuesday. (Photo: Corey Kilgannon/The New York Times)

Manhattan

In the continuing battles over who gets to sell hot dogs in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the city cracked down on Tuesday on two military veterans who have each operated pushcarts in front of the museum despite city orders to stop, according to the New York Times.

The vendors, Armando Crescenzi and Howard Dalton, who each served in the Army, were arrested in front of the museum and had the hot dog carts they were operating seized on Tuesday afternoon, after they refused police orders to move.

The two vendors have stirred up controversy by claiming they have a legal right to sell in front of the museum. For the past several months, they have received summonses nearly every day from the Parks Department for vending in a prohibited location.

They cite a 19th-century state law that allows disabled veterans to sell in some areas of the city where other vendors must pay to occupy.

“I don’t care if they arrest me every day — I served this country and under New York State law, I have a legal right to operate a cart here,” Mr. Crescenzi said, before being arrested. “We have lawyers and we’re going to fight this and set a precedent for other veterans, so the city can no longer take away their right to sell.”

Mr. Dalton said, “This law was created so the men and women who serve this country can come home and find a job — what message is the city sending by arresting us?”

Dan Rossi, another military veteran who sells hot dogs in front of the museum on Tuesday, was not arrested and he was not sympathetic. The spot that Mr. Rossi has claimed for years — directly in front of the museum steps — has been set aside by the city for a military veteran vendor.

“As illegal food vendors, those two guys got what they deserved,” Mr. Rossi said after watching the pair get arrested, and as police officers and Parks Department Enforcement officers loaded the two carts onto a Parks Department truck, which removed them to the police precinct station in Central Park, where the two arrested vendors were also taken.

A police spokesman said the two vendors were arrested for violating Parks Department regulations and the provisions of veterans’ vendor licenses.

The museum is one of the most lucrative spots to operate a food cart in the city, and the city’s frustration with veterans’ crowding the spot has been prolonged. The exact legality is complex and sometimes unclear.

Before they were arrested, Mr. Crescenzi and Mr. Dalton insisted they would continue to return to the location with their pushcharts and sue the city to recognize their legal right as veterans to sell at the location.

Read More:

Two Vendors at Metropolitan Museum Are Carted Away by Police

New York Times - November 1, 2011 - By Corey Kilgannon

Hot-dog war no museum peace

New York Post - November 2, 2011 - By Rebecca Rosenberg

Cupcake Rent Strike In Park $ Consession War Over City Inaction

A Walk In The Park - October 10, 2011

Veteran Vendor bust Met beef

A Walk In The Park - November 25, 2009

Did The NYPD Alienate Parkland in Front of Metropolitan Museum of Art Without State Legislation?

A Walk In The Park - November 25, 2009

Investigate Missing Park Funds In Queens

In April 2004, local papers reported details of a $4.12 million federal transportation allocation that had been secured by U.S. Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-Bayside), according to a letter published in Times Ledger.

Funds included $1 million for the reconstruction and expansion of the Little Bay parking lot and $3.2 million to reconstruct the Cross Island Parkway Bridge overpass at 212th Street. The funding came from the federal TEA-21 bill and was signed off on by then-President George W. Bush.

More good news followed approximately a year later in July 2005, when then-City Councilman Tony Avella announced that he had provided a $1.3 million allocation for a comfort station in Little Bay Park.

Seven years have now passed and neither project have had a shovel in the ground. It is not unreasonable to question what has happened to $5.42 million that was intended to benefit the community.

In response to a recent inquiry initiated by the Bay Terrace Community Alliance, it was learned that the city Parks Department and the city have taken “our” money, which came from different sources and bundled most of the distribution into one.

This was done without any notification of elected officials, community boards or civic groups. Parks claims that due to the ensuing confusion the wrong permits were applied for, which further delayed both undertakings.

As we are all too aware, co-mingling funds is never good practice. It inevitably results in a loss of accountability and a worst-case scenario can be an intentional or unintentional misuse of the financial allocation.

There must be a prompt public accounting for the $5.42 million in federal and city funding. In addition, the allocations must only be used for the intended purposes and in the designated locations.

Community Boards 7 and 11, along with the borough president’s office, are urged to begin an immediate official review and investigation of this matter. It is also requested that the office of the city comptroller commence a comprehensive audit in regard to these funds and actions of the agencies involved.

It is obvious that the planned park and traffic enhancements have somehow been derailed. It is time to get them back on track.

Warren Schreiber

President

Bay Terrace Community Alliance Inc.

Bayside

Investigate Missing Park Funds In Queens

Times Ledger - October 31, 2011

PEP Mounted Patrols Leaving Staten Island

Apollo, steed: PEP Officer John Mancuso takes his partner to be curried last month. In an effort to keep patrols on the island the Staten Island Zoo agreed to house the horses at a reduced cost to what the city currently pays. The Parks Department rejected the offer.

Staten Island

In a swift kick to Staten Island, the “Borough of Parks,” the city Parks Department has said nay to an offer from the Staten Island Zoo aimed at keeping horse-mounted patrols here, according to the Staten Island Advance.

And in a further stomping of the borough, the agency pulled a Halloween trick and removed the horses yesterday, a day ahead of schedule.

Zoo Executive Director Ken Mitchell said that the Zoo offered to absorb the $900 labor costs per month of housing the horses at the West Brighton zoo.

That would have left Parks responsible for $1,100 a month in hay, bedding and grain costs. That’s down from the $2,000 the agency currently pays to house the horses here.

“They didn’t accept it,” Mitchell told the Advance.

He said that Parks came in “unannounced” yesterday and removed the horses, which were supposed to stay until today.

“We’re disappointed thatwe weren’t able to reach some type of compromise,” said Mitchell. “We’re going to greatly miss having those horses at the Zoo.”

And the borough’s lost horses could end up being Central Park’s gain.

Two of the agency’s horses have been stabled at the Zoo, while two others are housed in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx.

A source said the horses being removed from the Island will now be housed at Van Cortlandt, while the Bronx horses are moved to Central Park to replace horses that have been retired.

“I don’t know why our horses weren’t good enough to go to Central Park,” the source said. Parks did not comment after repeated requests from the Advance.

The city has said it expects to save $24,000 a year by not having the horses boarded at the Zoo.

City Councilman James Oddo (R-Mid-Island/Brooklyn) lobbied Parks to take the Zoo’s deal.

“It’s hard to believe that it comes down to dollars and cents when the Zoo made such a good-faith offer,” he said. “But that’s Parks. It’s always their agenda, not the Island’s. Their default answer is ‘no.’”

The Island, famed for having more parkland, at 7,200 acres, than any other borough, will continue to be patrolled by Parks Enforcement Patrol officers, the agency has said.

Mounted patrols are highly visible, and educate the public on the rules and regulations in the city’s parks. They have been fixtures on the Island for 30 years.

With the loss of the two horses and accompanying patrol officers, there will be just six enforcement officers to patrol all of the Island’s parkland.

The NYPD also patrols the borough’s parks.

Parks has said the department would do its best to “maintain” the current level of patrol officers and replace the mounted patrol with officers on foot in light of budget constraints.

Read More:

Parks Department spurns Staten Island Zoo's horse-trading, moves mounts

Staten Island Advance - November 01, 2011 - By Tom Wrobleski