Central Park Serious Crime Up 52% This Year

NEW YORK POST

There has been a 52% surge in crime so far this year in Central Park

Manhattan

Central Park is not just an oasis — it’s New York City’s sanctuary, the soul of Manhattan.

Which also makes it a battleground, a 1.32 square mile symbol of how we’re doing. Police fight to maintain the perception that the park — and, by extension, the city that surrounds it — is safe.

That image has taken a blow in recent weeks after a handful of headline-making attacks, including the sexual assault of a 23-year-old woman last Sunday just inside the park near Fifth Avenue and 85th Street, and the rape of an 18-year-old in April near the East 79th Street Transverse, which sparked memories of the infamous Central Park jogger case that happened exactly 11 years earlier.

Serious crime in the park is up 52% — with 35 felonies this year through June 6, up from 23 in 2009 — and up 34% since 2008, NYPD stats show.

There were three armed robberies between March 10 and April 3. Another, on Jan. 3, involved the mugging of a love-struck couple from New Jersey, who lost their $32,000 engagement ring to a gun-toting thief beneath the Trefoil Arch near East 73rd Street at 8:20 p.m.

Cops are looking to bust a band of sticky fingered teens who spend their after-school hours on the prowl, snatching unattended bags off park benches between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. Victims are often nannies or mothers with their kids.

And there have been some other troubling signs.

The 28 assaults last year were the most since 2003, as were the 46 incidents of flashing or other lewd acts (after just 10 seven years ago), according to the state’s Division of Criminal Justice Services.

Read More:

Could Central Park be slipping into the bad old days?

New York Post  - June 13, 2010 -  By Brad Hamilton and Kathianne Boniello

   

Bad Timing For SI Park Rehab - Residents

According to the Advance's count, the closure of Mahoney Park, above, along with the crumbling Cromwell Center, cut almost in half the number of basketball courts available in the densely populated ZIP code, 10301. Even before the closures, limited real estate and unspoken playground rules saw smaller children in New Brighton frequently ceding basketball court space to the big kids. Cromwell had 12 hoops, Mahoney, two. STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE FILE PHOTO

Staten Island

When residents of New Brighton learned last week that local Mahoney Playground was closed until September for renovations, they were thrilled for the makeover but appalled over its timing, according to the Staten Island Advance. 

The $1.8 million renovation of Mahoney will turn a terraced asphalt park into a central recreation hub with a multi-purpose field, two new basketball courts, two handball courts, new spray showers, drinking fountains, and a new layer of landscaping. 

But just as students unload the burden of their backpacks and set out for the long days of play that define summer, two popular recreation spots within a mile of the Staten Island Ferry terminal have fallen out of commission. 

By the Advance’s count, the closure of Mahoney and the crumbling Cromwell Center cut almost in half the number of basketball courts available in the densely populated ZIP code, 10301. 

Even before the closures, limited real estate and unspoken playground rules saw smaller children in New Brighton frequently ceding basketball court space to the big kids.

Read More: 

Time all wrong for Mahoney Park renovation, say nearby residents

Staten Island Advance - June 10, 2010 - By Tevah Platt

Three Brooklyn Teens Arrested In Central Park Attack

Kelvin Dalrymple (left) and Shawn Martinez surrendered on Tuesday to cops investigating last weekend's sex attack in Central Park.

Manhattan

Two more Brooklyn teenagers were arrested Tuesday in connection with a sexual assault on a young woman in Central Park, police said, according to the Daily News.

Shawn Martinez and Kelvin Dalrymple, both 18, turned themselves into police a day after a third suspect - Robert Gonzalez, also 18 - was charged with attempted rape and a criminal sex act for the pre-dawn Sunday attack.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the victim and her sister were riding the train from the Bronx into Manhattan when they struck up a conversation with the three teenagers.

After the victim's sister exited the train, the 23-year-old victim agreed to ride the rails with the trio of teens to E. 86th St, Kelly said.

The group bought rolling papers at a drugstore, where their images were caught on crystal-clear surveillance video. They then went on a marijuana-fueled walk through the park at 3:30 a.m.

"They went to the park where they smoked these cigarettes," Kelly said.

When they reached a secluded area in the park, the men knocked the woman to the ground and tore off her shirt and bra, police said.

They then forced the woman to perform a sex act on one of the teens while the other two watched and exposed themselves.

The woman then bit her attacker and the three teens ran from the park, police said. The woman staggered out of the park where a cab driver came to her aid, police said.

Read More:

Two more teens held over Central Park sex attack as third is charged with attempted rape

New York Daily News - June 8,  2010 - By Rocco Parascandola and Jonathan Lemire

Three arrested in Central Park attack

Eyewitness News - June 8, 2010 - By Anthony Johnson 

Police Seek Central Park Attackers

CENTRAL PARK

Police are searching for three suspects who are accused of sexually assaulting a victim they met earlier on the subway.

Sources tell Eyewitness News the alleged victim first met her attackers on a subway from the Bronx early Sunday morning.

It's believed the 23-year-old and the three men were going to smoke marijuana together in the park, and that's when she was suddenly attacked.

Store surveillance video released by police shows all three men police are searching for.

While the victim recovers at a hospital, her attackers are on the street. Police hope someone who recognizes them will give them up.

Authorities are asking anyone with information about the incident to call the department's CrimeStoppers hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS.

Police released descriptions of the three suspects:

Suspect #1:
Hispanic man, 5'5" tall, with a dark colored Yankee baseball cap, dark colored patterned shirt and khaki shorts.

Suspect #2:
Hispanic man, 5'5" tall, with a red Yankee cap, red shirt and black shorts.

Suspect #3:
Hispanic man, 5'5" tall, with a light blue baseball cap, light blue shirt and khaki pants.

Read More/Video:

Woman sexually assaulted in Central Park

Eyewitness News - June 7, 2010 - By Jamie Roth

Woman Sexually Assaulted in Central Park

The NYPD released this still from a surveillance video that shows three men who are suspected to have taken part in the sexual assault of a Bronx woman early Sunday morning in Central Park.

Manhattan 

Three thugs grabbed a young woman waiting for a bus on the Upper East Side early yesterday and dragged her into Central Park, where she was sexually assaulted and robbed, cops said, according to a report in the New York Post. 

The 23-year-old victim told cops the attack took place about 300 feet inside the park near East 86th Street at around 3:20 a.m.

The woman, who lives in a Bronx homeless shelter, ran out of the park seminude. She was spotted by a cabdriver, who gave her a shirt and called 911.

She was treated at a hospital.

Sources said she appeared to be intoxicated.

Cops released video images of three suspects in a nearby drugstore around the time of the alleged attack.

Read More: 

Sex attack in Central Park

New York Post -  June 7, 2010 - By JAMIE SCHRAM and LARRY CELONA 

"Rotten" Tree limb Hurts Brothers

"Neighbors were left to wonder why this accident had to happened after they had previously told the city the tree was dangerous."

Queens

LITTLE NECK (WABC) -- Sunday's severe weather had some serious consequences in Queens.

A tree knocked down by high winds fell onto a car with two young men, brothers, inside, according to Eyewitness News. 

The large tree limb is pushed to the side of 41st Drive.

Terrance Grey was sweeping the last of the glass shards from the road -- the damage left from a freakish accident.

"She was in the car to comfort him, trying to see if he was ok," Grey said.

That after Grey's wife Joan rushed to help two brothers trapped as the limb suddenly split from the tree and came crashing down on their car.

"The tree started to make a cracking sound and they jumped in their car," Lois Toscano said.

Toscano remembers it happening so fast. The large limb, clearly rotten, snapped from the tree and crashed down hard on the car.

"The trunk landed on the hood, the driver's side. The kid was trapped, and then the car started to accelerate. I don't know the reason why. The trunk started to roll off the hood and neighbors were trying to help," Toscano said.

Read More/Video

Brothers injured when tree limb hits car

Eyewitness News - June 6, 2010 - By Tim Fleischer

Teen Shot Critically In Owls Head Park

“Three families were having a picnic in the park near the playground that night. That was just steps from where the shooting took place.”

Brooklyn

A racially charged teen rumble in Bay Ridge’s bucolic Owls Head Park ended with gunfire on Wednesday, leaving one teen critically injured, according to the Brooklyn Paper.

Police said blood was spilled after a group of Hispanic youths and some Middle Eastern teens threw down at around 6:45 pm.

The Hispanic teens were hanging out near the basketball courts on the Colonial Road side of the park near 67th Street when the Middle Eastern teens arrived looking to settle a score — the two crews had clashed a few weeks earlier at 86th Street and Third Avenue. As a result one of the Hispanic teens was slashed in the leg and two of the Middle Eastern youths were arrested.

Yet police sources said this powwow wasn’t expected to end peacefully — especially since both groups showed up armed.

“The [Middle Eastern] kids came to the park with bats, but the other group had a gun,” one police source said. “Obviously, the gun beat the bats.”

That became apparent when the they charged each other in some kind of crazed “Gangs of New York” re-enactment. Seconds into the fray a 16-year-old Hispanic brawler pulled a gun and opened fire, hitting one of the Middle Eastern teens.

“I was leaving the park with my dog when I heard the gunshots,” said Bernadette Hoban, president of the Friends and Neighbors of Owls Head Park. “I said to myself ‘Wait a minute, that doesn’t sound a firecracker!’ ”

The shooter and two other suspects, also 16, were collared and charged with attempted murder and assault. Few details of the arrest were immediately available.The wounded teen was rushed to Lutheran Medical Center, where he was listed in critical yet stable condition after surgery.

Read More:

Shooting in Owls Head Park!

The Brooklyn Paper - June 3, 2010 - By Thomas Tracy