How did they ever come up with that?

Headline of the year courtesy of the Queens Chronicle.

Huge drop in criminal summonses

From the Daily News:

The city is moving in the “right direction” with a dramatic drop in tickets for small-time crimes like public drinking and public urination, Mayor de Blasio said Sunday.

The number of criminal summonses dropped 90% for the period from June to October, compared with the year before, after the City Council passed a law allowing cops to give civil tickets for the minor offenses, which also include unreasonable noise and littering.

But the new civil summonses did not make up the difference in tickets — there were about 26,0000 civil summonses, while criminal summonses dropped more than 50,000, according to the data released Friday.

Creedmoor of concern to local citizens

From CBS 2:

A Queens community says it has grown impatient with some patients at a famed mental health facility near their neighborhood.

They say incident involving patients range from scary to downright gross.

Matt Kruger told CBS2’s Jessica Borg the scenes he captured in a cellphone video are the reason he’s moving out of Glen Oaks.

“No one wants to see someone’s pants down to their ankles, in broad daylight, then going to the bathroom in the middle of the street,” he said.

He showed Borg the video – too graphic for TV – that showed a man doing just that right around the corner from his home.

“It’s inappropriate,” he said. “There’s kids, there’s families.”

Aggressive panhandling is also a growing concern for neighbors of a shopping plaza on Union Turnpike.

Rat pee is killing people

From Fox News:

A rare bacterial disease linked to rats — and normally only seen in animals — has killed one person in The Bronx and left two others fighting for their lives, city officials reported Tuesday.

The three cases of leptospirosis were identified in a one block radius of the Concourse section of the Bronx over the past two months, the Health Department said.

“Human leptospirosis cases are very rare in New York City,” explained Demetre Daskalakis, acting deputy commissioner of the Health Department.

“This is the first time a cluster of cases has been identified,” he said. “All three cases had severe illness and were hospitalized with acute renal [kidney]and hepatic [liver] failure. Two cases developed pulmonary hemorrhage and one died as a result of infection.”

Drunk tennis fans get a pass

From the NY Post:

Parks Department officers are under strict orders not to issue summonses for public drinking, urination and other offenses around Arthur Ashe Stadium so as not to spoil the fun for tournament-goers, it was revealed Thursday.

In the past, Parks Enforcement Patrol officers usually wrote hundreds of tickets during the two-week tennis championship, said Geoffrey Croft, the head of NYC Park Advocates.

But this year, officers were specifically told by the head of the Flushing Meadows-Corona Park command, “Don’t write summonses during the US Open,” Croft said.

“Talk about a Tale of Two Cities — it’s selective enforcement,” one officer told Croft, who writes the blog “A Walk in the Park.”

“Crime is going up and summonses are down. We’re being hindered from doing our job. The US Open is calling the shots.”

The head of the union that represents the PEP officers, Joseph Puleo, accused the city of “using our officers as political pawns and allowing crimes to be committed without coverage.”

Maspeth shelter provider's history of protecting the homeless and communities is abysmal

The shelter "service provider" for the Maspeth Holiday Inn is Acacia Network.

If you're opposed to the shelter in Maspeth then you need to read the following very carefully, because Mayor de Blasio will be sending this your way in less than 60 days.

From State Senator Ruben Diaz:

You should know that this past Friday, November 13, 2015, a woman who resides at the homeless shelter located at 941 Intervale Avenue, Bronx, New York, was reportedly stabbed by a resident of the same shelter. The shelter, which is run by Acacia Network is across the street, right in front of my District Office.

According to reports and statements people have given me, the perpetrator was caught on tape breaking the security cameras in the homeless shelter during the weekend (November 7 - 8) before Friday’s stabbing.

The assailant’s vandalism did not come to Acacia’s attention until Monday, November 9, because no one on Acacia’s staff took a look at the cameras over the weekend. On Tuesday, November 10th, Acacia’s staff reported the destroyed cameras to the police, providing copies of the video tapes to the 41st Precinct, with footage of the suspect smashing the security cameras.

Even though Acacia gave this information to the police, the perpetrator was not questioned or arrested until after Friday’s stabbing took place.

The family shelter residents at 941 Intervale Avenue went unprotected for a whole week without their building’s security cameras working, and with no one to check for their safety.
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From Crains:

In March, the Department of Investigation issued a blistering report about odious conditions at cluster sites citywide, including at facilities run by two of the organizations soon to win new contracts, Acacia Network and Bushwick Economic Development Corp., known as BEDCO.

“At the time of the inspection, one elevator was broken and stuck on the sixth floor,” the report said of an Acacia site. “The other had a large puddle of urine on the floor.” It noted a broken window with glass strewn across the hallway of the facility for homeless families.

The poor conditions have been corrected, Acacia said in a statement.

The city paid $95 a night, on average, for the Acacia apartments — two to three times what market-rate tenants pay in those neighborhoods, according to the report from Department of Investigations Commissioner Mark Peters.
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From QNS:

On Feb. 11, police responded to a call of a dispute among shelter roommates. A woman struck her roommate with a metal object and was placed under arrest, Fortune said.

Officers brought her to Weill Cornell Medical Center, the medical school at Cornell University, to be treated. While police were escorting the woman out of the ambulance, Fortune said, she became “very aggressive” and headbutted an officer, who sustained minor injuries.

Because the woman was arrested, police were responsible for watching her until she was released, he said. The next day, the patient became aggressive again and hit an officer with a metal IV pole and kicked him several times.

Police were called to the shelter again on Feb. 12 when a resident who refused to go through the metal detector broke the device. She then proceeded to throw chairs and soda bottles in the lobby. The woman was arrested and transported to Weill Cornell Medicine for a psychiatric evaluation.

Fortune also added that police have had to respond to calls of residents trying to hurt themselves and a chronic 911 call from someone who has repeatedly reported that a woman was stabbed inside the shelter. The precinct has also received complaints of women harassing store owners in the area.

District Manager Florence Koulouris, who attends monthly community advisory meetings with staff at the shelter, said there have also been issues with “aggressive panhandling.” Some women at the shelter frequently steal from a local pharmacy and businesses in the area, she said. Acacia Network, the service providers for the shelter, said its security staff would do roving car patrols to monitor the women when they are out of the shelter but have not been doing an adequate job, according to Koulouris.

“The problem is we’ve been getting a lot of excuses [from Acacia Network] because [they always say] there are problems with the vehicle, the vehicle is in the shop,” Koulouris said. “Supposedly they’re using private unmarked cars for this which is completely unacceptable because the patients of The Verve … they don’t see the cars. Their awareness is down and they tend to act inappropriate.”

Fortune said he has been in contact with Acacia Network to discuss the two recent violent incidents, which they were unaware of.

“They should know what’s going on over there,” Fortune said. “When I told them some of these incidents, they had no idea that this was even happening. In fact, they asked me for names of who was involved.”
_________________________________________________________________________

From the Queens Chronicle

“The reports from the 114th Precinct are disconcerting,” City Council Majority Leader Jimmy Van Bramer (D-Sunnyside) said in a statement. “I have voiced my concerns about the shelter to the Department of Homeless Services and the Administration.”

Van Bramer added he was particularly troubled by reports that the provider of services at the shelter, Acacia Network, had not been doing adequate neighborhood patrols.

“The Administration has confirmed to my office that they will be adding additional security officers at the Verve shelter,” he said.

Not long after the shelter opened, officials acknowledged some concerns had been raised about overcrowding and residents loitering outside the building. But local business owners have also complained that residents have been harassing them and causing disturbances.

Jeff Franco, who works at the nearby LIC Deli & Grocery, said there have been instances of the women fighting, panhandling and stealing from the store. Those sorts of things can make others in the neighborhood, including tourists staying in hotels, hesitant to shop there, he said.

“Your business goes down because people don’t feel like coming here,” he said.

Ali, who works at the Saz Deli & Grocery on 31st Street but declined to give his last name, said he had called police on more than one occasion after incidents involving women from the shelter.

“They give me too much of a hard time,” he said.

According to Koulouris, Acacia is supposed to conduct neighborhood patrols in a marked car. But the service provider has said recently the car was out of service and it was instead doing patrols in private, unmarked vehicles.

Koulouris called that “unacceptable” and said there should be a visible security presence in the community. On a recent Saturday, a white SUV marked Sera Security could be seen outside the shelter.

Nevertheless, Koulouris said, Acacia made a promise to take care of its clients and be a good neighbor in the community.

“Right now, Acacia is not being a good neighbor,” she said.

__________________________________________________________________________

From the Bronx Chronicle:

Community members are outraged after a former Bronx motel turned homeless shelter has two registered sex offenders living in the facility.

The former hot-sheets motel, Capri-Whitestone, known for it’s blood stained mattresses and bed bugs closed last year with the hope from community members that it would be developed into something that would accompany Donald Trump’s new golf course. Instead, the motel was turned over to Acacia Network, a non-profit organization that opened the building as a homeless shelter for families.

However, there are currently two registered sex offenders, Curtis Bolden and James Bryant who are listed as living at the shelter.

According to the NY State Division of Criminal Justice website (a publicly accessible website), Curtis Bolden was convicted in 1980 for raping two women. James Bryant was convicted in 2004 for aggressive sexual assault of a 7 year old child. Bolden is listed a level 3 offender while Bryant is a level 2 offender.

A level 3 offender is considered at high risk of repeat offenses and a threat to public safety, as stated by the NY State Division of Criminal Justice website.
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Why does the de Blasio administration insist on entering into contracts with a provider that has a documented terrible history? Who else out there can totally fail at their work and get rewarded with more work?

Get ready to be pissed on more

From the NY Post:

In January, the City Council voted to reclassify low-level crimes such as public urination, public consumption of alcohol, littering, subway fare evasion and taking up multiple seats on the subway from criminal to civil offenses.

But if California is any indication, it may not have been a smart move.

Retail giants with locations in the Golden State, including Safeway, Target, Rite Aid and CVS pharmacies, say they have seen at least a 15 percent increase in shoplifting since California voters opted to reduce theft penalties in 2014, The Associated Press reports. Shoplifting reports in LA increased 25 percent in the year after Proposition 47 passed.

Should we lighten up on minor offenses?

From DNA Info:

Penalties for drinking alcohol and urinating in public could be reduced under a package of bills being discussed by the city council next week.

Under the Criminal Justice Reform Act of 2016, drinking alcohol in public, littering, public urination, unreasonable noise and violating parks rules would largely be considered civil offenses punishable with summonses, according to a city council memo on the plan.

The legislation would remove the possibility of a permanent criminal record for urinating in public and violating park rules. Instead, police would create public guidelines about when those violations are civil or criminal offenses.

The city has used the "broken windows" theory of policing for years which holds that smaller offenses are predictors for larger crimes. Both Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner Bill Bratton have remained strong defenders of the strategy in the face of criticism that the theory unjustly targets minorities and the poor.

An idea whose time has come?

From the NY Post:

Public urination has gotten so bad in San Francisco that the city has painted nine walls with a repellent paint that makes pee spray back on the offender.

It’s the latest effort to address a chronic problem in a city where the public works director calls himself Mr. Clean: Walls are coated with a clear, liquid repellent material that goes on much like paint. When the wall is hit with urine, the urine splashes back on a person’s shoes and pants.

Mohammed Nuru, director of San Francisco’s public works department, says offenders will need to make the mistake only once to get the idea.

“If you have to go,” he said, “go in the right place.”

Nuru got the idea from Germany, where walls in Hamburg’s St. Pauli quarter are painted with the material to encourage late-night beer drinkers to find a bathroom rather than an alleyway.

Stop pissing in the streets already!

From WPIX:

Local tutor Lionel Bourjolly, who works here in Corona, says based on what he sees, public urination is the end result of a bigger problem.

“The real causes are underlying. Underemployment. Unemployment. And it’s especially tough for an immigrant community – because they have fewer resources to rely on. These people have a tenuous hold on society, alright? They don’t have good jobs, they don’t have good housing, and they’re just trying to survive,” said Bourjolly.

We don’t want you to think the problem of people taking a classic sidewalk siesta, is just a black, brown, or working, lower class problem.

Manhattan based attorney Jason Stern says a full third of his practice involves public urination cases.

You might be surprised to hear what kind of clients he represents.

“My clientele is primarily made up of three groups. One would be out of towners – tourists, college students, and the other group is white collar professionals. Doctors, accountants, advertising executive…somebody who works on Wall Street,” said Stern.

This was an entertaining report. For example, I had no idea that being an immigrant meant that you had a harder time finding a pot to piss in. I also thought the biggest group of urinaters could be found outside CitiField after any Mets game.

City Council wants to decriminalize certain offenses

From CBS 2:

Turnstile jumping and public urination are still expected to be treated as crimes warranting an arrest, but a host of minor offenses such as drinking in public are expected to be treated administratively rather than criminally.

The changes would come under planned adjustments to the city’s quality of life laws being worked out by Mayor Bill de Blasio, police Commissioner Bill Bratton, and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, sources said.

The last line of this report is classic. Why ask for ID? Use the honor system!

Council looking to decriminalize quality-of-life crimes

From the Daily News:

City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito’s office is working on a proposal that would make some of the most common criminal court summonses civil charges instead. Violators would get a ticket to one of the city’s administrative courts, such as the Environmental Control Board, instead of criminal court. Cops could no longer make arrests for those offenses, and missed court dates would turn into default monetary judgments instead of warrants.

Bratton appears cool to the idea, saying people wouldn’t take a civil ticket seriously.

A Daily News analysis shows the seven offenses that would be sent to one of the city’s administrative civil courts under the Mark-Viverito plan account for roughly 2.7 million, or 42%, of the summonses issued by the NYPD between 2001 and June 2014. They also account for more than 510,000 open arrest warrants, according to the analysis of data provided by the state Office of Court Administration.

The seven offenses under consideration are public consumption of alcohol, public urination, bicycling on the sidewalk, being in a park after dark, failure to obey a park sign, littering and unreasonable noise. The offenses under consideration for decriminalization are under the city’s administrative code — not the state penal code — making it possible to amend them without state approval, officials said.

Public urination and open container are the only two minor offenses for which fines can be paid by mail. But Lancman said many people have reservations about allowing people to simply pay online for criminal court summonses because they’d essentially be pleading guilty to a violation or, in some cases, a misdemeanor without having an attorney present.

“When it’s a civil offense we don’t have any problem letting people pay online or by mail without having to show up at all ... that would almost certainly mean you’d have a higher percentage of people paying a fine,” Lancman said.

He said that in criminal summons court, roughly half the people don’t show up, and of the people who do show up and are assessed a fine, a quarter of them don’t pay.

Delivery guy caught peeing in apartment elevator

From WPIX:

A building manager in Queens was shocked after what he saw a pizza delivery man doing in the apartment elevator. And it was all caught on camera.

The Mitchell Gardens building manager in Flushing, Queens reached out to PIX11 Investigates and asked for our help.

It seems they’d caught a pizza delivery man from a nearby restaurant on videotape. It showed him peeing in one of their elevators.

A bum ride at Jamaica Center

The E- train was sitting in the Jamaica Station for a few minutes as straphangers gathered on the platform. The day 12/10/14 was gloomy with intermittent drizzles. Straphangers appeared un-energetic after yesterday's record breaking all-day rainfall.

The train opened its doors around 9:04 a.m. Slowly, straphangers began boarding. Then, suddenly there was a burst of energy. Straphangers were quickly exiting cars and boarding the next.

This maneuver continued for few cars. I entered to inquire; what a mess, it was: car # 9411 had a brown drainage that looked like feces from diarrhea with a bum at the other end. Another bum was taking-up an entire six-seater. The car possessed a faint scent......

Car #9411 -- shit? & bum

This bum had the car all to himself. Straphangers could not breathe; literally that is.

car # 9412 fully occupied by the one bum.

Car # 9499. He kept scratching, by this time the doors were closing. Straphangers could not escape.

Ms. Velazquez, you are the counsel at the borough president's office; where Melinda Katz is the borough president. Ms. Boranian, you are the liaison. Daneek Miller you are our councilman.

You all have the opportunity to speak to the wise men of the MTA. Please expound the riding conditions to them, on behalf of Queens riders/VOTERS/residents.

This is yet another environment where our health is at risk. Take these bums off our trains. The purpose of MTA is transportation, NOT a shelter.

Furthermore, Jamaica Center is the first station leaving from Queens for Manhattan. The trains ought to be cleaned and disinfected before take off.

As for MTA board member, Mr. Charles Moerdler who believes banning bag backs is the answer, for making more space for straphangers. Well wise guy, you can have these tax payers' spaces for you and your whole family.

Madam Katz, please take a trip on the trains. Experience the shit your constituents have to endure. This is all before a hard day's work.

Team P/J: CleanUpJamaicaQueens.

Queens hipsters continue to behave badly

Word has come in that a concert held on Veterans Day at the Knockdown Center resulted in a really long 8 hour line, no potties for the revelers, lots of public urination, trespassing and littering and the parking was a disaster. Here's footage of one of the attendees who got caught with her pants down:

Oh and remember "TransPecos" which was supposedly applying for a liquor license so they could pay for an A/C for mentally challenged students that they invite to play there during the day? They sailed past CB5 but then messed up big time and their liquor license was denied by SLA. Why? Word is that they stupidly posted a "BYOB" sign in their window and got raided by the NYPD and liquor was found. Whoopsie! Now they're calling electeds like mad in an attempt to try to fix their boo-boo.

Want proof? Above is a screenshot of SLA's map of current and pending liquor licenses. You'll notice the absence of a colored dot on Wyckoff between Hancock and Weirfield Streets. That means the application was 86'ed.

As a good friend stated when this was brought to her attention, "Welcome to the generation of geniuses who will be paying our social security kiddo. Be afraid. Be VERY afraid."

Indeed.

I also thought I would point once more out that Council Member Crowley supports both of these venues... and one of them isn't even in her district.

Stink central

From NY1:

While many straphangers are heading to work in the Jamaica Center-Parsons/Archer E train station at rush hour, many others have no place to be. They're homeless, spending their time on the subway cars and platforms, and in the bathrooms.

"People are bathing in there with buckets," said one rider. "It's horrible."

On this particular morning, every train we saw had homeless people on it. Others who ride the trains say it's affecting their quality of life, that they can't ride in some cars because of conditions there.

"Some mornings, we have to run from one train car to the next train car," said one rider. "And what is so bad is that they take up four and five cars."

"They lay out on the cars. They do their business. They have a high smell odor," said another. "It's very unhealthy."

We can show you what it looks like, but we can't show you what it smells like. We can only tell you that the stench is indescribable.

...a subway cleaner who spoke to NY1 off camera said that he's witnessed a number of violations, including "a lot of the homeless defecating, urinating in the car on the seats, right there on the floor. They just drop their pants and just do what they got to do, and you know, you got to deal with that."

Church will be pissed on for 6 more months

From the Daily News:

Five city bus routes will be adjusted in downtown Flushing, in response to complaints about the drivers who regularly relieve themselves on the side of St. George’s Episcopal Church.

The changes — to take effect in September though they were announced in January — were barely enough to appease parishioners, who still have to endure three bus stops directly in front of the church entrance along with the prospect of six more urine-stained months.

Peeing bus drivers plague St. George's Church

From the Queens Chronicle:

After months of pleas for help, it looks like St. George’s Episcopal Church in Flushing will be getting some assistance soon from the MTA.

The historic church on Main Street has been complaining since last spring that bus drivers, primarily on 38th and 39th avenues, have been urinating on the walls of the facility and leaving garbage from their meals on its sidewalks.

In addition, because of a bus stop in front of the church on Main Street, elderly or physically challenged parishioners are unable to be dropped off there.

The pastor, the Rev. Wilfredo Benitez, wrote to the MTA last May seeking relief from the situation. He noted that since 2002 buses on three sides of the church property have surrounded the parish.

“The bus stops were placed there in total disregard of our needs as a religious institution that has the right to worship unencumbered by government agencies,” Benitez wrote. “Can you imagine something like this in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan?”

At a Community Board 7 district cabinet meeting on Friday at the Queens Botanical Garden in Flushing, MTA spokesman Joe Raskin, said relief is on the way, although he would not go into specifics.

“We have come up with a plan to take the buses away from the church on the side streets,” Raskin said. “The bus operators’ behavior is intolerable to us and the church.”

Trump golf course trumps bathrooms

From the Daily News:

The same city that has spent nearly $100 million on a glitzy Trump golf course on the east side of the waterfront greenspace next to the Whitestone Bridge has again delayed the construction of long awaited - and already funded - bathrooms in the ne'er-do-well western portion of the park.

The Parks Department's $2.5 million project to add public bathrooms will now not even begin until fall 2014 - at the earliest. The multi-year delay has park goers in the western portion of the 414-acre park in desperate need of relief.

"Men are peeing constantly in public, and women will squat and take a poop right in front of you," said Dorothea Poggi, president of Friends of Ferry Point Park.

A Jamaica riddle

While walking to CityRib to have their brunch on Sunday, I encountered the usual ghetto crap shit. So here we go again.

1. Slumlord house with multiple apartments (some I am sure are illegal). Garbage containers without lids. This has been reported numerous times, I have lost count.



2. Next to 160-11 89th Avenue and pretty sure belong to the shitty single room shelter (or whatever the fuck it is) for really low-class ghetto shit. You wonder why we have a rodent problem. This is just a block away from CityRib restaurant. Real damn nice folks.



3. Apartment building at 168-07 89th Ave. Saw a huge rat scurry by. Amazingly this shithole place has 17 apartments and three garbage cans and one recycle container. One definition of Ghetto.



4. Empty store front next to 89-41 164th St in downtown Jamaica. I have reported this numerous times and as can be seen this shit has been here awhile, so you all know this is a problematic area for dumping but no one checks it on a regular basis.



5. And what do we have here.



Ah, a closer inspection shows a stream of some kind of liquid coming from this fine upstanding Jamaica resident’s penis.



Riddle: What do you get when you cross low class ghetto slobs, with major bottom of the barrel third world immigrants and useless dickwad leaders?

Answer: Jamaica

Joe Moretti
http://cleanupjamaicaqueens.wordpress.com/