The war on Queens cars continues

75th Street Middle Village - The Ghetto

This has been like this for nearly a year...

Property owners not summoned and have not cleaned this.

Why....??

Tire thieves out in force

From CBS 2:

Several vehicles have been stripped of their wheels in Queens, and the cars all have something in common, police say.

Police say at least 16 cases of stolen tires and rims have been reported in neighborhoods like Astoria, Jackson Heights and East Elmhurst since February.

AAA’s Robert Sinclair told Castro this isn’t surprising. He said the fact thieves are targeting newer Honda Accords, Acura MDXs and Toyota Camrys can be attributed to how popular the cars are on the showroom floor.

Police sources told CBS2 the suspects are likely part of an organized crime ring that works in teams. Suspects in a scout car will pick out a target, then a van is called in with the tools to do the job.

A car can be stripped in a matter of minutes. The parts are then resold. Things like wheel locks do help, but they aren’t always foolproof.

Someone's dumping tires along the Clearview

From the Times Ledger:

Stacks of abandoned tires have been seen littering the side of the highway around 73rd Avenue and Clearview Expressway in recent months.

The Department of Transportation, which believes this is the work of one outfit dumping entire truckloads at once, has been regularly required to haul the garbage away. The city agency has been quick to remove the tires, diligence which was praised by City Councilman Barry Grodenchik (D-Oakland Gardens) and state Assemblyman David Weprin (D-Fresh Meadows) at a Tuesday news conference.

“The area alongside the Clearview Expressway is protected parkland, and no part of New York City, least of all our parks, is to be used as a private dump,” said Grodenchik, referring to nearby Cunningham Park. “As a community, we spend a lot of time and effort keeping our parks and neighborhoods beautiful, and this illegal tire dumping is an affront to our work.”

Howard Beach tire lifters caught

From the Forum:

Anticrime Unit cops in the 106th Precinct this week nabbed three men who allegedly stole all four rims and tires off a car in Howard Beach, according to police.

The plainclothes officers allegedly caught Emanuel Rios, Jamie Agustin and Alex Elicer, all 25 years old, in the act around 3:30 a.m. Tuesday morning on 88th Street near 157th Avenue.

Each defendant was arraigned on charges of third-degree criminal possession of stolen property, third-degree criminal trespass, criminal mischief in the third degree, fourth-degree grand larceny, possession of burglar tools, and third-degree auto stripping.

Police believe a rim & tire theft ring is in operation

From DNA Info:

Police busted what they believe is a tire-and-rim-theft ring in Queens last month amid dozens of such incidents in the borough, police sources say.

On Oct. 15, police officers from the 109th Precinct, which covers Flushing, Whitestone and College Point, arrested three men as they tried to remove rims and tires from a 2012 Honda parked at 21st Avenue and Parsons Boulevard, police said.

So far the three men, who all live in Brooklyn, have been charged with one incident.

But police sources said that investigators believe the men belong to a ring responsible for a series of similar thefts in Queens.

Over the past several months police say there have been dozens of incidents in Queens in which thieves stole rims and tires and left the cars on cinder blocks, police said.

The thefts have occurred in various neighborhoods, including Forest Hills and Kew Gardens.

Spike in tire & rim thefts in Kew Gardens

From DNA Info:

Thieves have gone on a spree in Kew Gardens, snapping up rims and tires from 15 cars so far this year and prompting a local precinct to distribute fliers in an effort to put the brakes on the trend.

Most of the cars — largely imports — were left on cinder blocks, but in some instances, sources said, vehicles were placed on tree limbs.

Officers from the 102nd Precinct, which covers Kew Gardens, Richmond Hill, Woodhaven and Ozone Park, have been leaving leaflets on car windshields, informing vehicle owners about the rash of thefts.

“Lately there has been an increase in rims and tires being stolen from late model Honda Accords and Nissan Maximas, Infinitis, and Acuras within the 102 Precinct," although other car models have also been targeted, the flier says.

This year, there have been 33 rim and tire thefts in the 102nd Precinct as of Aug. 21, nearly half of them in Kew Gardens, according to the precinct.

In June, five such incidents occurred in Kew Gardens within a period of one week.

Rash of wheel thefts in Glen Oaks

From NBC:

It's a sight residents in a Queens community are waking up to frequently: cars on cinder blocks and crates, with all four wheels missing.

"It's insulting. You know, they come, they damage your property and then they drop the car on the pavement so there was more damage beside the wheels," said Allon Theilen, who paid $3,800 to replace his wheels when his were stolen a few weeks ago in Glen Oaks.

Glen Oaks Village President Bob Friedrich said, "They literally can get all four tires off in less than five minutes, and then they're gone,"

Friedrich met with police Wednesday and says there is a plan to stop the thieves.

"I've been working closely with the 105th Precinct. They have beefed up patrols here, a lot of unmarked patrols, and they're taking some other measures that I'm not at liberty to disclose right now to try to combat this," he said.

Residents in the Glen Oaks Village coop development pointed to nearly a dozen incidents they know about, and they suspect there have been more in the surrounding area in the last few months.

Peter Vallone's tires slashed

From Politicker:

Queens Councilman Peter Vallone Jr., chair of the council’s public safety committee, says he was the victim of a tire slashing last night.

The term-limited councilman, who is no stranger to threats, said he woke up this morning prepared to head to career day at PS70 when he saw that both of the tires on the left side of his car had been slashed.

“The tire guy said there was no doubt that a knife was put into the side of each one of them,” he told Politicker this afternoon.

Mr. Vallone, an unabashed supporter of the NYPD who is known for his hard-line stances against quality of life crimes, said he was stumped about the slasher’s potential motivations. Perhaps he has an “Alec Baldwin-like stalker,” he joked.

Nevertheless, whoever punctured Mr. Vallone’s tires may end up being caught. The councilman said the NYPD installed a surveillance camera outside his house after he received a death threat and various threats to “tag” his house with graffiti. (Mr. Vallone has been waging an “Ahab-like” anti-graffiti campaign in the City Council.)

Tire thieves out in full force

From Sunnyside Post:

Sunnyside, Queens: The tire and rim bandits are back.

The owner of a car parked on 43rd Street (btw. 43rd Ave and Skillman Ave) woke up to discover that his/her four tires and rims were missing yesterday.

In the past 28 days, there have been four such incidents of this type in Maspeth, according to police. However, this is the first to occur in Sunnyside for some time.

College Point scam artist arrested

From the Daily News:

A 50-year-old Queens man has been collard for a crime spree against motorists where he posed as a Good Samaritan then ripped them off as they were distracted, police said.

Mario Gutierrez, of College Point, was involved in four of the 16 incidents since August — 13 in Queens — where a team of thieves used similar tactics, police said.

In one case, Gutierrez swiped $40,600 in cash from a man who had just come out of a bank, police said. Authorities believe at least two other suspects were involved in the crime spree.

One man would tell the victim that he or she has a flat tire, and while the driver was checking for damage an accomplice swiped valuables from the car, cops said.

In some cases, the tires may have been slashed beforehand by the suspects. In the majority of cases, there was no damage at all, a police source told the Daily News on Tuesday.

In three incidents, the con men also sprayed victims’ jackets with unknown substances or convinced them to take off their outerwear for cleaning, then the suspects emptied the pockets, cops said.

Don't accept help with flat tires

From CBS New York:

Police Tuesday were asking for the public’s help in finding three suspects wanted in connection with 12 different thefts in Queens.

The incidents happened between Aug. 9 of last year and just this past Thursday. In most of the thefts, the victim is told by one of the suspects that he or she has a flat tire, and when the victim goes to investigate, the suspects steal items from inside the car.

The robberies happened in multiple areas of Queens, including Flushing, Broad Channel, Queens Village, South Richmond Hill and Sunnyside.

In many of the thefts, the victims were coming out of banks when the suspects told them their tires were flat. In some others, the victims noticed their flat tires themselves first, and accepted the suspects’ offers for help as one suspect worked on the tire and the others looted the car.

Rash of rim thefts

From the Queens Courier:

If you live in Howard Beach, Ozone Park or Lindenwood, police are cautioning that you keep an eye on your car — and be wary of where you store your wheel lock key.

There has been an increased number of thefts in rims and tires from late-model Nissan Maximas, Honda Accords and Toyota Camrys, police said.

Thieves have allegedly been taking tires from cars, on the side that does not face the owner’s house, so drivers may not notice until they are already in the vehicle. Police said one of the main problems is car owners storing their wheel lock key in the glove compartment. Because of this, police said, passenger side windows may be broken to get to the key. While it is a convenient place to store it, vandals have broken into passenger side windows to look for the key, police said.

The cost to replace a full set of rims and tires can be upwards of thousands of dollars, both police and auto dealers confirm.

Tire theft problem in Sunnyside

From Fox 5:

The problem in Sunnyside seems to be getting worse. Two cars in the neighborhood have been found on cinder blocks in the past three weeks. The latest was this past Sunday. Experts say the tires and rims can be stolen in just a mater of minutes. They have a high resale value.

Neighbors say police have told them that parking their tires at a slanted angle like will make it much less likely for them to get ripped off.

Tires stolen from car near Mr. Public Safety's house

From El Blog de Joy:

The jerk-offs not only had to steal this Nissan Maxima’s wheels, but they also bent the car’s door panel using a plastic milk crate as a make-shift platform. Classy.

And the cherry on top? The crime was committed only a few feet away from Councilman Peter F. Vallone’s house — a symbolic reminder that all his chatter about crime increasing in the 114th Precinct is most definitely not over-blown.

Apparently, for the first time in his life, Peter Vallone is speechless about crime in Astoria, because he has yet to provide a statement about this to Gothamist's Jen Carlson, who asked for one days ago.

UPDATE: There is now a statement from Vallone at the Gothamist link about needing more cops. Agreed.

Queens tops car theft list

From the NY Post:

If you're heading into Queens, maybe it's better to leave the car behind.

An average of eight cars a day get snatched off the streets of the borough's leafy neighborhoods -- making it the auto-theft capital of the Big Apple.

And the number of cars disappearing in the borough has been steadily climbing.

So far this year, 3,037 cars have been stolen, an increase of 9.2 percent since last year, according to NYPD Compstat figures released Nov. 9.

The dismal borough stats represent 34 percent of the total number of vehicles stolen citywide.

When hunting for vehicles, goons are most likely to target Honda Civics and Accords, the top two cars stolen in the city, records show.

The next three vehicle makes most likely to be stolen are the Nissan Maxima, Toyota Camry and Ford Econoline van, according to the NYPD.

When crooks don't take an entire car, they'll take its wheels and rims, authorities said. Lately, there have been reports of several car-stripping incidents in Astoria and Bayside.

Police said there isn't a ring linked to any of the thefts and many of the incidents appear to be the work of small-time criminals.

In an effort to combat the spree, NYPD has beefed up its night patrols, and cops are now stopping tow trucks to check whether they are legitimately hauling off vehicles, according to an NYPD spokesperson.

Halloran foe tickets woman changing tire

From CBS 2:

The traffic agent accused of terrorizing Queens residents is the source of more outrage.

CBS 2 first told you about Agent Daniel Chu, who was ordered to undergo sensitivity training for badgering drivers. Now, there's a new complaint that has some calling for his job.

There are some things you just can't change, and too-big-for-his-britches Traffic Agent Daniel Chu appears to be one of them.

"I'm very angry. I'm very annoyed that someone like that works for the city, that our tax dollars pay for someone like that to be employed," Tammy Fox, of New Rochelle, said.

Tammy Fox is Agent Chu's latest victim. She was in the dirt near Elmhurst Hospital, trying to fix her flat tire, when Agent Chu sauntered up. Instead of offering help, like most New Yorkers would, he slapped her with a ticket.

"I said to him, 'are you kidding me? You're very insensitive. I'm going to visit my friend in the hospital who had cancer, and I'm trying to fix my flat tire, and you're standing here writing me a ticket?'" Fox said.

Tammy hit the nail on the head when she used the word insensitive. The very day she got the ticket, CBS 2 told you that NYPD brass docked Chu's pay and ordered him into sensitivity training for a raft of run-ins with the public and Queens Councilman Daniel Halloran.

"Apparently, the sensitivity training didn't work," Councilman Halloran said.

Elmhurst tire slasher arrested

From the Queens Chronicle:

After allegedly slashing the tires of more than eight cars parked in front of his home, Yonathan Lim was escorted out in handcuffs Friday, after angry neighbors urged the police to investigate slashings which they said were too routine to be random.

According to Lim’s neighbor, Bill Weydig, when police finally looked through their records, they discovered slashings had taken place for almost a year on the quiet residential block of Van Loon Street in Elmhurst.

However, it was only after Weydig’s tenant, Margarita Guilarte, who had her tires slashed twice, took Weydig’s security camera footage to police that Lim was apprehended. “She just sat there and refused to leave until they did something,” Weydig said.

Dai-Rong Zheng of Middle Village said his wife, Maiko Morito-Zheng fell victim to the slasher’s rage several weeks ago, but he thought police would not follow up on the incident.

Morito-Zheng waited for several hours for police to arrive to take her report and when they came, Zheng said they didn’t seem to take the incident seriously. “I was doubting anything would happen, because normally they just put these things aside, and I was trying to tell my wife to forget about it, that this is how things are in New York. When I got the call saying they caught him, I apologized to her,” he said.

Tire-slasher in Elmhurst

From the Queens Chronicle:

Park anywhere you like in Elmhurst, just not on Van Loon Street. According to residents and area workers, a month of tire slashings at two spots on the street have made it a location to avoid.

Frankie Moy parked his car in one of the spots on May 6th at around 6 a.m. An hour later, he came back from working at nearby Sunrise Bakery & Cafe to find three of his tires were flat. Moy said he saw another car suffer the same fate just last week. “I had to buy three new tires,” Moy said. “After that I have been seeing a lot of tires flat at the location at the same two spots.” According to Moy, it is now common knowledge in the area that those spots are off limits, still he said visitors to the area often park there and their tires are destroyed as well.

Bill Weydig, who lives near the spots, located at 52-22 and 52-26 Van Loon St., said his tenant Margarita Guilarte also fell victim to the slasher’s rage.

Weydig decided to train his security camera on the location and caught the vandal in the act. He surmised that the slasher desires one of the spots for himself and ruins the tires of those who park there in anger. Weydig estimates around eight cars have been targeted, though he said he only has two attacks on tape. After viewing a tape of the incident, Weydig said it was obvious who the perpetrator was.

“He lives down the block,” Weydig said.

For those of you who think you've seen everything...

Ladies and Gents, I present to you a photo that really takes the cake.

A P.O.S. car with fake whitewall tires! Click the photo to see it in full res, with the sloppy paint job 'round the rims...

Taken on Arnold Avenue in Maspeth. Then there's this:


Very professional, no?