The RIOC Column

To say we are proud of our Public Safety officers would be an understatement. The 29-member force, led by director Jim Fry, works around the clock to provide a safe and orderly environment on the Island.

Twice in recent months our Public Safety officers have encountered dramatic and dangerous situations, and performed with professionalism and even heroism.

On December 15, 2005, a call came into the Public Safety office with a report of a two-month-old baby that was not breathing. Following long-established procedure, four officers responded to the call while an office dispatcher called 911. Two officers, Raphael Payne and Peter Simonovic, went directly to the apartment while two others stayed downstairs to direct arriving EMS crews. Upon arriving in the apartment, they discovered the baby was not breathing.

Following their training, Officers Payne and Semanovic immediately began to provide cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and the baby began breathing. They rushed the baby into the hands of the arriving EMS crew. The result was the baby is now okay, and the two officers are heroes.

On January 12, 2006, Officer Ingrid Veras stopped an individual while she was looking for the perpetrator of a past robbery. The individual fled, with Vera, calling in a description, giving chase. With the assistance of three other officers, the individual was captured. Officers observed the man throwing what turned out to be 52 bags of marijuana onto the ground, which is considered felony weight under the law, and the individual was arrested.

Just last month, on February 6, Deputy Director René Bryan, Sgt. Michelle Evans and Officer Rodell Lindsay combined to detain and arrest a man suspected of four burglaries on the Island. The man is now being held. It is worth noting that each of these burglaries appear to have been crimes of opportunity, occurring in unlocked, unsecured apartments. This is a good chance to alert everybody on the Island to what should seem obvious, that a locked door is a basic deterrent to crime.

Statistics from 2005 show our Public Safety officers have been successful in their mission.

While one crime is one too many – and the victim of a crime takes little solace from statistical good news - the data bear out the relative safety of life on our Island.

With a population of about 9,000 residents, Roosevelt Island experienced 43 reported index crimes in 2005. (Index crimes are the most serious category of felonies and include murder, assault, burglary, rape, robbery, grand larceny and grand larceny auto.) That is similar to what happened in 2004 – there were a few more burglaries and assaults reported in 2005, though there was only one reported car theft in 2005, compared to two the year before. There were no murders or reported rapes in either year.

Public Safety officers, who are considered peace officers under the laws of the State of New York and have the same arrest and ticketing authority as City police officers, aggressively enforce parking and other violations in order to establish and maintain the order necessary on our Island.