Notes From The 94th Precinct Community Council Meeting

Last night’s meeting of the 94th Precinct Community Council was, curiously enough, not very well attended. This certainly came as a surprise to yours truly as I thought a woman being struck and killed by a stolen car would elicit more interest in our community. Go figure.

Regardless of turnout there were plenty items of interest brought up at this forum as you will see in the following video footage. For the sake of brevity (hey, I like a break from ye olde keyboard as much— probably more— than anyone reading this) I have embedded my You Tube footage below along with a synopsis for each segment. Before we get to them here are some facts/observations from this meeting which merit mention:

1. Per D.I. Fulton although crime is (still) “down” overall compared to last year grand larceny auto, burglaries (13) and robberies (7) are up. The car of choice for auto thieves here seems to be the good ol’ reliable Honda Civic. On the burglary front, the police recently made two separate arrests of four suspected thieves.

2. Per D.I. Fulton traffic accidents are— believe it or not— down (47).

3. Now that the weather is getting warmer we were admonished to exercise caution when wearing jewelry in public, watch our personal belongings (especially hand bags, credit cards and i-Pods) and be hyper vigilant about destroying any and all financial records before placing them in the trash for pick-up.

4. On the subject of Violetta Kryrzak’s death:

• Although he expressed his condolences to her family numerous times during the course of the discussion the overall perception of  people present was that D.I. Fulton’s recitation of the events leading up to Violetta Kryrzak’s death did not “jibe” with other accounts from those who had witnessed the event. For example:
• D.I. Fulton claimed there was “no pursuit”. Rather, two officers on patrol noticed the minivan driving erratically at Frost Street and Graham Avenue. It was ascertained the vehicle was stolen and the man took off. The police followed him.
• For those of you who are wondering, the distance between where this man was allegedly spotted and where Mrs. Kryrzak was hit is 1.2 miles.
• When queried about whether or not there was any “back and forth” between the squad car and police headquarters P.I. Fulton said there was. Apparently a number of higher-ups were aware of the situation.
• D.I. Fulton made it clear the police did not follow the stolen vehicle all the way up to Dupont Street. One person present contested this although the accounts I have heard bear Fulton out: the police stopped following the car once Mrs. Kryrzak was hit.

5. On the subject of the Abundant Life Assembly incident D.I. Fulton professed no knowledge.

6. I found two Williamsburger’s firsthand accounts of drug overdoses (in one case finding a man with a needle stuck in his arm in the bathroom of the pizzeria across the street from Oasis) and squatting in the Northside particularly troubling.

7. On a lighter note: You wanna know what really pisses one Greenpoint citizen off? No, it ain’t Mister Softee— it’s honking school buses! I strongly advise each and every person reading this to watch this touching and piquant testament to democracy in action. Sure, our system may be obtuse. Some would go so far as to even say it’s downright dysfunctional. But that doesn’t mean it cannot be fun on occasion!

Without further ado here are the videos!

PART I: In this segment D.I. Fulton gives a general run down of the crime stats for the last 28 days and a discussion ensues about honking school buses (Be sure to watch this one to the end kids, you will not be disappointed!)

Well. Who can argue with that?

Yeah, I posted this before. I really like the movie Blazing Saddles. Is this a crime? What’s more what we beheld at last night’s meeting was genuine Greenpoint gibberish.

PART II: After D.I. Fulton (and everyone present) took a moment to absorb the previous rant about honking buses a discussion about the circumstances leading up to Violetta Kryrzak’s death commenced. First we get Fulton’s take.

PART III: A continuation of the discussion about the circumstances leading up to Violetta Kryrzak’s death and truck traffic.

PART IV: Junkies and Squatters at North 7th and Bedford.

PART V: Bikes attached to street signs, car services honking their horns at 3:00 a.m.

All things said and done I suspect I speak for many present when I say I came away from this meeting with more questions than answers. You can (and should) read Graham T. Beck’s take on this meeting over at Streetsblog.

Miss Heather