The Nassau County Police 3rd Precinct reported a drop in major crimes of nearly 9 percent over the past six months, with a significant drop in residential burglaries and grand larceny during that period.
For the six months between December 28 and June 27, 3rd Precinct statistics showed 741 major crimes committed, including burglaries, robberies, felony assaults, stolen vehicles and grand larceny, compared to 813 incidences of those crimes during the same period one year ago.
Overall arrests for all major crimes are up 20 percent for that period, compared to the same period during the previous year, according to 3rd Precinct Chief Inspector Kevin Canavan
Residential burglaries dropped to 98 incidents during the past six months from 133 between the end of December in 2009 and the end of June last year, largely due to a new tactic recently established by the precinct’s police officers, Canavan said.
“We have put out dedicated burglary patrols,” Canavan said.
These plain clothes details, created during the past two months, are specifically aimed at thwarting residential burglaries that are frequently committed in daylight hours during the summer months, Canavan said. Residential arrests are up 30 percent in the past six months, compared to the comparable reporting period last year, according to Canavan, who said that 3rd Precinct officers made nine arrests for residential burglaries in the past month, compared to three during June of last year.
They also made six commercial burglary arrests during the month, with no arrests recorded in that category during June of last year.
Commercial burglaries showed the largest year-to-year increase over the six months among all the major crime categories, with 82 burglaries compared to 54 businesses hit by burglars last year.
“We’ve seen an increase in commercial burglaries in the last fourth months. It’s a problem. There’s a lot of businesses in this command,” said Canavan, who noted that there are no patterns to the burglaries.
Canavan said the “biggest problem” prompting commercial burglaries is theft of copper pipes and wiring, which he said also frequently occurs in vacant houses. Burglars rip out the copper and sell it in bulk.
Street robberies – a particular problem in the areas of Westbury and New Cassell, Canavan said – dropped nearly 12 percent, to 45 incidents from 51 incidents last year.
A 15 percent decrease year-to-year in grand larceny – to 370 incidents from 435 – was attributable to an increased police presence at the Roosevelt Field Shopping Center, according to Canavan, who said that there are 10 policemen regularly on duty in the shopping mall’s parking lot, including officers patrolling the mall on horseback.
“The biggest decline in grand larcenies is at Roosevelt Field,” Canavan said.
Robbers target vehicles in the mall’s parking lot for GPS devices, laptop computers and pocketbooks that are often left in the cars in plain sight.
“It’s amazing what people leave in their cases,” Canavan said.
The 3rd Precinct recently ran a “Project 21” operation, targeting several businesses suspected of selling alcohol to underaged buyers, according to Canavan, who said an arrest was made in Williston Park of one retailer at the Williston Park Dairy, 675 Willis Ave., who was charged with endangering the welfare of a minor and violating the state liquor authority code. The undercover operation consisted of sending minors into the locations to attempt to purchase alcohol without proper identification.
“He sold right away,” Canavan said of the retailer who was arrested by the police.
Over the recent July 4th weekend, Canavan said there had been no major fireworks incidents.
He said police encountered no problems with the crowd of 35,000 to 40,000 people who attended the fireworks show in Eisenhower Park over the weekend apart from a few missing children, who Canavan said were promptly reunited with their parents.
