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Schenectady cops look for links in shooting, car accident
Monday, April 21, 2008

SCHENECTADY -- Police say they are trying to determine if there is a connection between reports of shots fired on Grant Avenue and a pedestrian who was hit by a car in the vicinity.
     
Police were called to 806 Grant Ave. at about 1:15 p.m. to answer a call of shots fired. They found shell casings and a man who had been hit by a car.
The man, who was conscious at the scene, was being taken to St. Clare's Hospital.
Lt. Brian Kilcullen said police believe they found the car that hit the man. It was on nearby Albany Street with a shattered windshield, he said. Police were talking to the driver.
``There was definitely shots fired and there is definitely a pedestrian struck by a car,'' Kilcullen said. ``We're not sure if there is any connection between the two.''

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City has to put more cops on Hamilton Hill

    My name is Anthony Ackerman Sr. [the recent Hamilton Hill assault victim]. First, I would like to say thanks to all of you for your support. I’m doing a lot better.
    I’m not done with the city yet. I plan on getting a hold of area leaders and going to City Hall to see what we can do to get police to be in the area more.
    I hold the city, and police, at fault; yet some taxpayers have been making comments here that the police are doing a good job. Well, go live on The Hill and tell them that the police are doing a good job — we would laugh in your face.
    We need a strong mayor and city council to stand up for everyone in this city — whether they pay taxes or not — as we also vote.
    ANTHONY ACKERMAN SR.
    Schenectady

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SCHENECTADY
Resident offers city police a hand
Bellevue man says he’ll help watch monitors from surveillance cameras
BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter

    Those electronic eyes that record drug deals, beatings and other crimes throughout the city should have a living, breathing human being behind them calling for help, resident James Weaver said.
    The police don’t have the budget to pay someone to watch the city’s surveillance cameras, so Weaver has offered to do it for free.
    Not only is Weaver willing to peer into more than 18 monitors for hours at a time, but he thinks he can enlist others to volunteer as well.
    “It’s because I have a kid,” he said. “I want our community safe — not just for mine but everybody’s.”
    This is nothing new for Weaver, who says he already patrols his neighborhood in his spare time. The Bellevue resident whips out binoculars even when he’s resting on his porch, getting detailed descriptions of criminals. He’s called police for everything from petty thievery to heroin deals in his neighborhood. Now he wants to watch the whole city.
    He figures that if someone watches the cameras, police can be notified as soon as the crime begins, rather than just relying on the recording to catch the criminal later.
    “The cops can’t be at every crime. It’s impossible,” Weaver said. “We’d love to be trained to watch these cameras for free.”
    The city is expanding the camera network but still has no one to watch the feed regularly. A grant will pay for a few hours of surveillance this year, but nothing more than that, city officials said.
BENNETT INTERESTED
    So Public Safety Commissioner Wayne Bennett said he would seriously consider Weaver’s proposal.
    “We need to take a serious look at any offer of assistance,” he said.
    But, he warned, volunteers must be able to pass a criminal background check. Just as important, they would need the ability to communicate clearly on the witness stand, Bennett said, because they would occasionally be called to testify on what they’d seen.
    “You don’t want a situation where they may not be able to articulate it, through no fault of their own. We’d need to evaluate them,” Bennett said.
    He would also have to make sure the police union doesn’t oppose the idea. Although police rarely watch the cameras now, the union generally objects if any work is passed to nonunion members.
    Mayor Brian U. Stratton said he would discuss the idea with Bennett before making a decision. Although no promises have been made, Weaver was heartened by the positive response.
    “I’m looking forward to it,” he said.
    If watched, the cameras would, in effect, more than double the number of law enforcement eyes on the street. Weaver thinks it would make a big difference.
    “Because nobody’s watching them. The only time they look at them is when a crime’s occurred. That’s no good,” he said. “I have the spare time and I care.”
    Weaver has been trying to fi ght criminals on a volunteer basis for years.
    He was part of Child Find until he got fed up with being called out at 11 p.m. for children who had not come home when school got out at 3 p.m. Then he patrolled with Bellevue’s neighborhood watch until bickering split the group.
    “Then I just started doing it on my own,” he said.
    He’s somewhat of a hero on his street, where neighbor Ed Drebitko called him “our one-man neighborhood watch.”
    “He’s is the kind of neighbor you want to have,” Drebitko added.
    A moment later, Weaver was trying to talk the single father into joining his camera-watching cause. Drebitko demurred at first, but confessed that he too works to improve the neighborhood.
    “Somebody’s got to do it because no one else will,” Drebitko said.
    Weaver grinned in triumph. “I’m sure I can get two hours out of him,” he said. “I know he’s a concerned parent also.”

PETER R. BARBER/GAZETTE PHOTOGRAPHER
James Weaver plays basketball with his daughter Janel Weaver, 14, in front of their home in Schenectady on Tuesday. Weaver has offered to watch monitors from surveillance cameras around the city.

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State police to provide help in Hamilton Hill
Wednesday, April 23, 2008

SCHENECTADY — State troopers will begin assisting Schenectady police today in patrolling Hamilton Hill in response to numerous shootings in the neighborhood.
City Public Safety Commissioner Wayne E. Bennett, retired state police superintendent, requested the additional assistance, as well as redeploying city detectives, patrolman and traffic officers. In addition, nonessential personnel will be reassigned to patrol duty and additional overtime will be offered to increase patrol coverage of the area.
The move comes after an analysis of shooting incidents over the past three months. The patrols will specifically target the illegal use of firearms.

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SCHENECTADY
Resident offers city police a hand
Bellevue man says he’ll help watch monitors from surveillance cameras

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The police union is trying to stop this ... details will be on Ch 13 tonight, but they're NOT happy union members right now.

There was another "public" project to put cameras online - does anyone know the status of that?

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SCHENECTADY
Police combat rising violence Troopers helping to patrol problem neighborhoods
BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter

The city police department is being reorganized to fight escalating gun violence in the city, Public Safety Commissioner Wayne Bennett said Wednesday. The state police is sending more troopers to help as well, with additional troopers already on patrol Wednesday.
    “We’ll do whatever it takes,” Bennett vowed. “This is a critical stage … a handful of people in this city are out of control. We will take away their freedom to be on the streets.”
    Mayor Brian U. Stratton described the gun incidents in the past six weeks as unprecedented in recent history. Shots have been fired nearly every day, and numerous people have been injured. One man was killed early this month. To stop the violence, police have now come up with new patrol patterns based on an analysis of all reported shootings in the past three months — including the many incidents in which no one was hurt. Based on that analysis, Bennett redeployed his patrol, detective and traffic officers Wednesday. He’s keeping the details quiet to take criminals by surprise, but Stratton said the new patrols will be “more focused” on the Hamilton Hill section, where most of the city’s shootings occur. Hamilton Hill residents expressed dismay last week that the police did not have a dedicated patrol in their neighborhood on the midnight shift, and Stratton said then that he wants patrols there every night.
    “Obviously we’re going to target it there,” Stratton said after the reorganization was announced. “The target area is Hamilton Hill and where the shots have been frequent: State Street, Mont Pleasant.”
    The city is taking the shootings so seriously that Bennett is sending all nonessential personnel to the streets.
    Supervisors and others will be assigned to patrol duty whenever possible, he said. He’s even asked the city judges and the town judges to let the police know when they’re available at night, so criminals can be quickly arraigned and sent to the county jail. That would free up the two officers who watch the city lockup, Bennett said.
    He will also use overtime to increase the number of officers on patrol, saying he wants to overwhelm criminals with “the sheer number of police out there.”
    The police will also run special patrols to find and arrest residents who use illegal guns.
    Many residents on Hamilton Hill carry illegal guns, as documented by a story in the Sunday Gazette. Young teens said they consider guns to be so cool that they paint BB guns and paintball guns to look like real guns, and often fire them on the street in imitation of the crime around them.
    Older teens who carried real guns vehemently defended their right to do so, despite being too young — owners must be at least 21 — and in some cases being ineligible because of criminal backgrounds. They said that Hamilton Hill is so dangerous that they might be shot or robbed if they did not have an illegal gun to protect themselves.
    Stratton said such reports — particularly of young teens eager to get their own illegal gun — are disturbing.
    “The issue of guns on the streets is something I’m very concerned about,” he said.
    Stratton and Bennett say they believe the police reorganization will have an effect. But, they said, police alone can’t stop the violence.
    They appealed to the public to report gun crimes immediately to police. Bennett wants residents to call 911 with not just the typical laconic report of “shots fired,” but also with details: descriptions of possible perpetrators, license plate numbers, vehicle descriptions and direction of travel.
    If witnesses fail to offer information, criminals are more likely to continue the violence, Bennett warned. He’s said he’s hoping residents are so fed up with the violence that they’ll help police catch the shooters.
    “We have someone cooperating in the shooting this afternoon. That is so refreshing,” he said, referring to an incident on Hamilton Hill in which no one was injured, though a vehicle was hit. “The magic question is, have we now reached the point where people are so frustrated that they will cooperate? I hope the answer is yes.”

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EDITORIALS
Address Sch’dy gun culture

    The level of gun violence on Schenectady’s Hamilton Hill, alarmingly high for years, seems to have risen to new heights this spring, and if officials don’t do something about it soon, they may as well forget about the rebirth that is taking place in other parts of the city.
    The city needs middle-class families to buy and reinvigorate its housing stock, but that’s not going to keep happening when there are reports of “shots being fired” in the news on a daily basis, as there have been for the past two months. And even if most of the shots have been confined to Hamilton Hill and Mont Pleasant, can anyone who read Kathleen Moore’s Sunday story about the possession of and attitudes about guns among Hill teenagers (as well as adults) not get the feeling that it’s only a matter of time before the problem spreads to other neighborhoods?
    People who dismiss this possibility, or downplay the seriousness of the threat because the guns most of these kids have been playing with happen to be BB or paintball guns, are kidding themselves. When a child’s idea of fun is to reenact a drive-by shooting, the message is clear enough. And the BB gun of today — which, of course, is perfectly capable of putting an eye out — will be the handgun of tomorrow.
    It’s a cultural problem: Kids everywhere these days are bombarded with gun violence: on TV and in movies, video games and music. And in a few particular neighborhoods, guns have been a way of life for so long that many people — even law-abiding ones — wouldn’t dream of not owning one. Still, it’s a culture that needs to be changed, somehow, or all the tens of millions of dollars being invested to revitalize other areas of the city will likely be for naught.
    A well-coordinated message needs to come from Schenectady’s teachers, ministers and social workers. It needs to be heard by the children, and the parents. But it will fall on deaf ears unless it is reinforced — not just by police presence but by a change in their attitude. Otherwise residents will not be willing to give up their guns, drop their “us-against-them” posture or cooperate when it comes to identifying bad actors.
    The department’s recently noted failure to maintain a ’round-the-clock presence on The Hill was addressed. to some degree, in a press release by city officials yesterday — state police are coming back, yet again — but it will be awhile before it can be determined if their commitment to this neighborhood is genuine. After all, the issue has come up, been addressed, then forgotten many times over the years.

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Sch’dy needs curfew to help cops fight crime

    When will the mayor and the city council untie the hands of the Schenectady Police Department?
    These police officers are the only defense we have in Schenectady against an all-out attack on the working, taxpaying citizens in the city, as we saw last week when a man walking home from work was attacked.
    The police would love to be pro-active in the city, but their hands are tied by the mayor. Why do we not have a 10 p.m. curfew? I see no reason for a teenager under 18 to be running the streets at 2 a.m. Without a curfew, the police can’t stop these kids without a cry of harassment from the same parents who vilify police when one of their kids is shot or killed. Where are the parents who let these kids run the streets all night?
    I guarantee you if the parents have to start paying $50 and $100 fines for curfew violations, the crime in Schenectady will drop significantly.
    BILL MARINCIC

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Civilians need guns to protect themselves

    I’m writing about the April 20 article, “Some kids eager for real guns — pistols called cool as violence escalates.”
    I was very struck by the tone of the remarks attributed to District Attorney Robert Carney. He was reported as saying that if the person savagely assaulted by a gang on Hamilton Hill had been armed, someone might have been killed. Mr. Carney seems to think that would have been a very bad thing. He’s overlooking the point that the person shot would almost certainly have been one of the attackers. To me, that would have been a very good thing, showing that gangs couldn’t expect to beat up people with impunity.
    The situation in Schenectady with respect to gunfire in the streets isn’t good. It appears to me that allowing responsible citizens to carry weapons for self-protection is the minimum that local authorities should provide. Heavier police presence in troubled areas is another possibility, but we have seen that the police can’t be everywhere and in fact have no legal duty to respond to particular incidents.
    Citizens should be prepared to defend themselves, and for the vast majority this means using firearms.
    GEORGE ERIC SCOTT
    Schenectady

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SCHENECTADY
More police hit the streets
Changes come in response to violent incidents
BY STEVEN COOK Gazette Reporter

    Increased police presence in troubled areas could help prevent gun violence, but that presence has to be sustained and involved, residents said Thursday.
    “They’ll find a way to do what they want to do,” 22-year-old Nicole Baker said of those involved in recent shootings. “But police need
    to walk around the neighborhood, not just stay in their cars.”
    On the same Summit Avenue porch, Regina Lincoln said police presence must be known.
    “They need to patrol the streets more,” she said, adding later that residents need to help watch over their own neighborhood, as well.
    Increased patrols — including walking patrols — are under way, police said this week, announcing a reorganization to better confront violent incidents. Officials are targeting neighborhoods where shots have been most frequent, including Hamilton Hill, Mont Pleasant and Central State Street.
    State troopers have been called in to help, while patrol patterns have been changed in response to the violence and officers sent to the streets from desk jobs.
EXPECTING RESULTS
    And, if residents haven’t noticed the increase yet, they will, Public Safety Commissioner Wayne Bennett said Thursday.
Residents, he said, “should be able to sense their presence.”
Hamilton Hill Neighborhood Association president Fred Lee said he noticed an increase first thing in the morning, spotting a patrol car on Summit.
Lee, a longtime resident, recalled past efforts by the city and state police to squelch outbursts of crime. “They’ve been here before, and they’ve certainly helped a lot,” he said. “We certainly need their pres- ence.”
    State police came to Schenectady for joint patrols in Hamilton Hill and surrounding neighborhoods in 1999 and again in 2002 following outbreaks.
    Officials made the most recent changes after a series of almost daily shootings over recent weeks, one of them resulting in a death.
    The first 24 hours of the program went well, Bennett said. No shootings were reported, though he cautioned it is still early.
    “It’s much too soon to make an honest assessment on whether we’ve taken this in the right direction,” he said. “But, I certainly hope that in a week’s time, we’ll get some kind of sense whether it’s working.”
    The increased presence is taking the form of both officers in patrol cars and some officers walking the neighborhoods. Walking beats have not been possible because of shortages in manpower, he said.
    Walking beats carries the risk that officers would be too far from their cars to respond to an emergency. More officers on patrol means more officers to spare to walk.
    “If you have to run back to your car, that can delay the response even more,” Bennett said. “But, when you have additional patrols out there, you have people to cover calls.”
    Bennett, a retired state police superintendent, said communication with the integrated state police patrols is seamless.
    Troopers have the capability to switch their radios to Schenectady police frequencies, meaning they can be dispatched directly to calls.

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Sch’dy needs curfew to help cops fight crime

    When will the mayor and the city council untie the hands of the Schenectady Police Department?
    These police officers are the only defense we have in Schenectady against an all-out attack on the working, taxpaying citizens in the city, as we saw last week when a man walking home from work was attacked.
    The police would love to be pro-active in the city, but their hands are tied by the mayor. Why do we not have a 10 p.m. curfew? I see no reason for a teenager under 18 to be running the streets at 2 a.m. Without a curfew, the police can’t stop these kids without a cry of harassment from the same parents who vilify police when one of their kids is shot or killed. Where are the parents who let these kids run the streets all night?
    I guarantee you if the parents have to start paying $50 and $100 fines for curfew violations, the crime in Schenectady will drop significantly.
    BILL MARINCIC
    Schenectady