Solages to FBI: Audit NCPD crime reporting

Nassau County Legislator Carrié Solages has called on the Federal Bureau of Investigation to audit county Police Department crime statistics in light of a commander’s recent demotion for underreporting crime. Thomas DePaola, the former commanding officer of the NCPD’s 5th Precinct, was demoted earlier this month for reducing the precinct’s crime statistics, and Solages said he believes the problem could be more widespread.

Speaking outside 5th Precinct headquarters in Elmont on Aug. 23, Solages, a Democrat from Elmont, announced that he had sent a letter requesting an audit to the FBI and had asked Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano to halt the consolidation of precincts until after an audit was conducted. The 2nd and 8th precincts were consolidated in May, the 5th precinct is set to merge with the 4th in Hewlett, and the 7th and 1st precincts are scheduled to be combined in November.

“It is imperative an immediate federal audit be commenced,” Solages said. In his letter to the FBI, he wrote, “The public has a right to learn the truth about how far this fraudulent practice extended, who was behind it and when it was discovered.”

Until such an audit is conducted, Solages demanded that all of the precincts remain open, and particularly the 5th. It patrols areas that include Valley Stream, Elmont, Franklin Square, West Hempstead and North Lynbrook.

“The precinct closure plan has a disproportionately negative impact on black, Hispanic and other minority communities in Elmont and elsewhere,” Solages wrote. “We have concerns that the falsified crime statistics may have been a pretext for deliberative racial discrimination in the selection of precincts to be closed.”

When DePaola’s manipulation of crime statistics was revealed, the Legislature’s presiding officer, Peter Schmitt, and Mangano refused to hold a hearing on the matter.

The county claims it is consolidating the precincts in order to save money and because crime is down. Community leaders in Elmont insist that isn’t true, and that criminals are aware that there are fewer police officers on the street. Within the past few weeks, a 14-year-old boy who was playing basketball at Dutch Broadway Elementary School in Elmont was robbed, according to Jon Johnson, the president of the Elmont Cardinals, a volunteer youth sports group. Johnson said that there have been other, similar incidents as well, and expressed his support for Solages’s appeal to the FBI, saying, “We’ve got to get back to thinking about the kids.”

Elmont East End Civic Association President Pat Nicolosi echoed Johnson’s concerns. Having lived in Elmont since 1967, Nicolosi said, he believes that crime is up in Elmont and across the county. “When we used to say we were the safest county, I used to believe it,” he said. “[But] I know crime has been going up.”