Rockville Centre's burglary rate down in 2012

Though the Nassau County Police Department has noted an increase in burglaries in the first two months of 2012, Rockville Centre police have seen a trend in the opposite direction.

County Executive Ed Mangano announced at a press conference Feb. 23 that the NCPD had arrested 70 accused burglars so far this year, and that there were more incidents of burglary than in recent years.

According to Rockville Centre Police Commissioner Charles Gennario, however, the village has seen fewer burglaries thus far in 2012. “This year, knock on wood, we’ve done great,” Gennario said. “We only have three to date, which is a very good number for us.”

A trend that began in 2011, when there was a 52 percent drop in burglaries — to 29, from 61 in 2010 — appears to be continuing. Gennario equated the decline to aggressive police work and key arrests. “In our case, we made some real good, major burglary arrests near the end of 2010,” he explained. “One was a career criminal who’d been killing us for decades. We had another three where we caught guys in the act.”

Acting County Police Commissioner Thomas Dale said that the uptick in burglary arrests for the NCPD is due in large part to a shift in priorities after intelligence-based policing models discovered the upward trend near the end of last year. “In anticipation of this increase in burglaries, our first step was to develop accurate and reliable intelligence,” Dale said. “As we notice changes in burglary trends in different locations throughout the county, we have been immediately redeploying our personnel to follow the bad guys.”

In a presentation detailing crime statistics in recent years, the NCPD’s chief of department, Steven Skrynecki, noted that while major crimes, such as homicide, are down nearly 10 percent since Mangano took office in 2010, residential burglaries are up overall by less than 1 percent despite a spike in burglaries between last year and this year.