By:Nicole Falco
Valley Stream continues to remain quiet when it comes to violent crimes such as murder and rape. There was one murder in the community in 2003. On Sept. 12, Everett Edwards, 28, of 205 Cedar St., was shot and killed outside his home. Everett-s murder is still being investigated.
Stolen cars continue to be a problem in the community, statistics show. There were 136 vehicles reported stolen in Valley Stream in 2003, compared with 103 in 2002, a 32 percent increase. However, there were 27 instances where the keys were left in the ignition while a vehicle was unattended, according to police officer Stan Slevinski, crime analyst for the Fifth Precinct. And the number of stolen autos is still more than 60 percent lower than it was 10 years ago. In 1993 there were 368 vehicles reported stolen in Valley Stream.
There were 123 house burglaries reported last year, compared with 84 in 2002, a 46 percent increase. Police made three arrests in January of persons believed to be responsible for multiple burglaries in the community last year. According to Slevinski, Christopher Constant, 32, of 195 Ivy St. in West Hempstead, was charged with eight burglaries in Valley Stream, while Joseph Sciara, 36, of 26 Lamberson St. in Valley Stream, and Diana Plessner, 32, of 36 Arthur Ave. in Staten Island, were each charged with three counts of burglary. In addition, both Sciara and Plessner were charged with three counts of petty larceny and 10 counts of grand larceny.
The number of businesses burglarized in the community doubled in 2003, to 44. Slevinski said that one reason could be the increased price of cigarettes in neighboring Queens. Many of the business burglaries were done in gas stations for cartons of cigarettes, he said.
Robberies increased by 31 percent last year. There were 46 robberies reported in 2003, compared with 35 the year before. As for criminal mischief, which includes graffiti and property damage, there was a 34 percent increase. In 2003 there were 321 reports of criminal mischief, up from to 239 in 2002. Slevinski attributed much of the increase to reports generated by the precinct-s Problem Oriented Policing (POP) unit. POP officers scoured the community looking for instances of graffiti that had not been reported in order to track gang activity in the community.
Larcenies other than stolen autos included purse-snatchings, identity theft and the theft of tires, rims and headlight assemblies. For more than a year, the precinct, as well as the county, has been plagued by the theft of after-market tires and rims, and headlight assemblies particularly from Nissans. In 2003 there were 425 reports of larcenies in Valley Stream, up from 412 in 2002, a 3.9 percent increase. The number of larcenies has been fairly constant over the past 10 years, with a high of 472 in 1994.
Slevinski said the best deterrent against crime may be education. We try to educate people about what they can do to prevent burglaries we hand out leaflets in the mall about pocketbook thefts, Slevinski said.
There is good news in 2004. For the past two years, Nassau County has used NASS-STAT, a two-part program for tracking and targeting crime. First, police use crime data to identify priorities within the community and develop and implement solutions for particular problems. The second part of the process is a strategy review that involves follow-up meetings within the precinct as well as at police headquarters. For the most recent 28-day period, which ended Feb. 16, there was a drop in every aspect of crime in the Fifth Precinct, Slevinski said. The [precinct] inspector did not have to go to the monthly NASS-STAT meeting. We were the only precinct in the county to have an unusual [drop in] crime for that 28-day period.
