Cedarhurst challenged by 50 car break-ins

More than 50 vehicles were broken into in November and December in the Five Towns, with most break-ins occurring in Cedarhurst, according to Nassau County police reports.

In the last two weeks of 2015, 10 cars had property stolen from them, and four of those incidents occurred on Friday, Dec. 26 alone, according to police reports. In many cases, money was taken from the cars, and in some, both cash and property were taken.

Rabbi Aryeh Ginzberg, of the Chofetz Chaim Torah Center in Cedarhurst, said that his wife’s car was broken into twice in one month while it was parked in their Cedarhurst driveway.

“Contents that were in the car were strewn all over the car and outside as well,” Rabbi Ginzberg said, “with all the change missing, as well as the GPS and phone charger.”

Ginzberg said that he had heard that a group of teenage boys were going from car to car and checking to see if doors were unlocked, and then ransacking the vehicles in search of anything of value.

As of press time, the NCPD had not responded to numerous requests for comment.

To help combat this rash of thefts, the Village of Cedarhurst is joining forces with the volunteer police and a volunteer civilian patrol, said Trustee Ari Brown. “Our dedicated auxiliary police, led by Commander Danny Gluck, along with the experienced Rockaway Nassau Safety Patrol, led by Yaakov Gade, will be patrolling the streets of Cedarhurst every evening into the morning hours,” he said.

“The village board is determined to make this a successful endeavor,” Deputy Mayor Benjamin Weinstock said. “You don’t find an auxiliary police force too often working with a community citizen service patrol. They don’t arrest people or make traffic stops … they just keep an eye on things that happen.” 

Gade, a Cedarhurst resident who leads the three-year-old Rockaway patrol group, said that the novelty in this new project is the extension of the patrols from the Rockaways into Nassau County, and working with the NCPD’s 4th Precinct.