Eyes open at night for new Bayswater patrol group
They say that nothing good ever happens after 2 a.m. With Bayswater residents fed up with a rise in crime, especially car break-ins and other petty burglaries, several concerned citizens formed a night watch group a couple of weeks ago to make sure the streets were safe at night.
The night watch organization, called the Bayswater Citizens Patrol, met Monday evening at the Young Israel of Wavecrest and Bayswater to go over proper procedure and protocol with NYPD Deputy Inspector Michael LiPetri and two leading members of the Bayswater Civic Association. There were about 30 attendees at the meeting, led by LiPetri and Laizer Shtundel, 25, who heads this new patrol group. Various rabbis and community leaders were also in attendance.
From 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. Saturdays through Thursdays, one car circles the neighborhood in two different three-hour shifts, patrolled by two members at a time. “There are magnets on the cars identifying us and yellow lights,” Shtundel said. Other members of the community will be encouraged to participate in the watch to ensure two Friday night shifts are added. There had been previous attempts to create and install a neighborhood patrol-like group, but Shtundel, an assistant principal at Priority One High School, said Bayswater needed “a more organized watch.”
Shtundel stressed that the aim of the patrol was not to take matters into their own hands, but “to act as a deterrent and stay at a safe distance.” In a half hour period on patrol, Shtundel said, roughly 90 percent of the blocks in Bayswater are covered.
The necessity of a neighborhood watch-like program becomes more apparent when you look at the statistics. In the 28-day period through Nov. 27, there were a total of 40 cases of petty larceny called in to the 101st precinct compared to just 17 in the same 28-day stretch in 2010, according to NYPD CompStat records.
Despite the need for an active watch, LiPetri made it clear that “if you have a Shomrim mentality, we’re going to have a problem. Just because people are out at 3 a.m. doesn’t mean they’re going to commit a crime.” LiPetri preached common sense, with patrollers using their eyes and ears and calling 911 if they see anything suspicious. Such suspicious activities, LiPetri said, range from jiggling door handles and looking into multiple cars to “seeing two kids on the same bike” late at night.
The aim of the Bayswater Citizens Patrol, LiPetri said, should be “to let them know you’re there. Just drive by at a safe distance with the yellow lights on. We don’t want people being harassed.”
There is also an effort being made to integrate everyone in the diverse Bayswater community. Shtundel said that the patrol would be under the auspices of the civic association, who would try to recruit members in its meetings to help out patrolling the neighborhood.
Enid Glabman, the president of the civic association, hopes that every member of the patrol becomes a member of the civic association and that everyone is encouraged to be a part of the watch. “Everyone who lives here can be a part of the watch,” she said, “we’re all one community.”
To ensure the safety and credibility of the patrol, LiPetri maintained that every person riding around in patrol cars needed to go through a basic background check so that the people going on patrol aren’t involved in criminal activities themselves. At the end of the 35-minute meeting, Shtundel urged everyone present to sign up for two shifts a month, one from 11 to 2 and one from 2 to 5.
Just five days before the meeting, I accompanied Shtundel on a 2 a.m. to 5 a.m. shift, and he said it was one of the safest nights he’s been out on patrol. Besides for a few minor drug deals and a couple of suspicious individuals walking the streets after 4 a.m., the three-hour shift went basically without incident. With the help of the citizens patrol, perhaps there will be fewer incidents in the future.
